izigame.me

Upsetting to see so many negative reviews complaining about conflicts with muscle memory from the new UI. One would expect a DF veteran to be capable of navigating a menu to rebind their hotkeys, but apparently that is not the case. If you're reading this and disagree, just toggle the "keyboard cursor" option in the game settings.
If you're wondering how it feels to play this game, go watch the initial Erebor scene from the first hobbit movie (the only good thing to come from that trilogy besides Smaug). That's exactly how it feels to play.
If you've heard of this game before, you've probably heard that its incredibly hard, or it has a very steep learning curve. 90% of that curve came from the archaic UI that the game had, which, while very functional, was not very easy to learn. Now the onboarding experience is a lot easier, with ingame tutorials and help sections explaining the various aspects of the game. You might still need to consult the wiki on somethings, but its not hopeless anymore.
So what's the appeal of this game? Is it the survival aspect? Not at all. Just like in minecraft you could simply dig yourself into a hole, seal yourself off and survive off a single farm plot indefinitely. This is a sandbox, and its about setting your own goals and accomplishing them. And this sandbox is full of toys. And it's a living sandbox as well. When you create a new world, its history is generated from year 1. You can watch in real time as kingdoms rise and fall, colossal beasts ravage the land and are felled by mighty heroes, wars are fought and alliances are forged, all in the span of a few seconds as the game prepares a world for you to play in. And while you play, this world is still living in the background. You are not the protagonist of this story, you are merely an element in it, and everything happens for a reason. It's very enjoyable to just let things happen and observe life in the fortress. Dwarves have a surprising degree of agency and will usually try to find something to do. While the game does show a -slight- bias in making things happen to the player, for the most part everything is kept organic and has a chain of causality, making things feel fair.
And that is very important, when you consider that one of the most interesting aspects of the game is when things go wrong. REALLY wrong. The game's motto is "Losing is fun", and it earns it. Here's a couple of examples from my games:
This was a pretty young fortress, perhaps about a year old, in the middle of the woods. I was taking things slow because it was in the wilderness, away from any other settlements so I wasn't expecting any invaders. I was very wrong, because I was attacked by a forest titan. A giant, moss-covered spider. It rushed over to the dwarves that were outside and slaughtered them in seconds, trailing dwarven blood all over the ground. It then beelined towards the entrance of my fortress. I had neglected defenses and all I had was a simple wooden door, which didnt stand a chance at stopping the ravenous beast. My dwarves were all running deeper into the fortress in a panic, knowing there was nothing to do but run and hide. All of them but one, my hunter. With nerves of steel he pulled out his crossbow, took aim at the charging beast and with a quick prayer to Armok he pulled the trigger, shooting a bronze bolt which hit it square in the head. The mighty ageless beast was struck down, and the hunter had earned his title as a titan slayer.

This next fortress was a lot more advanced. It was being sieged several times a year, but my defenses could handle everything that was thrown at them. Gold and gemstones were being mined from the depths, and metals were being smelted in magma forges, crafting riches and weapons. I was buying everything the caravans brought, paying in platinum coins. My militia was few, but very well trained, veterans of dozens of battles, clad in the very best steel and adamantium that dwarven smiths could craft. But one day, one of these smiths was suddenly seized, and possessed by an unknown force. He rushed to the forge and spent an entire week locked in there, working non-stop. The result of this work frenzy was a single, adamantium ring, with images of a primordial demon masterfully engraved on it's surface. I probably don't have to tell you what this means. News about the precious treasure soon got out, and The Dark Lord would eventually come to reclaim what's his. I had just enough time to prepare, building a steel vault, suspended by a chain above the magma sea to lock the Ring in. And sure enough, it didn't take too long for a for vile force of darkness to arrive. There were dozens, maybe over a hundred greenskins, riding on beakdogs, accompanied by trolls and even a chained cave dragon. My militia defenders stood and fought bravely, bathing the battlefield in blood and bodyparts, but they were hopelessly outnumbered. The entire landscape outside the fortress was set ablaze as the green tide rushed into the fortress, killing all in it's wake. One of the last survivors rushed down the mineshaft, past the cave spider farms, past the treasure vaults, past the magma crab colosseum, past the vampire computer, all the way to the magma sea and pulled the lever that plunged the vault with the Ring into the bubbling blood of the earth, denying it's power to the world. I could see all the goblins just sorta stop and look disoriented, shortly before the game displayed the message "Your fortress has crumbled to it's end..."
Losing is fun.