Pausing the Game

Learn how to pause the game in Dwarf Fortress, navigate the z-levels, and understand the basic interface. Essential controls for managing your fortress.

Alright, so you've managed to get your expedition set up and embarked on your new world. Now, before things get too hectic, let's cover one of the most fundamental actions: pausing the game. It's super simple, but crucial for taking a breath and figuring out what's going on.

To pause the game, you just need to press the Spacebar. You'll see "PAUSED" pop up in the upper left corner of your screen. This is your cue to relax for a second and take stock. To unpause, just hit the Spacebar again.

When the game is running, you'll typically see a three-part window. On the left, there's a top-down view of your dwarfs and their wagon. The middle section is your main menu, and on the right, you've got a map of the immediate area with a cursor showing your current focus. You can cycle through these views by pressing Tab a few times to get a feel for what information is available.

Navigating the world itself is done with the arrow keys. These let you pan around the local view. If you ever lose track of your dwarfs, don't sweat it – just press F1, and the screen will center right back on them.

Now, Dwarf Fortress has a z-axis, meaning you can build up and down. Getting used to how this is visualized is key to avoiding confusion. To move one level up towards the sky, press Shift + <. To move down towards the ground, press Shift + >. Keep an eye out for small dots; these usually indicate you're looking at a level below you. If there's a gap of more than one level between planes, you'll see 'sky'.

Let's say you're looking at your dwarfs on a grassy plateau. You might see green dots and blocks of green all around them, with an arrow pointing down at the border. This arrow means the slope is walkable. If you press Shift + > to go down a level, you'll see that the area where your dwarfs were is now represented in black with gray dots and '%', indicating underground terrain. The rest of the screen will show green characters for grass and trees. This tells you that if your woodworker needs to chop trees, they'll have to head down to that lower zone where the trees are.

Take some time to experiment with moving up and down the z-levels and panning around. Getting familiar with these views is really important.

So, to recap the essential movement commands: you can pan with the arrow keys, move between z-levels with Shift + < and Shift + >, zoom back to your dwarfs with F1, and pause/unpause with the Spacebar. These are the core commands you'll need to remember; the rest will be shown on the main menu.

Once you're paused or just want to know what something is, you can use the k key to 'look around'. This activates a yellow 'X' cursor. Move it with the arrow keys, and whatever is under the cursor will be listed on the right panel. If multiple objects are stacked, they'll be listed one after another. This is the quickest way to identify things. For instance, if you see a gray 'H' under the cursor, the right panel will tell you it's a 'tamed stray horse' on top of grass.

Remember, to exit pretty much any screen in Dwarf Fortress, you'll press the Spacebar. It's the same key for pausing, so just keep that in mind.

Another useful command is v for 'view units'. This also brings up a yellow cursor, but instead of showing what's under it, it displays information about the nearest 'unit' – basically, anything alive like your dwarfs, pets, wild animals, or monsters. Don't worry too much about understanding all the details right now.

It's important to understand that you don't directly control your dwarfs' every move. They're quite autonomous! As your fortress grows, you could have hundreds of them running around. Your job is to set up a list of jobs, and they'll handle the rest based on their skills and priorities. You'll tell them where to dig, where to place doors, and so on. They manage their own eating, sleeping, drinking, and even throwing parties, as long as you provide the necessary resources. If they run out of booze, they'll drink water; if they run out of water, well, they might die of thirst if you don't have a nearby water source. So, your main duty is to keep them happy and healthy by ensuring they have beds, tables, chairs, food, and drinks.

To keep track of what's happening, you can press j for 'jobs'. This shows you a list of your dwarfs and what they're currently doing, along with any jobs waiting in the queue for a free dwarf. You can navigate this list with the arrow keys and cancel jobs with c.