In this release, we’re updating the engine from SDL to SDL2, and there are many optimizations to go along with it. Aside from the optimizations, SDL2 is also the stepping stone to ports. We have Linux compiling and playable; it just needs some testing.
Moreover, there is now a(n experimental) multithreading option in the game settings that makes the game even faster!
We also have some new individual tree graphics, and an update to grass ramps as well.
This has been mostly the hard work of Putnam! Meanwhile I’ve started up on adventure mode - the long work of updating menus and adding audio has begun! Hopefully we’ll have some progress to show their soon, as we continue updating fortress mode as well.
I don’t think it’s money that is doing it, it’s toady opening up the project. He’s a great guy and made a masterpiece game, but he can’t do everything. Commercialising the game was the impetus for him getting help, but Putnam in specific would almost certainly have helped him in this way any time had he asked her. She was doing free work for dfhack before, and has contributed to other foss stuff like CDDA
That is technically true, but I find it hard to believe that DF lacked mouse controls because Toady just didn’t manage to squeeze them in at any point during the decade-long development. No, it was a deliberate design decision, one that he stuck with for as long as he didn’t care how many people played his masterpiece. Now that the number of players is directly proportionate to his income, he suddenly does care.