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.




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.


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

One more quick release to handle additional stability issues. This version also includes 72 new werebeast tiles, some changes to ambience, and a start to quality of life additions with the ability to select more materials at once when building constructions.

Major bug fixes

• Fixed save corruption from manual saves with case mismatch.
  
• Fixed crash when sorting pets/livestock by domestication status.
  
• Fixed crash when removing burrows from a scrollable burrow list.
  
• Fixed crash related to storing objects in recently deleted location zones.
  
• Fixed crash on squad equipment screen when there are multiple traveling squads.
  
• Fixed crash related to removing objects from display cases/pedestals.
  
• Fixed crash from looking at Groups for certain consorts.

Graphics additions/changes

• New graphics for werebeasts.

Audio additions/changes

• Updated forest, grassland, rainforest, siege ambiences.
  
• Added new wild ambience, moved old wild ambience to terrifying areas.
  
• Replaced siege horns with something less intense.

Other bug fixes/tweaks

• Added ability to add/remove every item of a given material when building structures that require multiple items.
  
• Holding a navigation key no longer recenters the screen during string entry.
  
• Now displays remove construction designation when designated instead of requiring unpause.

-Tarn

P.S.
Small note from Kitfox: if your save was previously corrupting and crashed, it probably cannot be revived, sorry. Many of these crashing errors caused garbage to be inserted into the save, which now is irreparable. If you can reload to an autosave, that's more likely to work. Otherwise, you'll have to start a new fort. Sorry! Thanks!

Tarn here!

This is a quick release mainly to handle a widescreen crash and some menu issues there. With that stabilized, we'll be able to start properly addressing the reports and feedback we've collected for a bulkier patch next. Thanks for a wonderful launch!

Major bug fixes

• Fixed crash from compressed menu lists (e.g. workshop assignment) on widescreen default settings
  
• Changed init option for interface pixel width to be a percentage (to fix many widescreen menu issues)
  
• Stopped fishing from hugely amplifying creature agitation in the wilds (zeroed general agitation level in old saves)

Graphics additions/changes
• Improved images for planned walls, floors, and fortifications
  
• Updated doors, hatches, chests, and other containers so that palettes will affect handles and other add-ons if the mods desire it, but made the default behavior consistently not palettize these add-ons
  
• Missing occupied animal trap images included

-Tarn

P.S.
Editor's note from Kitfox: this will help MANY of the crashes ya'll are experiencing. Basically anytime it crashed in a menu, I suspect this version will fix it. There's still a few less common bugs of course, so we know we have lots of work left, but I suspect this will make it MUCH more stable for those of you who were having trouble and weren't using 1920x1080 resolutions. Thank you for your patience thus far.

Hey folks!

We had a big day yesterday huh? Apparently Dwarf Fortress is still the #1 top seller on Steam? Thanks for all the support and love and, uh, purchases!


First, if you’re crashing, please know that the main cause appears to be widescreen monitors or other non-standard resolutions. We’re working on a solution but for now, the safest/best course of action is to use a 1920x1080 monitor or change your settings in the game to force that resolution in Windowed mode. For more info, see the FAQ below.


And for those of you who have been waiting for ages for the Classic mode, we’re also working towards that, hopefully coming to you in the coming weeks. Fingers crossed.

Alexandra will be continuing her tutorial newbie fort tomorrow at 1pm EST on the Kitfox Twitch channel, so tune in to learn and chat with other fans. Be nice.

We’ve also prepared an FAQ at the bottom. Read it for extra info and details!


But as of this post, we’ve also decided to change our regional pricing guidelines. $30 USD is absolutely a fair price, and for most regions we’ll be sticking to the Steam recommendations, but it’s been brought to our attention that as of October, some countries who were hit hard by inflation got caught in a bit of the international crossfire and had their indie game prices shoot up 500%, which probably feels harsh for folks just trying to live their lives.

Tarn and Zach and Tanya chatted and we decided the best path was to change all countries prices who had at least doubled in October, and instead going for the middle between the old and new prices.

So! The following regions are in the midst of the prices being re-re-adjusted:

Russia: 810 ₽ instead of 1100 ₽

Turkey: ₺165,00 instead of ₺280,00

Argentina: ARS$1215 instead of ARS$2100

And if you find piratey ways to take advantage of this little gesture, then we can’t stop you, but shame on you.

Thanks!
Tanya, Alexandra, Tarn, and Zach

P.S.

All our other Kitfox games are ALSO on sale this week! Boyfriend Dungeon, Pupperazzi, Six Ages, Shrouded Isle, and more, all on discount for folks who might be indie-curious. You can even pick up ALL the other Kitfox games for only ~$50 if you buy ‘em in our bundle! They might not be as famous, but those little gems were how we were able to fund Dwarf Fortress for Steam in the first place. :)


Q: Is there widescreen support? How do I adjust my resolution?

A: Dwarf Fortress supports widescreen resolutions but you may need to adjust your screen settings so everything lines up. Steam user matt explains:

“My resolution was set to 1440p prior (2560x1440) and Scale to Yes: Settings > Video > Set resolution to 1080p (1920x1080)

Set "Scale interface to fit grid height/width" to No

Restart the game. After making those changes, I am able to assign workers at workshops as expected. I suspect the crash is likely caused by out of bounds UI elements at higher resolutions when scale interface is enabled.”

Q: When is the game going on sale?

Not soon! And not for very much discount! Bay 12 and Kitfox are going to keep working on this for ~30 years, so it doesn’t make sense to follow normal Steam discounting. For example, we might discount 10% in a couple of months, but we also might not! We certainly won’t be discounting for more than 15% for at least two years!

Q: Will there be more streams?

Yes! We will be streaming tomorrow at 1pm EST on the Kitfox Twitch channel where Alexandra will be continuing her beginner fort. In the future we hope to do more special event streams and collaborations with other Dwarf Fortress streamers. We are especially interested in supporting charity events.

Q: When will there be Mac/ Linux support?

Sometime in 2023! We’ve already contacted a trusted programmer who will be looking into it, while Tarn works towards our other roadmap items. Wish us luck!

Q: Will there be adventure mode? Classic mode? Arena?

Yep, yep, and yep, but in the order of: Classic (quite soon), Arena (soonish), and then (much further away because it has a lot more left to do) Adventure. When Classic’s done, it will also be available as a stand-alone, free download, on the Bay 12 website.

Q: Can I play with just the keyboard?

No, currently in the Steam premium version you need a mouse to do many of the actions. We’re investigating alternatives for folks who are mouse-hampered but maybe a modder will beat us to it.

Q: Will the game be coming to mobile? Switch? Gamepass, Cloud gaming, GOG?

You can also buy the game on itch if you like! And we’re investigating GeForce Now with nVidia. But we have no other platforms to discuss right now.

Q: Will the game be localized/translated to my language?

No, sorry, it is extremely unfeasible due to the way the code handles language throughout the game. Our best suggestion at this time is to use auto-translation tools for text on screen, which has been helping some users.

Q: What mods are allowed?

The game is currently set up best to support graphical changes — sprite swaps, basically. More options will probably become available as we go. But please know that we WILL ban or delist your mod if it contains hateful or dehumanizing content.

It’s time to strike the earth because Dwarf Fortress Steam Edition is out now!

This new version brings a brand new pixel art tileset, a new helpful tutorial to onboard unfamiliar players, new soundtrack and sound effects, new user interface and navigable menus, and other quality of life additions to the legendary civilization management and construction game.



The game will launch with the Fortress and Legends game modes that longtime players are familiar with. We plan to add the Adventure and Arena modes to these versions of Dwarf Fortress very soon.

You can learn more and see Dwarf Fortress’ development roadmap here.

Steam Workshop integration is also available making it easier for mod developers to create creative additions to the game. You can read our evolving mod guide here.

If you're a longtime player and want to know what's different in this version, the (incomplete) changelog might be interesting!

The brand new soundtrack for this version of *Dwarf Fortress*, with tracks even made in the Dwarvish language, composed by Dabu, Simon Swerwer and Águeda Macias is also available now for purchase separately on Steam.

The classic version of *Dwarf Fortress* will remain available for download at no cost, and will continue to be supported in the future on Bay 12’s website. This future support includes mouse functionality and other improvements seen in the Steam release.

Thank you to everyone in the Dwarf Fortress community for being so supportive and patient over the years. We hope that you’ll enjoy the game with it’s improvements and be be able to introduce your friends and family a lot easier.

This is just the beginning.

Kitfox Games + Bay 12 Games

Hello Urists!

It's Alexandra from Kitfox Games the last regular news update before launch (ahhhhhh)!

We are excited to announce that the Official Dwarf Fortress Soundtrack for the Steam Edition is out RIGHT NOW! This legendary song collection is of the highest quality featuring tracks by Dabu, Simon Swerwer and Águeda Macias (The Gamba Geek).



Youtube (includes 1 hour ambience track):
https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLp1Y6qRhEmZyEeE3O1xz-qb62htJbPqIF

Spotify:
https://open.spotify.com/album/1IzWFdH2pfCbho7naePC9o?si=2xe8kZIsQn-k_uhCRzgXWQ

Apple Music:
https://music.apple.com/ca/album/dwarf-fortress-original-game-soundtrack/1656317303

Bandcamp OST:
https://dabuaudio.bandcamp.com/album/dwarf-fortress-official-steam-soundtrack

Dwarf Fortress Steam Edition uses a system of musical cards that play throughout Fortress Mode.These snippets are available separately from the OST:

Bandcamp In-Game Cards:
https://dabuaudio.bandcamp.com/album/dwarf-fortress-in-game-cards


Thank you to all the modders who contacted me to discuss their work! I've been working with Tarn to develop a modding guide that will help you get your mods onto Steam Workshop. It should let you convert existing object mods, but it doesn't have any information for tileset mods since that's a lot more information and some folks will do that best by mimicking what they find in the actual folders. Much like the Roadmap, this will be an evolving document which we be updating as we go but it will be quite a big task.

Modding guide: https://bay12games.com/dwarves/modding_guide.html

Send your Well Wishes to Bay12

With less than 5 days till launch, its never been a better time to join the Kitfox Discord aka the Official Dwarf Fortress Discord! We are an active friendly community always ready and willing to help with any dwarfy questions you might have. Don't miss out on chatting with the devs, joining community events and getting all the dwarf news right away! Also make sure to send your well wishes to Tarn and Zach ahead of launch!




That's all I have for now, but you'll be hearing from me again on Dec 6th for launch!

-Alexandra

Hello Urists!

It's Alexandra from Kitfox Games with another community update!

It's less than two weeks until launch and we are all busy and excitedly preparing for the big day. Tomorrow (November 24th at 2pm ET) will be our third and final beginner-friendly stream on the Kitfox Twitch channel. Streamer and Youtuber SalfordSal will be joining us this week to see if we can keep our fort going (despite the chaos). You can find the VODs of all the streams on our Youtube channel in this playlist.




If you've been following our Update Roadmap, you'll know that Tarn has been busy prioritizing Steam Workshop integration. We are happy to announce that indeed Steam Workshop will be available at launch. This means that you'll be able to find and install Dwarf Fortress mods with ease. If you are a mod developer please feel free to contact me at alexandra@kitfoxgames.com or on Discord at Alexandra#0007 to discuss getting your mod on Workshop!

This also means that we won't have enough time to get Classic or Arena ready for launch but they will soon follow. To be clear, this means the free classic update will be a bit late coming to Bay 12's website as well. But it will be available as soon as humanly possible. We will continue to provide regular updates on the progress of these modes.




Official Dwarf Fortress merch is coming to Fangamer! There is a pin, a metal band-style t-shirt and a pint glass with drawings of inside a fort. You can sign up here to get notified as soon as the merch becomes available. All craftsdwarfship is of the highest quality.

-Alexandra

Hello Urists!

It's Alexandra from Kitfox Games with a community update. In case you were hiding in a fort, last week we announced the release date for the Steam version of Dwarf Fortress!

📢 Watch the release date trailer on Youtube

We are just under a month away from launch, can you believe it? If you're reading the news and thinking, "This is great but I still have no idea how to play Dwarf Fortress" then you're in luck! I will be hosting beginner friendly streams of Dwarf Fortress Steam edition every Thursday for the month of November at 2pm ET starting tomorrow November 10th!



Join me on the Kitfox Twitch channel as I learn Dwarf Fortress and show you exactly what the new player experience looks like for the Steam version. Am I an expert? Absolutely not! I have intentionally avoided learning Classic in hopes to show you all exactly what it will be like to start from scratch! I don't know exactly what will happen, but traditional Dwarf Fortress chaos will ensue. Maybe some special guests will join me on stream too...

I'm looking forward to seeing you in chat!

-Alexandra

After years of hard work, we are thrilled to announce that the highly anticipated, and newly inviting Steam and Itch.io PC release of the fabled Dwarf Fortress will release on December 6 2022 for $29.99 USD! Watch the release date trailer on Youtube:



We are so excited to share the news, we know it was not easy waiting. Thank you so much for your patience and understanding!   

We will still want be as transparent as possible about the game's development and wanted to provide an updated roadmap. 

As we suspected back in February, we won't be able to squeeze in everything we'd have liked without the potential of a major delay. So here's a bit more information about where we are and where we're going:


We're implementing a few last creature and building graphics and fixing more bugs. We already know for sure that launch will include Legends mode.

We're not totally sure whether we'll have Arena mode or Steam Workshop integration or Classic mode at launch, but we do know all are very very close and already partially working. So those three things might end up in the launch or they might end up being patched in in the weeks after.


For the months following launch, we have more graphics we want to add. We'd like specific graphics for more plants (evergreens, real world plants, etc), for example, and we'd also love to put in images for baby animals instead of just scaling down the adult versions. Kittens and red panda cubs and giant eaglets!

We're also not able to approach Mac and Linux by ourselves, since we've never notarized a Mac build or managed Linux libraries, and will need to get help with that to do it properly. But obviously we'd love to get that whole pipeline working so people can play on non-Windows computers.

And of course we'll do whatever necessary work there is to stabilize the release post-launch.


It will take a lot of effort and tons of special menus and interface, but Adventure mode is the biggest thing on the horizon that's missing from launch.

Around the same time as Adventure mode, maybe a bit before or after, we'll probably also put in Steam Achievements. We'll complete the work on villain systems and armies and sieges we were pondering before premium DF work began.

After that, we'll probably enter a lengthier development cycle, designing and coordinating work around the next big improvements to the map system, preparing the game for the addition of procedurally generated myths and magic systems. Some of these additions will take months by themselves, or longer, but we'll see how all that is shaping up when we get there.

Thanks for your enduring patience! We're hoping for a smooth and cheerful launch, thanks to the help of everybody keeping things running: the mods, volunteers, Kitfox, Valve, and our players and supporters. Not too much longer before you too can Strike the Earth!

-Tarn & Zach + Kitfox

Dwarf Fortress has the well-earned title of being one of the most torturous games to learn. There is a lot going on, even after we changed all the ridiculous keyboard commands and replaced the Matrix-like interface with some understandable, and awesome, pixel art. It still needs something. Something to ease the need to head straight to a wiki just to understand what's going on. The answer is the tutorial of course.





To make the tutorial all it can be, we found the ultimate play tester: my wife Annie. There are a lot of base-building games out there now, enough to make Dwarf Fortress easier to get into. She doesn't play any of them. The closest she gets to DF is Overcooked 2. After one failed attempt with the original, the latest version of the tutorial allowed her to get good enough at the game to tunnel under a bog and drown her fortress.









Our aim is to make this level of play achievable by anyone. We want the world to be able to lose this game and have fun doing it.

- Zach

P.S.
A note from Kitfox, our publisher: Very soon, Alexandra will be starting a streaming video series on learning this new version of Dwarf Fortress! Follow along and get ready to stock up on knowledge at our Twitch or YouTube channels.