The reason he transitioned to Dwarf Fortress (aka Slaves to Armok: God of Blood, Chapter II: Dwarf Fortress) is that developing the graphics and UI took so much time away from gameplay.
Of course. It doesn't change anything about DF though, and it's DF that made it into NY MoMA [1].
The problem with DF is that the UI runs off in a completely different direction. Playing the game requires untangling a mess of counter-intuitive mental contexts, using controls that seem to make little sense. It is an experience wildly different than the way one expects-slash-wants UI to behave. Artistically, one might say that DF's creators are making a statement against modern UI and its inherent complexity, but then I think that falls flat when you realize that the alternative (as in, what is it right now) requires considerable study to enjoy.
Is it artistic statement, or laziness? Or something else? Software, like all interactive mediums, has a functional component that you can't just ignore. If this were a painting, or a sculpture, or music, and I could only interact with it through perception, then that's fine -- entire art movements are built from challenging prevailing norms. But software is experienced through use, and no artist is immune to the practical considerations of their medium; rules which are best heeded. (Or not, but very veeery carefully and with great discipline.)
DF is a game, and games are meant to be played. This is a fundamental tenet of games. Play happens through approachability, among other things, and approachability is the product of an equation that includes good interface design. A game seemingly opposed to even a modicum of approachable design (something as simple as remapping mouse and keyboard controls to behave intuitively, as one would expect an ncurses-type app to act) runs opposed to very fundamental notions of game design. It is also terribly ironic, I think, and irony really is one of the basest and most-overused cliches in modern art.
Again, even the barest of olive branches extended to the community -- a simple, low-level API to hook into, or better default mapping of controls, or a recanting of their weird ideas of how windows should work -- would satiate this critic, as I really do want to enjoy DF. It is a shame that such brilliance is locked away in such a homely and unapproachable exterior.
> Is it artistic statement, or laziness? Or something else? Software, like all interactive mediums, has a functional component that you can't just ignore.
Of course it can be ignored. Given the depth of the feature list (see the original link), and the vagueness of the items on it, it's not surprising that they haven't gone through and come up with a comprehensive and perfect UI before anything else has actually been implemented.
Instead the UI grows to accommodate the features as they are added, like every other program in existence.
If I understand correctly, you say that software as an art form must by default have a conventional and easily usable UI or means of interaction, ("practical considerations of the medium") before considering anything artistic such as the gameplay itself?
But what if, beyond working on the gameplay itslef, it was artistically interesting for someone to play around with the practical necessities of the medium and try to diverge from the norm? Everyone believed in a standard, approachable reading format from left to right until poets and writers started messing around with that (I'm thinking ee cummings and House of Leaves by Mark Z. Danielewski). People tried to defy conventional ways to listen to music or watch movies too.
The DF UI is definitely a pain on the practical side and it's made it difficult for me to really get into the game yet, but from an outside perspective I think it's interesting that way too.
> If I understand correctly, you say that software as an art form must by default have a conventional and easily usable UI or means of interaction, ("practical considerations of the medium") before considering anything artistic such as the gameplay itself?
Yes. Exactly!
And in many cases (especially with games), people DO play around with the practical necessities and often stumble on something inspired. Like HomeStarRunner's "Virus" SBemail, or fourth-wall-breaking adventure games that comment on their own interface. But I think in DF's case it falls flat.
Western music is written in a consistent scale for practical considerations: it was discovered that writing music in a mathematically consistent format made it easiest for musicians to play and reinterpret. Sure, people deviate, but the vast majority of those efforts are terrible. Cinema -- even avant garde -- is constrained to the limits of film, audience attention, and patterns in storytelling, and the viewer generally expects certain things. Literature is constrained by the practical considerations of books and the written word, and so written text is formatted consistently per reader expectations. How is software any different?
Or the thought-games played by the Espers in The Demolished Man.
Personally I don't think the UI was planned out that much; maybe "it gradually got so" as the song says.
I think it's a bit like the qwerty keyboard. Maybe there was a rational for it at one point, but now it's just a thing you memorize and then don't think about much. In DF the 'loo(k)', '(v)iew', and '(q)uery' commands do similar but disjoint things which could easily be combined if Tarn really wanted to stop working on features for a while. Since he doesn't, it's just a thing that you memorize and then no longer need to think about; it becomes very much like touch typing.
And I totally get their feelings against UI. Low level UI is a bitch to write and difficult to get right. I have abandoned ideas when I realized just how much work it would take.
These guys are clearly really smart. I agree with the other posts here in that I have no beef with the gameplay in any way. But god damn it would be nice if they would get off their high horse and learn from some working engineers.
The reason he transitioned to Dwarf Fortress (aka Slaves to Armok: God of Blood, Chapter II: Dwarf Fortress) is that developing the graphics and UI took so much time away from gameplay.