Dwarf Fortress

[Strolen]

I want to try this but I think it would eat my life.

http://www.bay12games.com/dwarves/

Dwarf Fortress is a single-player fantasy game. You can control a dwarven outpost or an adventurer in a randomly generated, persistent world.

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/07/24/magazine/the-brilliance-of-dwarf-fortress.html?_r=2&ref=technology&pagewanted=all

Though its medieval milieu of besieged castles and mutant enemies may be familiar, Dwarf Fortress appeals mainly to a substratum of hard-core gamers. The game’s unofficial slogan, recited on message boards, is “Losing is fun!” Dwarf Fortress’s unique difficulty begins with its most striking feature: The way it looks. In an industry obsessed with pushing the frontiers of visual awe, Dwarf Fortress is a defiant throwback, its interface a dense tapestry of letters, numbers and crude glyphs you might have seen in a computer game around 1980. A normal person looks at ♠§dg  and sees gibberish, but the Dwarf Fortress initiate sees a tense tableau: a dog leashed to a tree, about to be mauled by a goblin.

Anybody ever tried it?

[Dozus]

I tried it a couple times a while back. It's definitely for the hardcore, and for someone who's prepared to take the time necessary for its learning curve. I gave up when I couldn't figure out how to do much more than walk around.

[Silveressa]

I've seen it, but the graphics were too primitive to really grab my attention, which combined with the learning curve made it not worth the effort to figure out.

[EchoMirage]

I encourage you to try ADOM - its graphics are ASCII, the learning curve less steep, and you follow only the fate of one hero.

[Pieh]

I've never taken the time to try Dwarf Fortress, but I have played NETHACK briefly which is similar in style and death-rate. There are a lot of epic stories that come out of Dwarf Fortress games. Like the immense, multi generation Boatmurdered: http://lparchive.org/Dwarf-Fortress-Boatmurdered/ and my favorite: Bronzemurder (Because it has pictures!) http://df.magmawiki.com/index.php/DF2010:Stories/Bronzemurder#Full_Sized_Images

I'm also going to plug a simple game known as Progress Quest: http://progressquest.com/

This game has fascinated me for a few years now, thought I only "play" once in a blue moon. The "game" claims to remove the tediousness of most mainstream RPGs and allow you to experience the leveling up, selling/buying loot/artifacts, and intense monster griding to complete quests through various acts... All with very little human interaction. Worth a quick download, if you ask me.