Dwarf Fortress News

Patch notes v50.06 (Feb 7, 2023)

Arena mode is here which means you can new test out creatures, trees, materials and certain item mods before publishing them! Also notably we've added new sprites to show the growth progression of crops so now you'll be able to see where and what you plant!

New stuff

Arena mode is back, with an updated interface.

Major bug fixes

Stopped new timelines from always saving into region1.
Fixed crash when copying trade information like ownership on certain items.
Fixed crash from giant/diagonal activity zones.

Graphics additions/changes

Underground crops now have sprouting textures.
Added planted soil texture and updated farmplot texture.
Fixed list icons for several creatures.
Updated designation textures.
Updated statue textures.

Audio additions/changes

Made ambiences continue from where they left off rather than starting at the beginning each time.
Now only plays a few random cards for a song on subsequent playthroughs rather than playing them in order each time.
Added neutral cavern ambience.
Replaced wild ambience with the biome-specific ambiences (and the existing wild sounds).
Updated thunderstorm ambience.

Other bug fixes/tweaks

Stopped dragons and other megabeasts from appearing as relatives of random dwarves in the fort.
Allowed emotionless creatures to satisfy needs if they still have them.
Added a few additional embark warnings.
Added culling of certain dead units to help with performance.
Made invader summons parts of the invasion.

-Alexandra from Kitfox

Dwarf Fortress' next update grants even more ways to torment your minions

Dwarf Fortress will soon provide another way to mistreat your hapless peons. The upcoming arena mode will give you an open playground to experiment with the game's NPCs, letting you place down different creatures, select their skills and equipment, and sic them on one another for your own twisted amusement. You'll be able to sort your combatants into teams, give them special characteristics (like "necromancer," for example), and even mess with the weather or place down hindrances like snow and mud...
Read more.

Arena Mode Preview ⚔ Dwarf Fortress Update News

Hello!

We should have the arena mode patch together early next week. The arena is a great place to test out creature, tree, material, and certain item mods before publishing them, and it's also a place where you can have some sandbox-style fun with the vanilla stuff as well.

The main thing you can do is place creatures with skills, equipment, and teams, as well as special conditions like "necromancer", and set them upon each other.

You can also place liquids, snow, and mud, change the temperature and weather, and grow trees.

We have a few basic arena maps available on top of the Classic one, and are hoping to add an editor and save/load/sharing capabilities for these maps in the future as well. You can already save and load arena games while you are playing them.

-Tarn

Dwarf Fortress developers share earnings report after releasing on Steam

Dwarf Fortress selling half a million copies on Steam in just a few weeks already indicated that its creators, the Adams brothers, were due a windfall. Now the latest earnings report from Bay 12 Games is here to put an exact dollar figure on that success. Here's a tease: revenue in January was up over 462x since December.

It's a bountiful harvest season in Dwarf Fortress land, and this time, the crop isn't plump helmets - it's cold, hard cash. Brothers Tarn and Zach Adams have posted their monthly earnings report for their legendary colony management game, and January's earnings - the first to include sales of the new Steam edition of Dwarf Fortress - totaled more than $7 million USD.

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