10 Video Games With Incredibly Steep Learning Curves

Slaves to Armok: God of Blood Chapter II: Dwarf Fortress, or, as most people call it, Dwarf Fortress, is a construction and management simulation game first released in 2006. The game uses a type of graphics most modern players won't recognize, but anyone who used to log onto Bulletin Boards before the Internet will know it as ASCII.

The game is set in a procedurally-generated fantasy world, where players take control of dwarves as they attempt to construct a fortress. The ASCII is one of the first learning curves players need to overcome, as it's unlike anything in development today... or when it was released.

The game is incredibly complex and detailed, and before a player can start playing, Dwarf Fortress' engine needs to generate a world containing continents, oceans, and a history documenting the civilization. When play begins, the player enters their unique procedurally-generated world, where they select a location, establish a colony, and defend it from threats.

Like any strategy simulation game, there's a lot to learn in order to play the game well, but for many, learning the text-based graphics can be challenging. That said, even if the game featured regular pixel-based graphics, it would still be complex and difficult to master.