Vomiting goats, kitten fights, ghost beheadings, and other reasons Steam reviewers are giving Dwarf Fortress 10/10 (or higher)
"One of my miners got in a fight with a kitten and had to be hospitalized, then my Chief Medical Dwarf died in a mining incident and the miner died of dehydration 11/10"
As someone who occasionally reviews games for a website that often reviews games, I probably shouldn't be saying this, but… my favorite game reviews are on Steam, written by players. I'm specifically talking about a certain type of game review that usually comes in the form of a sentence or two, followed by a score. And that score is always "10/10."
You probably know these reviews: they usually describe some sort of weird or funny emergent behavior. For instance, a Far Cry 5 review that says something like "Went fishing, enemy soldier attacked me but got killed by a bear, I shot the bear but got mauled by a mountain lion. 10/10." Or sometimes its simpler, like a review of Elden Ring that says "Will let Malenia step on me again - 10/10."
With Dwarf Fortress at long last launching on Steam today, I went review diving because if there's ever been a game with bizarre emergent behavior and fans who love it, it's DF. And I wasn't disappointed. Here's a few 10/10 reviews (and some scored much higher) I found in just a couple minutes on Steam.
Mike: "Started a lovely fortress, built into the side of a mountain, next to a fish stocked river. Migrants joined, trade was booming and two migrant children jumped into the river and drowned. They came back as ghosts and proceeded to behead the other members of the fortress. 10/10"
Rando: "Lost half my dwarves to dehydration, turned their bones into trade goods. 10/10 would get haunted again."
The krut: "10/10 would watch Urist McWoodcutter get crushed by a falling tree again"
Marcus: "Finished the tutorial and my fortress almost immediately flooded killing nearly everyone 10/10 GOTY / decade"
Spankleford: "Two dwarfs drowned and weren't found for several months, a yak was jailed, and a goat vomited everywhere outside while my fortress was slowly being swallowed by miasma. Rimworld wishes it was this silly. 15/10 DF is actually so much fun."
Injury: "Alligators ended everything a lot sooner than anyone ever expected 10/10 GOTY"
Anden: "10/10, would die to zombie carps again."
Vespero: "One of my miners got in a fight with a kitten and had to be hospitalized, then my Chief Medical Dwarf died in a mining incident and the miner died of dehydration 11/10"
TuGun Jr.: "Been playing for some time now and finally got it on steam. I started an embark next to a river and my miner spawned in and drowned without me realizing for the first couple of minutes until i saw dwarves were horrified. 11/10 would embark again."
Icy Screams: "FEAR THE ALLIGATOR MEN!! THEY SHOW NO REMORSE! 10/10 WILL BE DEVOURED AGAIN"
Proctorg76: "I haven't even finished worldgen and yet thanks to the new live stream of historical events it is year 417 and I am watching two civs named The Playful Flute and The Curled Nuts steamroll the entire world and begin a cold war with each other. 10/10 GOTY."
I'm a fucking elf: "I just flooded my first fortress because I dug through a frozen river without realizing - until it thawed. 10/10 would drown in ice cold water again."
Legion: "Первая же крепость была уничтожена стаей гигантских Орлов ещё до прихода первого пополнения.Просто 10/10"
(Via Google translation: "The very first fortress was destroyed by a flock of giant Eagles even before the arrival of the first replenishment. Just 10/10")
FlatBoulders: "You can make pets burst into flames... it's a 10/10."
To close things out, there's even a negative review, unhappy about the Steam overlay. The score is still surprisingly high:
TommyTwoTimes: "Steam Overlay doesn't work!!!! FIX EEET REEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE 10/10"