Winner of the Ascii Dreams Roguelike of the Year: Dwarf Fortress

Firstly, a big thanks to everyone who voted. I have to say, this is an intriguing choice.

Dwarf Fortress has had a great year - or at least an interesting one. From January to the end of October, DF fans had to go without any new releases, except an ever growing change log to sate their rapid appetites for complex game play. In March, the epic re visitation of Boatmurdered, Dwarf Fortress's most well known and beloved fortress concluded with a whimper, rather than a bang - but leaving horrific legends of elephanticide in its wake. And the October 29 release of version 0.27.169.33a forced long time fans to deal with the dreaded z-axis - a monster only rarely unleashed on roguelike players, except through the abstraction of a nice set of stairs.

But at the same time, Dwarf Fortress has become the critical darling of the 'mainstream' games media, and set a new bar for what indie and amateur game developers can deliver. And midway through December, the release of a 3rd party graphic visualisation software suggests even those averse to ASCII graphics may have a graphical option to play with at some future date.

To learn more about Dwarf Fortress, you can read the wikipedia entry, visit the Dwarf Fortress wiki, and join the forums. You can download Dwarf Fortress here.