The New Dwarf Fortress UI Looks So Much Better

Dwarf Fortress is going to have a whole new look when it finally comes to Steam. This time around you’ll be able to experience handsome monsters, pixel critters and maps that mirror the real thing. Arguably the most important thing that is changing is the way that you’ll be able to interact with your dwarf empire.

Designer Tarn Adams has shared a sneak peek at the improved User Interface in the latest dev update. Although it may not appear as eye-catching as most modern games, rest assured it is a huge improvement over what older Dwarf Fortress players are used to.

This new update scraps the keyboard-based navigation and instead allows users to take advantage of their mouse, significantly streamlining the process of navigating menus. Additional tabs will be available and text filters will be integrated in order to make searching for items less of a hassle.

The release date

The new UI is a huge leap that can make the game a commercial success, but there’s still some bells that need to be fixed. Although the team commenced work on the new version in February, there has not yet been an announcement detailing the release date. The latest updates with regards to the New UI of the game can be found of the official Dev website, where Adams weekly updates the forum and unveils the new features of the updated UI. 

Here’s the last update from Adams on the updated UI. “Been working on the various matter – display support for various of the creatures and their child/undead variants, the first attempt at the giant mushrooms underground, and a variety of items that weren’t yet supported.”

He further added, saying “We’re continuing to experiment with bringing some information out from the status screen, as seen above the static image there. In the graphical version, they don’t drag two tiles behind, since that would look even more ridiculous, ha ha. So there will be rare mechanical differences after all! In this case, it seemed fine.”

The game has received nothing but praise since it’s the inauguration, both form the community as well as developers. The game will soon make it’s way to Steam, the most popular online video game distributor. The game has been around since 2006, but it needs to be perfect and polished before it is listed on Steam.