Dwarf Fortress: Narratives of Multiplicity and Deconstruction

Cameron Kelly

This thesis is a critical examination of videogame theory and of videogames. The analysis of various approaches to videogames, from ludology to unit operations and simulation, places each approach alongside each other to compare and contrast what is gained and lost by adhering to each perspective. Following from this, I develop a framework which considers the role of the player as part of the game system, whose attitude will influence their relationship with the videogame. Critics must acknowledge and respect the varied play practices of various kinds of players in exploring what any given videogame means. Finally, I explore three broad videogame-play experiences: ludic play, narrative or dramatic pleasure, and paidic curiosity and exploration. Each of these offer fundamentally different ways of addressing videogames as objects and the play of games as a practice, which creates a more nuanced language with which to discuss various kinds of videogames and experiences of play. Through close studies of a range of contemporary, mainstream videogames, I conclude that not only are there fundamentally different kinds of videogames which cannot all be adequately served by a single approach, but that players utilise different approaches themselves when playing. Therefore, videogame theory should become at least as varied and agile as videogame players themselves. The goal of this thesis is to explore what certain games mean, to certain players, rather than appeal to a higher, objective sense of true, universal meaning.

"In highlighting the apparatus as the keystone for the magic circle of video gaming, we displace players—the subject of ludology—and “text”—the subject of narratology. This is not to deny the importance of players’ agency or the meanings of texts in video gaming; rather it is to reconsider these with regard to the screening of player from played inherent in the gaming apparatus. To better understand the situation of homo ludens in these more mediated play spaces, we turn to Jacques Lacan’s account of “split” subjectivity and retread it by explaining how it may well explain the operation of a magic circle spanning three dimensions of screen-play: rules (Symbolic dimension), representations (Imaginary dimension), and wares (Real dimension). In the end, we come around to the other space of Huizinga’s theory—the connections with the non-game world—to show that the value of video game play is also found beyond the apparatus, that the experience and enjoyment of video games are affected in part by social reality and, in turn, social reality is being affected by the experience and enjoyment of video games. Arriving at this point by first theorizing the video game apparatus, however, highlights matters of video game design more so than issues of audience or textual analysis. To illustrate this perspective, we conclude by defining three ways to analyze video games in terms of “realism,” proposing three types of video game realism: representational, simulative, and inverse. "

Supervisor: Dr. Joyce Goggin DWARF FORTRESS: NARRATIVES OF MULTIPLICITY AND DECONSTRUCTION Cameron Finn Kelly 10062920 Program in English Language and Culture Department of Language and Literature Submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Bachelor of Arts in the Faculty of Humanities University of Amsterdam 2013 Table of Contents Acknowledgments.........................................................................................................2 Introduction....................................................................................................................3 Part I: Theory.................................................................................................................4 1. Introduction.....................................................................................................4 2. Eminent Domains of Machinery: Prototypical Cybertexts..............................5 3. Jacking In, Branching Out: The Consequences of Nonlinearity...................11 4. Play It Again..................................................................................................13 5. Dwarf Fortress: Narratives of Multiplicity and Variance...............................16 Part II: Analysis............................................................................................................19 1. Introduction...................................................................................................19 2. "Urist McPlayer cancels Train Behavior: Convention lost or misplaced."....20 3. Under Mining, Contention: Undermining Convention...................................21 4. Dwarfing Postmodernism.............................................................................25 5. Slingattic/s ...................................................................................................28 5.1 Playthrough 1...................................................................................28 5.2 Playthrough 2...................................................................................30 6. Coda: A Necessary Disclaimer.....................................................................32 Conclusion...................................................................................................................33 Bibliography.................................................................................................................34 Appendix A: A Partial History of the Ageless Realms.................................................37 Appendix B: Playthrough 1..........................................................................................46 Appendix C: Playthrough 2..........................................................................................47 Kelly 2 Acknowledgments On top of the debt I owe all giants for enabling me to stand on their shoulders in this endeavor, I would like to thank my supervisor, Joyce Goggin, in particular. Quite apart from her contributions to the field, her support and incisively critical feedback on my text have allowed me to make this thesis the best it can be. Additionally, I want to thank Tarn and Zach Adams for the game I'm convinced more people are waiting for than perhaps realize it. And, of course, I want to thank my dear friend and compatriot Rowan Noel Stokvis, for spiral power and sometimes direly-needed motivation. Ours is the drill that will pierce the heavens. Kelly 3 Introduction "Losing is Fun!" So goes the unofficial motto of Dwarf Fortress, an open-ended city-building game in a fantasy setting, with the graphic style of a roguelike, and a design philosophy akin to a sadist with a model train hobby and unlimited disposable income. The solitary programmer is, however, none of those things. The game has an intense and welldeserved cult following, yet little critical work has been done around it. This thesis is an attempt to change that. Taking Espen Aarseth's theory of cybertext as a starting point, what modifications and specifications will we have to make in order to interrogate Dwarf Fortress? What are the most critically fruitful points of its design? How can we bring its fundamental features of world-persistence and replayability under the purview of a critical analysis? These are some of the questions I will attempt to answer in what follows. This thesis is divided into two parts. In the first, from a broad conception of the cybertext I attempt to work inwards and downwards to a reason for focusing on Dwarf Fortress. In the second, I develop insights generated in the first part into a specific analysis of the game itself. In the end I hope to have produced an initial critical engagement with Dwarf Fortress that does justice to its depth and complexity, and to have laid some groundwork for future study. Strike the earth! Kelly 4 Part I: Theory This universe is, I conceive, like a great game being played out, and we poor mortals are allowed to take a hand. By great good fortune the wiser among us have made out some few of the rules of the game, as at present played. We call them ‘Laws of Nature’, and honor them because we find that if we obey them we win something for our pains. The cards are our theories and hypotheses, the tricks our experimental verifications. - T. H. Huxley 1. Introduction To the extent that a video game resembles a work of culture in which the text is unambiguously visible, it is possible to perform an "old-fashioned" literary critique of it. The critic selects a theoretical framework through which to interrogate the observable object; through this interrogation, greater understanding of the work and its pragmatic function is facilitated. This much is largely self-evident. All video games, however, are not created equal: their formal features frequently render such criticism problematic, if not impossible. As such, much critical attention has been devoted to elucidating which properties of games make them resistant to conventional understanding, as well as to describing the relations which new frameworks will have to articulate in order to be productive. In "Structure, Sign and Play in the Discourse of the Human Sciences", Jacques Derrida argues for a discursive methodology called bricolage, modeled on the structuralist anthropology of Claude Lévi-Strauss: the other [method of criticizing a discourse] [...] consists in conserving in the field of empirical discovery [...] old concepts, while at the same time exposing here and there their limits, treating them as tools which can still be of use. (254) Revolutionary implications aside, I concur that the most productive environs for a critical discourse are the boundary conditions specified by the discourse itself; furthermore, those of literary criticism and games studies intersect in meaningful ways. Concordantly, I want to locate this thesis at productive points of contact. My objectives are first to synthesize, from the disciplines of literary theory and games studies, a useful methodological framework, and then to use it in a case study of a Kelly 5 specific game. In this part I will pursue the former objective; I will first define the area I will be studying, and follow this with a description of my critical approach to it. 2. Eminent Domains of Machinery: Prototypical Cybertexts A study in what were then emerging forms of textuality, Espen Aarseth's Cybertext advances many ideas germane to the discussion of computer games, some of which I want to discuss at greater length. In particular, his eponymous concept deserves attention. He defines cybertext as "the wide range (or perspective) of possible textualities seen as a typology of machines, as various kinds of literary communication systems where the functional differences among the mechanical parts play a defining role in determining the aesthetic process" (22). 1 "Cybertext" thus principally denotes a way of looking at text. The underlying principle is the conception of the textual object as containing an information-feedback loop which co-determines its configuration. It is therefore theoretically possible to study any text as cybertext; however, thorough engagement with cybertext theory must privilege certain kinds of texts over others as more salient for analysis. In Pöstmödernist Fictiön, Brian McHale appropriates Roman Jakobson's concept of the dominant: "with the help of this conceptual tool, we can [...] elicit the systems underlying [characteristics of a moment in history]" (7). 2 Without restricting himself to Jakobson's "deterministic and imperialistic language", McHale defines the dominant as "[specifying] the order in which different aspects [of a text] are to be attended to" (6, 11). In so doing, he argues that a text can be characterized as foregrounding some aspect of itself, and that this should inform criticism. Following Derrida, I contend that the same is true of critical discourses: theories are worth interrogating to determine which texts to study first, based on the subsets of work they foreground. Primarily, I see cybertext theory as foregrounding the subset of literature Aarseth calls ergodic: "literature [in which] non-trivial effort is required to traverse the text" (1). In an earlier article, "Nonlinearity and Literary Theory", Aarseth defines "traversal" in terms of his conception of a text's mechanical constituents. 3 Here, 1 Aarseth, Espen J. Cybertext : Perspectives on Ergodic Literature. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1997. Print. 2 McHale, Brian. Pöstmödernist Fictiön. London New York: Routledge, 1991. Print. 3 Aarseth, Espen J. "Nonlinearity and Literary Theory." In Wardrip-Fruin, Noah and Nick Montfort. The New Media Reader. Cambridge: MIT Press, 2003. 761-80. Web. Kelly 6 Aarseth describes the process of a user engaging with a text: "textons" (elementary particles of textuality "best conceived as an arbitrarily long string of graphemes, [...] identified by [their] relation to the other units as constrained and separated by the conventions or mechanisms of their mother text") are arranged into "scriptons" ("an unbroken sequence of one or more textons as they are projected by the text") by "traversal function(s)" (the aforementioned "conventions and mechanisms that combine and project textons as scriptons to the user") (767). The above analogy to particle physics is not accidental; I propose to consider textons slightly differently than Aarseth describes them. He consistently uses the word "project", which implies, apart from a medium through which textons are projected, a receiver able to generate meaning from the resulting scriptons. Furthermore, he demonstrates in the same article that "the old role of a posteriori investigator no longer suffices"; that is, that the reader/user, more than generating a personal interpretation, is an irreducible part of the mechanism of the text (779). This seemingly implies more than coincidental isomorphism between cybertextual semiotics and particle physics. Concurrent with the conception of the text as a machine requiring an operator, therefore, I propose conceiving of language as a field pervading the text which facilitates the transfer of force. As the photon mediates the electromagnetic force, the texton generates meaning by mediating a semiotic force. 4 However, according to quantum field theory, particles are not discrete objects but excited states of the field instantiating them. This characterization applies equally to "an arbitrarily long string of graphemes": appearances of such strings can be considered particular excited states of the language-field. Furthermore, observation alters the position and velocity of a physical particle, making those quantities fundamentally indeterminate and necessitating the description of the particle as a distribution of probabilities. I would argue that positing the user as a irreducible part of the production of meaning introduces an analogous indeterminacy into the precise semiotic content of the texton: the user's very apprehension of the texton partially determines her understanding of it. For this reason, I propose to consider the texton as an indeterminate abstract force underlying the scripton, which must similarly be conceived of as the resultant observable sense-generating movement, analogous to quasiparticles generated by the excitation of matter. 4 A dialectic with writings by Luce Irigaray and Hélène Cixous concerning "phallogocentrism" seems apropos, given the aggressive connotations of the word "force" outside of physics, but such is unfortunately outside the scope of my project here. Kelly 7 Within my deployment of Aarseth's theory, therefore, textons are an abstraction and scriptons are their observable instantiations. Furthermore, the user may be involved to any degree in the execution of a text's traversal functions; the effort required by this process is what distinguishes a text as being ergodic. Therefore, while any text can be seen as a system containing a meaning-generating information-feedback loop, ergodic texts are best seen as metastable systems with at least two distinct states: completely and incompletely traversed. 5 This property of metastability makes explicit the role of the user in the process of traversal. It requires, besides the signifiers inherent in all semiotic systems which “[glide] along a signifying chain, generating sense as a function of difference", the active effort to reach points from which such signifiers are set in motion (Goggin, 50). 6 I would, therefore, contend that while the "back-and-forth movement between players (the spectator and the work of art, the reader and the novel)" which Joyce Goggin describes can be located almost anywhere in human experience, it is foregrounded especially by those things which we most commonly play at: games (Goggin, 32).7 I would go further, however, and recursively explore games for further connections to cybertext theory. As Goggin argues following Saussure and Derrida, meaning is indeed generated playfully, and (as I have argued) games foreground this process by making the player ineluctably aware of her complicity therein. What would characterize a game which specifically foregrounds this complicity? One such feature would be that the game self-reflexively foregrounded its own "gameness". This is because games, by virtue of being games, immediately signal their relation to play, and characteristics other than conspicuous self-reflexivity tend to displace emphasis onto other problematics. Part of the critical potential of video games consists in the recognition by users, developers and critics of games’ ability to forward broader issues than "you must shoot the thing". For an analysis of the form itself, however, I have tried to show that these implications prove distracting. Instead, I want to examine features other than play which constitute "gameness" in a manner that will enable useful generalizations. In his online response to Gonzalo Frasca's "Videogames of the 5 "Complete traversal" does not entail that the user has experienced all possible scriptons; rather, it signifies a point at which no traversal function can generate any further scriptons. 6 Goggin, Joyce. “The Big Deal: Card Games in 20 th-Century Fiction”. Unpublished diss. Université de Montréal, 1997. 7 It is worthy of note that this back-and-forth movement is remarkably similar to the informationfeedback loop in cybernetic theory. Kelly 8 Oppressed", Eric Zimmerman suggests that "constraints are the raw material out of which games are made".8 Though perhaps fruitful in some contexts, for an understanding of games-as-games this notion requires some clarification. I understand a constraint as simply the inability to do something within some game-system. Naturally, constraints of particular systems must differ: the ability to arbitrarily place doors is necessary in The Sims, but would obviate much play in the deliberately-designed environments of Half-Life. The "no arbitrary doors" constraint thus emerges as a secondary consequence of what Half-Life's programmer chooses to make possible: rules are what actually constitute game-systems, and are ultimately constituent of genres within games. Indeed, responding to Zimmerman, Frasca notes that "while [games] give a certain amount of freedom to their players, they are always under the control of an author who decides which rules will govern the model".9 Similarly, I would contest Zimmerman's assertion that "struggling within and against constraints is what generates the play of a game". I submit that this overgeneralization unjustly subsumes the mechanical components of the gamesystem which, interacting, produce play. Constraints are perhaps part of what makes the game ergodic; yet this kind of constraint never proceeds from a hard-coded prohibition. Rather, it emerges from gaps in the player's personal ability, which are a function of her familiarity with the rules, which must increase if she is to progress. The threat of death in Half-Life, for instance, makes traversal non-trivial. However, it emerges from the convergence of different features of the game-system at different times—now combat, now the environment, et cetera. This renders untenable its consideration as a well-defined constraint upon the player. In a similar vein, games with "dialogue puzzles" display a degree of ergodicity above that of pressing a button to hear characters deliver sound bites. Simply navigating levels and interacting in a limited manner with NPCs is thus not ergodic; these actions may be invested with narrative or aesthetic significance, but the only play which foregrounds itself as process is that which makes the game non-trivial to traverse, and that ergodicity is predicated on the relationship between the player and the rules of the game. 8 Zimmerman, Eric. "Eric Zimmerman's response." Electronic Book Review: First Person. January 8, 2004. Web. Accessed June 14, 2013. 9 Frasca, Gonzalo. "Gonzalo Frasca responds in turn." Electronic Book Review: First Person. January 8, 2004. Web. Accessed June 14, 2013. Kelly 9 It could be argued that all a game's play is ergodic, by comparison with noninteractive narrative entertainment, passively received by a viewer. I contend, however, that this comparison maintains a deleterious analogy between games and other forms of textuality. Aarseth asserts, concurring (to a point) with the militant argument advanced by Markku Eskelinen, that "games are self-contained" (48). 10 However, this statement should be viewed against the backdrop of what Frasca calls the "debate that never took place" between ludology and narratology. 11 Regardless, one need not go quite as far as Eskelinen and Aarseth in order to argue convincingly that some games, or even the majority of games, should in any event firstly be considered as games. I contend that navigating levels and interacting with NPCs subtend gaming to such an extent that it is felicitous to characterize them as trivial when discussing games in this way. 12 The relationship between the player and the rules of the game-system, which relationship itself subtends ergodicity, is foregrounded by a particular genre of games. First, however, a fundamental point of difference between computer and noncomputer games merits addressing. Writing about card games in the 20 th-century novel, Joyce Goggin notes that "rules, then, are agreed upon and they change as a function of context, so that it would be impossible to know all of the rules to any game exhaustively" (57).13 This assertion falls apart in a remarkable way when discussing computer games. Specifically, it is plainly untrue of software that the rules change as a function of context; rather, they are "fixed once and for all" by the Authorprogrammer at the time of writing. "Cheats", while circumventing "normal", playful interaction with a game-system, must still be explicitly coded into it. 14 Even software patches, which might be motivated by user feedback, operate distinctly from the act 10 Aarseth, Espen J. "Genre Trouble: Narrativism and the Art of Simulation." In Fruin, Noah, and Pat Harrigan (eds.), First Person: New Media as Story, Performance, and Game. Cambridge: MIT Press, 2004. Print. 11 Frasca, Gonzalo. "Ludologists love stories, too: notes from a debate that never took place." Proceedings of International DiGRA Conference: Level Up. 2003. Web. 12 I am not suggesting that the implied internalizing of "gestural capacities" through play is entirely unproblematic (see Joyce Goggin's article "Playbour, Farming and Leisure", which I discuss in what follows and reference in footnote 26). I simply wish to articulate that, in terms of meanings generated by play, exploration of a game world constitutes ground rather than figure. 13 Ibid. 6. 14 See Chess, Shira. "Playing the Bad Guy: Grand Theft Auto in the Panopticon." In N. Garrelts (Ed.): Digital gameplay: essays on the nexus of game and gamer (p. 80-90.). Jefferson, North Carolina: McFarland Press, 2005. Print. Chess argues that a player's decision to cheat entails a recognition of the game's rules (18). Therefore, she argues, cheating is ultimately the reproduction of the Foucauldian model of power she deploys throughout her article. I contend that this reproduction is not merely discursive: it is literal. The player, even when cheating, is not operating outside the system in any way. Kelly 10 of play—a computer game's rules by definition cannot be changed while it is in use. However, rather than entailing some greater accessibility to the rules of the game (as per Goggin's assertion), this has had the inverse effect. Though software fixes the rules in a single form for each traversal, even open-source software is impenetrable to the average user because it is written in code. A computer game's ergodicity is predicated on the approximating relationship between the player and the rules because the only way for her to come to know them better is to learn by playing the game. All games exhibit this property, but I contend that the only genre which constructs the growing familiarity of the player with the rules as the end-in-itself of play—therefore foregrounding that relationship—is the genre of simulation. As Aarseth notes, "the computer game is the art of simulation [...] all computer games contain simulation" (52).15 This, however, is not to say that simulation subtends every game equally, or that it serves a singular purpose. For instance: through title cards, the trailer for the FPS Unreal emphasizes many of the game's features. 16 Notably absent are descriptions of combat, clips of which the title cards interpolate. It seems that the intent was to facilitate an immersive experience with an underlying gamesystem, of which a physics simulation forms a part. In other words, simulation is deployed but not foregrounded in Unreal. Similarly, games exist whose systems extrapolate from real-world dynamics (Portal), whose systems extremely intricately model particular dynamics (Sniper Elite), and whose systems posit entirely new models (Miegakure, which aims at conveying the experience of a fourth spatial dimension). None of these games foreground simulation, however, and concordantly none are characterized as "simulation games". I contend that the fundamental point of difference between these games and games like Microsoft Flight Simulator, SimCity, Train Simulator and Conflict: Middle East Political Simulator is that in the latter, rather than being a means to an end, simulation is the end-in-itself. To recapitulate: cybertext theory is a useful framework for the literary analysis of digitally-mediated texts. Any such analysis must judiciously select objects, however. As I have argued, an ideal starting point is a text whose status as meaninggenerating machine is foregrounded through ergodicity. Games accomplish this; 15 Ibid. 10. Romero, Josh. "Unreal 1 trailer celebrates eleventh b-day." Videogamesblogger.com. 26 May 2007. Web. 16 Kelly 11 simulation games further foreground "gameness" itself (being composed of rules which players must master to progress). As prototypical cybertexts, therefore, simulation games must be analyzed using a methodology with features specifically informed by cybertext theory. I will suggest one such feature in what follows. 3. Jacking In, Branching Out: The Consequences of Nonlinearity Even if a text is not ergodic, cybertext theory specifies that the user must perform an active, configurative function to traverse it and generate meaning. As I have already argued, the game-system (instantiating the Author-function) must be taken into account in this process. This has the effect of undermining the Barthesian "galaxy of signifiers", but only by making it entirely literal. 17 It is not merely the "codes mobilized" by the game which "extend as far as the eye can reach" (5-6). 18 It is also the game's empirical history which thus diverges. Play, then, generates meaning, but the decision to configure the game-system does not immediately result in the experience of having generated meaning. 19 Interposed causally between these two cognitive events is the in-game result of that configurative act. This result must be taken into account, because the configuration of the game-system in a particular way was, by definition, its configuration in that way and no other. All the alternative ways in which the player might have configured the system at that point were evidently dispreferred. Meanings contingent on these alternatives are thus also dispreferred. However, the preference-determining process is extrinsic to the game-system. Therefore, a theory which professes to consider that system cannot ignore meanings which the system enables but which the player happens to avoid actualizing. The player, however, cannot traverse the text except by choosing, and therefore must limit herself to generating a subset of all possible meanings. In "Nonlinearity and Literary Theory", Aarseth predicts this problem and provides the beginnings of a solution: When we look at the whole of such a nonlinear text, we cannot read it; and when we read it, we cannot see the whole text. Something has come between 17 Aarseth, while introducing the concept of a cybertext in its eponymous book, argues something very similar: "The study of cybertexts reveals the misprision of the spacio-dynamic metaphors of narrative theory, because ergodic literature incarnates these models in a way linear text narratives do not" (4). 18 Barthes, Roland, et al. S/Z. Oxford: Blackwell, 1990. Print. 19 Not, in any event, in the same way that reading does. Kelly 12 us and the text, and that is ourselves, trying to read. This self-consciousness forces us to take responsibility for what we read and to accept that it can never be the text itself. [...] How can we be critics if we can no longer read? How can reviewers of cybertexts face the fact they probably missed large numbers of scriptons? [...] the old role of a posteriori investigator no longer suffices. Like the user, the critic must be there when it happens. Not only that but, like the participant observer of social anthropology, he or she must make it happen. (769-79)20 Aarseth's comparison of a cybertextual criticism to social anthropology is no accident. Besides the relation to Lévi-Strauss' bricolage, this evokes a researcher who considers a corpus in order to generalize fundamental principles from empirical tendencies. The cybertextual critic, focused, as Aarseth notes, on "a process [...] rather than a project", must necessarily consider the corpus of game-histories it is possible to generate (779). There is another fundamental point of difference, between games and other forms of textuality, that deserves articulating here. In Spec Ops: The Line, traversal requires the player, through Captain Walker, to commit an atrocity. The rest of the game, logically, is predicated on the assumption that she does. But in what sense can Walker be said to have already committed the atrocity if the player refuses to actually make him do it? A game-history which ends at this point (the player refuses to continue) must be as valid as one which does not, in terms of the meaning generated concurrently with it. Walt Williams, the lead writer of the Spec Ops development team, explicitly comments on this not-so-hypothetical situation: "People were focus testing [that scene] and ... they were pausing the game and they were leaving the room. [...] if the player is thinking about seriously putting down the controller at this point, then that's exactly where we want them to be emotionally." 21 In other words, no less than a game-history consisting of all possible scriptons, one which has "locked out" a substantial portion of the game's content can constitute a complete traversal. I contend that a cybertextual analysis must consider both of these notional histories, as well as all the intermediate variations whose existence they imply. 20 Ibid. 3. Pitts, Russ. "Don't Be A Hero - The Full Story Behind Spec Ops: The Line." Polygon.com. 27 August 2012. Web. 21 Kelly 13 The cybertextual critic, therefore, in "being there when it happens", must indeed make it happen as Aarseth suggests: she has a constitutive effect on the game-history. Analyzing a game may therefore mean playing it repeatedly, as indeed Gonzalo Frasca, developing his reading of Augusto Boal, suggests in "Videogames of the Oppressed". I would go further, however. Barthes, in arguing for re-reading, asserts that according to "the commercial and ideological habits of our society, [rereading] is tolerated only in certain marginal categories of readers” (16). 22 This at once undermines and is echoed by Aarseth's assertion that "most novels are read only once" (48).23 Barthes concedes this, but contends that re-reading makes the act of traversal "no longer consumption but play" (16). I want to modulate this notion, and suggest that replaying a game makes traversal no longer mere consumption but a valid "reading". 4. Play It Again Borderlands is a first-person shooter with some character-building, role-playing elements. Specifically, the player character levels up and unlocks various abilities. Once the game's core narrative has been completely traversed, the player may play through it again, but with the same character that has just completed traversal, with appropriately-scaled difficulty and rewards. Borderlands titles this functionality "Playthrough 2". It is significant that a self-contained construction of a game-history is thus given a name, and I want to suggest that the concept of the "playthrough" can be generalized into a concept of methodological utility for cybertextual studies. Specifically, if a single playthrough, requiring configurative participation, generates one of many possible game-histories, then the form of that configuration must imply dispreference for its alternatives and, on some level, the player must be aware thereof. This is to say that a playthrough must imply its alternatives in much the same way that power and knowledge imply each other for Foucault: as he wrote of power/knowledge, we may speak of playthrough/s.24 Shira Chess describes a dynamic by which the player of a video game occupies much the same position, in 22 Ibid. 18. Ibid. 10. Aarseth argues further that "you can be an expert chess player without playing any other game"; while technically correct, he omits to mention that familiarity with broader conventions will facilitate traversal of any game which they subtend. 24 The implicatory slash performs a deconstruction of the binary parentheses, which limit one to either talking about a single playthrough or talking about more than one. 23 Kelly 14 relation to the player character, as the "observing and controlling authority" to the docile body: A game's controls and interface create a system that both facilitates game mastery and produces an environment where players can be easily taught and conditioned. By limiting a player’s space, time, and movements video game conventions force players to play in very specific ways. (2, 4) 25 I concur with this argument, and would expand it slightly to suggest that the power the player is most clearly taught to exercise is the power to shape the game-history. Joyce Goggin deploys a similar argument, writing about the often-blurry distinction between work and play: "As players progress through Grand Theft Auto, the game compels them to perfect valuable digital skills as a function of [...] disciplinary techniques" (363).26 The words "progress through" are significant to me: they imply that the internalization of disciplinary techniques (and the exercise of power) is not located in a single moment. Rather, it operates as a function of an entire playthrough. Furthermore, in his description of the micro-physics of power, Foucault pens a sentence which resonates with my argument about the accessibility of the gamesystem's rules for the player: "there may be a 'knowledge' of the body that is not exactly the science of its functioning" (26). 27 In other words, knowledge which reciprocally produces power does not have to be intimate and comprehensive; merely relevant to the exercising. About this relationship, Foucault writes: We should admit rather that power produces knowledge (and not simply by encouraging it because it serves power or by applying it because it is useful); that power and knowledge directly imply one another; that there is no power relation without the correlative constitution of a field of knowledge, nor any knowledge that does not presuppose and constitute at the same time power relations. (27) From all this, I submit, theoretical support for my concept of playthrough/s can be synthesized. Specifically, each possible playthrough represents both players knowledge of the game-history, as well as their power to modify it. For this reason I contend that disparate playthrough/s imply and produce each other reciprocally in the same sense that power and knowledge do for Foucault. 25 Ibid. 14. Goggin, Joyce. "Playbour, Farming and Leisure." Ephemera: Theory and Politics in Organization 11(4): Work, play and boredom. Leicester, U.K: University of Leicester, 2001. Web. 27 Foucault, Michel. Discipline and Punish: The Birth of the Prison. New York: Pantheon Books, 1977. Print. 26 Kelly 15 Various authors have come close to implying something similar to what I am suggesting. Simon Penny has argued that "interactive applications are machines which generate pictures", articulating in a few words the fundamental difference I have discussed between passively-received textuality and textual machines with involved operators.28 Janet Murray argues for a genre of "replay stories", based on replay as "usually accomplished by saving the game at regular intervals", which enables players to return to any of these points, turning them into nodes from which game-histories diverge.29 While studies of games which foreground such functionality will likely prove interesting, Murray's formulation of the "replay story" obscures the more fundamental point that every computer game is potentially a replay story. Like re-reading a prose text, the possible interpretations of every game-history are divergent, and contingent on the reader. Unlike a prose text, however, the "gametexts" which are interpreted are really the playthrough/s. These, as I have argued, must causally precede interpretation, but are themselves divergent and readercontingent. Saving a game, therefore, is not equivalent to using a bookmark. Prose texts exist, and the reader may return to a previous point only in order to embark on a new interpretation. Conversely, the playthrough "text" does not exist until created through play, and therefore to replay from an earlier point is to create a new playthrough from that point onwards. Aside from its implications for the status of the playthrough-as-text, the save point has simple practical utility. Saving preserves the game-state in a file; these files can be manipulated. Many games do not freely distribute points at which saving is possible: they automatically delete save files if the player fails, tie the save function to the exit function, or some combination of the above. Circumventing these restrictions is justifiably considered cheating. However, it is a valid way of concretizing the abstract cloud of possibilities which normally constitutes a given playthrough's alternatives. It therefore enables us to responsibly speak of playthrough/s as valid objects for critical study. The cybertextual critic, being still a textual critic, must be concerned with a text-like object; yet equally she cannot be concerned with just one playfullygenerated "text", as one instance is insufficient empirical evidence to describe a 28 Penny, Simon. "Representation, Enaction and the Ethics of Simulation." In Fruin, Noah, and Pat Harrigan (eds.), First Person: New Media as Story, Performance, and Game. Cambridge: MIT Press, 2004. p.80. Print. 29 Murray, Janet. "From Game-Story to Cyberdrama." In Fruin, Noah, and Pat Harrigan (eds.), First Person: New Media As Story, Performance, and Game. Cambridge: MIT Press, 2004. p.6. Print. Kelly 16 process. In any case, that which is generated by playing cannot possibly be "the text itself". This much is countenanced by Aarseth's conception of nonlinear textuality as a literal instantiation of the text as reception aesthetics: more than suggesting that "literary texts need readers to acquire meaning", Aarseth posits cybertexts as needing readers in order to exist at all (365). 30 I contend that playthrough/s are the solution to the "crisis in criticism" he describes (778). 31 A (micro)corpus of similar playthroughs are generated as a function of play, instantiating a family of gamehistories which are each isomorphic to a text. These playthroughs would then be comparatively analyzed with an eye for the same sense-generating difference that concerns literary scholars, in addition to whatever features of the game are more traditionally salient. We now hopefully have a sufficiently specific conception of the object of study and we have a productive methodological tool. What, finally, are we to study? The answer to this question, fortunately, requires much less theoretical justification than anything discussed thus far. 5. Dwarf Fortress: Narratives of Variance and Multiplicity It is difficult to imagine a game that foregrounds its own status as cybertextual simulation to a greater extent than Slaves to Armok: God of Blood Chapter II: Dwarf Fortress: X of Y and Z (even the game's title is procedurally-generated). Using "more complicated simulations [...] than when you model the aerodynamics of a wing", the game's creator intends it as an "open-ended 'story generator'", which aligns it with Murray's theory of the "replay story". 32 Moreover, the game has recently been inducted into the New York Museum of Modern Art's "Applied Design" exhibition, an event that would indicate the game’s significance. 33 As such, I would like to offer a general overview of its place in gaming history, as well as a brief characterization of its features according to the typology for nonlinear textuality which Aarseth presents 30 Fluck, Winfried, Laura Bieger, and Johannes Voelz. Romance with America? : Essays on Culture, Literature, and American Studies. Heidelberg: Winter, 2009. Print. 31 Ibid. 3. 32 Weiner, Jonah. "The Brilliance of Dwarf Fortress." NYTimes.com. July 21 2011. Web. 14 July 2013. 33 Winslow-Yost, Gabriel. "SimCity's Evil Twin." Newyorker.com. April 11 2013. Web. 14 July 2013. Kelly 17 in "Nonlinearity and Literary Theory" (767-8), before I discuss the features that make it eminently suited to the analysis I have proposed. A playable version of Dwarf Fortress, version 0.21.93.19a, was first released on 8 August 2006; the newest version, 0.34.11, was released on 4 June 2012. The game, developed by Tarn Adams, inherits many of its formal features from the tradition of roguelikes: games in the style of Rogue, a fantasy-themed "dungeon crawler" RPG featuring a steep learning curve and “primitive” graphics using ASCII text. To these features, Dwarf Fortress adds a persistent world, procedurallygenerated and simulated in intricate detail. The goal is the establishment of a dwelling (a fortress) that will house a group of dwarves. In pursuit of this goal the player is allowed total freedom of design but must additionally contend with invasion, disease, insanity, hostile wildlife, the needs of citizens, and relations with other civilizations. In Aarseth's terms, it is a textonically dynamic, indeterminate, asynchronously transient text with conditional access to scriptons (given that, as a simulation, it must be configured). Furthermore, it exhibits a combination of every possible type of user-functionality: the explorative, role-playing and configurative functionalities, somewhat self-evident, are supplemented by the poetic function insofar as fortress design is quite often "aesthetically motivated". The game is so inordinately ergodic that it would be worth considering as a cybertext on that merit alone. Aside from lacking even a cursory tutorial, while being so unforgiving that the community's unofficial motto is "losing is fun", the process of traversal proper cannot even begin until the player has generated a world by configuring various oblique parameters. This is a commonly-occurring property of "sandbox" games, but in most such games world-generation is usually a trivial, nonergodic event. Furthermore, unlike SimCity, in which configuring the world and watching it unfold are essentially separate actions, simulation in Dwarf Fortress is foregrounded even above the fundamental property of player complicity: characters' needs take precedence over players' commands. I would even argue that, though Dwarf Fortress discourages save-manipulation by linking saving to the exit function, it facilitates deployment of my concept of playthrough/s through multiple play modes and world-persistence. Even if a fortress falls, the player can reclaim it with new dwarves, or start a new fortress in a neighboring region. Moreover, aside from the central "Fortress mode", the game's worlds can also be navigated in "Legends Kelly 18 mode", which allows the player to view their procedurally-generated histories, and "Adventure mode", which plays like a more conventional roguelike. Given Dwarf Fortress' eminent foregrounding at every level of the features I have advanced as being salient to cybertext theory, I propose to consider it as the first subject of the critical framework I have presented in this part of my thesis. Kelly 19 Part II: Analysis In der Mitte aller Ferne steht dies Haus drum hab es gerne - Hermann Broch 1. Introduction It has not been my intent to imply that the only ingredients of a properly-executed analysis of a video game are a cybertextual sensibility, an understanding of simulation and a deployment of multiple playthrough/s. Rather, I contend that these things provide a partial answer to the question of the analyst's subjectivity raised by Aarseth in "Playing Research: Methodological approaches to game analysis". I want to argue that such things are productive elements of a multi-layered framework such as Aarseth describes, without abrogating the need for what he calls a "well-argued analysis" (6).34 However, I would question the necessity of deploying such frameworks as Bartle's typology of players. In Aarseth's methodology, categorizing players seems to constitute part of an effort to factor them out; while it establishes critical distance, it has certain consequences for statements thus made. It risks rendering them so broad they no longer permit useful generalizations; Jill Walker Rettberg and Anders Sundnes Løvlie, among others, have criticized Aarseth on these grounds. 35 It also seems to necessitate constant self-effacing hedges. I suspect that there are other ways of practicing the "critical self-awareness" and "research ethics" Aarseth rightly concludes are necessary (7). Moreover, the user's participation is fundamental to the understanding of a cybertext. Playthrough/s cannot exist without her. Implicitly, the cybertextual critic will also be a user at some stage of her analysis. Thus, if the user is so integral to the cybertext, is it productive to describe it from some other position? Cybertexts thus make subjectivity into an explicitly structural property. However, this shift changes the nature of criticism only in a practical way—not fundamentally. 34 Aarseth, Espen J. "Playing Research: Methodological approaches to game analysis." Papers from spilforskning.dk Conference, 28-29 August 2003. Web. Accessed 26 June 2013. 35 In fairness: Aarseth himself displays, at various points, an awareness of the primacy of useful generalizations, especially as pertains to kinship between conventionally disparate phenomena. Kelly 20 In the subjective experience of Dwarf Fortress which I analyze here, I will not maintain a distinction between what Aarseth calls "free play" and "analytical play" (7). Perhaps I am unable to occupy both positions simultaneously; regardless, my ontological status as player/critic is not at issue. The game-history I create, I understand equally as someone who plays Dwarf Fortress because it is enjoyable and as someone who plays because it is critically fecund. If a distinction is possible, it is not useful, because the game-history remains unaltered and the game-system remains unalterable. The only relevant datum is that I have played. My analysis will therefore be divided into two principal parts. The first will be the "well-argued analysis"; the second will be a discussion of my personal experience, into which I will incorporate a demonstration of my concept of playthrough/s. In this effort, I only want to show that the "collective pool of experience" Aarseth argues will "always bring new aspects [of a game] forward" can be generated just as well by a single user (6). As such, I will provide the simplest possible demonstration: a single game-history, bifurcated only once. 2. "Urist McPlayer cancels Train Behavior: Convention lost or misplaced." In "Playing Research" Aarseth asks "Where is the new adventure game with [anachronistic] graphics that was successful?" (4). Dwarf Fortress answers that question. Its graphics, moreover, while anachronistic, are intentionally so. As a stylistic choice, the implementation of a world in colored ASCII characters has the effect of allowing the player's brain to do much of the work normally delegated to the computer's GPU. Those clock cycles are then free to further compute the simulation. Additionally, Tarn Adams has repeatedly indicated—in, for example, the foreword to Peter Tyson's Getting Started With Dwarf Fortress—that this choice was made for technical reasons.36 The result has been a game which employs simulation to a greater extent than most other games. Dwarf Fortress is more than a prototypical cybertext, however. In "Quests in World of Warcraft: Deferral and Repetition", Jill Walker Rettberg examines the MMORPG in terms of "rhetorical figures": particular organizations of parts of the game-system which create a certain effect. 37 She argues that deferral and repetition 36 Tyson, Peter. Getting Started With Dwarf Fortress. Sebastopol, CA: O'Reilly, 2012. Print. Rettberg, Jill Walker. "Quests in World of Warcraft: Deferral and Repetition." In Corneliussen, Hilde, and Jill W. Rettberg (Eds.). Digital Culture, Play, and Identity : a World of Warcraft reader. 37 Kelly 21 are conventions employed by the designers of WoW (168). Similarly, from every subset of cultural works it is possible to distil a set of conventions. This is equally true of simulation games; I want to show that Dwarf Fortress significantly subverts several such conventions. Similarly, both Scott Rettberg, in "Corporate Ideology in World of Warcraft", and Shira Chess, in "Playing the Bad Guy: Grand Theft Auto in the Panopticon", examine the ways in which games train their players to internalize certain attitudes.38 I additionally want to interrogate Dwarf Fortress in terms of these attitudes. In "End of story? Quest, narrative and enactment in computer games", Anders Sundnes Løvlie modulates ideas of estrangement from Brecht's theory of theater into the player's deliberate frustration by a game's mechanics. 39 The underlying principle is the subversion of the player's expectations. Løvlie frames the process primarily in terms of enabling artistic expression; I contend that "artistic expression" here is functionally interchangeable with "literary effect". My next objective, then, is to identify which expectations Dwarf Fortress subverts, and how this is achieved. 3. Under Mining, Contention: Undermining Convention As I have argued, the principal generator of play in any kind of simulation is the approximating relationship between a player and her knowledge of the rules; this is paradigmatically true of Dwarf Fortress. However, one distinguishing property of the playful process in simulation games is that the rules are normally simple enough to be learned quickly. While they are inaccessible to the player, this is compensated for by the utility of trial and error. Dwarf Fortress frustrates this exchange; its complexity is such that events acquire indeterminacy approaching that of reality. An effect might arise from any number of causes; discovering which particular cause is at hand often requires time and resources the player cannot afford to commit, and is sometimes impossible. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2008. Print. 38 Rettberg, Scott. "Corporate ideology in World of Warcraft." In H. Corneliussen & J. Walker Rettberg (Eds.). Digital Culture, Play, and Identity: A World of Warcraft Reader. MIT Press: Boston, 2008. pp. 19-39. Web. Accessed 25 June 2013. For Chess' paper, see footnote 14. 39 Løvlie, Anders S. "End of story? Quest, narrative and enactment in computer games." Proceedings of International DiGRA Conference: Changing Views, Worlds in Play. 2005. Web. Accessed 30 June 2013. Kelly 22 As a concrete example: bugs occasionally cause merchants to be unable to leave the play area, which frustrates their desire to return home, as well as their basic needs. Persistently unfulfilled needs or wants cause unhappiness; significant, persistent unhappiness causes insanity. During one playthrough, an elf merchant who had failed to leave with her caravan abruptly went insane and died. However: just before she went insane, I had designated many trees for felling. Most intelligent creatures in the game have a guiding interest; the elves desire is to protect nature. Therefore, it is possible that my deforestation generated sufficient unhappiness for the elf to go insane. Determining the exact cause would require repeating the event. However, aside from the fact that each group of merchants only comes once per ingame year, other civilizations hold the player responsible for deaths of their members occurring in the play area. This makes eliciting the cause of the elf's insanity prohibitive: enough deaths and the elves would besiege the fortress. Here, therefore, Dwarf Fortress makes it impossible to learn the rules and prevent further elven deaths. This makes the process of learning more life-like than simulations of lesser complexity: one is never certain that one has definitive answers. Another of a simulation-game player's expectations is her position within a hierarchy of power relations. Characters are subject to her will, but she is only able to exercise it in ways the programmer allows her to. Dwarf Fortress inverts this relationship at each level. At the lowest level, dwarves are not absolutely subject to anything but the algorithms governing the simulations of their being; the player cannot influence the exact sequence of events. She might disallow mining by all dwarves but one and designate some rock to be excavated. In the process, however, the specifically-chosen dwarf might still fall asleep, or take a break. The dwarves will even occasionally badly perform tasks which the player can specifically direct. It requires non-trivial savoir-faire to ensure a dwarf will not end up on the wrong side of a constructed wall, and dwarves have no compunction against removing objects others are standing on, which frequently results in injuries. At a higher level, consider this statement from Zach Adams, Tarn Adams' brother and co-designer: “We didn’t know that carp were going to eat dwarves. But we’d written them as carnivorous and roughly the same size as dwarves, so that just happened...”40 This example of emergent behavior is hardly isolated: the gamesystem is sufficiently complex that not even the game's designers are aware of all its 40 Ibid. 32. Kelly 23 possible configurations, meaning (following Foucault) that they cannot mediate power. At each level, therefore, Dwarf Fortress impedes simple descriptions of power mediated by knowledge of its game-system. This subversion functionally re-enacts the death of the Author, in a medium in which the Author-function still holds considerable sway. I submit that this facilitates the construction of text-like objects— game-histories, playthrough/s—to a much greater extent than most (simulation) games. A third convention of simulation subverted by Dwarf Fortress, related to the mediation of power, is that of knowledge of the simulated body. As I have explained, dwarven bodies are anything but docile; yet it is always possible to perform a thorough examination of the body and mind of each dwarf. The dwarves do not know they are observed, however, and thus it is not apparent that this intimate knowledge produces any power. In fact, its existence only makes the dwarves easier to take care of. This is because, if the player desires to antagonize them, the same methods work equally on each dwarf, but if she aims to maximize each dwarf's happiness, she will need to consult their individual preferences for materials, images, et cetera. This knowledge can thus be conceived as producing power exercised by the dwarves over the player. Because it makes caring for the dwarves easier, a player who commands it is likelier to do so than to antagonize them, ceteris paribus. Indeed, one marker of achievement in the Dwarf Fortress community is the ability to handle more of the game's inherent multitasking, including this desire-and-preference micromanagement. Effective ways of antagonizing the dwarves are furthermore not immediately apparent, while the dwarves' physical and mental states are. Conversely, in SimCity 2000, pleasing citizens (whose bodies are effectively invisible) is a complex task, but disasters are summoned with a button-press. Furthermore, possible configurations of dwarves' characteristics are necessarily finite, but the number of constituent elements is so large as to make the possibilities functionally endless. This contrasts with Jill Walker Rettberg's description of character configurations in WoW: in Dwarf Fortress, it is astronomically unlikely for two dwarves to ever be "identical twins" (180). 41 Especially since dwarves' configurations include traits with observable effects, this facilitates engagement with the simulation and investment in the characters. 41 Ibid. 37. Kelly 24 A final locus of subversion lies in the way Dwarf Fortress treats time. A frequently-employed convention of simulation games is the ability to alter the speed of time's passing. This is used, for instance, to quickly see results of some change, in keeping with the goal of better understanding the rules. Furthermore, a convention frequently deployed in conjunction with variable time speed is the notation of time in human-readable format. This lends familiarity to the passage of time which contributes to a sense of immersion. However, this often comes at the expense of an understanding of game-systemic processes. The more familiar the time-system, the less knowable the rule-system, due in part to the layers of mediation intervening between the computation of a simulation and its perception by the player, as the substrate is increasingly obscured by convention. This substrate is fundamentally identical across all simulations, in a more abstract sense than being based on binary computer hardware. By this I mean that every simulation is an iterative process: rules are applied to a state to produce a new state, and to effect some change over the next iteration the player must alter some author-defined parameter. However, each interaction with a complex simulation will have consequences extending over multiple iterations, setting off a multiplyconnected cascade of reactions. I therefore contend that, as the complexity of the rule-system and game-state increases, the utility of considering each iteration as a step in a process decreases. Dwarf Fortress, however, subverts this relationship by foregrounding its own status as simulation, to the extreme of allowing the player to advance time iterationby-iteration. This can have an estranging effect, due to the foregrounding of computation along with simulation. I submit, however, that it more strongly promotes an understanding of the game-system. For example, time can be paused in the midst of combat, and in advancing by iteration, individual blows can be apprehended through always-available bodily knowledge. Moreover, like the anachronistic graphics, this was a deliberate choice by the Adams brothers. 42 In these ways—through subversion of conventions concerning rule- knowability, power, simulated bodies and time—Dwarf Fortress both distinguishes itself as a simulation game and supports its objective of being an engaging generator of stories. I now want to examine the game in terms of the attitudes it encourages the player to internalize. 42 Ibid. 32. Kelly 25 4. Dwarfing Postmodernism I do not see Dwarf Fortress as training the player to acquire "gestural capacities" or "necessary automatisms", as Goggin puts it, in discussing the disciplinary nature of gaming behaviors (363-4).43 At least, the game does not train the player to the same extent as, for example, a modern military FPS does. In fact, the game's complicated interface arguably subverts that process. For instance, though a proficient player, I occasionally type [d]-[b]-[d] where I mean [d]-[d]. Automatism certainly exists, in the sense that I produce the keystrokes as self-contained units rather than sets of discrete steps. However, there exist enough different-but-similar units that mistakes are easily made, and I am eventually required to think about my specific objective. Instead, I submit that Dwarf Fortress encourages the player to adopt certain perspectives. The first of these has much in common with Fredric Jameson's description of pastiche: Pastiche is, like parody, the imitation of [an] [...] idiosyncratic style, [...] But it is a neutral practice of such mimicry, [...] without that still latent feeling that there exists something normal compared to which what is being imitated is rather comic. (1849)44 Because Dwarf Fortress relies on procedural generation, however, intent to pastiche cannot intrinsically subtend generated narratives. I would not even locate real mimicry in the construction of the game-system as a machine for generating these text-like objects. Instead of an imitation, I consider Dwarf Fortress a reproduction of a generic, fantasy-flavored universe. This means that conventions which subtend it are common to countless other works of culture. Combined with procedural generation from enough variables to ensure staggering complexity, this entails statistical certitude that Dwarf Fortress will eventually produce something almost exactly like something the player has seen before. This is where similarity to pastiche emerges, but with the fundamental difference that Dwarf Fortress' imperfect reproduction allows for sincere, nonsarcastic engagement. To illustrate: in the history of the Ageless Realms (the world in 43 Ibid. 26. Jameson, Fredric. "Postmodernism and Consumer Society." In Vincent Leitch (Ed.) The Norton Anthology of Theory and Criticism. New York London: W.W. Norton & Co, 2010. pp.1846-60. Print. 44 Kelly 26 which my playthrough/s take place), a human was kidnapped by a goblin and raised in the goblins' tower. He later became the leader of those goblins, eventually becoming the world's second-ever necromancer. This micro-narrative—abduction, rise to prominence, acquisition of eldritch powers—imperfectly reproduces the story of Thrall from the Warcraft mythos (an orc raised by humans who becomes the mystic leader of the Orcish Horde). This seems to invite epistemological despair. The simulacrum is almost satisfying, and perhaps even significant within the narrative of one particular world. However, it is the result of random chance, without intent, and therefore as little significance can be imputed to it as can be imputed to real events. Conversely, just as much significance can be imputed to it. What are the odds that Dwarf Fortress would produce such a recognizable simulacrum for someone already familiar with Warcraft? Is there not artistic value in such pure coincidence? And does that not mount a powerful argument about the significance of real, human-lived events in a probabilistic, indifferent universe? Tarn Adams, in response to a question in the firstever "Dwarf Fortress Talk" podcast about the "oddest email he's ever received", states: Basically a person [...] had Dwarf Fortress help them realize certain truths about their existence and basically about how life is meaningless or something and that caused them to convert their religion. [...] I thought that was kind of cool that the game could definitely have an effect on somebody [...] there was someone who was criticizing the game because when you have random content, [...] it can't contain an artist's vision, but I don't think that's accurate because [...] certain cynicisms I have, do come across in the game and I think the person was picking up on that. So certainly you can still convey things even in a procedurally generated environment. 45 Though the Author is dead, cases such as this seem to indicate that the game can provoke responses as sincere as any other. The other attitude which Dwarf Fortress encourages is still more revolutionary. In most games, enemies are simply there. Legitimizing the conflict between them and the player is largely reducible to willing suspension of disbelief. Some games (such as Bastion) succeed in constructing the conflict narrative convincingly, such that the 45 "Dwarf Fortress Talk #1, with Rainseeker, Capntastic and Toady One, transcribed by mallocks." www.bay12games.com. 6 August 2009. Web. Accessed 30 June 2013. Kelly 27 disbelief requiring suspension is minimal. Some games (such as Spec Ops: The Line) foreground that problematic, constantly challenging the player to question her motivations, perhaps convincing her to abandon traversal altogether. Yet in the moment of play, the question is, very frequently, to shoot or not to shoot. Players often have no broader context than an awareness that the current enemy represents an obstacle that must be overcome for traversal to proceed. As a completely procedurally-generated environment, Dwarf Fortress' spatiotemporal play area challenges this relationship. To illustrate: the point at which my playthrough/s diverged was the arrival of a wererabbit, which the game announced conspicuously. The creature turned out to be only moderately threatening—it mauled a dwarf, reverted to human form, and fled. Afterwards, parsing Legends mode for its history, I discovered that after a series of attacks by dangerous monsters throughout her short life, the wererabbit's curse originated when a goblin profaned a temple to a goddess of a religion headed by her husband. I was thus relieved that my fort's ramshackle military had not done her any serious harm. This example, though complex, reveals just a fraction of the historicity that subtends nearly every event in a playthrough of Dwarf Fortress. It is always available to the player, meaning events and characters are only infrequently "simply there". I contend that this provides a potential counterpoint to a society Jameson describes as "[having] become incapable of dealing with time and history" (1853); seemingly, Tarn Adams' cynicisms and Jameson's overlap somewhat.46 Having explored Dwarf Fortress' properties as a simulation game, in terms of conventions it subverts and attitudes it naturalizes, I will close my analysis with a deployment of a micro-corpus of two of my own playthrough/s. 46 Ibid. 44. Kelly 28 5. Slingattic/s My first remark should be a candid admission that most of the history subtending the dwarven fortress of Slingattics was obtained via the path of least resistance. This is not to say it was easy: there were 250 years of history to parse, in a world that literally dwarfed my fortress, where only a fraction of the available data was relevant, even to the dwarves' entire civilization. Discovering this history in a maximally-playful way would be prohibitive. It would involve wandering, in Adventure mode (and thus, in roguelike fashion, subject to attack and constrained by basic needs), through all the relevant places, stopping occasionally (to read new discoveries in Legends mode) and starting over. The alternative was to read everything directly through Legends mode; assembling a timeline (for inclusion as an appendix) itself turned out to be a playful experience. The Ageless Realms' history is complex, with multiple narrative threads intertwining even in the fraction which I surveyed. For this reason I will proceed by expanding on the content of my playthrough/s, drawing comparisons between them, and remarking where relevant on game-historical background. 5.1 Playthrough 1 As mentioned above, the point at which my playthrough/s diverged was just after the wererabbit arrived. I was unprepared for any assault and imagined that, if it was as deadly as its announcement suggested, I would lose. I have also had little chance to play the newest version of Dwarf Fortress, which incorporates significant changes to the military system. I therefore decided my best chance of survival would be to draft my woodcutters as axedwarves. Their facility with axes would hopefully make them more effective than the principal alternative: drafting the dwarf closest to the wererabbit (one "Zasit Razorblocked"), likely sacrificing her in hopes of delaying the beast's attack. Though Zasit survived the onslaught, the nearest axedwarf ("Ïngiz Whimfences") was only able to deliver a few blows before the wererabbit turned back into a human and left the play area. However, almost immediately I began receiving notifications that dwarves were canceling jobs and fleeing a wererabbit. Closer inspection revealed this was Zasit herself: she had been bitten, and the moon was still full. This problem would escalate unless I took steps to contain it. However, any Kelly 29 way of disposing of the afflicted dwarf sanitarily would take too long to deploy. Reluctantly—though with greater facility with the system—I issued a second kill order, this time for Zasit the wererabbit. Ïngiz dispatched her, though this generated significant unhappiness, as Zasit too reverted to dwarven form halfway through the attack, and dwarves are predictably averse to killing other dwarves. Almost immediately after receiving notification of Zasit's death, a legendary artifact was completed: a ring, Negatedsaint, decorated with an image of a dwarf surrounded by dwarves. This was unremarkable according to my knowledge of the game-system. This particular image usually relates to the fortress' founding or a merchant's visit. Furthermore, as an imperfect reproduction of the fabled dwarven craftsmanship from Tolkien's legendarium, dwarves produce these artifacts on a regular basis. Still, the decoration was highly significant: it was entirely possible that the image represented the dwarves banding together against the wererabbit—and even if it did not, nothing precluded such a reading. I began receiving more job-cancellation alerts—dwarves were fleeing a woodcutter. This turned out to be Ïngiz, once more a civilian. Killing Zasit, even under orders, had evidently marked him as an enemy of the dwarven civilization, and all dwarves—including armed ones—were responding appropriately. However, Ïngiz himself was not behaving hostilely, and did not even respond to attack by three marksdwarves and a dog. Regardless, the people had risen against an abuse of power by the State, and the meaning of the image on Negatedsaint had thus been deconstructed, in true Derridean fashion. It now definitely referred to neither the killing of Zasit, nor that of Ïngiz. (Its name, additionally, had become surprisingly apropos.) Moreover, this would not be the last time an artifact's decoration displayed significant indeterminacy. Another artifact, Ardentsinge, was produced—a crown with an image of a dwarf admiring animal traps and a second image of cut gems. A dwarf merchant who had failed to leave the site went berserk and was shot. Life at Slingattics then proceeded without incident until the notification that the child Domas Heathermanor had been found dead, drained of blood. This clear indication of a vampire among my dwarves, another recent addition I knew little about, was reason enough to revert to my save-point and play again. Kelly 30 5.2 Playthrough 2 Knowing where it would likely lead, I deprecated my initial approach to the wererabbit and implemented the alternative: drafting Zasit. She was badly mauled and bled to death before anyone could approach, but the effort was not fruitless, as she occupied the wererabbit long enough for it to revert to human form and flee. My losses had been halved already. Remarkably, the state of affairs in Slingattics, by the time the game had reached the same point in simulated time as playthrough 1, was functionally identical. Another dwarf had died—gone insane from the frustrated attempt to create an artifact, which was presumably initiated at approximately the same time as that which resulted in Negatedsaint. I had been too occupied with the wererabbit to notice; it was an unpleasant surprise when the dwarf went mad. Additionally, a merchant had died: the elf I have already mentioned. (A bug was likely operative during both playthrough/s which prevented a merchant from leaving, though the final cause of the elf's insanity is still unknown.) Furthermore, by the end of playthrough 2, something unfortunate had befallen Domas Heathermanor. Rather than ending up drained by a vampire (who never migrated to Slingattics), Domas was the first of three children to be abducted by goblins. The most remarkable parallels to the first playthrough, however—and the most interesting tie-ins to the themes foregrounded by the quarter-millenium of narrative subtending both—manifest themselves in the appearances of the artifacts produced in playthrough 2. I would even argue that artifacts themselves are fruitful objects for analysis: they can be read, like texts, for non-transparent allusions to "real" concepts (here, I refer to concepts on the same order of simulation as the artifacts). In other words, legendary artifacts in Dwarf Fortress are also a kind of literary artifact. This is made evident by the images displayed on Ardentsinge: a dwarf admiring animal traps, and cut gems. Finbow, the second artifact produced in playthrough 2, was simply an undecorated "perfect" citrine, a noteworthy cut gem. However, the first artifact, Miredchants, was a crown—already a remarkable parallel given that an artifact's item type is selected randomly. Furthermore, it features an image of two mountains, which seemingly implies only cliché symbolism—unless one knows that most mountains on the world map are depicted using the same ASCII character as depicts animal traps in Fortress mode. The images, therefore, do more Kelly 31 than bridge ontologically disparate game-histories. Additionally, they accentuate the crowns' status as objects: the dwarf depicted on Ardentsinge is admiring the animal traps, indicating that the same value subtends the trap/mountain symbol as subtends both artifacts. Finally, Miredchants enacts what must be called "the Death of the Craftsdwarf". In introducing indeterminacy into the linguistic sign used by independently-created valuable crowns, Miredchants draws into question whether the game has correctly represented the intent of the creator of either artifact. Miredchants may additionally be seen to reflect a broader game-historical tendency, which bears an amusing relation to the conditions under which this thesis was written. The first general of the Gleeful Trade, the civilization to which Slingattics belongs, was a dwarf named Zefon Mawlabors. Zefon would eventually become the Gleeful Trade's first necromancer. There were many such figures, and one part of the construction of a timeline of the Ageless Realms was the effort to trace the knowledge that makes a necromancer—"the secrets of life and death"—back to a single source. This effort was successful: I discovered that the human Ebpel Packclobbered claimed a slab engraved with these secrets, wandered briefly, and constructed the tower to which all future necromancers of her line would eventually relocate. After a necromancer has trained an apprentice, they appear to remain in their tower, producing books every few years. 47 There exists among necromancers in Dwarf Fortress therefore a hierarchical structure of supervision and a certain isolation from the outside world. Furthermore, they appear to be concerned with things analogous to laws of nature: from within a simulation game, what do "the secrets of life and death" more felicitously imply than "the code which instantiates the gamesystem's rules"? Taken together with the fact that necromancers' books' titles are prophetic, scientific, or philosophical in nature, necromancers in Dwarf Fortress seem to imperfectly reproduce some common (mis)conceptions about the academic institution. The artifact Miredchants, in enacting the Death of the Craftsdwarf, merely extends the analogy to textual criticism. 47 Given the fact that a necromancer can apparently only have one simultaneous apprentice, it seems that the structure of the Sith from the Star Wars mythos is also imperfectly reproduced. Kelly 32 6. Coda: A Necessary Disclaimer It warrants reiterating that none of what I have described was premeditated—how could it be? The vast majority I did not apprehend until after its occurrence-byprocedural-generation. With the exception of my particular configurative actions during my brief playthrough/s, all of it was random. This means I cannot claim my playthrough/s entail anything fundamental; I merely wish to articulate the odds against such fecund playthrough/s coincidentally resulting precisely as I am writing an extended academic treatment of the game. A safer inference is that these playthrough/s are representative of the text-like objects Dwarf Fortress is capable of generating. Things such as an analogy between necromancy and academia, perhaps, suggest themselves to me because I play equally from a scholar's perspective as from that of a user whose frame of reference includes many of the universes Dwarf Fortress cites and reproduces. Yet my playthrough/s and their possible interpretations were generated as legitimately as those of any other user. 48 Perhaps Dwarf Fortress is remarkable in this way, but I think it simply foregrounds the need for the critic to engage with a game, to really play it and be played by it, to be (in the words of Douglas Adams) "absolutely like a child. If he sees a thing, he must say that he sees it, whether it was what he thought he was going to see or not. See first, think later, then test. But always see first."49 48 Frustratingly, recording actual play proved technically problematic: internal recordings are compressed such that playback is only possible by the game itself, and file size of screen recordings was prohibitive. Nonetheless, limited documentation of game events is available in the form of screenshots, and I have additionally made available the saved games I discuss so that the reader may experience for herself the situation with which I started and the two branches that resulted. These resources may be found here: https://www.dropbox.com/sh/e5faq0rcipu0ugz/_HhS1SUEpK/C.%20Kelly%20BA%20Thesis %202013 49 Adams, Douglas. The Ultimate Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy. New York: Del Rey, 2002. pp.586-7. Print. Kelly 33 Conclusion I know of many games. I know of simulation games. I know of fantasy-themed games. I know of open-ended games. I know of difficult games. I know of innovative games. I know of games that are impenetrable enough to be greatly facilitated by walkthroughs or strategy guides. I know of games which privilege the construction of stories using their mechanics as a narrative framework. I do not know of any game, however, which synthesizes all these aspects in quite as unique a way as does Dwarf Fortress. In this thesis I have tried to show why Dwarf Fortress is an object especially well-suited to a critical perspective informed primarily by cybertext theory; how the features of the game operate and interact, not to construct an experience, but to facilitate the player's construction of her own experience; and finally, how a critical methodology which makes use of a multiply-traversable series of save points operating as nodes in a branching structure can bring forward interesting and productive aspects of a game for analysis. No game will ever quite equal Dwarf Fortress—no contemporary game does, and it is difficult to imagine one doing so twenty years down the road, when Dwarf Fortress version 1.0 is finally released. Nevertheless, I do certainly believe it contains pearls of wisdom for game developers and critics alike—as well as copious helpings of Fun for players—and with this thesis I hope to have contributed in some way to processes by which we might understand how to go about extracting them. To decorate our legendary artifacts with, of course. Kelly 34 Bibliography Aarseth, Espen J. Cybertext : Perspectives on Ergodic Literature. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1997. Print. ---. "Genre Trouble: Narrativism and the Art of Simulation." In Fruin, Noah, and Pat Harrigan (eds.), First Person: New Media as Story, Performance, and Game. Cambridge: MIT Press, 2004. Print. ---. "Nonlinearity and Literary Theory." In Wardrip-Fruin, Noah and Nick Montfort. The New Media Reader. Cambridge: MIT Press, 2003. pp.761-80. Web. Accessed 14 June 2013. ---. "Playing Research: Methodological approaches to game analysis." Papers from spilforskning.dk Conference, 28-29 August 2003. Web. Accessed 26 June 2013. Adams, Douglas. The Ultimate Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy. New York: Del Rey, 2002. pp.586-7. Print. Barthes, Roland, et al. S/Z. Oxford: Blackwell, 1990. Print. Borody, Wayne A. “Figuring the Phallogocentric Argument with Respect to the Classical Greek Philosophical Tradition”, Nebula, A Netzine of the Arts and Science, Vol. 13, 1998, pp. 1-27. Web. Accessed 14 June 2013. Chess, Shira. "Playing the Bad Guy: Grand Theft Auto in the Panopticon." In N. Garrelts (Ed.): Digital gameplay: essays on the nexus of game and gamer (p. 80-90.). Jefferson, North Carolina: McFarland Press, 2005. Print. Derrida, Jacques, "Structure, Sign, and Play in the Discourse of the Human Sciences." In Writing and Difference, trans. Alan Bass. London: Routledge, pp 278-294. Web. Accessed 14 June 2013. "Dwarf Fortress Talk #1, with Rainseeker, Capntastic and Toady One, transcribed by mallocks." www.bay12games.com. 6 August 2009. Web. Accessed 30 June 2013. Fluck, Winfried, Laura Bieger, and Johannes Voelz. Romance with America? : Essays on Culture, Literature, and American Studies. Heidelberg: Winter, 2009. Print. Frasca, Gonzalo. "Gonzalo Frasca responds in turn." Electronic Book Review: First Person. January 8, 2004. Web. Accessed 14 June 2013. Kelly 35 ---. "Ludologists love stories, too: notes from a debate that never took place." Proceedings of International DiGRA Conference: Level Up. 2003. Web. Accessed 14 June 2013. ---. "Videogames of the Oppressed." In Fruin, Noah, and Pat Harrigan (eds.), First Person: New Media as Story, Performance, and Game. Cambridge: MIT Press, 2004. Print. Foucault, Michel. Discipline and Punish: The Birth of the Prison. New York: Pantheon Books, 1977. Print. Goggin, Joyce. "Playbour, Farming and Leisure." Ephemera: Theory and Politics in Organization 11(4): Work, play and boredom. Leicester, U.K: University of Leicester, 2001. Web. Accessed 14 June 2013. ---. “The Big Deal: Card Games in 20 th-Century Fiction”. Unpublished diss. Université de Montréal, 1997. Print. Jameson, Fredric. "Postmodernism and Consumer Society." In Vincent Leitch (Ed.) The Norton Anthology of Theory and Criticism. New York London: W.W. Norton & Co, 2010. pp.1846-60. Print. Løvlie, Anders S. "End of story? Quest, narrative and enactment in computer games." Proceedings of International DiGRA Conference: Changing Views, Worlds in Play. 2005. Web. Accessed 30 June 2013. McHale, Brian. Pöstmödernist Fictiön. London New York: Routledge, 1991. p.7. Print. Munroe, Randall. "Dwarf Fortress." www.xkcd.com n.d. Web. Accessed 30 June 2013. Murray, Janet. "From Game-Story to Cyberdrama." In Fruin, Noah, and Pat Harrigan (eds.), First Person: New Media As Story, Performance, and Game. Cambridge: MIT Press, 2004. Print. Penny, Simon. "Representation, Enaction and the Ethics of Simulation." In Fruin, Noah, and Pat Harrigan (eds.), First Person: New Media as Story, Performance, and Game. Cambridge: MIT Press, 2004. p.80. Print. Petit, Carolyn. "From Samus to Lara: An Interview With Anita Sarkeesian of Feminist Frequency." Gamespot.com. 12 June 2012. Web. Accessed 14 June 2013. Pitts, Russ. "Don't Be A Hero - The Full Story Behind Spec Ops: The Line." Polygon.com. 27 August 2012. Web. Accessed 14 June 2013. Kelly 36 Rettberg, Jill Walker. "Quests in World of Warcraft: Deferral and Repetition." In Corneliussen, Hilde, and Jill W. Rettberg (Eds.). Digital Culture, Play, and Identity : a World of Warcraft reader. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2008. Print. Rettberg, Scott. "Corporate ideology in World of Warcraft." In H. Corneliussen & J. Walker Rettberg (Eds.). Digital Culture, Play, and Identity: A World of Warcraft Reader. MIT Press: Boston, 2008. pp. 19-39. Web. Accessed 25 June 2013. Romero, Josh. "Unreal 1 trailer celebrates eleventh b-day." Videogamesblogger.com. 26 May 2007. Web. Accessed 14 June 2013. Slaves to Armok: God of Blood Chapter II: Dwarf Fortress: X of Y and Z. Version 0.34.11. Tarn & Zach Adams. Bay 12 Games. 4 June 2012. Video game. Tyson, Peter. Getting Started With Dwarf Fortress. Sebastopol, Calif: O'Reilly, 2012. Print. Weiner, Jonah. "The Brilliance of Dwarf Fortress." NYTimes.com. July 21 2011. Web. Accessed 14 June 2013. Winslow-Yost, Gabriel. "SimCity's Evil Twin." Newyorker.com. April 11 2013. Web. Accessed 14 June 2013. Zimmerman, Eric. "Eric Zimmerman's response." Electronic Book Review: First Person. January 8, 2004. Web. Accessed 14 June 2013. Kelly 37 Appendix A: A Partial History of the Ageless Realms time before time: Kulur Diedumbras the Tunnel of Skulls wanders Winter of Snakes 1: Siru Viperknighted and Atkil Cleareddaggers settle in Lulledcouples; Cadem Kegentered and Thili Scouredportent settle in Lulledcouples, and marry; Ocna Moppedenjoyed becomes first gold of Creed of Dyes, rules from the Oily Shrine in Rasppass; Meng Rushedchamber becomes general of Stable Furnace; Midnight of Portent founds Menacegear, Xuspgas Haildooms settles there; Jasmuk Lockedrhyme marries Ape Honoradored; Stralir Landsboyish becomes sacred lake of Order of Seeds, rules from Sanctuary of Squids in Cradlestyle; Zefon Mawlabors becomes general of Gleeful Trade, marries Uvash Manorblocks; Uvash Manorblocks begins wandering wilds; Gleeful Trade founds Rockpillars; Tura Plankdie marries Alpeth Thimblegrand; Ebpel Packclobbered marries On Truthcircled, settles in Naturebathe, is popularly elected law-giver; Convent of Controlling constructed in Sharkbell to Útost (fertility goddess), Youthful Coven formed by Meng Columndiamond as holy leopard 2: Siru Viperknighted marries Atkil Cleareddaggers; Xuspgas Haildooms becomes baby-snatcher; Atkil Cleareddaggers becomes commander of Smooth Labors; Dotpits constructed by Eviscerated League; Nacu Templebelt born to Thili Scouredportent and Cadem Kegentered; Cadem Kegentered begins wandering wilds; Stralir Landsboyish marries Lam Craftedwalks; Uvash Manorblocks confronts Rino Yearlingmatches and is killed; Piral Mobbedtook born; Ebpel Packclobbered and On Truthcircled relocate to Cakeplants; On Truthcircled begins wandering the wilds 3: Secen Embracedcloisters born to Siru Viperknighted and Atkil Cleareddaggers; Meng Rushedchamber settles in Bloodlashed, marries Urdim Rampartmists; Piral Mobbedtook abducted by Xuspgas Haildooms, settles in Menacegear; Thili Scouredportent becomes law-giver 3, early spring: Atkil Cleareddaggers and Smooth Labors relocate to Dotpits in Lullmartyr, Smooth Labors becomes primary criminal organization in Lullmartyr 4: Stinthad Orbsbanners born to Meng Rushedchamber and Urdim Rampartmists, abducted by Xuspgas Haildooms, imprisoned by the Mighty Plagues in Menacegear; Xuspgas Haildooms becomes farmer; Thili Scouredportent and Cadem Kegentered relocate to Lullmartyr Kelly 38 4, midspring: Thili Scouredportent journeys to Hale Forests, tames grizzly bears, returns to Lullmartyr 5: Meng Rushedchamber becomes obsessed with mortality; Ape Honoradored founds Faint Prisons; Jasmuk Lockedrhyme becomes law-giver 7, early winter: Kin Twinkleddashes kills Thili Scouredportent 8: Gleeful Trade founds Anvilplayed 9: Siru Viperknighted helps found Stabdrinks, Secen Embracedcloisters relocates with her; Cadem Kegentered settles in Stabdrinks 10, midspring: Kulur Diedumbras the Tunnel of Skulls abducts Atkil Cleareddaggers from Lullmartyr, makes spouse; Zomus Cavernshadows the Skull of Dusk born to Kulur Diedumbras the Tunnel of Skulls and Atkil Cleareddaggers 10, early summer: Ebpel Packclobbered becomes obsessed with mortality 10, midsummer: Tura Plankdie argues for and becomes law-giver 10, midautumn: Ebpel Packclobbered begins worshipping Zitha (rotting male human god of murder, death, blight, and wealth) 11: Tura Plankdie settles in Cradlestyle, becomes member of Order of Seeds 11, early spring: Kulur Diedumbras the Tunnel of Skulls attacks Nacu Templebelt, the latter escapes; Cithasi Spitseared attacks Zefon Mawlabors, the latter escapes 11, midsummer: Zefon Mawlabors journeys to depths, tames giant olms, returns to Rockpillars 12, early spring: Zitha creates Golden Gutters (legendary silver slab); Ebpel Packclobbered claims Golden Gutters in Cakeplants, learns secrets of life and death 12, late winter: Meng Rushedchamber leads attack on goblins under Usbu Gullyfell, rejects peace terms and substitutes own 13: Stinthad Orbsbanners reunited with parents in Bloodlashed 13, midspring: Meng Columndiamond profanes the Convent of Controlling and is cursed by Útost as a werechinchilla Kelly 39 14: Nacu Templebelt begins wandering wilds 14, early spring: Uspsast Patterncoast attacks Secen Embracedcloisters, the latter escapes 14, midsummer: colossus Nasnok Roarsculpture attacks Piral Mobbedtook, the latter escapes; Ebpel Packclobbered becomes chieftess of Livid Powers 15: Nacu Templebelt settles in Stabdrinks; Secen Embracedcloisters becomes surgeon in Stabdrinks, marries Nacu Templebelt; Piral Mobbedtook becomes war leader of Midnight of Portent; On Truthcircled confronts cyclops Ekxox Yearduties and wins 16, early spring: Zefon Mawlabors leads attack on goblins under Azstrog Seawraith, accepts offer of peace 16, early winter: Piral Mobbedtook becomes obsessed with mortality 17: Nacu Templebelt and Secen Embracedcloisters help found Snugglefactions 18: Band of Amusement constructs Everlasting Sanctuary (to Dunem, human god of fate) in Snugglefactions; Secen Embracedcloisters joins Creed of Veiling, becomes holy oracle, rules from The Everlasting Sanctuary, later becomes farmer; Ape Honoradored becomes obsessed with mortality 20: Corud Oldurges becomes lord of Leafy Nations, later becomes farmer 20, early spring: Secen Embracedcloisters becomes obsessed with mortality 21, early spring: Corud Oldurges becomes obsessed with mortality 21, midspring: Urist Desertsyrup becomes obsessed with mortality 21, midwinter: Kulur Diedumbras the Tunnel of Skulls kills SiruViperknighted in Stabdrinks 22, midsummer: Thuthu Showersister becomes obsessed with mortality 22, midwinter: Urist Desertsyrup leads an attack on elves under Amiya Creatureblanket, defeat and pillage Grottobristles, peace terms rejected then accepted 23, early winter: Livid Powers founds Handmarbles 23, midwinter: Zomus Cavernshadows the Skull of Dusk abducts Cadem Kegentered, makes spouse Kelly 40 24: Alpeth Thimblegrand and Gaval Wadedworth begin wandering wilds 24, midspring: Tura Plankdie becomes obsessed with mortality 24, early autumn: Piral Mobbedtook taught secrets of life and death by Ebpel Packclobbered, relocates to Handmarbles, begins apprenticeship 24, midautumn: Zefon Mawlabors journeys to depths, tames giant rats, returns to Rockpillars 25: Corud Oldurges marries Gaval Wadedworth; Haildooms becomes war leader of Midnight of Portent 25, early winter: Thuthu Showersister taught secrets of life and death by Piral Mobbedtook, relocates to Handmarbles, begins apprenticeship 26, midspring: Urist Desertsyrup taught secrets of life and death by Thuthu Showersister, relocates to Handmarbles, begins apprenticeship 26, late spring: Meng Rushedchamber journeys to depths, tames rutherers, returns to Bloodlashed 26, late autumn: Xuspgas Haildooms killed by colossus One Overblazes in Mergedfell 26, midwinter: Gaval Wadedworth killed by Zomus Cavernshadows the Skull of Dusk; Stralir Landsboyish becomes obsessed with mortality 27, early spring: Jasmuk Lockedrhyme becomes obsessed with mortality 27, midspring: Tura Plankdie taught secrets of life and death by Urist Desertsyrup, relocates to Handmarbles, begins apprenticeship 27, late spring: Stralir Landsboyish taught secrets of life and death by Tura Plankdie, relocates to Handmarbles, begins apprenticeship; Jasmuk Lockedrhyme taught secrets of life and death by Stralir Landsboyish, relocates to Handmarbles, begins apprenticeship 28: Alpeth Thimblegrand confronts colossus Nasnok Roarsculpture and is killed 28, early summer: Corud Oldurges taught secrets of life and death by Jasmuk Lockedrhyme, relocates to Handmarbles, begins apprenticeship 29, late autumn: Meng Rushedchambers taught secrets of life and death by Corud Oldurges, relocates to Handmarbles, begins apprenticeship Xuspgas Kelly 41 29, early summer: Kulur Diedumbras the Tunnel of Skulls and Atkil Cleareddaggers attack Secen Embracedcloisters, the latter escapes 30, midsummer: Ocna Moppedenjoyed becomes obsessed with mortality; Zefon Mawlabors leads attack on goblins under Dostngosp Malignfocuses, rejects then accepts offer of peace 30, late summer: Ocna Moppedenjoyed taught secrets of life and death by Meng Rushedchamber, relocates to Handmarbles, begins apprenticeship 30, late autumn: Secen Embracedcloisters taught secrets of life and death by Ocna Moppedenjoyed, relocates to Handmarbles,begins apprenticeship 32, midsummer: Zefon Mawlabors becomes obsessed with mortality 32, late autumn: Zefon Mawlabors taught secrets of life and death by Secen Embracedcloister, relocates to Handmarbles, begins apprenticeship 33: Id Bridgefloors becomes general of Gleeful Trade 45: Ramstom Mothacts born to Suque Drivetrussed and Tiqua Knitstands 48: Lam Craftedwalks dies of old age 52, midsummer: Id Bridgefloors leads attack on goblins under Dostngosp Malignfocuses 52, late summer: Gleeful Trade accepts peace terms from goblins under Dostngosp Malignfocuses 55: Gleeful Trade founds Wheelfold 57: Ramstom Mothacts begins wandering wilds 66, midautumn: Id Bridgefloors leads attack on goblins under Azstrog Seawraith 66, late autumn: Gleeful Trade accepts peace terms from goblins under Azstrog Seawraith 67: Cedem Kegentered killed by Ramstom Mothacts 68: Ape Honoradored dies of old age 72: Kulur Diedumbras the Tunnel of Skulls shot and killed by Tiquo Rewardplays Kelly 42 73: Athel Inkedtested born of unknown parentage 74: Uzol Salvegulfs Wheelsearth 80: Ramstom Mothacts killed by colossus One Overblazes 87: Uzol Salvegulfs joins worshipping Útost 89, early winter: Id Bridgefloors leads attack on goblins under Azstrog Seawraith, accepts peace terms 94: Id Bridgefloors dies of old age, entombed in Anvilplayed; Athel Rampartfountain settles in Rockpillars, becomes general of Gleeful Trade; Ilum Wordgarnishes born to unknown parentage 94, early autumn: Athel Rampartfountain journeys to depths, tames giant olms, returns to Rockpillars 94, early winter: Aslot Youthfuljackal profanes Everlasting Sanctuary Snugglefactions, is cursed by Dunem as a wererabbit 95: Ozo Dancemother born to unknown parentage 97: Mathras Waxdunes born to unknown parentage 100, midsummer: Athel Rampartfountain leads attack on goblins under Dostngosp Malignfocuses, has leg slashed; goblins under Dostngos Malignfocuses counterattack, destroy Anvilplayed and mutilate bodies, destroy Wheelfold, accept peace terms from Gleeful Trade; Sarvesh Destinedswords & Erib Granitevoice escape Anvilplayed 101: Everlasting Sanctuary razed in Snugglefactions 102: Nacu Templebelt dies of old age 103, midsummer: Athel Rampartfountains journeys to depths, tames cave crocodiles, returns to Rockpillars born to Likot Searcheddyes Denomination of and Torches, Fath begins in 106, early summer: Zomus Cavernshadows the Skull of Dusk abducts Minat Clashestwinkling, makes spouse; Osman Duskdied the Crypt of Burying born to Zomus Cavernshadows the Skull of Dusk and Minat Clashestwinkling 108, early autumn: Aslot Youthfuljackal attacks Akmol Taxinks, the latter escapes but is bitten, becomes wererabbit Kelly 43 117: Nomar Authoredevens born to unknown parentage 119: Convent of Controlling razed in Sharkbell 120: Uzol Salvegulfs becomes general of Helms of Handling, splits Denomination of Torches into Mountainous Doctrine, settles in Sharkbell, constructs Chapel of Beaks 122: Ilum Wordgarnishes relocates to Lullmartyr, marries Ozo Dancemother 129: Uzol Salvegulfs journeys to depths, tames giant olms,returns to Sharkbell 131: Xugot Smoothnessloves born to Ilum Wordgarnishes and Ozo Dancemother 131, late spring: Akmol Taxinks attacks Xugot Smoothnessloves, the latter escapes but is bitten, becomes wererabbit 132: Uzol Salvegulfs profanes the Chapel of Beaks in Sharkbell, is cursed by Útost as a vampire 142: Gagu Growthflukes born to unknown parentage 142, midspring: Zomus Cavernshadows the Skull of Dusk abducts Mathras Waxdunes, makes spouse 143, late summer: Nomar Authoredevens profanes Sanctuary of Seers in Hidelace, is cursed by Eggu Hoodred as a werelizard 146: Athel Rampartfountains dies of old age; Moldath Boldlancer becomes general of Gleeful Trade, settles in Rockpillars 147, midspring: Moldath Boldlancer journeys to depths, tames giant toads, returns to Rockpillars 154, early summer: Xugot Smoothnessloves attacks Erab Scholarspine, the latter escapes 159, early winter: Moldath Boldlancer becomes obsessed with mortality 170, midspring: Osman Duskdied the Crypt of Burying abducts Erab Scholarspine, makes spouse; Uja Ashtunnels the Crypt of Abysses born to Osman Duskdied the Crypt of Burying and Erab Scholarspine 173: Erush Ropetwinkle becomes queen of Gleeful Trade Kelly 44 177, late spring: Nomar Authoredevens attacks Gagu Growthflukes; the latter escapes but is bitten, becomes werelizard 179, early spring: Moldath Boldlancer journeys to depths, returns to Rockpillars empty-handed 184: Moldath Boldlancer dies of old age; Ezum Kindledtown becomes general of Gleeful Trade 185: Nomar Authoredevens Combinegleamed 189: Turot Polishidol born to unknown parentage 191: Sarvesh Destinedswords becomes king of Gleeful Trade; Timta Shakenframe born to unknown parentage 200: Ala Wondrousfishes born to unknown parentage 201: Athel Inkedtested becomes queen of Gleeful Trade 204: Erib Granitevoice becomes general of Gleeful Trade, settles in Rockpillars shot and killed by Thothil 209, early autumn: Erib Granitevoice journeys to depths, tames giant cave swallows, returns to Rockpillars 218: Erib Granitevoice dies of old age; Asmel Bannercavern becomes general of Gleeful Trade 222: Turot Polishidol becomes holy oracle of Creed of Veiling 222, early spring: Gagu Growthflukes attacks Ala Wondrousfishes; the latter escapes but is bitten, becomes a werelizard 223, midspring: Mathras Waxdunes attacks Timta Shakenframe, the latter escapes 224: Timta Shakenframe marries Turot Polishidol 224, midspring: Xugot Smoothnessloves attacks Timta Shakenframe, the latter escapes 227, late spring: Uja Ashtunnels the Crypt of Shakenframe, the latter escapes 229, midspring: Ala Wondrousfishes attacks Timta Shakenframe, the latter escapes Abysses attacks Timta Kelly 45 230, early spring: Xugot Smoothnessloves attacks Timta Shakenframe again; the latter escapes but is bitten, becomes a wererabbit 231: Timta Shakenframe flees to the Gloved Hills 238, early winter: Asmel Bannercavern journeys to depths, tames jabberers, returns to Rockpillars 242: Etur Passionearths becomes king of Gleeful Trade 244, midspring: Asmel Bannercavern journeys to depths, tames giant rats, returns to Rockpillars 244, late summer: Turot Polishidol becomes obsessed with mortality 251: Gleeful Trade founds Slingattics 252: Timta Shakenframe attacks Slingattics Kelly 46 Appendix B: Playthrough 1 252, early spring: Zasit Razorblocked attacked by Timta Shakenframe and bitten, becomes wererabbit 252, early summer: Zasit Razorblocked struck down by Ingiz Whimfences; Negatedsaint created (ring with image of dwarf surrounded by dwarves) 252, midsummer: Ingiz Whimfences shot and killed by Atir Mirrordrum 252, late autumn: Ardentsinge created (crown with image of animal traps) 252, midwinter: Zulban Strikekeys (merchant) goes berzerk, is shot and killed by Kadol Ragtook 253, early spring: Uzol Salvegulfs settles in Slingattics as Cerol Chanelledden 253, early summer: Domas Heathermanor drained of blood by Uzol Salvegulfs Kelly 47 Appendix C: Playthrough 2 252, late spring: Zasit Razorblocked bleeds to death, slain by Timta Shakenframe 252, early autumn: Iru Hailedrace (elf merchant) goes mad, horse becomes melancholic, both die of thirst 252, midautumn: Adil Strangerdye is possessed, goes mad, dies of thirst 252, late autumn: Domas Heathermanor abducted by Usbu Rankticks; Zolak Brushmenace killed by Sazir Woundbrains 252, early winter: Asen Cloisterbasement abducted by Bax Sootybad; Miredchants created (crown with image of two mountains) 253, midspring: Finbow created (perfect citrine)

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Dwarf Fortress: Narratives of Multiplicity and Deconstruction

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