Indie Game Corner: Dwarf Fortess

Remember back in the good old days when games were hard?  Not just hard but brutally hard?  As in no-save-file and limited life kinda hard?  Well if you miss those days, if you miss the CHALLENGE, have I got a game for you: Dwarf Fortress.  This game is a retro-style game that is hardly comparable to anything else I even know of.  You don't play as anyone, per sey, but you command hordes of dwarves to...well...there aren't really any real goals.  It's one of those games you play for the journey, not the destination, if you will.  And in case you're wondering, the destination is always loss.
The game is, in terms of controls, quite simple.  It's a Rogue-Like game in the sense that the game screen is filled with dozens of different letters or symbols representing different things.  Capitol D's may be dragons, g's may be goblins, a | is a log or a tree.  Some people are put off by this sort of thing, so there have been "mods" made to make it more literal in appearance.  You move a cursor around using arrow keys, telling this dwarf to dig here, telling that one to gather wood, etc. and, while initially intimidating, it's very easy to grasp the mechanics of the game after just a short while.  Of course, it is entirely possible that your dwarves can starve before you figure out the controls... Or a band of raging goblins slaughters your group of explorers before you can even dig a hole. But it's about the journey, remember that.
If you're playing the game like a sane individual, you are trying to stave off hunger, thirst, death, and even insanity for as long as possible.  Build rooms for dwarves, make them feel like they live some where nice, have a consistent source of fresh food and water, mine precious materials, etc.  However, if you're just a bit less-than-sane, you may, for instance, try to create an artificial lake by flooding the curving valley of the randomly generated terrain.  My computer ended up having to handle so much water-physics, the game slowed so much, it seemed as though I was playing in real time (an in-game day felt like it took 24 hours).  And that's just one of the great stories I have to share about this crazy, random, impossibly deep, and open-ended game.  It may not be your thing, but this game, Dwarf Fortress, is definitely worth looking at.  Just be sure to share your hilarious stories of loss and "defeat", because losing is fun!