I grew up playing real-time strategy games, which naturally evolved into more complex titles, like grand strategy and exhaustive colony sim games. For me, it all started when I took a gamble on the RimWorld Early Access. The rest, as they say, was history. But for fans of the colony sim genre, it’s Dwarf Fortress reigning supreme as the inspiration for so many recent titles, and it’s only getting better with time. Now available on Steam, you can dive into Dwarf Fortress Beta 28 update, featuring new portraits, pets, music tracks, and improved loading speeds!
Everything New in Beta 28 for Dwarf Fortress
Over on Steam, alongside announcing the release date for Adventure Mode in Dwarf Fortress, Bay 12 Games also unveiled Beta 28, featuring graphic improvements, Adventure Mode developments, and game tweaks galore!
Graphics
- Child portraits!
- Baby portraits!
- Pebble floors are differentiated from stone floors
- Mythical remnant images by sphere
- Fixed broken human hair palettes
- Fixed missing hoods for cloaks in portraits
- Fixed coin palettes and pile size images
- Fixed off-center mythical dungeon map images
Also
- Tame vermin can be made available as pets in fort mode!
- Added adventure soundtrack to Fortress mode
- Added adventure mode music track credits
- Improved initial loading speed
Adventure mode character creation changes
- Changed description and added tip if chosen destiny is disabled
- Correct destiny name shown on character sheet in creation
- Difficulty tooltips
- Creature description tooltips on character creation
- Civilization description tooltips on character creation
- Home site description tooltips on character creation
- Ordered adventurer start sites by population
- Belief description tooltips on character creation
- Tweaked spacing in background paragraph in character creation
- Added character archetypes to character creation for attributes and skills
- Skill/attribute tooltips in character creation
- Made some additional skills available in character creation
- Made character creator choose better starting materials if some points can be spared
- Changed item category order
- Highlighted item categories in character creation that are for fortress mode
- Item quality button explanation in character creation
Adventure mode general changes
- Added mythical animal populations to mythical sites
- Made mythical populations wear less armor and decreased leader skills somewhat
- Added more protection against unintended infighting at mythical sites, though goblins can still argue
- Compass for retrieve artifact quest
- Improved adventure shopkeeper placement and table handling
- Stopped chosen from starting in towns with ruined temples
- Added handling of player that has been knocked out or unable to act for a long time
- Made reputation visible for people and groups in adv log in chosen/hero modes
- Improved adventurer log map display somewhat
- Added more information about where companions are located in companion list
- Right click allows drinking from tiles
- Right click on self has view option
- Right click on hatch gives option to go below
- Made adventurer NPCs tend toward taverns instead of castles
- Made priests start in their temples more correctly
- Hover info for sounds, vampire senses, memory map
- Fixed problem where enemy healing liquids healed you instead
- Added more chosen god popups
- Added some adventure mode help guides
- Made stop travel button flash if travel is impossible
- Clarified wording of surrounding obstacles message
- Clarified wording in talk button tutorial window
- Added announcement button to menu overview
- Improved travel restrictions check
- Added highlight for travel restrictions
- Made divine intervention stronger
- Fixed divine intervention crash against projectiles
- Cleaned up quest display between games
- Added more combat audio layers
- Changed songs less often in adventure mode
- Fixed audio crash related to ambiance
Other tweak
- Fixed broken medium taupe coloration for nightmare sphere screaming mouths fabric
- ready to push the button
It’s fantastic to see Adventure Mode progressing rapidly, and now it’s almost time for the official release. While I—and most of you—love building fortresses and delving into the emergent stories that arise, Adventure Mode offers additional possibilities that turn Dwarf Fortress into a unique game.
Let us know what you think of Dwarf Fortress Adventure Mode in the comments below!
If you’re a fan of Dwarf Fortress, like the team here at The Guide Hall, don’t forget to check out a few of our other colony sim-related pieces: