Dwarf Fortress now on Steam with a graphical overhaul

[LESS T_T]

http://www.bay12games.com/dwarves/

Spoiler

Dwarf Fortress is coming to Steam and itch.io, with graphics support by default, published by Kitfox Games:

It will cost $20.

Prepare for the deepest, most intricate simulation of a world that has ever been created.

• Not just generated geometry -- a whole simulated world. Generated rise and fall of civilizations, personalities, creatures, cultures, etc. Infinite hours of gameplay.
• Now with graphics! (Optional ASCII mode available.)
• Steam Workshop integration for easier modding
• A lifetime “living” project - created/updated since 2003, with no end in sight
• Generate your unique world and manage a bustling colony of dwarves, even as they probably mine towards their eventual demise.
• Optional ADVENTURER MODE: explore the generated world as a single hero in an RPG
• Optional LEGENDS MODE: read the history of the generated world and your games in it
• A new endless hobby, just for you!

The legendary Dwarf Fortress is now on Steam! Build a fortress and try to help your dwarves survive, despite threats of starvation, dragons, and madness.

In this complex construction/management/roguelike simulation, every generated world brings a unique challenge, whether it’s dwarves with their own simulated personalities or aquifers. Observe what makes your civilization fall into eventual decline, and learn for next time… until something else inevitably goes wrong.

The combat model includes skills, body parts, material properties, aimed attacks, wrestling, pain, nausea, various poison effects, and much more.

It’s difficult to convey the depth of the generation. Hundreds of animals and monsters, many of which are randomly created for each world, as well as generated poetry, musical forms, instruments, and dances for your dwarves to practice and perform. A dynamic weather model tracks wind, humidity, and air masses to create fronts, clouds, storms, and blizzards. Over two hundred rock and mineral types can appear, in their proper geological environments.

Your purchase includes Dwarf Fortress Classic if you prefer to play without graphics or music or Steam-specific features, in the “classic” beta branch.

Remember: Losing is fun!

Nothing substantial is new or changed, under the hood. It’s still good old Dwarf Fortress, but with graphics support and music by default. A few bells and whistles won’t change that.

You may already be familiar with the tile set mod packs from Michał “Mayday” Madej and Patrick Martin “Meph” Schroeder. They’re collaborating on an all-new, from-scratch tileset, as seen in the trailer and screenshots. Meanwhile, Dabu has composed a few musical tracks, to match the seasons, and some other audio bits and pieces.

Command your dwarves as they search for wealth in their generated mountain. Your dwarves will need a steady supply of food and beer, but they’ll also need your guidance in surviving attacks from hostile civilizations, the wilderness, or even the dead.

• Craft treasures and furnitures from various materials
• Establish a barony and support the increasingly demanding nobility
• Read your dwarves’ thoughts to keep them happy
• Build floodgates to divert water for farming, and/or prevent magma mishaps
• Build structures and watch your dwarves discover and build their culture, like taverns, libraries, temples, honey, wax, pottery, animal training, bookbinding, and more.

Choose a sentient race from your generated world (usually dwarf, human, or elf, but potentially goblin or animal person) and quest for glory.. Or seek vengeance.

• Recruit people to join you on your journey
• Explore without cumbersome plot restrictions, from capitals to catacombs, labyrinths to bandit camps.
• The original nemesis system: Meet adversaries from the previous games
• Earn a reputation as a hero, soldier, thug, musician, etc, with various civilizations
• Stealth system with vision arcs, respecting vegetation density and other factors
• Use signs like shoe impressions and animal tracks to hunt and avoid danger
• Steal a mummy’s treasure or learn forbidden secrets from a necromancer’s tower
• Visit your retired fortresses and meet your old dwarves -- even ask them to join you!

• The original inspiration for RimWorld, Prison Architect, Minecraft and more.
• One of the first video games acquired by the Museum of Modern Art in New York
• Updated for over 16 years by two brothers, Tarn “Toady One” and Zach “Threetoe” Adams

With the goal of simulating all of existence, Bay 12 estimates they’re only about 42% done.

https://www.pcgamer.com/dwarf-fortress-is-coming-to-steam-with-graphics-and-mod-support/

Dwarf Fortress is coming to Steam with graphics and mod support

I'm telling you, with a straight face, that this is the biggest PC gaming news of 2019: Dwarf Fortress is coming to Steam, with graphics and Workshop mod support. Dwarf Fortress is as famous for its ASCII graphics as it is for its unparalleled depth as a procedurally generated simulation of existence. And while it's always been moddable, the new Steam (and Itch.io) release, coming this year, will make an infamously complex game just a little bit easier to get into.

Kitfox Games, makers of Moon Hunters and the upcoming Boyfriend Dungeon, are handling publishing and working with artists and a composer for the new release. The new 32x32 pixel graphics tileset is being created as a collaboration between two long-time Dwarf Fortress modders. Under the surface, Dwarf Fortress will otherwise be the same game. The free version will remain available and be updated same as the version available on Steam, which will cost $20.

I asked creator Tarn Adams for some more details about the new version. Here's what I learned.

PC Gamer: What's the scale of the sprites? 32x32?

Tarn Adams: Yeah, the sprites are 32x32, but some of the creatures like elephants or dragons can be larger, spreading out into neighboring tiles a bit. Importantly, the text won't be the same size as the sprites (Dwarf Fortress to this point has had the ability for modders to add creature graphics, but the creature and text sprites had to be the same size, which was awkward and led to some pretty ingenious work from modders to overcome the limitation.) It's still possible to zoom out to get a larger view of your fortress, but we decided that 32x32 would give Mike and Meph enough room to be expressive and tackle some of the more complicated workshops and items.

Did you have any input or requests or desires for the new graphics style, or did you leave that up to Kitfox and the artists to decide?

We interact with them frequently, almost daily. Sometimes there are long conversations preceding the first pass on a set of tiles, especially when some code/tech decisions have to be made, and sometimes a pig or loom appears suddenly in a thread and we're like, wow, cool! Though we have the final decision on every tile, and we have input and preferences, sure, we're often delighted with the art they come up with. Since both of the artists have been around DF for so long, many of the needs of the project are understood without requiring our input.

It sounds like underneath the new graphics and sound, Dwarf Fortress is essentially unchanged. But in putting the game in front of a wider audience, are you now thinking about bigger changes? Controls, UI, that sort of thing?

We've been talking about this, yeah, and by necessity, just due to the 32x32 tiles, some elements of the UI are going to change and we'll take advantage of that to make things a little easier on people. We're hopeful that we can do accessibility work beyond the addition of graphics and ease of installation that'll come with the Steam/itch version. It's still too early in the process of hashing out interface designs etc. to have specific information, but we've been having these discussions.

Do you have a release day or window?

A: Not yet! The main issue is that I'm in the middle of adding villains! There'll be a Dwarf Fortress release on Bay 12 before the graphical version, and it'll have all of the stuff I've been talking about on the dev log with villains and player parties of adventurers and monasteries and mercenary companies and everything else. This'll happen some months from now. We didn't want the villain features to interfere with the Steam/itch release (since new DF releases with lots of systems can be rough at first!) but we also wanted to get the villain release up first so that people wouldn't be confused about all the villain dev logs I've been doing.

The artists will be working while I finish villains, as they have been to this point, and I'll probably also be coding up some graphical features for them to aid their work, but the main code work begins after the villains release is stabilized. I can't estimate how long that will take yet; as you can see from the trailer, we already have some of the new tile support in-game, but there's still a lot of work to do.

The first Steam/itch release will also be accompanied by a release of the free version (available from the Bay 12 site or through Steam); all versions will have quite a bit of new modding capability due to the code updates. Steam Workshop integration is also planned for the first release as well.

 

[hello friend]

The main issue is that I'm in the middle of adding

 

[asfasdf]

That tileset looks awful.

 

[Space Satan]

 

[Space Satan]

 

[Alienman]

It's a 20 buck edition so someone that is sick can get money. I don't wanna be too crass here, but to me that sounds like a temp product to get in some money. I have a feeling a found-raiser would work better and provide a lot of money, toady is a popular guy.

 

[rezaf]

Doesn't he still get regular monthly donations of $5000 ish anyways?
I mean, not gonna lie, I'd pay you your $20 for a dwarf fortress. But not with a new tileset only. Throw in a proper UI and it's a deal!

 

[Alienman]

He does, $5,915 to be exact.

I just find the excuse to release it weird.

Why is Dwarf Fortress on Steam and itch.io now?

Dwarf Fortress is going premium because some of their close family members have developed serious health issues within the past 6 months, and money to support them is tight. As it's a sensitive and difficult matter, please respect Tarn and Zach's privacy about this, but keep some well wishes in your hearts for them.

From here:
https://www.reddit.com/r/dwarffortr...ial_announcement_dwarf_fortress_is_coming_to/

 

[rezaf]

That's sad, but I'm afraid I'm still not buying a new tileset for $20.
Going to agree with you instead, a fundraiser might have worked better.

Edit: Can someone explain the Patreon issue described in the linked Reddit? Is there a thread about it on the Codex?
I have hard time following the line of reasoning of "we charge 5% service fee and 5% transaction fee and have record payouts" to "we need to develop new products and services to create a sustainable business model".
If they're running a deficit (they must be, right - otherwise the entire line of reasoning would be retarded), wouldn't the first logical step be to, I dunno, go to 7.5% or whatever they'd need to be profitable?
Also, are they even providing much beyond a popular matchmaking platform? Sure, some webspace and stuff, but that shoul be peanuts, and for payment they charge another 5% fee ... so where's the issue?

 

[Bibbimbop]

Old Tarny boy finally cashed out his chips, eh? The green goblin of greed finally got to him.

 

[Perkel]

Shock !

ARTICLE

STEAM

In a press release, the game’s developers, brothers Tarn and Zach Adams say that the decision to go premium is the result of family health issues and “the uncertain structure of Patreon.” They do say, however, that the premium releases are merely an alternative means to support the project, which has been in development since 2002.

The suggestion is that not all that much will change, and that despite a new publishing partner, the Tarn and Zach will continue to own and shape the game for the forseeable future. The most apparent change, however, comes in the form of a very new look, replacing the game’s traditional text-based graphics with a new tileset from modders Michał ‘Mayday’ Madej and Patrick Martin ‘Meph’ Schroeder.

 

[JarlFrank]

> healthcare costs

God the USA is such a 3rd world country, DF makes 5000 dollars a month with Patreon and yet healthcare costs are so high they still have to get in more money to pay for it.

 

[Anomander Rake]

Are they hinting to not ascii graphics? That's the only thing actually stopping me from playing dwarf fortress.

 

[Perkel]

It is not just any tilepack. Both meph and mayday worked on it and they even hired SFX artists to make sounds for stuff.
If this picks up who know maybe they will hire someone to redo UI O.o

The graphics are being made possible by Kitfox Games and Tanya X. Short (we co-edited a few books together, I've known her for years, and we can count on her to do an awesome job.) She's contracted Mike Mayday and Meph, who've both been with the modding community for many years. Zach and I are working closely with them as they create a tile set that fits the game and meshes well with our underlying code. Tanya has also brought on a talented composer and SFX designer, Dabu, who has already created several musical tracks and some sound effects. Even though this change was brought about by uncertainty and concern, now that we're on this path, we're determined to make an excellent go of it with underlying changes in accessibility and modding which redound to everybody, no matter which version they play.

 

[Perkel]

new tilepack looks awesome. It looks very clean and they reduced shitload of clutter most of tilepack have (even from both of meph and mayday)

 

[nikolokolus]

> healthcare costs

God the USA is such a 3rd world country, DF makes 5000 dollars a month with Patreon and yet healthcare costs are so high they still have to get in more money to pay for it.

Depending on where they live, $5,000 split two ways (and after taxes) isn't shit -- like close to minimum wage.

 

[HarveyBirdman]

Hey! You don't need aspergers to play Dwarf Fortress anymore!

 

[Egosphere]

I thought lazy newb pack had those same graphics?

 

[Konjad]

The end is nigh

 

[Kerestrem]

If this picks up who know maybe they will hire someone to redo UI O.o

Tarn has said in a PCGamer interview that some UI changes are going to be made, looking to make it more accessible:

We've been talking about this, yeah, and by necessity, just due to the 32x32 tiles, some elements of the UI are going to change and we'll take advantage of that to make things a little easier on people. We're hopeful that we can do accessibility work beyond the addition of graphics and ease of installation that'll come with the Steam/itch version. It's still too early in the process of hashing out interface designs etc. to have specific information, but we've been having these discussions.

 

[PrettyDeadman]

They would really need to rework their UI to make it accessible for normies.

 

[Konjad]

They would really need to rework their UI to make it accessible for normies.

^ another twat who wants a game made for a limited audience changed so everyone can play it. Go play Fortnite, it's more down your alley.

 

[eric__s]

> healthcare costs

God the USA is such a 3rd world country, DF makes 5000 dollars a month with Patreon and yet healthcare costs are so high they still have to get in more money to pay for it.

Depending on where they live, $5,000 split two ways (and after taxes) isn't shit -- like close to minimum wage.

They live in Seattle, one of the most expensive cities in America.

 

[J_C]

They would really need to rework their UI to make it accessible for normies.

^ another twat who wants a game made for a limited audience changed so everyone can play it. Go play Fortnite, it's more down your alley.

Yes because if something does not look like hot garbage, then it is for Fortnite kids. So much edge, very logic.

 

[PrettyDeadman]

They would really need to rework their UI to make it accessible for normies.

^ another twat who wants a game made for a limited audience changed so everyone can play it. Go play Fortnite, it's more down your alley.

Are you talking about Tarn Adams right now? I am not the one who decided to release DF on steam to a wider audience in order to make more money.

 

[Fedora Master]

I honestly don't think this is a good idea. This is how the decline starts.
e: Those wall graphics are like an Escher painting, I can't tell which direction they go.

 

[d1nolore]

I could not get into Dwarf Fortress because of the graphics and UI, though I did try. It was just a little too hard for me to follow and work out what was going on. And I'm no graphics whore, I'm all about gameplay but still needs to reach a minimum level like Sim Farm or pokemon 1 at the lowest, Heroes 2 is my jam graphics wise. I might purchase. But as noted they will still have the aspergers version available for the special people.