I'm really starting to see the fortress, not the ASCII.

I’m doing well. The terrible famine and slayings of earlier years is past – and left me with loads of spare clothes to trade with when merchants appear. I’ve got an underground farm going, finally, and I’m brewing alcoholic drinks, cooking food, making weapons and all sorts of amazing things.

I’m even in the process of building a throne room.

I’ve had a bit of trouble with rhesus macaques, but the dogs tend to chase them down and kill them, so they’re not a major nuisance.

It’s all going really, really well. Which means something’s bound to go horribly, horribly wrong soon.

This is part of my fortress. You can see the scene of a bloody battle. Honestly.

I’ve tried to play it before, but never very successfully. By which I mean that I started it up, failed to do anything, then quit.

For the first time, though, I’ve got somewhere. Sure, I’ve flooded all my lower floors after a floodgate disaster. Yes, my dwarves nearly starved to death and many of them went berserk and killed their friends. No, I can’t work out why my dwarves are leaving animal corspes lying around. And I can’t work out why no crops seem to be growing on my farm.

The orphaned kittens make me sad.

Still, I’m doing okay. I actually managed to dig out a multi-level fort before flooding it. I’ve made beds and a floodgate and lever to operate the floodgate. I’ve managed to trade with the merchants who arrived. I’m doing pretty well, all in all.