[Filligree]

You can, actually. I'm pretty sure the text output mode should still work.

I wouldn't recommend it, because it's noticeably slower than the SDL or OpenGL renderers, but you can.

[stepvhen]

I usually play it on a tty, partly because silly decisions, but also I can ssh into a my system that has it installed. I haven't seen a 'noticeable' slow down, but then again most of my forts barely make it to 80 dwarves.

[rsync]

Hmmm.... that's always been my chief complaint about DF - that it isn't text/console based ...

I don't want to run DF on my local system - I want my DF world running on a server in a rack somewhere and I connect over screen/SSH when I need to.

Is that a sane use-case with recent DF releases ?

[dpedu]

From my experience a few releases ago, the game is completely playable in text mode, over SSH. Like others have said, it's a little slower. I think some key combinations work differently too.

[coldpie]

Huh, I didn't know that, thanks. But still, the DF that most people recognize as DF is not an ASCII/text game, even though it looks kinda like it.