The Evolution of Dwarf Fortress [2006 - 2021]

if you're someone who actively uses the internet then it seems inevitable that you'll eventually hear about the game dwarf fortress or perhaps more likely hearing people talk about it out of context for many it's the type of game that remains a mystery only approachable by those willing to invest hours of their time to learning the game's various menus and interactions despite being 15 years old it seems like a game from a different era that hasn't changed much and yet it still remains supported with updates so today we're going to take a look at this game's development history to see where it all started and how the game has changed over time even if its appearance hasn't before we start for all those who don't know what dwarf fortress is i'd say it's somewhere between being a management a construction storytelling game that's also a roguelike trying to see how far random generation can go you create a world with its own historical events civilizations and important figures once your world is made you choose between the game's two main modes fortress mode involves the player taking a small band of dwarves to a chosen area in the world to survive and build a fortress you'll have to manage the complexities of a growing society and the unpredictable nature of your dwarves as you try to dig as far as possible for as long as you can without collapsing due to internal or external factors the other main mode of play is adventure mode here you play as a single character of your own creation that goes out into the world to solve quests find stories and defeat powerful creatures existing in the wilderness there's a much greater emphasis here on exploration and combat with your objectives really being whatever you make of them both of the modes have existed since the beginning and changed over time so let's actually see where development began to look at where development started we have to go back further than the first release and look at the game's predecessor a 2002 game made by tarn and zack adams called slaves to armok god of blood you might recognize this name even if you know nothing about it as dwarf fortress calls itself chapter 2 of this game this was a 3d isometric role-playing game with a fantasy theme to it where players played as a deity fighting various creatures the game never made it very far into development however as the brothers were still experimenting and coming to the realization that 3d modeling and animation were long in intensive processes this would result in them taking breaks to work on smaller side projects as a distraction one of which was a game called mutant miner while this game doesn't appear to have ever been released to the public and only a few images of it exist tarnish stated before that it was inspired by a game called minor vga a dos game from 1989 that involved players digging under their house to find minerals and make money other inspirations included games like dig dug and a roguelike game called bones that allowed you to find the body of your previous characters in the case of mutant minor players were digging to find goo and other materials they could use to upgrade their body to dig faster and further the design of the game continued to expand as the brothers wanted the ability to control more than one minor and to make it real time instead of turn-based at some point the game took on more of a fantasy design leading to dwarves digging instead of mutants with the main concept now involving players digging as far as they could with their dwarfs and building things along the way once the group of dwarfs fell apart or were lost players would send in an adventure to explore the remains of what they had dug to obtain a score enjoying the work they were doing on this game more than armok due to the ability to more freely add features as a result of the ascii graphics as well as interest from their fans in this new project zac and tarnwood began to shift their focus to the development of dwarf fortress [Music] [Music] on the 8th of august 2006 version 0.21 would be the first official release for the public it wasn't considered to be a completed game by anyone as there was still plenty that the brothers intended to add but it was in a playable state players could generate a random world to start in then choose between the usual fortress and adventure modes you designate your starting dwarfs their jobs and equipment before heading off to make your fortress what the usual goal is survive and explore as much as possible still being the player's objective as you order your dwarfs to make a home in the mountain unlike later versions of the game there was however sort of an end game here and that was adamantine if you managed to dig too deep into the mountain you'd come across a wall made of the stuff mining it would set in motion an unavoidable end of game event that would be sped up if you mind even more after some time you'd be greeted with a message that the fortress dug too deep and was lost interestingly you could visit the fortress in adventure mode where all you would find is a large demon this would however eventually be removed in future updates it may look somewhat familiar to later versions of the game but there exists one major difference that separates these early versions from later ones and that being that these first versions of the game were only 2d despite its graphics dwarf fortress is technically a 3d game but these early versions were lacking a z-axis meaning there were no layers yet you just send your dwarves out to dig further and further into the mountain that always spawns next to you without digging down as you usually would players would still have to deal with wildlife and other problems but they won't get the fortresses that go deep into the earth to protect themselves this also meant that features like aquifers or some of the other oddities you'd come across while digging didn't exist yet i decided to go back and download this version to try for myself and sure enough is exactly as advertised world generation is much more simplistic as you don't have the same level of choice in determining where to build your fortress instead selecting from various locations the game is chosen in the world there are no additional settings yet for how old or big your world will be you get 1050 years of quickly generated history and that's what you play with you have less options for starting equipment and i noticed many of the jobs people might recognize are either missing or part of more generalized categories the game would remain like this for just over a year receiving a multitude of bug fixes improvements and other minor additions until october 29th 2007 version 0.27 would come along with the first fully 3d version of the game so besides just a z-axis let's look at what else was added as you might be able to guess world generation received an update having more terrain layouts caverns water depth aquifers and other additions that made use of layers biomes were made a little more unique with additional plants and hundreds of new creatures you now also had greater control over where to embark as long as you weren't trying to settle in the middle of the ocean no longer would players just spawn next to a guaranteed mountain that they would dig into speaking of digging you also had other item additions more minerals more gems more metals and the ability to turn them into objects you know had things like cave-ins outdoor farming there was no longer an adamantine layer that would trigger a game over you had more starting goods to choose from like the anvil so players were no longer struggling to build their first forge skills were expanded and tons of other items were added to the game this is where you can really start seeing the modern version of dwarf fortress take shape as more and more interactions and choices for the player to make were included of course such a major update came with its fair share of bugs that needed to be worked out i actually found this one forum post of someone reporting that fish were drowning in their adventure mode game whether this was actually true or not remains unknown but that wouldn't be the strangest bug due to weird interactions this game would have over its lifetime frankly you could do an entire video covering bugs or unintended features in this game there have been update pages full of bugs and adjustments that have existed and while i'll make mention of some of them there's way too many to cover here and i don't always know the context behind all of them or why they occurred things like cats not being able to drop off dead vermin in the correct location due to not having hands or cats dying of alcohol poisoning due to the addition of eyelids or just anything involving cats from geese laying iron chairs to carp leveling their swimming skill by living in the water and becoming difficult to kill to the infamous dwarven atom smasher wherein a drawbridge dropped on any creature smaller than it would be crushed beneath it or dwarves getting ptsd from the rain dwarf fortress has been no stranger to oddities over the years while the line between bug and unintended feature can be a bit blurry at times these strange interactions both good and bad started to become embraced as part of the game's history often being the source of many stories that people have come to hear about bad and unintended interactions still get fixed but others are just a part of the procedural storytelling this game is going for moving back to development now this early 3d version would last all the way up until 2010 up until that time minor patches were released to resolve bugs unintended interactions and more improvements to world generation that would come along the way the game would also see its first mac release in 2008 thanks to the help of some fans the player base was growing more people were trying the game out and more mods were being made that would help make the game more approachable to individuals being put off by the graphics or its increase in complexity but this was only the beginning on april 1st 2010 the next major update version 0.31 would be released and it would perhaps be one of the game's largest updates in all of its development history first regarding materials the specific object that an item was made from now mattered its materials will affect not only its description but its effectiveness so now weapons and armor have attributes such as density sharpness how much strain and force the object can take before breaking and more this is the patch that really starts making the sheer level of depth and attention to detail apparent moving on to combat militarian squads would receive a massive overhaul players were given much more control over their chain of command and allowed to have full control over what their military squads do you could tell them what to eat what to drink where to go where to sleep their uniforms equipment training you name it you now had free reign to design your military and prepare them however you want it and since military-related matters were getting an update so too was fighting if you weren't aware like all things indoor fortress the combat is extremely detailed it isn't just two creatures mindlessly hitting each other until one of them runs out of health this is a game that simulates muscles blood vessels organs fat nails hair for every part of someone's body trying to hit something has an element of randomness to it a glancing blow may not hit the intended area but there is always the chance that it could hit something else in the process things were rebalanced in part due to the changes to materials but also changes to bodies giving them this extreme level of detail i checked out the game versions before this and sure enough there was still quite a lot of depth to combat bodies were split up into different parts that could be specifically attacked but any damage done to them was a bit more generalized as the different body parts had hp pools to determine their status you could still get bruised and beaten and bones could still get broken but that wasn't the same attention to more minor body parts like muscles fat and tissue you could maybe grab someone's left thumb but you couldn't exactly punch out their left molar this would also mean that there was finally a healthcare system added the system before of just dragging wounded dwarves off the bed was gone and now there were finally skills like wound dress or insurgent that were proficient at different types of healing you could also designate a chief medical dwarf and had the ability to create official hospitals instead of relying on unclaimed beds if you didn't know there is a difference between all of these medical skills bone doctors probably aren't the best at stopping the bleeding but they can't set any broken bones if the patient lives long enough while a surgeon will obviously be better at surgery besides just changes related to the physical body changes were also made to the mind of creatures as well the attribute system was split into 19 different stats related to the body including things such as strength toughness agility and endurance while soul-related attributes included details on a creature's memory willpower patience empathy and more every creature now had a soul that was responsible for storing these mental attributes and it was possible for both physical and mental attributes to rust over time if they were unused decreasing their effectiveness characters also had more detail to their appearance dwarves could grow beards over time and their nails would become longer if they were not cut creatures could now be fat or skinny tall or short and all these different attributes would go into determining how fast they moved or how long they could go without food switching over to fortress and world changes burrows were added as assigned areas for dwarves to live and work it would allow players to restrict places they didn't want dwarves going or setting an emergency area to go if the fortress was attacked workshops could now use new body parts like horns or teeth for crafting and you can now give alerts to your residents to get them quickly doing something and of course dwarves no longer instantly dropped everything they were doing if they started feeling hungry or thirsty meaning less cases of dwarves dooming a fortress because they chose to have a drink instead of wall off the cavern full of demons speaking of caverns underground layers were reworked to feel more diverse with new creatures and other objects to find there was almost always something in caverns now and some of them could be massive with how far they went you might now come across underground animal people with primitive weapons that will attack your miners you could come across some other random animals with random abilities or you might enter the home of a forgotten mega beast these powerful creatures like mega beasts and titans were also made a bit stronger in world generation so there might be more of them around now although there is always the chance civilizations will worship or try to tame them as well you may have also noticed that i haven't been mentioning updates to adventure mode much during this patch and previous ones while adventure mode was changing and would receive some modifications and adjustments specifically for it many changes to adventure mode had some sort of tie-in to changes for fortress mode so when the combat system was overhauled those changes also applied to combat in adventure mode there are more changes to come for it but none of the major patches were really geared specifically towards it at this point and especially for the early versions of the game adventure mode was treated more something you went to once one of your fortresses fell so you could explore the ruins it would take some time for the world generation to have more content that someone could go out and explore beyond just the remnants from a previous game and a few randomly generated quests the next big update would arrive on february 14 2012 with the release of version 0.34 the goal with this update along with other minor future updates was to finish what would be known as the caravan arc the intention with this development arc was to improve the role of towns to simulate trade and markets across the world this arc technically began back in 0.3119 which in addition to adding grazing and other domesticated animal options simulated food in world gen while making it so towns could be wiped out due to starvation this however had the unintended side effect of kobolds becoming nearly extinct in games due to them being carnivores and never being able to hunt enough food patch 0.34 would see further additions to towns and adventure mode giving them more buildings livestock and other features to make them feel more alive as well as introduce potential threats such as vampires dark and evil creatures was the theme for this update with the introduction of werewolves vampires necromancers and other undead creatures and to top it all off you now had evil regions of the world where creatures might come back to life whenever they die players also had more control over things like the world's history and size during world creation now besides this there would be some other minor additions to adventure mode requiring players to actually eat and drink now migrants to forts would now be historical figures with actual backgrounds and changes were made to the justice system and reporting murders to help deal with vampires these changes would come along with the usual set of bug fixes and improvements overall it might have not been as big as previous patches but as mentioned this one along with other future updates would be smaller in scale for the caravan arc the only other updates for the 0.34 patch cycle would include changes to civilizations training animals based on their locations the addition of mine carts and wheelbarrows for transportation of materials and other changes to hauling objects it's important to note at this point that the game was becoming increasingly complex adding additional systems and changes would require more work due to the need to consider how all these different pieces of the game would interact with each other interviews given by tarn discussing the game's development show that he can get into learning about some really obscure topics to get the info he needs to make such detailed systems he's made mention of reading things like ancient chinese law code for the game's law and justice system are needing to learn about psychology to improve the thoughts emotions and personalities of dwarfs systems could often be experimental or appear a bit strange but it's hard to deny that a lot of work is going into producing these updates this then leads us into one of the largest and longest patch cycles version 0.4 while most patches from here until the modern day have fallen under its banner that would still be the usual big patches with plenty of small ones so let's start with the first one version 0.4 released on july 17 2014 just over two years after the final 0.34 patch the big update this time was keeping the world active during normal gameplay in earlier versions the world outside of a player's fortress was frozen to put it simply now however cities and civilizations outside of the loaded play area were carrying on with their activities allowing players to more actively engage with other lands while things like caravans diplomats migrants and some beasts would still teleport to their destinations other npcs such as bandits refugees or invading armies would need to physically take the time to traverse the map meaning if a group of invaders was planning to attack your fortress you'd have more time to prepare if they were coming from a longer distance players could also now retire their fortresses as a means of giving them up to the world to manage as an active settlement allowing these forts to be visited in adventure mode while they're still active or players could unretire these fortresses to retake control of them furthermore players could now reclaim old fortresses that have been lost or abandoned although there is a chance that such fortresses are still inhabited by hostile creatures besides this more plants trees and animals were added adventure mode added a tracking feature and other combat adjustments allowing you to do things like catch an attack if you're fast enough and conversations and thoughts were rewritten to have more options and reflect a dwarf's emotional state numerous bugs would be fixed stress levels would be added to make emotional breakdowns from dwarves more understandable and it would take just over a year this time for the next major patch version 0.42 released december 1st 2015 the tavern update this update would allow your fortress to be visited by various groups and other individuals some of them might just be there to relax or they could be a traveling group of performers or maybe they're a monster hunter looking for something to fight dining rooms can now be designated as taverns which would allow these visitors to appear and interact with your dwarves some of them might even ask for citizenship to your fortress meaning that you could have a population now that doesn't entirely consist of dwarves which adds its own complexities when you consider the fact that other races will need adjustments like their own sets of clothes and armor specifically made for their size with these taverns came the need for entertainment to keep people happy bringing different performance activities such as storytelling poetry music and instruments dancing and other forms of art of course bringing with them their own sets of skills to determine proficiency these taverns would come with their own dangers however alcohol could now cause creatures to become erratic with the more they drank possibly killing them due to excessive alcohol consumption taverns wouldn't be the only new additional room added you could also designate new areas as temples and libraries while temples had sort of existed as places belonging to other civilizations in adventure mode now you could actually have one in your fortress some dwarves might have need of a place to pray to their deity and tumble snow served as a way to keep them happy libraries as you might be able to guess serve to store books belonging to your fort while your own fortress may have scribes and writers that desire an area to create books a library can also attract one of the new types of visitors scholars may request to stay at your fortress to use your library and even add some books of their own assuming they don't walk off and leave with the ones belonging to you books would have their own value besides just world building flavor as a method of teaching knowledge to dwarfs that read them as well as containing history secrets and in a more abstract scenario serving as a blunt weapon while you would first need to begin producing paper in your workshops a good library could prove a nice addition to any fortress as forts became more flavorful the worlds generated by the game started to become more alive in the process fortresses were now becoming a small part of a much larger world adding to the complexities of interacting with outsiders the usual minor fixes and changes would then be released this time adding the ability to be more specific with the materials used for professions and the ability to specify the images used in decorations like statues and engravings vampires could also now be purged during world generation to stop them from over feeding and blocking the growth of cities the next version number patch 0.43 would come out on the 9th of may 2016 about 6 months after the tavern update as for this patch there isn't too much to go over here in adventure mode you can now do things like carpentry to make buildings and create tools that you could use to build up your own sites these custom-made sites worked a little bit like a camp or town for yourself any companions you've picked up or just as a place for your adventure to retire more depth was given to work orders for making objects allowing players to more easily specify starting conditions for doing something as well as how many workshops should be used and where to grab materials from outside of these features and some bug fixes there really wasn't much added here besides 64-bit support which is the patch note state pulled the game from the distant past into the previous decade moving on to the final stretch of patches we get to version 0.44 released on november 22nd 2017 while 0.42 may have allowed other civilizations to cause problems for you by sending people to your taverns 0.44 would allow players to cause problems for others by sending their dwarves out into the world this would be an update focused on artifacts which are rare objects of value generated in the world or masterwork creations made by your fortress military squads could now be ordered to raid other areas with the intention of stealing artifacts or recovering artifacts stolen from you and with these artifacts came the ability to create museums and other areas dedicated to showing off your collection both to inspire your dwarves and impress visitors adventure mode players would also get to partake in this new system having the ability to hunt down artifacts receive quests to find them or utilizing features like the new ability to assume a cover identity to infiltrate areas by playing the role of secret agent themselves even more features were added to military squad missions and the .06 version of this patch allowing military squads to not only be given missions of stealing artifacts but to also do things like pillage raise and take tribute from other sites on the map while gaining experience in the process the 0.11 patch would also add the ability for you to establish your own sites out away from your fortress and install your own leaders to expand your influence over a much larger region you will need to be careful though not only will you risk antagonizing your neighbors even further dwarves would now have long and short-term memories of emotional events so don't be surprised if something happens and your dwarf now has ptsd although in the game's usual strange way there would be cases of short-term memories being chosen as long-term ones that aren't really that dramatic with the 0.44 version going strong throughout 2017 and 2018 the final major update the game has had so far version 0.47 would only come after a major announcement on march 13th 2019 dwarf fortress announced that a premium version of the game would be coming to steam in the future due to some family health issues the brothers going into their 40s and uncertainties about the structure of patreon to provide for them financially in the long term zach and tarn would decide to team up with the studio kit fox games to create a modernized version of the game featuring a new art tile set to improve the graphics and ui more music more sound as well as steam workshop support to easily download mods the game would still be available for free as dwarf fortress classic but this version was primarily meant to offer a way for players to support the developers while receiving a newer and easier to understand version for 20 while the brothers would be helping with the premium version's development the focus was still on releasing the next version of the game that had been in the works and with that the final version of the game before the focus was shifted would be version 0.47 released on the 29th of january 2020 this would be the first villains update not only would fortresses need to deal with potential secret agents trying to infiltrate and steal their artifacts but there was now the chance that one of their dwarves could become a traitor new mechanics for interrogation and counterintelligence were added to better deal with these threats and even adventure mode players had new options for intrigue to find rumors and secrets dwarves could now have relationship details hidden from each other such as affairs and children from outside marriage friendships rivalries and how much they trust those around them furthermore historical plots were now simulated in world generation such as major thefts assassination coups corruption and much more as other evil occurrences such as zombie invasions nightmarish summons and the spread of evil zones on the map were now more common aside from these villainous activities guilts could now be organized between members of a fortress with similar professions and they may petition players to build them a guild hall for its members to socialize and train together similarly members of organized religions in your fortress may ask you to specifically build them a temple if their numbers grow large enough and for their priesthood to be recognized these groups along with military orders mercenary companies and other religious organizations along with their members would also be present during world generation and may work together with other civilizations to prevent any world ending threats that could appear in history such as large-scale demon invasions or out-of-control necromancers other additions in this patch include the ability to start with pets in adventure mode the ability to ride and claim animals more mood information the ability to divine information at some shrines and perhaps most importantly the ability to pet animals and that is where the game is currently at while there has been the usual post patch adjustments made the game is currently sitting on patch 0.47.05 as work continues to be done on the premium version so the question is what can be expected in future patches for the game i should just state that there isn't any hard release dates currently set for any of this and while i'm going off a combination of information on the wiki interviews given by tarn and info on the official website features are always subject to change but first it's pretty safe to say that the premium version for the game that's been in the works is the main priority and will be the next release coming with the updated graphics sounds and improved ui should make the game accessible to a larger audience what was once the game's biggest strength allowing it to freely implement changes without needing to worry too much about the graphics has now shown itself to be something requiring a lot of work to change especially when you consider how many objects and menus exist in the game next it sounds as though there are plans to finish the villains update as not all of the features could be completed before moving over to work on the premium version going off of features listed on the website this will probably include more things related to the assassination of dwarves holding high ranking positions in a fortress theft plots and conspiracies more interrogation options allegiances to evil groups and villains and other evil interactions other future updates include plans for a myths and magic system that will alter how the game plays with the addition of spells and other magical entities other possible future updates include a starting scenario update changing laws customs and other methods for governing a fort a boat's release adding ports maritime trade pirates and other sea creatures and lastly more changes to the economy as while the caravan arc may have been intended to start adding to the economy it didn't quite go the way they wanted it to and they have more than they want to add to it and change while ideas could be scrapped concepts could be changed and nothing is set in stone what does remain certain is that the game will remain supported for years to come what once started as just a side project about digging has now become a test in how far random generation and storytelling can go the game may have had its fair share of features over the years that were broken or not quite working as intended but it has changed a lot since its early days future updates and interactions for better or worse will continue to perpetuate the game's interesting method of storytelling and that has been and will continue to be the development of dwarf fortress

Channel: Archbishop Wex

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Keywords: dwarf fortress, dwarf fortress game, dwarf fortress fun, dwarf fortress history, dwarf fortress evolution, dwarf fortress premium, dwarf fortress steam, evolution of, game evolution, zach adams, tarn adams, bay12games, dwarf fortress 2021, dwarf fortress 2022, dwarf fortress documentary, dwarf fortress update history, dwarf fortress development, dwarf fortress old, steam dwarf fortress update, bay 12 games, slaves to armok, dwarf fortress roguelike, dwarf fortress update

Id: iFtG6tLiXkI

Length: 31min 13sec (1873 seconds)

Published: Thu Jan 06 2022

Reddit Comments

[u/skeletonman-]

Very nice

[u/Gnomonas]

interesting