A newbie plays Dwarf Fortress: Ep. 5

News
By published

dwarffortress-ep5-teaser

In episode 5 of PC Gamer's Dwarf Fortress Let's Play , Wes and Will discuss mermen and learn all about trading when the first caravan arrives arrives at their fortress. Turns out, trading involves a lot of menus.

In early July 2014, Dwarf Fortress received its first major update in two years. We wrote about why now is the time to get into the game with our guide Into the deep . Now we're learning how to play.

Check back every Tuesday and Thursday for new episodes of A Newbie plays Dwarf Fortress .

Wes Fenlon
Wes Fenlon
Senior Editor

Wes has been covering games and hardware for more than 10 years, first at tech sites like The Wirecutter and Tested before joining the PC Gamer team in 2014. Wes plays a little bit of everything, but he'll always jump at the chance to cover emulation and Japanese games.

When he's not obsessively optimizing and re-optimizing a tangle of conveyor belts in Satisfactory (it's really becoming a problem), he's probably playing a 20-year-old Final Fantasy or some opaque ASCII roguelike. With a focus on writing and editing features, he seeks out personal stories and in-depth histories from the corners of PC gaming and its niche communities. 50% pizza by volume (deep dish, to be specific).

Latest in Sim
Decorations in TCG Card Shop Simulator
TCG Card Shop Simulator finally adds the ability to decorate our stores, and suddenly all my profits are being spent on adorable Pigni posters
Dean Hall at GDC 2025.
Outer space inspired DayZ's Dean Hall to become a modder and game developer, and now he's making a Kerbal successor called Kitten Space Agency
Bannerlord naval expansion reveal
Mount & Blade 2: Bannerlord is heading to the ocean with a Viking-themed naval expansion this summer
Truckin' in the rain.
American Truck Simulator’s latest teaser is just a sound effect and no one seems to agree on what exactly it means
PowerWash Simulator 2 screenshots
'More evolution than revolution': PowerWash Simulator 2 is coming late 2025, and it's bringing online multiplayer and split-screen co-op with it
A child stands on top of a dinosaur exhibit, hugging the nose of a dinosaur skull.
As a real life museum employee, I'm a bit confused by the amount of pirate ghosts in Two Point Museum—but it's not going to stop me trying to make the most realistic exhibits I can
Latest in News
Metaphor: ReFantazio character art
Metaphor: ReFantazio battle director says turn-based RPGs can still be just as popular as action RPGs: 'I personally believe turn-based games have a long future ahead of them'
assassin's creed shadows review
Assassin's Creed Shadows streamer goes viral after confronting whining commenters: 'Normal people don't get upset about this sh***'
Assassin's Creed Shadows change seasons - An upper-body shot of Yasuke looking cheerfully up into the distance.
'This is just the beginning': Assassin's Creed Shadows dev team thanks fans for their support and promises more to come in the future
Geralt sitting on a wall wearing a Cyberpunk jacket modded by TheRealArdCarraigh
The Witcher 3 devs had to practically remake the game engine to make official modding possible
Serana from Skyrim, modded to look like a desiccated corpse.
Skyrim realism mod fixes your vampire girlfriend, giving her a voice and look more suited to someone who just got out of a coffin after 2,000 years
Gabe Newell looks into the camera, behind him is a prop of a turret from Team Fortress 2.
Gabe Newell's cult of personality is intense, but a Valve exec who worked with him says his superpower is how he 'delighted in people on the team just being really good at what they did'
More about sim
Decorations in TCG Card Shop Simulator

TCG Card Shop Simulator finally adds the ability to decorate our stores, and suddenly all my profits are being spent on adorable Pigni posters
Dean Hall at GDC 2025.

Outer space inspired DayZ's Dean Hall to become a modder and game developer, and now he's making a Kerbal successor called Kitten Space Agency
Metaphor: ReFantazio character art

Metaphor: ReFantazio battle director says turn-based RPGs can still be just as popular as action RPGs: 'I personally believe turn-based games have a long future ahead of them'
See more latest
Most Popular
Metaphor: ReFantazio character art
Metaphor: ReFantazio battle director says turn-based RPGs can still be just as popular as action RPGs: 'I personally believe turn-based games have a long future ahead of them'
assassin's creed shadows review
Assassin's Creed Shadows streamer goes viral after confronting whining commenters: 'Normal people don't get upset about this sh***'
Assassin's Creed Shadows change seasons - An upper-body shot of Yasuke looking cheerfully up into the distance.
'This is just the beginning': Assassin's Creed Shadows dev team thanks fans for their support and promises more to come in the future
Geralt sitting on a wall wearing a Cyberpunk jacket modded by TheRealArdCarraigh
The Witcher 3 devs had to practically remake the game engine to make official modding possible
Serana from Skyrim, modded to look like a desiccated corpse.
Skyrim realism mod fixes your vampire girlfriend, giving her a voice and look more suited to someone who just got out of a coffin after 2,000 years
Image for 'No real human would go four links deep into a maze of AI-generated nonsense': Cloudflare's AI Labyrinth uses decoy pages to trap web-crawling bots and feed them slop 'as a defensive weapon'
'No real human would go four links deep into a maze of AI-generated nonsense': Cloudflare's AI Labyrinth uses decoy pages to trap web-crawling bots and feed them slop 'as a defensive weapon'
Gabe Newell looks into the camera, behind him is a prop of a turret from Team Fortress 2.
Gabe Newell's cult of personality is intense, but a Valve exec who worked with him says his superpower is how he 'delighted in people on the team just being really good at what they did'
Razer DeathAdder V3 Pro gaming mouse on a blue background
The Razer DeathAdder V3 Pro is as cheap as I've ever seen it and it's even cheaper than the cut-back HyperSpeed version
The Spy from Team Fortress 2 holds up a folder with an accusatory expression.
One of Valve's original executives shares a very simple secret to its success: 'You can't use up your credibility' by trying to make bad games work
The Razer Huntsman Mini 60% gaming keyboard floats in the teal PC Gamer deal void. The per-key RGB lights are on.
The most adorable Razer keyboard features not only an almost half-size form factor, but an almost half-size price at only $70