Drawn Fortress

Giant Lorikeet Claims Nestbox - by Nausved

Eat, Sleep, Kill Elves by Explodian

Sunrise at Cloisterfog by Vulcant

Here is a sneak peek of one of the Tim Denee illustrations that will be in Getting Started with Dwarf Fortress.  The story was told to us by one of the players via a thread on the Dwarf Fortress forums. Just about every illustration is from a story told by a Dwarf Fortress player. The book is out in a couple or three weeks! Hurrah! I have some more news about the book as well:

• The book at launch will be current to 34.07. When the next version comes out I’ll update the book. Between waiting for the inevitable first patches and everyone working out the systems I expect it will take four weeks for between the next release and the updated ebook, hence the decision to publish now with the manuscript basically ready to go.

• If you buy the ebook through O’Reilly.com you get free updates as I update the manuscript, which I will do at every major release. If you buy the ebook through Amazon, you may end up paying less than O’Reilly but you don’t get the updates for free. You have to go to O’Reilly.com and pay $4.99 to upgrade to a version where you get the book updates for free. I don’t know why this is the case, publishing is weird.
• If you buy a print book it will be current to 34.07 and not magically update itself to include data on mine carts. If you want a print copy with mine cart info then you should wait until the next version is out. I’ll try and ensure the product page includes information on what version the book is currently at.
• I am passing all this on to try to ensure that those who have pre-ordered through Amazon or O’Reilly aren’t going to get less than they hoped for.

Lego, dwarfy style!