Dwarf Fortress is getting the mother of all magic updates

I'm still pissed about the fact that they essentially gave the finger to everyone who has been long-term supporters - when they added the G to their UI, they essentially scrapped the old. In favor of a mouse-driven design, they dropped the old, keyboard-driven UI.

Long-term supporters, in this case, means people paying, and not insubstantial amounts either - before they partnered with Kitfox, they used to publish how much they were receiving. Tens of thousands of $ a month, mind you. For monthly contributions at that level for many, many years I would expect at least a nod - instead they straight-up told everyone they'd abandon keyboard users, a decision later recanted.

That said, Dwarf Fortress holds a special place in my heart. Only regret I have is that I didn't track how many hours I put in. In excess of 10k, I'm sure.

I wish nothing but success to Tarn and Zach, it’s great that releasing on Steam and adding a friendlier UI helped the game reach new audiences. It’s the proverbial time black hole.

This thread really inspired me to never release anything for free for decades.

It's been a while since I last played DF and I'm surprised to see that both this article and the video are a bit light on details, IIRC they used to showcase upcoming updates a lot more.

Digging a bit more it looks like the magic system will be built around deities, spheres of influence [1], and workshops/professions centered around magic leading to procedurally generated spells. I'm really excited to see how it'll turn out.

[1] https://dwarffortresswiki.org/index.php/Sphere

I’ve been tinkering with a game engine where magic is made of first principles for a very long time. Cannot wait to see the gameplay and mechanics here!

I always thought dwarf fortress would be a great simulation backbone for some kind of LLM driven story telling system.

Something that keeps the world consistent while the user experiences a generated adventure

Does any other game have true procedural generated magic systems like DF talks about? I have always been curious how and if they'll pull it off and if it will just end up being all pretty much the same

The idea of procedurally generated magic systems sounds insane. My fortress will be a glorious magical mess.

What ive generally heard is that this is more of a refactor and base functionality improvement, rather than building out all the actual magic systems to start with.

2-10 updates in the future will have much more fleshed out magic

As if my fortress wasn't chaotic enough. Guess I'll be learning a whole new system to exploit.

The only game I've I've supported where I ended up buying licenses for friends and family. Lot of respect for them and their game.

My dwarves are already drowning in complexity; this update will ensure total legendary chaos. My weekend plans just evaporated.

I remember finding this game back in the summer before 8th grade. right after the z-axis was added. talk about a spirtual wakening. I remember printing off the wiki and reading it in my science class. This game is probably the main reason I became an engineer honestly.

It's so exciting, I've heard about them doing magic for a decade, and now it is actually approaching.

I was passionate about this game (gui version), until my fps dropped to 1 (unplayable) and I found no fix.

They can make a simulation of magic based on the fabric of a procedural universe work, but even they failed to make a simulation of economics work. Fantasy magic makes more sense than modern economic theory.