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Author Topic: The Rise and Fall of Roomcarnage :: an ongoing Dwarf Fortress story  (Read 367906 times)

DS

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Read the full story here.

Spoiler Alert: The story told herein contains some situations which are generally considered spoiler material by the DF community. Proceed at your own risk.

Chapters:


Since the early May of 2014, I've been capturing the story of my most recent fortress, Roomcarnage, in the style of a traditional Let's Play. Each chapter of the story so far consists of a single imgur album containing dozens of images with captions. I've been publishing the story on reddit, where it's being rather well received, and I'm eager to share the tale of Roomcarnage also with the bay12 forums.

What makes the story of Roomcarnage unique amongst Dwarf Fortress Let's Plays is the extensive use of .gifs in the storytelling process. Each chapter includes a large number of .gifs in addition to still images, which help to capture the dynamic nature of the game, even while it is paused.

As I produce additional chapters, I'll edit this thread to include them here. Of course, I'm more than happy to answer any questions about the fortress itself, my overseeing techniques, my storytelling method, or anything else you can think of.

Please enjoy!
« Last Edit: January 14, 2024, 02:19:25 pm by DS »
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Finished: Weatherwires, the Last Mountainhome. A tragic mix of Children of Men, City of Ember, and, uh, magma.
Stymied: Correspondence from Syrupurns, a prematurely ended narrative, told through annual updates.
In Progress: Roomcarnage, a fortress clinging to life beneath a haunted glacier.

Crashmaster

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Re: The Rise and Fall of Roomcarnage :: an ongoing Dwarf Fortress story
« Reply #1 on: June 15, 2014, 01:47:06 pm »

I expected awesome and have been delivered unto it.
Great everything.

DS

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Re: The Rise and Fall of Roomcarnage :: an ongoing Dwarf Fortress story
« Reply #2 on: June 16, 2014, 08:17:33 pm »

Thanks! I'm glad you appreciate it.

I've added the newest chapter, as well as spruced up the opening post with a flashy title card. I suppose, once the series is finished, I'll have to go back through and edit each chapter so that it reads more like a continuous story right from the very beginning. I'll leave the editing until the end, though.
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Finished: Weatherwires, the Last Mountainhome. A tragic mix of Children of Men, City of Ember, and, uh, magma.
Stymied: Correspondence from Syrupurns, a prematurely ended narrative, told through annual updates.
In Progress: Roomcarnage, a fortress clinging to life beneath a haunted glacier.

MDFification

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Re: The Rise and Fall of Roomcarnage :: an ongoing Dwarf Fortress story
« Reply #3 on: June 16, 2014, 08:26:40 pm »

 :D It's here!
I freaking love Roomcarnage.
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DS

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Re: The Rise and Fall of Roomcarnage :: an ongoing Dwarf Fortress story
« Reply #4 on: June 19, 2014, 09:30:00 pm »

Yeah! It's here. Probably no update for the next few days - there's a wedding in the family and things are busy. But I hope people are enjoying it!
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Finished: Weatherwires, the Last Mountainhome. A tragic mix of Children of Men, City of Ember, and, uh, magma.
Stymied: Correspondence from Syrupurns, a prematurely ended narrative, told through annual updates.
In Progress: Roomcarnage, a fortress clinging to life beneath a haunted glacier.

Ai Shizuka

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Re: The Rise and Fall of Roomcarnage :: an ongoing Dwarf Fortress story
« Reply #5 on: June 20, 2014, 01:39:18 pm »

Awesome, read it all in one go.
Especially enjoyed the beginning and how you dealt with the various problems as they appeared.
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DS

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Re: The Rise and Fall of Roomcarnage :: an ongoing Dwarf Fortress story
« Reply #6 on: June 23, 2014, 11:33:23 pm »

Glad you enjoyed it! I've just updated with the thirteenth chapter.
Logged
Finished: Weatherwires, the Last Mountainhome. A tragic mix of Children of Men, City of Ember, and, uh, magma.
Stymied: Correspondence from Syrupurns, a prematurely ended narrative, told through annual updates.
In Progress: Roomcarnage, a fortress clinging to life beneath a haunted glacier.

peregarrett

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Re: The Rise and Fall of Roomcarnage :: an ongoing Dwarf Fortress story
« Reply #7 on: June 24, 2014, 06:42:12 am »

Wow, that's cool! Read them all in one and waiting for more. Adamantine tubes fllooding the glacier, mmmm....

A technical question - how do you capture gifs from DF window?
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DS

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Re: The Rise and Fall of Roomcarnage :: an ongoing Dwarf Fortress story
« Reply #8 on: June 24, 2014, 12:02:20 pm »

I've used a couple of programs so far - GifCam and Gif Grabber. I switched from the former to the latter when my laptop began to crumble to its end. GifCam works well on Windows, while Gif Grabber is a Mac OS app - since I now play DF on a MacBook, a change was necessary.

Both programs function in basically the same way - you have a recording area, which captures whatever is behind it as a gif when activated. Gif Grabber has a 10 second recording limit - GifCam can go for longer, but has a tendency to get laggy after a few seconds of recording, resulting in subpar gifs.

It's super easy, either way. Just make sure you get GifCam from the developer's website - anywhere else, and it comes bundled with malware.
Logged
Finished: Weatherwires, the Last Mountainhome. A tragic mix of Children of Men, City of Ember, and, uh, magma.
Stymied: Correspondence from Syrupurns, a prematurely ended narrative, told through annual updates.
In Progress: Roomcarnage, a fortress clinging to life beneath a haunted glacier.

neblime

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Re: The Rise and Fall of Roomcarnage :: an ongoing Dwarf Fortress story
« Reply #9 on: June 24, 2014, 08:40:28 pm »

that buffalo... I drop one tattered cave spider silk sock onto my dwarves and they're sure to be at least crippled for life..
this is awesome!
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http://i.imgur.com/Gv6I6JO.png
I am quite looking forward to the next 20 or 30 years or so of developmental madness

DS

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Re: The Rise and Fall of Roomcarnage :: an ongoing Dwarf Fortress story
« Reply #10 on: June 25, 2014, 10:14:04 pm »

Thanks! Chapter 14 is up, and I've updated the OP to be slightly more current.
Logged
Finished: Weatherwires, the Last Mountainhome. A tragic mix of Children of Men, City of Ember, and, uh, magma.
Stymied: Correspondence from Syrupurns, a prematurely ended narrative, told through annual updates.
In Progress: Roomcarnage, a fortress clinging to life beneath a haunted glacier.

Spehss _

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Re: The Rise and Fall of Roomcarnage :: an ongoing Dwarf Fortress story
« Reply #11 on: June 26, 2014, 11:03:47 am »

Oh cool, you must be the guy from Reddit. I've been lurking r/dwarffortress just to read this. Great story, the GIFs really add to the storytelling. I've tried to embark on several terrifying biomes since first finding this story, the embarks have all been either disappointing or too much fun to handle.

On another note, wow that's a lot of the blue stuff. Didn't realize you could get so much candy from one spire.
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Turns out you can seriously not notice how deep into this shit you went until you get out.

DS

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Re: The Rise and Fall of Roomcarnage :: an ongoing Dwarf Fortress story
« Reply #12 on: June 27, 2014, 11:35:20 am »

Yep, that's me. Although, I've been on these forums for far, far longer than I've been on reddit.

Glad you enjoy the story so far! Evil embarks can certainly go both ways - without the reanimating effect, for example, Roomcarnage would have almost no challenge whatsoever. On the other hand, if there was a syndrome-transmitting weather pattern, it could make it even more uninhabitable than it currently is. It can be difficult, sometimes, to find a happy medium.

And yeah! You sometimes can get quite a bit of candy out of a single spire... and at least three have already been discovered beneath Roomcarnage. There's a lot of variance, though, and there have been times where a single mined out tile has broken through into the circus.
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Finished: Weatherwires, the Last Mountainhome. A tragic mix of Children of Men, City of Ember, and, uh, magma.
Stymied: Correspondence from Syrupurns, a prematurely ended narrative, told through annual updates.
In Progress: Roomcarnage, a fortress clinging to life beneath a haunted glacier.

DS

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Re: The Rise and Fall of Roomcarnage :: an ongoing Dwarf Fortress story
« Reply #13 on: June 27, 2014, 09:06:23 pm »

Chapter fifteen is up!
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Finished: Weatherwires, the Last Mountainhome. A tragic mix of Children of Men, City of Ember, and, uh, magma.
Stymied: Correspondence from Syrupurns, a prematurely ended narrative, told through annual updates.
In Progress: Roomcarnage, a fortress clinging to life beneath a haunted glacier.

Sallen

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Re: The Rise and Fall of Roomcarnage :: an ongoing Dwarf Fortress story
« Reply #14 on: June 29, 2014, 03:58:43 am »

This story is amazing. I'm completely hooked.
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