Someday, maybe, by some manner of communal Herculean effort, we will find a way to take the peerlessly rich/complex but almost entirely unapproachable game Dwarf Fortress and match it with a style as gorgeous as Tim Denee‘s illustrations above.
The image is part of a children’s book style retelling of one of Denee’s in-game travails, whereby a newly founded fortress had everything it needed to thrive but its water pump switch flipped. Unfortunately, legendary beast ‘Oggez Rashas’ rested directly on top of that switch.
The story’s enough to make me want to have my tenth or so go at getting my feet wet in the game, as terrifyingly dense as it is. My hope is that Mike Mayday’s recently updated graphical edition, available here, helps ease me in.