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[Aqizzar]

Inspired by and started for this incredible thread, I propose a community modding project - a total conversion of Dwarf Fortress to be kid friendly for use as an educational tool.  The target age range is roughly 8-9, about 3rd grade.  It'll need lots of work and minor changes and tweaks, but just think of the fun!  And, we'll finally be doing something to amend our e-souls for all the depraved horror we usually take part in.

No specific ideas yet, but some obvious points would be-

-De-fantasy.  Fantasy elements are great and all, but it can be confusing for someone who doesn't have a decade of western RPG experience to grapple with.  Not just making it a little more generic, but toning things down and going for more kid-like fantasy elements.  No foul blendecs or nightwings, but dragons and trolls are great.  Obviously, this will spawn a lot of discussion.

-Along with that, making it Human oriented would be for the best.  Its already confusing enough managing a settlement, having to think about it in Tolkien-esque dwarf form is unnecessary.  This is more than just moving the CIV_CONTROLLABLE tag, optimization will be needed, like above-ground farming and such.

-Making the language kid-acceptable.  The RNG will bite us in the ass doing it any other way, so this will require stripping out big parts of the dictionary so there's no chance of words like 'rape' and 'whore' coming up.  Actually, just making it all English wouldn't be bad either, but leaving the languages in for flavor and experience would be good too.  Likewise, all references to alcohol will need to be removed.  Mostly this would involve changing the names of drinks, but the "needs alcohol to get through the day" line is hardcoded and will have to go.  I don't know this, but I've heard removing alcohol dependency means a creature can't drink anything but water, that'll need some experimenting.

-The big one, Censorship.  The problem here is, it's not really possible.  Creatures can be kept from bleeding, but that has a profound impact on gameplay.  Changing blood to something else is just delaying the issue, and the same goes for things like vomit.  On the other hand, kids can handle a lot more violence than we give them credit for - the problem there is we don't get to make that judgment, and the worry is the kids will yak about flying limbs and blood splatters (not to mention crippled dogs and such) in front of the wrong people.  The suggestion was to let a principle approve the game first, but that's for the other thread.

That's all I can summarize so far.  Anybody else want in on this?

[Reasonableman]

Curious. Most curious. I doubt that it could be done, but stand behind the idea at least 94%. And that's an 'A'!

[Idiom]

You can't remove booze!
Historically brewing was the only dependable way to sterilize a source of water.

No fantasy whatsoever. Just different groups of humans to fight. Saxons, Germanic Tribes, Celts, etc. Not even Dragons or trolls.

[Neonivek]

I fully support this project!

[IndonesiaWarMinister]

Actually, even if you remove the alcohol dependent tags, they still prefer booze over water. Test with human.

[Greiger]

Yea they will still prefer booze and although their work speed will be unaffected, if they drink something they like they will still get a happy thought. 

I think I even had a fort with residents that were tired of the same old drink when all there was was well water.

[Yanlin]

I don't see what's wrong with alcohol. Fact is beer was used instead of drinking water.

But you must remember, the beer back then was WAY WEAKER. Getting drunk just by drinking it like water would work.

Also it didn't taste as good.

(Personally I find the taste disgusting. Modern beer that is.)

Now wine, wine is different. It was used as a luxury drink through the ages. Again, not really the source of drunk roughhousing.

About limbs. I see no reason to remove that. After all, no graphical representation pretty much means the censor has to lay off. Besides, good way to teach about medieval combat and medicine. The best thing they could do about severed limbs is wait. Organ damage would also help them imagine combat and be imaginative. I'm sure all of us are smarter than the idiots who say "Watching murder makes you murder."

Don't forget geology. Dwarf Fortress is great for teaching geology. The only flaw I can think off the top of my head is that Gypsum is white. Not yellow.

Adamantine has to be removed honestly. We can't have those demons and a super metal made out of diamonds.

Above ground living has to be improved. We have workshops don't we? How about creating house models? You could build a "House" or "Room" that way. I'm for the room idea. You make a small house with the current walling system, then build the rooms. Dining rooms. Bedrooms, etc.

Don't forget to make mining slower. It's way too fast.

Skill gain needs a nerf too.

A school in the game would be awesome. But that's a backburner project.

Today One could probably give us a "School" version of the game by fixing the source code and removing the hardcodded love to alcohol.

Blood needs to be less graphical. One or two tiles stained is fine. Have the pool be harder to make.

No flying stuff. We don't need stuff flying 50 feet because they got hit and then slam into a tree. Remove that.

Weapons need to be restricted to swords, maces, crossbows and longbows.

Armor is fine.

We need to overhaul the clothes system as a whole.

Give humans a human like tileset. Something friendly to kids who don't want to memorize ASCII like us. (I once dreamt a big yellow C was attacking somebody ans he was yelling "HELP! A COUGAR!")

Wood dependacy and quarry mining.

Faster wall deconstruction.

Faster healing from yellow wounds.



That's all I can think off from the top of my head.

I'd love to teach MY kids with DF... That is... If DF still exists in 15 years. (Being optimistic )



Edit: STICKY THIS THREAD!

[HungryHobo]

Hmm... I think as long as all "bad" words are removed then the completely non graphic violence is fine, I mean the public have shown a tendency to care much much much more about sex and swearing than about descriptions of violence.
(might there be any way to replace the "Lover" relationship with say "Fiance")
If parents object then you can always sit them down in front of the modded game and show them the "graphic violence" their kids are being subjected to. It's hard to imagine anyone but jack thomson looking at dwarf fortress and seeing Manhunt.

Having to care for you injured dwarfs is also a valuable aspect of the game.

Dwarf fortress is hardly going to give anyone nightmares.

A decent graphics pack is essential.Say the Mikemayday one.

Some tweaking to make it a human fortress instead of dwarfs with a bias towards above ground buildings.

Mining can be slowed down a lot by increasing density can't it?

Edit out some of the more silly creatures like tigermen.

Turn off a few of the fantasy elements like moods.

Replace goblins/elves by simply renaming them as some other human tribes and setting their attributes to be closer to humans in size/weight.

Leave in dragons though even if it's not realistic cause every kid loves dragons.

[Erom]

I would also make farming harder, if you're trying to actually make it a game to teach them about survival - it would be neat if half the class failed to get enough food put away before winter and had to hunt to survive. You could tell them that's exactly what happened to the pilgrims their first winter, and if a few hunters get wounded, you can tell them about how many were sick that first winter and how many were well, and how hard it was to keep everyone alive with only a few able bodies.

Personally, I wound allow blood but remove limb chopping and organ damage. I would think kids would be old enough at that point that if they see their hunter getting chewed on by wolves, and there is 0 blood, they'll feel like the game is silly. Is there any way to remove vomit, I wonder? Since, having worked with 3rd graders extensively, once they see vomit in the game the entire class period is going to be wasted on puke jokes. Blood won't have as strong an effect.

[Yanlin]

I would also make farming harder, if you're trying to actually make it a game to teach them about survival - it would be neat if half the class failed to get enough food put away before winter and had to hunt to survive. You could tell them that's exactly what happened to the pilgrims their first winter, and if a few hunters get wounded, you can tell them about how many were sick that first winter and how many were well, and how hard it was to keep everyone alive with only a few able bodies.

Personally, I wound allow blood but remove limb chopping and organ damage. I would think kids would be old enough at that point that if they see their hunter getting chewed on by wolves, and there is 0 blood, they'll feel like the game is silly. Is there any way to remove vomit, I wonder? Since, having worked with 3rd graders extensively, once they see vomit in the game the entire class period is going to be wasted on puke jokes. Blood won't have as strong an effect.

There's a way to deal with puke jokes.

They love the game don't they?

They misbehave, no game for them.

Problem solved.

[i2amroy]

You could also maybe have two versions of the kid-friendly thing. One which was totally worked over and extremely kid-friendly, and then another that was more complicated and had more of the original in it, like drinks and playing with dwarves or something like that. This would allow people who had decided that there kid had a grasp on the ropes of the game and could handle more could jump them halfway to the original, instead of instantly going from strawberry cola and humans to Dwarven wine and dwarves.

[Yanlin]

You could also maybe have two versions of the kid-friendly thing. One which was totally worked over and extremely kid-friendly, and then another that was more complicated and had more of the original in it, like drinks and playing with dwarves or something like that. This would allow people who had decided that there kid had a grasp on the ropes of the game and could handle more could jump them halfway to the original, instead of instantly going from strawberry cola and humans to Dwarven wine and dwarves.

We could get funding that way. Instead of booze we'd have Cola. Product placement. Hehe.

[socially_inept_butterfly]

Raise the price of seeds a bit, you can't embark with 50+ seeds if they cost 3 each.
That should nerf farming a bit, as long as you find a way to make it so that they don't sell the seeds.

[Kashyyk]

I like this idea, and I wish that my teachers new about this when I was the right age for it.
Isn't there a tag that decides how mant seeds you can get from each plant, or how many plants you get in a stack, or something?

[Neonivek]

Can't you just rename Alcohol into something harmless? Like Juice!