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Interpreting Dwarf Fortress: Finitude, Absurdity, and Narrative
Editors
Title / Series / Name
Games and Culture
Publication Volume
Publication Issue
Pages
Authors
Editors
Keywords
URI
http://hdl.handle.net/20.500.14018/13841
Abstract
This article interprets the influential colony management simulator “Dwarf Fortress” existentially, in terms of finitude, absurdity, and narrative. It applies Aarseth/Möring's proposed method of game interpretation, adopting their definition of “cybermedia” as a generalized game ontology, then providing a specialized ontology of “Dwarf Fortress” which describes its genre and salient gameplay features, incorporating Ian Bogost's concept of “procedural rhetoric.” It then gives an existentialist interpretation of “Dwarf Fortress” which centers on “finitude,” “absurdity,” and “narrative,” showing that “Dwarf Fortress” is a game about the existential tensions involved in being human. We live knowing our lives and civilizations are finite, that there are radical limits on what we can know and do. There is no meaning inherent in the world, or in history, so it is up to us to create our own, and one of our most powerful ways of doing this is narrative.
Topic
Publisher
Place of Publication
Type
Journal article
Date
2023
Language
ISBN
Identifiers
10.1177/15554120231162418