For context, Dwarf Fortress used to be the only game I kept on my Linux laptop. I got used to having it there for when I was traveling and bored. In a way, it didn't feel like a game, more akin to something like Zork or Hitchhiker's Guide. And it didn't need the trackpad. I could play just as well on a plane, in a recliner, in a cafe, didn't matter. The ASCII graphics and keyboard controls completely obfuscated from judgey eyes the fact I was playing a game in public.

Since the release I had been playing the modern DF on my home desktop with mouse and keyboard, and for the most part it's been enjoyable. But it feels different. It needs Steam, for one. And the imagination isn't there.

Recently I've been traveling and from that really begun to miss the keyboard interface and ASCII graphics. I updated to the newest free version, and it's unplayable in so many ways:

Searching for an embark, the X doesn't flash like it did before.

The calendar is cluttered with ()s. Every other menu is cluttered with weird artifacts trying to directly replicate the GUI elements in ASCII.

There is a keyboard cursor, but no k inspection or way to select units with it, or at least that I've found.

The ASCII-GUI spreads random symbols all over the screen, and heavily relies on mouseover tooltips to explain everything.

Most importantly, there is no text on the menus. You just have to go off of the symbols; and the symbols look like nothing. That's fine for units on the board, because you don't NEED to look at them, but its absolutely awful for the UI. In the classic interface, all the options were clearly visible in the side window, and stated what the available key commands were at any given time.

I went back to 47.05 and the change in feel became very apparent.

This has been discussed before, but it feels like Dwarf Fortress had a piece of its soul carved out. Browsing online, I see that the keyboard-ASCII question has been brought up and promptly ignored multiple times, and now is a complete afterthought years later. 47.05 is there, but stagnant. In a way, it feels like Dwarf Fortress died in 2021 and its kid took over.

It makes me sad.

This release is compatible with all distributions of Dwarf Fortress: Steam, Itch, and Classic.

• Install DFHack from Steam
• Manual install
• Quickstart guide (for players)
• Modding guide (for modders)

Please report any issues (or feature requests) on the DFHack GitHub issue tracker. When reporting issues, please upload a zip file of your savegame and a zip file of your mods directory to the cloud and add links to the GitHub issue. Make sure your files are downloadable by "everyone with the link". We need your savegame to reproduce the problem and test the fix, and we need your active mods so we can load your savegame. Issues with savegames and mods attached get fixed first!

Highlights

Compatibility with Dwarf Fortress 53.13

The main focus of this release is to add compatibility with Dwarf Fortress 53.13.

Structures review

A fairly significant review and update of DFHack's view of DF data structures is incorporated in this release. This should have little impact on regular players but may affect those who write DFHack scripts. See the changelog for more details.

Other bug fixes and improvements

A minor bug that occasionally affected autotrain has been fixed, some documentation was slightly improved, and a few APIs were made more useful.

Announcements

PSAs

As always, remember that, just like the vanilla DF game, DFHack tools can also have bugs. It is a good idea to save often and keep backups of the forts that you care about.

Some DFHack tools that worked in previous (pre-Steam) versions of DF have not been updated yet and are marked with the "unavailable" tag in their docs. If you try to run them, they will show a warning and exit immediately. You can run the command again to override the warning (though of course the tools may not work). We make no guarantees of reliability for the tools that are marked as "unavailable".

The in-game interface for running DFHack commands (gui/launcher) will not show "unavailable" tools by default. You can still run them if you know their names, or you can turn on dev mode by hitting Ctrl-D while in gui/launcher and they will be added to the autocomplete list. Some tools listed as "unavailable" in the docs do not compile yet and are not accessible at all, even when in dev mode.

If you see a tool complaining about the lack of a cursor, know that it's referring to the keyboard cursor (which used to be the only real option in Dwarf Fortress). You can enable the keyboard cursor by entering mining mode or selecting the dump/forbid tool and hitting Alt-K (the DFHack keybinding for toggle-kbd-cursor). We're working on making DFHack tools more mouse-aware and accessible so this step isn't necessary in the future.

See GitHub release announcement for full changelog

Digging into the ground to carve out chambers is comparatively easy compared to building, but with building you can build up from the ground.

One of the things I like to do is going to a dense woodland and using wood to set up a temporary house.

Which do you guys prefer?