Hey everyone!

Alexandra here with a bit of community news and patch 51.11. In the patch, we fixed some lost information when people leave and when they arrive. We also turned off the broken underground invasions until we fix them with the siege update and a bunch of ice related bugs that have been around for years. There’s also some new graphics going in for divine/artifact weapon tiles and the leather/metal caps in the portraits which you can see here:





We wanted to wish Tarn a belated Happy Birthday, which was on April 17th. We got together at Kitfox and made a card for him with our artistic interpretation of “Toady One” in honour of the day. You also might have noticed the preview of animal people clothing in portraits! The art is now done but it’s going to take a while to get every single portrait into the game. We are pretty busy with siege-related stuff right now but you’ll see the new art in a future update.




And more good news: Last week we officially surpassed 1 million copies sold on Steam. This number represents countless dwarves, trials and tribulations from your generated worlds. Dwarf Fortress wouldn’t be the game it is today without the stories you bring to life in these worlds. So thank you from the entire team for supporting us throughout the years. If you haven’t already, consider sharing your story in a Steam review.




Over the past three years, the video game documentarians at NoClip have been working on a Dwarf Fortress series. It covers everything from Tarn and Zach’s early days all the way to post-Adventure Mode launch on Steam. We think they did a great job of sharing such an incredible dev story. All four parts of the documentary are now available on Youtube:





Fortress Mode

• People that leave the map no longer lose their room ownership associations
  
• Stopped immigrants from losing their religions and some other affiliations
  
• Added settings to customize keyboard scroll amounts
  
• Turned off underground humanoid invasions until they are fixed
  
• Add grazer text to creatures in unit selectors
  
• Setting somebody to a work detail now properly disables others not in the detail
  
• Removed ramp spaces above non-ramp constructions if the constructions are placed on ramps

New Graphics

• Differentiated metal caps from wood/bone/leather/shell/woven caps in portraits
  
• Images for weapon items that are artifacts / special materials

General updates

• Stopped certain interaction of ice and constructions from creating void tiles
  
• Made cave-ins happen more reliably with constructions vs frozen liquids
  
• Stopped frozen squares revealed under removed constructions from lingering
  
• Shrubs covered with frozen water no longer lose their species when they unthaw

See you in the next patch,

- Alexandra

• Fixed up some issues with the pathing overflow changes.
  
• Readded the only-selected-do-this / everybody-does-this toggle when the first or last dwarf is added/removed from a work detail.

Hey Urists!

We are back from GDC with an update for Fortress and Adventure Mode. Next we'll be starting work on sieges, while also keeping a pace of regular fixes and improvements.


In case you missed it, we also have a seasonal update video from Tarn. He goes over the last few months of updates as well as lua, the upcoming siege and site building updates. Watch on Youtube:




Fortress Mode

• Stopped dwarves from using forbidden and uncompleted coffins for burial
  
• Stopped greyed out "everybody does this" for mining/hunting/chopping labors from being pressable
  
• Stopped Mining, Woodcutting, Hunting from being able to be assigned to the same dwarf
  
• Stopped reclaimed/unretired forts with magma features from having magma overflows
  
• Stopped unretired forts from being marked as capitals
  
• Reordering manager work orders no longer causes display issues in workshop view sheet
  
• Can now set pressure plates to include zero depth for water/magma
  
• Made squad scrollbar responsive to clicks
  
• Fixed custom difficulty settings for irritation in the embark screen
  
• Random improvements are no longer applied instantly to fort-made crafts
  
• Fixed typo on squad equipment assignment screen

Adventure Mode

• Made adventure mode respect manual disabling of sound in init file

General Updates

• Fixed pathing overflow errors in very large and/or twisty forts

-Alexandra

Adventure Mode

• Fixed an input issue when discovery popups appeared

Hey everyone,

It's Alexandra here as we continue along with the routine patches after Adventure Mode release. We have quality of life fixes for Fortress Mode including the new ability to use the previous material when replacing constructions. No need to go back through the menus over and over again! Over in Adventure Mode your speed is now displayed properly. Lots of other adjustment and fixes here as well.

So far the lua tests are going smoothly and we are receiving really great feedback. If you're a mod-minded urist and want to play round with the lua update, you can check it out on the Experimental Branch.


Fortress mode

• Allowed use of last material when placing simple one-stage buildings and constructions
  
• Stopped land holders without a residence from automatically moving to and gumming up capitals
  
• Animals marked for slaughter and then assigned as war animal pets are now unmarked for slaughter
  
• Stopped hidden zones in NPC fortresses on reclaims from clouding information in tomb and dungeon sheets
  
• Work orders: changed "stone stones" to "stone boulders" and "stones" to "boulders", because they can be made from ice

Adventure mode

• Allowed ordinary destiny adventurers to start anywhere in their civilization
  
• Handled infinite loop having to do with sites near oceans
  
• Unstackable items no longer stacked in character creation
  
• Movement blocking announcements are displayed during travel properly
  
• FPS display no longer blocks the speed readout
  
• Potential containers are no longer shown with nonsense directions when placing items
  
• Classic combat indicators are displayed in the correct position
  
• Changes to fort mode sound level sliders no longer affect adv mode sound levels

General updates

• Stopped projectiles and falling creatures from falling through thin floors if they hit a sideways obstacle first
  
• Creatures with multigrasp weapons should no longer be generated with shields
  
• Fixed potential troublesome loop involving stone inclusion loops
  
• Creatures without exertion have their exertion set to zero
  
• Handled situation where FPS caps could underflow
  
• Fixed potential overflow in corpse sizes

See you in the next patch,

Alexandra

Hey again!

It’s Alexandra with a big update including patch 51.06, the Lua beta and a few things from the community too. Patch 51.06 includes a few fixes and tweaks for Fortress Mode and Adventure Mode.


Fortress Mode

• Made some strange mood dwarves not get stuck at workshop selection stage
  
• Stopped people from claiming and using inactive bedroom zones
  
• Stopped the dead from claiming inactive tomb zones
  
• Decreased prepared food item value
  
• Made custom announcement settings load properly
  
• Added setting to turn off visible rectangle dimensions
  
• Added crash safeguards to report popups and other widgets
  
• Fixed seed cap limit and made deletion of seeds over cap respect planting status

Adventure Mode

• Added escape/rbut to leave adventurer difficulty selection
  
• Fixed issue with adventurer race selection lists not being unpopulated on exit
  
• Fixed buffer overrun involving tents
  
• Fixed crash related to site plot use allocations
  
• Added highlight to adventurer destiny selection in Classic mode

General updates

• Added crash safeguard for syndromes
  
• Updated some metal elasticities
  
• Fixed graphics for tiger, whale, and whitetip reef sharks

We have the new Lua upgrades from programmer Putnam up on the Experimental Branch for you to try out. If this is the first time you’re hearing about Lua, read our update from September. The old modding format still works, but now formerly hard-coded features like forgotten beasts and vampiric curses will make their way out into moddable text files. Not only will you be able to create more powerful mods but this is also a necessary update for the future Myth and Magic system. You can experience the beginnings of that system with the magical items in Adventure Mode!

The Experimental Branch update also adds a distinction between portable and roaming save data. Saves will now go into AppData/Roaming instead of the local save folder, unless you set the portable option from settings. This only applies to the experimental branch.

If you’re interested in playing with the Lua, check it out on the Experimental branch and let us know what you think! We also have two modding channels and a forum on the Kitfox Discord in which you can discuss your mods with your fellow urists.


We’ve with collaborated with Quendelf to make a music video for her song “Plump Helmet Man”, a love song about a tavern keeper’s wife and a plump helmet man. Check it out on the Kitfox Youtube but also make sure to visit Quendelf’s Twitch channel and Patreon if you want to support her work.






While we look forward to some extra cool mods to come out of the Lua beta, we also wanted to take a moment to highlight some existing community mods. If you enjoy scrolling through your world’s generated history in Legends Mode you might like this first mod. LegendsViewer by Kromtec adds visualizations to the rich history generated from Legends Mode at a glance, now updated for the Steam version.

For a variety of modded playable civilizations such as Barrel man and Cheese man, there's the Civilization Patch For More Vanilla Creatures by ryno.

If you’re looking to a new look for your armour, check out the Auric Steel mod by Daedalus127 to add some golden flair.

What are your favourite Dwarf Fortress mods? We’d love to highlight even more in future updates!

It's an exciting time in Dwarf Fortress development and we can't wait to see the potential of the Lua upgrade. You’ll be hearing from us again soon.

-Alexandra

Hey Urists,

It’s Alexandra from Kitfox! We are back and hope you’ve been enjoying your time with Adventure Mode. It’s been so much fun seeing you discover magical items, creating your adventurers and running into giant snakes (a more common occurrence than I thought would happen). It’s officially time to enter a new era of Dwarf Fortress development.

Now that both modes have been updated for the Steam version, we can focus on quality of life fixes, more modding support and brand new features Tarn’s been excited to add. We will be busy with Dwarf Fortress development for a long time!


Today we have patch 51.05 with some crash fixes and some other helpful changes. We also now have art for all of the tree growths, like fruit, flowers, and leaves.




Fortress Mode

• Fixed crash on justice screen and adjusted convicts menu position
  
• Fixed crash relating to empty work details list
  
• When choosing rectangles, shows dimension of rectangle
  
• Allowed numbers and symbols in unit list search

Adventure Mode

• Display speed and gait and momentum on main screen
  
• Summoning abilities should work now
  
• Stopped creating beast rumors (and thereby kill quests) for civilized predator/subterranean creatures (new worlds only)
  
• Added button to go back to destiny/difficulty selection from character creator
  
• Classic mode travel maps now show up properly

Graphics additions/changes

• Tree growth pictures (leaves, flowers, fruit, etc.)
  
• Added zombie syndrome class to husks so they'll display properly (new worlds only)
  
• Option to print only periods for the ground in Classic mode returns

Very soon we will also have Programmer Putnam’s Lua upgrade which will allow you to create more powerful mods and lay the foundation for future Myth and Magic updates. We just have a few more fixes to make and then we will be ready to put it out on the experimental branch. Stay tuned!

Our first Fortress Mode releases will focus on improving sieges. We want to give players the tools and abilities to be more properly prepared for an attack.

The update will also add the first Fortress mode abilities to interact with magic systems (beyond necromancers and mods.) Here are some possible changes, none of which are guaranteed, but which we are aiming for:

• Allow siegers to plan and learn, tracking where deaths occur and using alternate routes
  
• Properly equipped siegers should be able to build, demolish and dig (default on, can be turned off in difficulty settings)
  
• Kidnapped humans and dwarves should be more interesting - warlords and demon-trained sorcerers focused on siege warfare and infiltration (for now)
  
• Temple/etc.-based defenses for any magic that proves too annoying to combat with soldiers
  
• Ranged weapon/squad fixes
  
• Changes to defensive siege weapons to make them more useful
  
• If ranged weapon changes remove the delightful effect of fast-shooting crossbows, add a repeating defensive bolt thrower emplacement that uses regular bolts
  
• Changes to cage traps to make it more intensive but still possible to e.g. capture megabeasts
  
• Make megabeast and kobold attacks more functional and interesting
  
• Fix and improve underground civilization attacks (as far as we can without future map changes)
  
• Anything from Combat Flow and Combat Styles that comes up, also a notion of reach

We don’t know how many weeks it will take, but Tarn will be working through the list steadily.


We’d like the add the ability to make your own settlements, also known as “Site Building” as the first major Adventure mode feature post launch, since it used to be in the classic game but didn't make it in for the graphical version. This will happen after Fortress Mode gets updated with the siege improvements above. It does involve some new interfaces, and so will be a fair bit of effort, but we know some of you are eagerly awaiting it.


Next, we’ll focus on world map rewrites and additions and beautifications, especially those needed to get us prepared for a more magical and procedural, dynamically-reactive future. You’ll see this in Fortress Mode since a lot of these changes are underground but there will also be changes aboveground.

We'd also like to further differentiate the existing natural biomes, plus of course anything magical or strange we add.


Before the Steam version, Tarn was working on various features. Villains, army warfare, civilizations, etc, and this (after Maps) is when Tarn would turn to look at those again.

When will that be exactly? Well.. after siege improvements and Lua becomes more stable we will have a better idea on what will come first and how it will be implemented. We don’t have timelines or exact promises for any of this right now and there’s lots to do beforehand but it’s all coming! We’ve tried to predict how long things take before, and it’s never worked out well for us, so we’ll just take it one release at a time.

Every step of the roadmap above will also include art additions, and even more myth and magic changes and content that make sense to add along the way, and keeps Tarn’s morale high, as he’s been looking forward to those since Tanya met him all those years ago.

So this gives you a general overview of our plans for Dwarf Fortress for a while. Thank you for joining us on this journey beyond quality.

- Alexandra

Patch 51.04

• Steam workshop mods should be working again.

Patch Note 51.03

• Replaced two audio files causing sound issue

It's finally time!

Become the Chosen and go beyond your fortress in Dwarf Fortress Adventure Mode. Create a character in your simulated world and -- well, as a pure sandbox, what you do is up to you! To celebrate, we've made a brand new launch trailer which you can watch here:

• Go anywhere! Explore any civilization, earn a reputation, and recruit followers to join you
  
• Experience your fortress and the simulation in a new, more embodied way
  
• Explore mythical dungeons to find magical items, artifacts, and fill your quest journal
  
• Hints of mythology and magic as a start of future simulation enrichment to come
  
• An additional hour of music from Dabu and Simon Swerwer, presented as a second volume of the original soundtrack

To access Adventure Mode, you must have already created a world. Select "Start a new game in an existing world" and then when it finishes loading, select "Adventure Mode". All your old save files should work just fine with the update. If you would like to try Chosen Mode, you will need to generate a new world so that mythic dungeons appear.




We've collaborated with content creator BlindiRL to create a new beginner tutorial for Adventure Mode. It covers everything you need to get started including character creation, skills, combat, quests and much more! Watch on Youtube:





Dwarf Fortress and both the Fortress and Adventure Mode soundtracks are on sale till January 30th. We only discount this low a few times a year so if you've been waiting, now is a great time to jump in!

https://store.steampowered.com/app/975370/Dwarf_Fortress/

Our friends at Blue Bottle Games, developers of Neo Scavenger just released a brand new roadmap for their hardcore noir space-sim Ostranauts. They have a lot of exciting features planned so if that sounds like your type of game, check it out:

https://store.steampowered.com/app/1022980/Ostranauts/


Broader non-Adventure Mode fixes

• Can enter nicknames on embark screen
  
• Added tooltips for mode selection
  
• Fixed a world generation crash
  
• Fixed error causing invalid characters from being permitted in folder names

Bugs/additions contained within Adventure Mode

• Made hero mode select hearthperson by default
  
• Fixed crash from visiting certain forest retreats
  
• Fixed some crashes related to local adventurer info not being set immediately after travel
  
• Fixed crash issue from demanding tribute from mythical sites
  
• Fixed a crash from unit sheets of certain creatures (e.g. roosters)
  
• Added more combat music
  
• Added sounds for items being put into containers
  
• Updates some confirm sounds
  
• Fixed some footstep sounds
  
• Fixed issue causing music to sound as if it's indoors
  
• Fixed some issues with ambient sound
  
• Added a keyboard-based look-and-interact cursor ('l')
  
• Stopped items like weapons and shields from starting in the same hand after character creation
  
• Stopped mythical sites from appearing on rivers (again)

We also posted a list of all previous patch notes if you're curious to read through all the updates at once!

Enjoy the update! We will have more news about future Dwarf Fortress plans in a few weeks.

-Kitfox and Bay 12 Games