Hello again!

I hope everybody finds themselves well. We've been continuing to plug away on the graphics for Dwarf Fortress and have some more goodies!

Beyond the ASCII ramp pictures we showed earlier, one of the main problems with visualizing the map in Dwarf Fortress is that the Classic game only shows one z-level at a time. This might be a very thin strip of sloping hill, or just the bottom or top of a river canyon. Lacking visual context, players sometimes resort to sliding the view of the landscape up and down to form an image in their mind. Now, we can more easily show many elevation levels at once, through the power of having more than 16 colors!



This is much easier to read as a desert hillside. This is still a work-in-progress, and there's more we can do with the shading and tile boundaries, but the main obstacles are overcome.

Here's a small animation moving down three levels of the hill to see it in action:



We've been working on a variety of other improvements as well recently. In Classic DF, we used background color to denote planned furniture. In Premium DF, we can use transparency:



There is a finished room on the left, and a similar room in the planning stages on the right.

Creature graphics have also seen some additions:



Although Dwarf Fortress creatures always occupy just one tile (unless they are a wagon... or somebody is dragging their entrails...), we have an opportunity now to make the largest creatures at least slightly larger. On the left is a blind cave ogre, very large as you might expect. On the right, a gorlak, a small friendly head with tusks, arms and legs that occasionally takes up a profession like a poet or a scholar.

Expect them in your taverns from time to time!

- Tarn

Hello!

Okay, now I can show you what I meant about the graphical improvements last time instead of trying to explain in words, ha ha.

For reference, here is a hillside in Classic DF:

This is a cutaway view at one altitude. This view has been pretty confusing for new players. All you need to know is that it's a grid of uniform size, and the upward triangles are ramps. Dwarves can walk up those to the next highest level.

Here is a similar view in Dwarf Fortress Premium. First off, you can see the new graphical tiles displaying alongside the old to-be-updated interface instructions.

Our work from last time got us away from the Classic's DF uniform text grid. The artists have done a great job with preparing shadows and shading to indicate that those ramps go up, and not down. For any of its faults, the upward triangles did give us that, and now we have it here. We'll do some additional work later on in the process that further bolsters the three dimensionality of the game.



The ramp situations can get pretty complicated! There are still some shadows and situations to patch up, but it's going well. In the second image there, you can see some brown jasper gems in the lower wall, and some hematite ore striping the upper wall at one spot.

But that's not all we've been working on:

This is a small fort with a carpenter's workshop, log pile, and constructed block wall outside. Inside, we have a mason's workshop with a stone stockpile, some doors placed, a metalsmith's forge under construction, and a larger meeting hall. The dwarves have smoothed the walls in the meeting hall - they generally like smoothed stone better when it comes to the value they place on their bedrooms and so forth. By the end, the smoothed stone color will match the surrounding stone.

Here are some domesticated animals by a pool of water.


The artists are still way ahead of me, but I'll keep working to support all of their creations. The process continues!

- Tarn


Hey everyone! Hope you've all been staying safe and inside. <3

Remember you can get all of these updates in your email inbox if you sign up for the newsletter... with exclusive bonus pics of Tarn's cat, Scamps!

Cheers,
Victoria

Hi again!

We released the last standalone Classic DF patch at the end of February, and therefore: the code work on DF Premium (AKA the Steam version) is underway! The artists have sent me their work to this point, and now my first job is to get them a test version they can use to improve existing tiles and add new ones.

Since Dwarf Fortress's display to this point has just been a uniform grid, the initial step was to rework the innards so that we can display multiple tile grids of different sizes or whatever else we need. This is done now. Next I'm implementing the first pass list of the hundreds of identifiers the artists will be using to plug their work into the game.

There won't be anything new to show for a while still, but it was exciting to see the larger graphical grid displaying some grass and stone underneath the existing menus, rather than by itself as in the trailer. Like, welcome to 1987 or something, I know, ha ha, but this is going to be pretty cool. There's always some iffiness in dealing with technical hurdles, rather than the more straightforward work of updating existing content, so this is good from the standpoint of removing uncertainties as well.

- Tarn


Hi!

So I've been posting lil' peeks at the new sprites in DF Premium via Twitter, but might as well share them here too, right? Place your votes on the most deadly DF hump, heh.


From the Wiki.

Cheers,
Victoria

Hello!

Soon we'll be done patching the last major standalone Classic DF release. Fixed some oldies, like an ancient bug causing dwarves to teleport through walls when they are charged by an opponent and tumble backward in a certain way, and some new ones. For instance, the new necromancer experiments can sometimes escape from the tower and try to eek out a life in a village, and this sometimes means they can migrate to your fortress, as visitors or potential citizens. That's all fine, but they still casually ripped out doors and broke furniture. This is now fixed, ha ha.

March is here, and with that, the code work on Premium DF kicks into full swing. It'll be an interesting change of pace, to say the least, and it'll be cool to see all the artwork Mayday and Meph have been working on come to life.

- Tarn

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This update was originally going to be posted a week ago, but we were at PAX East! Sorry about the lateness. :)

It was nice to see some of you in person! The floor was packed with people, and it's always refreshing to be able to talk to fans of the game in real life. We only had the trailer of DF showing but even then... y'all are excited!

- Victoria

Hi again!

We've been keeping up the bug fixes as the last standalone Classic DF release stabilizes. Now-corrected highlights include the game getting confused about who owned the tomb after a mummy came back from the dead, leading to the mummy's zombies sieging themselves, and two dwarven spies diligently maintaining their enemy cover identities even when they came to live in the player's fort, confusing the local soldiers and starting civil wars. And lots of more mundane fixes.

It has been an adventure steering this fairly massive ongoing project from the villain work toward the Premium DF work since the Steam announcement last year. We should be ready to fully switch gears and work on Premium DF around the change of the month. Fewer news items about odd quirks and strange features, and more about graphics and user experience, but I imagine we'll still see some strange things happen, ha ha. They'll just be shinier now.

Scamps, my cat, turned 11 this week! (Picture included.) I have to revert most of his code additions, but he's always kept up his confidence and continues to try his best on the keyboard nearly every day.

- Tarn

Hello!

Yesterday we put up the last major solo release of Classic DF! There'll be some bug fixing now (which applies to all versions, including the future Steam release), and then we'll be pivoting entirely to Premium DF graphical work, which should be pretty exciting.

So far, the bugs don't look so bad... we did change the mount code, and apparently babies carried by their mothers (who are treated as 'riders') now control their mothers' actions with their random crawling AI, making the mothers wander aimlessly. It's straightforward to fix, but another odd tale for the DF chronicles. A mercenary company was hired to attack its own fort... a world history crash... it all seems manageable. We also need to fix an old raid crash, something to do with equipment settings. Once the worst is handled, the next era of DF can begin in earnest.

- Tarn

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Don't forget to sign up for the DF newsletter! Once work on Premium DF starts, I'll be sending emails out there so you get these updates right in your inbox. :) Or, of course, find us on Twitter and the like.

- Victoria (manavee)

Hello again, and welcome to 2020!

We're still on track for January to be the month where the update to Classic DF is released. (Remember, the Steam version of DF is called Premium DF.) I've been cleaning things up and adding the last few features. For instance, dwarves in craft guilds can now hold skill demonstrations, and priests can give various types of sermons and console worshippers that are stressed out. Player adventurers can also give sermons if they choose.

Once that release is up, and we've handled whatever issues arise, the code work on a Premium DF will begin. I imagine that'll change the nature of these news posts a bit! The first order of business will likely be getting the artists fully up and running with the ability to see more of their work in play. I have to rework most of the guts of the display, so it'll take some time before we have new screenshots together. We'll be doing that before moving on to the broader interface updates and quality-of-life changes.

This should be an exciting year! I'm looking forward to seeing it all come together.

- Tarn

Happy Holidays everybody!

Holidays have been hectic and enjoyable as usual, and there's not much specific to report, as the days where work does happen are more for testing and administrative stuff. However, we can say now that the final pre-Steam Classic DF release will be in January. After any fires are put out, my full-time Steam programming work to catch up with the artists will finally begin.

I hope all of you have a great New Year's!

- Tarn


Hey everyone!

Nothing much to report on our end either, but thanks for all the support and excitement this year. :) Can you believe we only announced the Steam version this year? Thanks for being a part of the community! Hope your 2020 goes well, and remember that wishlisting Dwarf Fortress on Steam helps us out a lot in the backend. Otherwise, we'll see you next year here (or Twitter/the newsletter!)

Cheers,

Victoria

Hello again!

The first step on the villain release this time around was to build up justice information around the artifact heist from last time. This includes several sorts of witness reports: dwarves can notice when artifacts are missing from position or when they have been moved, and they also keep track of who has been admiring artifacts in case that ends up being of use (the thieves can hesitate before snatching the item when witnesses are around, and this leads to extra admiration, so it works out.) Your sheriff or guard captain can detain and interrogate anybody regarding the crime. That is, anybody you tell them to interrogate, as sifting through witness reports and deciding on a course of action is your job.

The second part of this most recent fortnight of work took place while I was on call for jury duty, so I didn't try to start any major push where I might be called to the court house the next day. This was a good time to do some of the pre-release testing that needs to be done. The main subject was the variously-improved undead invasions that can now happen in fort mode. We've done a lot of work with undead lieutenants and experimental creature and so forth, but hadn't tested invasions, which'll be a key method of interacting with them. It was good to see the failed experiments still manage a showing, with some procedurally-generated scaly horned maggots bringing up the rear behind the typical zombies. For some reason the two lieutenants (pale ghouls in this case) were obsessed with casting pain spells on my poor horse, but they also managed to make short work of all my test civilians.

To finish dwarf mode for the villains release, the main bits we need to complete are the wider investigations and some interactions with them (for instance, villains taking revenge.) Combined with the other additions already completed, this should be good enough to move on from Classic-only releases and get to the Steam work!

Reminder: we're working on villains and investigations to finish off the material we were working on for the last DF Classic release before we transition fully over to work on Steam (the artists are already way ahead of me.) Since we completed villains in history generation, we're now focusing on adding these elements to the play modes.

- Tarn

Hey!

The push toward the villain release has continued along the two lines of work we have in fortress mode. With fort villains themselves, we've had our first artifact heist! For years, simple thieves and even animals have been able to sneak into the fort and swipe whatever they could get their hands (or mouths) on, but now treacherous or compromised dwarves can spirit away an item to a co-conspirator in the tavern. We force them to 'plan' the operation for a year or so in order, as the co-conspirator dips in and out of your fort, to give you a chance to investigate and stop the plot before it happens, but there'll also be plenty of witness reports to examine even if you fail, once we get to the new justice system. Which is next!

Over in the rest of fort mode, which is coming into line with our history generation additions, we've brought craft guilds back to the game. When dwarves in the different professions (stonecarvers and armorsmiths, but also miners and fisherdwarves, etc.) reach critical mass (currently ten dwarves), they'll formally organize themselves into named guilds and petition you to build a guildhall for them. For now, this is a place for them to hang out together and become friends, and we'll add more functions to it over time. For now, dwarves can join the guild corresponding to their specific profession and also one for their broader group (e.g. craftsdwarves and then a subchapter for bone carvers), depending on their actual skills rather than their labor settings.

Reminder: we're working on villains and investigations to finish off the material we were working on for the last DF Classic release before we transition fully over to work on Steam (the artists are already way ahead of me.) Since we completed villains in history generation, we're now focusing on adding these elements to the play modes.

- Tarn