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.

The team grows

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.

Release notes for 50.04 (December 22, 2022)

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