King of the Dwarves News

[h2]Greetings, Dwarven Lords![/h2]

We have noticed several comments under the recent announcements asking about any news regarding the playable version of the game. It's not our intention to hide our plans, and we are fully aware that many of you have been waiting for this game for a long time now. Let's take a look at our upcoming plans for King of the Dwarves.

[h2]Demo Plans Unveiled[/h2]

When it comes to launching a Demo, most developers on Steam are currently taking advantage of the Steam Next Fest events, which occur 3 times per year. Steam has officially announced the following dates for their upcoming Next Fests:

• Next Fest | June 9 - June 16, 2025
  
• Next Fest | October 13 - October 20, 2025
  

Let's be fully transparent with you - we won't make it in time to join the Steam Next Fest in June. But we will do our best to attend this event in October. It might require us to channel our inner dwarven stubbornness in order to make it happen, but we really want to achieve this goal.

So officially, the demo should be available for you to play on October 13, 2025.

[h2]Demo Limitations[/h2]

Having said that, what are your preferences for limiting the demo content? Would you rather play a Demo that ends after an hour of gameplay? Or would you rather play at your own pace but have the demo end once a certain objective is reached? Let us know in the comments what your preferred approach is!

Best regards,
King of the Dwarves Team

[h2]Greetings, Dwarven Lords![/h2]
It's time to discuss the most common enemies that threaten our settlement in the mountains. While your Dwarves must overcome many challenges - such as floods, lava, and strategic planning - when it comes to natural foes, two types stand out the most. Trolls and goblins. Every dwarf hates those two races with a burning passion.

[h2]Trolls[/h2]

You have probably already seen the Trolls in our trailer. Let's take a closer look at their characteristics:

• Trolls are strong and resilient, but also slow and thick-skulled. Plan your defense accordingly.
  
• They destroy everything in their sight. Trolls will demolish the buildings within your settlement with ease.
  
• Trolls can deal damage to several units around with one hit.
  
• Trolls attack alone, most of the time. On rare occasions, Trolls can form bigger groups, but it's a rare and deadly occurrence.
  

[h2]Goblins[/h2]

Goblins haven't been shown much yet. In a way, those small, annoying creatures are a complete opposite of the trolls. Their distinct traits look like this:

• Goblins are fast and sneaky. They can try running away or chasing your units efficiently.
  
• Luckily, goblins aren't strong and their endurance is low. When in a 1v1 scenario, a dwarven warrior will kill one goblin with ease.
  
• To counter their weakness, goblins prefer attacking in groups or even swarms. They truly believe in strength in numbers.
  
• Goblins can be considered as greedy as Dwarves. While Trolls will happily obliterate everything in their way, goblins can sometimes prepare a sudden attack to steal resources from the player. This also means that they tend to collect their loot and keep it near their camps. If you encounter a group of goblins somewhere in the mountain, the precious gold coins will likely be there too.
  

What do you think about those enemies? And what other threats would you like your dwarven army to encounter? Let us know in the comments!

Best regards,
King of the Dwarves Team

[h2]Greetings, Dwarven Lords![/h2]

Making a game is not only programming, making art, sounds and music, it also involves research into various themes.

Dwarves in the popular culture were first popularized by Tolkien and his stories in “The Hobbit” and “The Lord of the Rings”. Also, you might know that Tolkien was inspired by Old Norse mythology. As fans of both, Tolkien’s world and Old Norse mythology, we delved into research how we should present dwarves and female dwarves in particular.

[h2]Tolkien Dwarves[/h2]

First, lets look into what Tolkien had to say about females. In the appendices of “The Return of the King” we can find this:

It was said by Gimli that there are few dwarf-women, probably no more than a third of the whole people. They seldom walk abroad except at great need. They are in voice and appearance, and in garb if they must go on a journey, so like to the dwarf-men that the eyes and ears of other peoples cannot tell them apart. This has given rise to the foolish opinion among Men that there are no dwarf-women, and that the Dwarves ‘grow out of stone’.

Also, in “The War of the Jewels” we can find this passage about dwarves in general (“Naugrim” is the Elvish name for the Dwarves):

The Naugrim were ever, as they still remain, short and squat in stature; they were deep-breasted, strong in the arm, and stout in the leg, and their beards were long. Indeed this strangeness they have that no Man nor Elf has ever seen a beardless Dwarf – unless he were shaven in mockery, and would then be more like to die of shame than of many other hurts that to us would seem more deadly. For the Naugrim have beards from the beginning of their lives, male and female alike; nor indeed can their womenkind be discerned by those of other race, be it in feature or in gait or in voice, nor in any wise save this: that they go not to war, and seldom save at direst need issue from their deep bowers and halls. It is said, also, that their womenkind are few, and that save their kings and chieftains few Dwarves ever wed; wherefore their race multiplied slowly, and now is dwindling.

So, to sum up, Tolkien’s dwarves were all bearded and females were not very different from males. But Tolkien was inspired by Old Norse mythology, so let’s look into that as well!



In the image: two dwarfs as depicted in a 19th-century edition of the “Poetic Edda” poem Völuspá (1895) by Lorenz Frølich.

[h2]Dwarves in the Old Norse religion and texts[/h2]

If we look into Old Norse religion and texts, there is much more confusion and less clarity. Regarding dwarves characteristics, they are usually described as being short, misshapen, unattractive, and skilled with their hands. Also according to one researcher “there is, to the best of this author’s knowledge, not a single Old Norse text describing the dwarfs as bearded” (Mikučionis, 2020). But where do dwarves come from? There are two somewhat different myths of Dwarves origins that are preserved in Eddas (Eddas are the books with poems and mythological stories, and they are main sources of Norse mythology).

The first myth tells about dwarves having been produced by other dwarves out of the earth:

Then all the Powers went to the thrones of fate,
the sacrosanct gods, and considered this:
who should create the lord of the dwarfs
out of Brimir’s blood and from Blain’s limbs?
There Motsognir became most famous of
all dwarfs, and Durin next;
Many manlike figures the dwarfs made,
out of the earth, as Durin recounted.

- Seeress’s Prophecy 9–10 in the “Poetic Edda”, written around 1270 AD (trans. Larrington, p. 5)

The other myth talks about the first dwarves having emerged as maggots in Ymir’s flesh and then being “improved” by decision of the gods:

Originally posted by author

The gods discussed where the dwarfs had been generated from in the soil and in the earth like maggots in flesh. The dwarfs had taken shape first and acquired life in the flesh of Ymir and where then maggots, but by decision of the gods they became conscious with intelligence and had shape of men though they live in the earth and in rocks. Modsognir was a dwarf and the second was Durin.

- Snorri Sturluson “Edda”, written in 1222–23 AD (trans. Faulkes, 1995, p. 16)

Because of these stories, a lot of Old Norse mythology researchers claimed that Dwarves “do not
engage in fruitful sexual encounters” (Motz 1993: 623) and “There are not, in fact, any female dwarves in the whole of Old Norse myth, , with the exception of a very late feminine form dyrgja in Þjalar Jóns saga.” (Clunies Ross 1994:168)

But the newer research reveals different opinion: “we do not have any clear references to female dwarves in skaldic poetry or in the Eddas. At the same time, there are relatively many references to family relations (brother–brother, father–son, father–daughters, ancestor–descendant) in these sources. This indicates that the idea of dwarf families was not an alien concept, but rather an important aspect of the life of dwarfs”.


In the image on the left: title page of a manuscript of the Snorri Sturluson “Edda”, showing Odin, Heimdallr, Sleipnir and other figures from Norse mythology. On the right: photo of “Codex Regius (“King's Book”) an Icelandic codex in which many Old Norse poems from the Poetic Edda are preserved.

[h2]Dwarves in the King of the Dwarves[/h2]

So we think it is clear that there should definitely be females among our dwarves but contrary to Tolkiens world, we don’t think they should be bearded. Also, we think not bearded female dwarves look much better :)



P. S. There is also a problem related to female dwarf names, but that is for another day!

P. P. S. Can you spot one bearded dwarf?

[h2]Greetings, Dwarven Lords![/h2]

Christmas is getting near, and we wanted to share a light-hearted update with you. The Development team is still working on the new iterations of the King of the Dwarves, polishing things like the Research System and the Enemy AI. But let's forget about it for a moment to enjoy the holiday scenery right under the mountain.

[h2]Christmas Card[/h2]

Below you can find the Christmas Card prepared by the development team for you! Who would have thought that the Dwarves were willing to exchange gifts with each other? While some of them are greedy (and simply offering a lump of coal - still very useful), others offer shiny gold bars. Do they have any interest in this? We prefer to believe not, it must be Christmas magic.



[h2]Wood Resource[/h2]

Quick fun fact - did you know that at the beginning, we wanted the player to start outside the mountain and collect the wood from the trees growing outside? Only after some time did we decide that it would work better if some voxels within the mountain included the roots as the main source of wood for the settlement. What do you think about it? Is it better to obtain the Wood from the roots or is it better to cut down the trees outside?

Regardless of your position on the above topic, first of all, we want to wish you Merry Christmas in the upcoming holiday season! Have fun and celebrate with your loved ones just like the dwarves do! Thank you for being with us during this year.

Best regards,
King of the Dwarves Team

[h2]Greetings, Dwarven Lords![/h2]

The development of King of the Dwarves continues. Today we would like to talk with you about the Dwarf Management system. As a King, it is your duty to ensure that everything is working like a clockwork. Learn a little more about the basic system of assigning the Dwarfs to their works.

[h2]Dwarf Management[/h2]

In short, you assign the Dwarfs to their job by using the sliders. It's a convenient tool that makes the whole job a lot easier. In every given moment you can decide whether you need more Miners, Warriors, or Workers, who will provide the Settlement with the food and beverages.

We are still experimenting with the functionality and the looks of this Panel, but you can see some early prototype versions below. Let us know which one you like best!



Of course, you still have to remember about a few core elements:

• You still need to build some necessary structures in order for several works to occur,
  
• Changing the dwarf assignation every few seconds might be counterproductive. Dwarves need a few moments to grab a new set of tools and move to the desired location,
  
• Finding the real balance between all the available jobs is the key to success.
  

While the whole Management might seem easy at first look, it's important to remember that there are going to be other Systems built on top of it. You will have a chance to set priorities for the buildings, that have to be built first. You will decide on the location of every building in your Kingdom. You will dig through the mountain in any direction you want. And you have to ensure that your Settlement can defend itself against the enemies. The challenge is still there.

[h2]Dwarven Happiness[/h2]

There's also one more important slider that you need to have in mind. As a Ruler, you can decide on the number of hours the Dwarves rest per day. By default, it's set to 8 hours of rest per day and is rather optimal to keep the efficiency in check.

But some critical occurrences might require you to change it. Imagine a huge sudden attack in the middle of the night. The wave of enemies is bigger than anything you have encountered before. You can either wake everyone up and tell the dwarves to grab their axes or trust in your current defenses.

Mind you, overworked Dwarves' happiness will drop quickly. It might result in some Longbeards leaving your Mountain or in the worst-case scenario - dying from exhaustion. The Dwarves are loyal, but their loyalty also has its limits. Rule wisely!

Thank you for following King of the Dwarves!

Best regards,
King of the Dwarves Team