Thanks, that’s helpful. I’ll give it a go today.
Oh, and I am DEFINITELY still finishing my comp entry. 
Actually this is quite a coincidence Lumin, I basically have the exact same idea for an IF game in the works, only with prose instead of a graphical display. Also I didn’t choose dwarves. In fact the working title is ‘Troll Tribes’.
So yes, I do think it’s possible.
best, George
There is a small bit about this game on page 152 of the November Game Informer magazine.
ARGH! Curse you Dwarf Fortress, curse you! As if ADOM and Dungeon Crawl haven’t eaten enough of my life! D:
I keep meaning to try out some more rogue-likes – what are your favourites?
My experience is pretty much limited to the above.
ADOM (Ancient Domains of Mystery) is a particular favorite of mine. Your usual mix of bunches of races, bunches of classes, though this one any race can choose any class (their Troll Monk is a particular favorite of mine). Adventure through the Drakalor Mountain chain, visiting towns, caves, dungeons, etc. etc. All sorts of places to go, and things to do, yadda yadda etc. Defeat the forces of primordial Chaos that are corrupting reality! Or, perhaps there is another way…
http://www.adom.de
Then there’s Dungeon Crawl, another little lovely that sends you through one really huge honkin’ dungeon in search of the Orb of Zot. Not all races can be all classes, but it seems both fairly balanced and fun. For a different twist, try playing as a Ghoul or Mummy!
There are two primary versions out of this, to my understanding. There’s a version which was the last made by the original author (this I have played), and a version called Dungeon Crawl Stone Soup, which is a version continuously worked on by a group of fans of the first. Someone made a mouse interface and graphical patch for the former, which I highly recommend getting if you try it. To my limited knowledge, Stone Soup doesn’t have such yet.
Crawl Stone Soup does have a tiles (graphics) version. The most recent release of Linley’s Dungeon Crawl, the original, was in 2003, whereas Stone Soup is in active development.
As for roguelikes in general, the two big ones are NetHack and Angband.
Regarding the IF as a Sim, I’ve always wondered about that too. I remember when I was using AMOS on the Amiga, I wanted to do something like that set in a hotel. You could do your job, or wander around the hotel and do whatever you wanted: steal from guests, kill your boss, etc. I got the rooms done, and some of the NPC’s, but the AI stumped me. I eventually got bored and programmed a poor Dungeon Master clone instead, lol. I wanted your workmates to follow scripts unless you messed them up. I.e, putting alcohol in their soda would make them oversleep or something like that. It was far too big to manage.