Development Update #21 - Upcoming Demo Changes

Greetings, Dwarven Kings!

The Closed Demo tests are concluding. At this point, we really want to thank all the participants who have joined us and decided to submit the survey with their feedback. There were a lot of responses and we went through them all. There are some great suggestions in there and countless amazing ideas.

Still, for now we had to group them and answer two important questions:

• Which changes are the most important and requested the most often?

• Which changes are possible to quickly introduce before the start of the Steam Next Fest?

Answering those questions helped us create a list of changes that we want to introduce during Steam Next Fest in February.

Upcoming Demo Changes

Stairs

Stairs were among the most popular requests. Even though there are Ladders in the game at the moment, we have seen several requests for more traditional stairs, which would allow dwarves to move diagonally (at a 45-degree angle). The idea itself might sound easy to implement, but it required a huge overhaul of the dwarven pathing system.

Placable Blocks

Digging through the mountain is really satisfying. Dwarves are strong and dig through resource veins with incredible efficiency. The drawback? After such a mining expedition, the mountain can sometimes look like a post-war landscape. Many of you have told us that you’d like to be able to place stone blocks back onto the map to fill in the gaps left in your settlement.

Improved UX

We have received some reports from you that it took some time to get used to the UI. Some of you couldn't find the dwarf management panel or had issues spotting the ore veins. That's why we plan to introduce the following changes:

• Tutorial Enhancements - if the text asks you to use a specific panel, we want to add some additional visual cues next to this panel. This way, you won't have to look around the whole UI now to find this one specific panel you need.

• Improved Ore Visibility - in the future, the ore visibility will be improved to make it easier to spot different resource veins across the mountain. We want to ensure that all the resources will be quickly distinguishable at first sight (this change might not be ready for the Steam Next Fest demo).

Visual Update

The answers about visuals were divided. Some players wanted improved 3D Models, others voted for better UI and improved light/shadows across the game. It also seems that many of you don't really prioritize the visuals that much and like the game as it is (which brings some other dwarven games to our mind).

Nevertheless, we are trying our best to bring you a little bit of everything. The UI changes are mentioned above. We are adding the new stairs model. And we are also experimenting with the game's lights/shadows. What do you think about the results showcased below? First screenshot is the previous version, and second screenshot is the current update.

Fixing Bugs

We are looking into all the bugs that you have reported. Luckily for us, there weren't that many to begin with! It seems like the game was very stable for most of the testers. The most common bug resulted in the player's camera getting stuck below the mountain and we are happy to announce that we have managed to fix it.

Demo Release Date

Steam Next Fest is launching on February 23, 2026. But we are doing our best to bring you this updated version of the Demo even earlier, at the beginning of February. If you want to be among the first players who will play the Demo upon it's launch, feel free to wishlist it on Steam:

https://store.steampowered.com/app/4164710/King_of_the_Dwarves_Demo/ Thank you once again for all your incredible feedback and thank you for the passion that you have for King of the Dwarves. It's really motivating to see how deeply you care about our game. See you soon!

Best regards, King of the Dwarves Team