Dwarf Fortress News

Hello and Happy Holidays!

Now that we have our April release month, we'll follow the roadmap to get there. If you missed the Adventure Mode roadmap, you can read it here. Part of this involves menus!



So far, we've managed the environment/ground menu, the climb/hold menu, the jump action, conversation menu and the inventory menu, with combat actions and options up next. The Adventure menus can be fully operated with the mouse or keyboard, or whichever mix works for you, which is why you still see traditional roguelike letters next to each item.

You can also now click in the play area to open up a context menu for the tile, which gives all of the possible options, whether those are environmental options, movement options, conversation options, or the upcoming combat actions. As with Fortress mode, there are lots and lots of things you can do, so this should help you get a handle on the possibilities that you can also find down in the menus.

We've also reenabled the "Assume Control" option in the Arena for April. This lets you take control of a creature that you've placed in the arena so you can jump into the action yourself in Adventure Mode's turn-based combat rather than running the fight in real-time Fortress mode style.

Jacob has been working on statues most recently, Carolyn has been adding more features to portraits (like clothing quality and variations), and Neoriceisgood has been making more animal person portraits for all of the animal person portrait fans out there! Here are the varations for the breastplates as well as the Walrusman portrait:



See you all again in January with more updates as the work continues.

-Tarn + Kitfox Games

P.S. Special happy holidays from the Bay 12 dogs: Jojo, Una, Sun Bun and Sam!

Dwarf Fortress is best known as a colony sim, but the wonderfully detailed fantasy world's it generates can be played in different ways. Adventure mode is a procedurally generated RPG campaign in which you control just a single character, and it's now on its way to Kitfox's DF-with-graphics Steam release in April 2024.

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Urists Rejoice!

As you may have seen on the PC Gaming Show today, we're announcing that we have a release month for Adventure Mode which will be coming April 2024! Watch the brand new trailer with the first ever footage of Adventure Mode in action:

[previewyoutube][/previewyoutube]

For those who don’t know, Adventure Mode is the RPG mode of Dwarf Fortress, where you can create a character and freely roam the rich simulated world you have made a home in during your Fortress Mode save or start fresh in a newly generated world.

• Characters in the world will now have a face. A dwarf’s appearance will reflect their description, from wounds to clothing to hairstyle. This is possible thanks to the game’s procedural portrait system based on the beautiful pixel art from Carolyn Jong we’ve been showing off in the art updates. This feature will also be coming to Fortress Mode.
  
  We've already shown off the dwarves and the elves but here is a look at goblins and kobolds:
  
  
  
  
  
  
• Thanks to a new interface, Adventure Mode brings rich conversations with characters! This will help you bond with your unique party of adventurers and add weight to the stories they create in your world.
  
  
• Combat in the game will also see a visual and mechanical revamp with updated wrestling mechanics. This will encourage those who may have in the past avoided grappling, to maybe look forward to a tussle. It will also spice up your adventures out in the wild and another exciting layer of engagement with their world. Fight as an individual or control your whole party in tactical mode.
  
  
• The world map while in Adventure Mode will also see a change, with important landmarks such as roads, towns, and homes being much more easily visible.
  

Adventure Mode holds limitless possibilities for player stories: Write a poem and recite it in front of unsuspecting tavern-goers, join the group of hearth warriors of a local village to solve local problems, rob a tomb and become cursed by a mummy. This and so much more!

We also remain busy working on Fortress Mode in parallel to development on Adventure Mode and look forward to sharing an exact date for Adventure Mode when ready. In the meantime we will continue to update you on our progress. As we get closer to launch we will be releasing tutorials and other videos for more gameplay action!

As usual you can discuss the update and follow the news in the Kitfox Discord. We have an Adventure Mode channel, in-depth bug discussions, and it's the fastest way to find out about our Dwarf Fortress livestreams!

-Kitfox + Bay 12 Games

The graphical version of Dwarf Fortress released on Steam this time last year sold half a million copies in a month, a spectacular feat for one of the most complex videogames ever made—especially because that release wasn't even the complete game. While the colony management Fortress mode has always been Dwarf Fortress's main draw, the ASCII version of the game also features Adventure mode, a roguelike that lets you take control of a single character and explore your fortress in the style of a roguelike RPG. In a trailer during today's PC Gaming Show, the Dwarf Fortress team revealed that mode is launching in April with spiffy new graphics and mouse controls...
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Attention Urists!

Do you think Dwarf Fortress is one of the stand out games this year? Annoyed at how mainstream awards shows look over cool, indie games? Well, now is your chance to make your voice heard because you will be able to nominate Dwarf Fortress for the 2023 Steam Awards!



Nominations are open and we want to amass a large squad of Urists to be ready for when it does. We think Dwarf Fortress would be a great candidate for both Hardest Game You’ve Played and Labour of Love. We support you in whatever category you think fits best (Game of the Year?!?!) but we think these are the ones we have the best chances with!

We we will update again if we pass the nomination stage.

Good luck and happy voting 💪⛏

-Alexandra