Dwarf Fortress News

Dwarf Fortress faces mind-boggling reality of hiring second programmer

fter 20-some years of working as a solo programmer, Dwarf Fortress developer Tarn Adams will have a second pair of hands in there. Bay 12 Games and publisher Kitfox have announced that due to Dwarf Fortress' success a second programmer has been hired from the longstanding Dwarf Fortress modding community...
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For the first time in history, a non-Adams brother is now working on Dwarf Fortress code

Legendarily complicated (and just generally legendary) colony sim Dwarf Fortress launched on Steam a few weeks ago, bringing sprite graphics, more players and millions of dollars for developers Bay 12 games. Brothers Tarn and Zach Adams have spent the past 16 years relying on donations, so actually selling their game has now allowed to expand their team and hire someone from their community to help with the programming. They say "Putnam" will be the first non-Adam to ever see the code behind the curtain. Cue the Indiana Jones face-melting gif.

An update yesterday also added Steam trading cards, as well as giving you the option to flick between classic and premium graphics.

It's not often you get a patch that removes graphics from a game, but an option added in the latest Dwarf Fortress update does exactly that. The latest patch, which updates the Steam edition of the Ur-colony management game to 50.04, adds 'classic mode,' which removes the new colourful sprites and displays Dwarf Fortress in its original ASCII glory.

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Classic Mode is here! + The Team Grows

Hey Urists,

We have another important update before we are off for the holidays! We are happy to announce that we now have ❗❗ Classic "graphics" ❗❗ (i.e. ASCII-esque font-based glyphs) available. You can now toggle between Classic Mode and the premium graphical version with the press of a button!

Why play Classic? Pretend you're a time-traveler, or seeing through the Matrix, or just explore a new way to play your favorite game. Those of you out there who prefer to only play Classic mode without the premium graphics and so on also know you can find it on the Bay 12 website, as per usual.

[h2]The team grows[/h2]

With the success of the Steam launch, we are now able to bring on some more help for future updates and events.

Firstly, Putnam is a very prominent, long-time member of the Dwarf Fortress community and will be helping Toady with programming. This is a historic moment, as never before have non-Adams eyes seen the Dwarf Fortress code. Welcome, Putnam! We wish you luck and courage.

You may also be familiar with SalfordSal, a content creator who joined us for an episode of Let's Learn Dwarf Fortress. She will be joining the community team to help with Discord and will be hosting streams on the Kitfox Twitch channel!

We are so excited to be able to grow the team and can't wait to show you what we have planned! As always, please be kind and considerate to all of the humans associated with Dwarf Fortress, whether you see them on stream, Discord, Twitter, or elsewhere. Well, ideally we'd all be kind to all humans everywhere, but here's a good place to get in some practice.

[h2]Release notes for 50.04 (December 22, 2022)[/h2]

Along with the addition of Classic mode, we have updated more graphics, and few more fixes to ambient audio. Plus now you can collect those silly Steam trading cards! Each one features a different biome and glimpse of some creatures you might find there. Collect 'em all! Or don't!

Also, as far as we know all of these changes are compatible with your old generated worlds and save files, so no need to start fresh unless you're feeling the itch. OK so on to the real patch notes:

Graphics additions/changes

Can now swap back and forth from Classic tile mode (in video settings.)
Graphics for some picked outdoor plants.
Updated engraved walls.
Added some custom symbols.
Enabled Steam trading cards.

Audio additions/changes

Added a music frequency option in the audio settings (default 3-5 minutes, can be set from 10 minutes to 10 seconds.)
Made outdoor ambiences alternate between being more active and a few neutral wind ambiences.
Made the wild ambience use some randomly spaced howls and giant footsteps.
Updated trade depot ambience.

Other bug fixes/tweaks

Ability to add/remove all civilians/soldiers from a burrow
Can advance the game one frame (default key = period)
Made assigning multiple squad positions continue to position 10 instead of stopping at 9

Thank you so much for an incredible 2022! It was a year of much anticipation and we hope to continue growing the game and the community in 2023 and beyond! Have a safe and restful holiday, maybe teach grandma how to make her first fort and we shall see you in the new year!

-Kitfox Games + Bay 12 Games

Dwarf Fortress mods will let you milk the cats

It's been a scant two weeks since the launch of Dwarf Fortress on Steam, and Dwarf Fortress mods are already stacking up in the Steam Workshop like logs in a lumber stockpile. While many of these add nice little quality of life improvements, others have gone straight for the weird and wacky, with mods that allow dwarves to fashion furniture out of cheese and, regrettably, milk the cats.

There are a couple of things you should know about this if you've never played Dwarf Fortress. The first is that the cats in this colony management game enjoy a unique pride of place among the many animals that can become part of your fortress. Cats can't be adopted like dogs and hens, for instance - they have to choose a dwarf to bond with on their own.