Bay12 Games has released their latest bugfix for the most recent edition of Dwarf Fortress: '0.47.04'. This will most likely be their final update to this version of the game for a while as they switch development over to the Steam version, which will have built-in graphics & music support.
While retaining a unique ASCII graphics style, this 'Classic' version of the game has continued to see a new update every year or two, adding new features & mechanics. First released on January 29th, 2020, major additions to version 0.47 included guildhalls, temples, & artifact-stealing villains to Fortress Mode, while ridable mounts for you & your party were added in Adventure Mode, along with deeper conversation options with NPCs.
One of the key features of the game is this ability to procedurally generate a whole world with it's own distinct geography & history, then either colonize it with a fellowship of 7 dwarves in Fortress Mode, or customize your own character & head out to explore the world yourself in Adventure Mode. As the years & updates have gone by, these two modes of play have become increasingly connected, allowing you to create a self-sufficient dwarven outpost from scratch in Fortress Mode, then return there with your adventurer to join its ranks or plunder its treasures.
The vast amount of freedom Dwarf Fortress gives players with its deep game mechanics & multiple playstyles ensures they keep coming back to experience new stories emerging from their worlds as the game evolves. Developed since 2003, thus far Bay12 has given this game out for free, even supporting a dedicated modding community that has created their own graphics for the game. The next chapter for the long developed Dwarf Fortress will be to polish itself off & grace the Steam store, where dozens of games it has directly inspired have already earned a spot.
New players & those wishing to play the game with graphics rather than the ASCII symbols are recommended to start by downloading the 'Newb Pack'.
A list of features added to version 0.47.01 can be found below, while all changes & bugfixes can be found at Bay12Games.com
- Guilds organize and petition for guildhalls, guild members can do skill demonstrations
- Members of organized religions can petition for temples and priesthood recognition, priests give sermons and comfort stressed dwarves
- Traitor dwarves, artifact heists, interrogation for crime from the justice screen, counterintelligence readout with organization charts
- Most aquifers are much slower filling
- Can start with a party in adventure mode
- Specify background and starting location and beliefs in adventure mode (most labor skills still meaningless)
- Can start with specified equipment and pets in adventure mode
- Tactical combat mode for adventurer party
- Adventurer can ride mounts, place items on pack animals, lead animals, claim pets, gift pets, and name pets (rider skill matters for melee/ranged rolls currently)
- Can pet animals in adventure mode
- Addition mood information in adventure mode conversations, (simple) interrogation options, flattery, joke-telling, calming remarks, (very simple) sermons
- Simple intrigue display with actors and charts discovered in interrogation in adventure mode (in 'Q')
- Divination shrines with dice and various effects
- Lots of new intermediate positions (mostly without new mechanics) in entities (chamberlains etc.)
- Alliances against world-ending threats in world generation
- Various villainous activity in world generation, in play off-site, and (more limited) in fort mode, world generation surveillance, interrogation and punishment. Historical plots include theft, sabotage, abduction, assassination, coups, corrupt advancement promises, embezzlement, starting wars, and framing enemies.
- Romantic relationship changes (multiple lovers, affairs, children outside marriage, divorces, etc.) as well as other relationship changes and details (friendship/rival types, variables like trust, respect and loyalty)
- Merchant companies, military orders and mercenary companies, craft guilds in world generation
- Individual mercenaries and companies can upgrade their equipment, and richer world gen people can purchase houses and build up their own city towers
- Various religious interactions (shrine building, sermons, persecution) in world generation, lots of religious demographics tracking which influences shrine creation, religious sites and sermons influencing membership numbers, holy cities and a few levels of priest
- Various horrifying new necromancer/mummy/demon/vampire etc. matter - snow-balling zombie invasions, multiple experiment types, intelligent undead lieutenants with new powers, nightmarish summons, spreading evil zones, promises of immortality in villainous plots
- Dwarves can trigger dig-deep disasters in world generation, with repercussions coming to other sites, including fort mode
- Some new locations, some map details still in-progress, monasteries, private city towers, guildhalls, merchant counting houses, forts (bandits and mercenaries), castles have returned (basically unchanged), better necromancer towers and simple outlying buildings
