First, yes there is a free ascii version that’s been knocking around for years: http://freeholdgames.com/?page_id=39
The new Steam version simulates an old flickering CRT screen!
Early access on Steam: http://store.steampowered.com/app/333640
Been meaning to play this, from the same folks who made Sproggiwood or whatever it’s called.
I played this years ago and liked it quite a bit. Can’t remember why now, outside of the oddball setting. I love roguelikes but most bounce off me in short order, this one got its hooks in me.
That image reminds me a lot of Cogmind, actually. In a good way.
It’s no Cogmind. :) Presentation is extremely sparse, and there’s no audio. And what’s with the massive text size?
New Cogmind Alpha 2 just dropped btw.
I love the idea of roguelikes so I keep trying them, but they all bounce off me - ADOM, Nethack, Brogue, Stone Soup, Dredmor…
But something has finally clicked for me with this one. The steam video and the starting text are evocative of something out of Stephen King’s The Gunslinger, a small town on the edge of a desert with a tall gleaming tower off in the distance. The mutant powers are funky and getting to play around with them each build takes away some of the sting of permadeath (although I wish there was an option to turn that off).
Sounds like there is still a lot in store - will be following development of this closely.
RPS opens a can of worms: http://www.rockpapershotgun.com/2015/07/20/caves-of-qud-review-early-access/
The UI panel on the right seems so weird. Is it because everyone has a 16:9 monitor now, and they’re trying to use that space even if it’s awkward?
The hints and tips in the comments on that article are fantastic though.
Haven’t read his tips, but one tip I can give you for a character like that is consider picking up dagger proficiency and then (Maybe? Can’t remember if it’s the subskill that gives it or if just proficiency gives it) shank. One of those lets you use your agility modifier for damage/armor penetration instead of strength with daggers which is super useful. And even if you buy all the bullets in Joppa in the beginning bullets will be a bit tight, so that would let you easily dispatch weak enemies like snapjaw scavengers while conserving ammo for threats.
This isn’t a tip from a great Qud player though, just from my experience trying out gunslingery agility characters.
Sounds like good advice! I honestly figured he wouldn’t live long enough to run out of bullets, but hey you never know! :)
You might be surprised! The revolver can dish out a hell of a lot of damage early on, and in the first few areas there are very few ranged enemies.
Edit: And some not really spoilery tips but I didn’t see them mentioned in the tips above and they’ll really help you get rolling. There are three chests in empty houses in Joppa. If you close the doors behind you you can loot 'em without repercussions. This usually will get you an artifact or two so you could do the first stage (Or two) of the loremaster’s quests if you want, too. You can also kill the zealot/preacher in Joppa without repercussions and pretty easily and can loot his book which sells for a decent chunk of change.
Edit 2: Oh yeah. Not so much a tip as a bit of info on Qud ease of use. The 0 key on the numpad is auto-explore (Fills in the map automatically until you hit something interesting, then stops) and you can use < and > inside a dungeon to auto-move to the nearest known stairs up or down so you don’t have to manually shuffle back. So when you clear a dungeon you can just keep tapping < to go to the nearest stairs up, then go up them, then repeat for however many floors.
Thanks for the info, Squee! That’s good stuff right there.
An ignoble death for my winged gunslinger. I ran into a snapjaw/gnoll creature with a name, something-something, he with his flaming two handed sword. I was shooting at him and ran out of bullets, also during the fight I had to land and couldn’t get back to the air before … er, he killed me with a flaming two-handed sword.
In other words, I think i’m in love.
Also, I had previously murdered a radioactive cat that went aggro when I stole some awesome loot from a chest in town. I didn’t WANT to, but it went all rawr on me. I had no idea the cat felt so strongly about the (amazing) stuff in that chest. :) If you pet him you start to glow softly! I felt pretty bad about it. Of course, that guys dead now, so time to roll up a new one!
5:25 PM - Scott Lufkin: no one in town seemed to notice, I left the hut and quietly shut the door behind me.
5:25 PM - Scott Lufkin: My score was -1,122
Guess the cat happened to wander in. Never had 'em go aggro on me before. And yeah those snapjaw warlords can be rough. Started a generic choppa-wielding marauder earlier and had a few close calls until I got my hands on a steel battleaxe. Now doing 20hp in a single swing isn’t that uncommon.
Also trying out the horns mutation which seems decent, horn damage can just occasionally proc while you’re attacking and can even cause bleeding, and if you rank it up both the damage increases and you start to gain armor value from it. Not as much AV as carapace or quills gets you, but since I wasn’t expecting to get AV from it it was a pleasant surprise. Also took the hulking muscle mutation or whatever it’s called, not too impressed with that. Haven’t been improving it since regeneration and horns seem so much better, but maybe it would improve if I leveled it. It adds a chance to daze with each strike and gives +2 STR and -10 movement speed, but daze is only something like -4 INT, AGI, WIL, and some additional penalty to move speed. Useful, but not as useful as a lot of mutations. Especially since IIRC hulking muscle was 3 or 4 points.
Steam says I played this for 7 hours yesterday, which is bonkers. I don’t think I really enjoy it but I can’t seem to stop playing it. When I get the furthest is when I stop trying to progress on the quests and spend a bunch of time grinding in random areas and then roll over the quest with no trouble which is pretty boring. But whenever I die I end up with a very clear resolution on what I’ll do next time to get further, as well as a bunch of ideas for new mutation builds, so instead of swearing it off I end up immediately starting another game. It’s a really entrancing loop.
This last game, I had a Maurader with Multiple Legs, Regeneration, and Sleep Gas. My general strategy was hitting an opponent till I was yellow, then run away until my regen had healed me to green, and repeat until the opponent was dead. Sleep Gas was intended as a failsafe when sprint was on cooldown, but I found once I leveled up multiple legs a few times that nothing in the game could keep up with me. I think in my next game I’ll replace Sleep Gas with something with a dodge bonus, or maybe Carapace. Being able to survive in fights a little better would’ve been a big boon.
I ended up dying at level 10 in the Girt Gate to the first Chain Gun. My takeaway this time was building for dodge value is great until I ran into something that can one-shot me at range. Then I’m rolling the dice with every move, so it might be better to focus harder on AV instead. I also think the area around girt gate is pretty great for grinding, so I’d probably wait until I’m 11 or 12 before going in there next time. My desire to see how well a new build works is fighting the dread of tedium the grinding inspires. Damn that character creation system is compelling.
I got the impression that the game discourages you from grinding, by making lower level enemies pretty worthless XP-wise?
I did get half the xp of enemies that were significantly below my level. But I didn’t have trouble finding lots of areas with enemies who gave good XP without being threatening. It felt a bit like playing really old MMOs or the Etrian Odyssey games where you have the big dungeon you want to go in but you know you’re not powerful enough so you sit outside killing Gnolls for a while to beef up. I don’t normally mind doing that (in fact it can be relaxing), it’s just frustrating in a roguelike because I’m constantly aware that I’m going to have to do it again when I inevitably die.
Still, there’s so much in this game to like. I don’t want to come off as too negative. The character creation is really fantastic, especially seeing how your build progresses and changes through the game. The world is surprisingly evocative with little notes like fresh water being the currency, wanting to build some sort of food production skill into your build due to its scarcity, and the importance of ego for all characters just due to how important merchants are.
So how much of the environment is procedurally generated in Caves of Qud? The main thing that keeps putting me off roguelikes is that the overworld is usually always the same. Does this game generate some/all of the overworld, or just “dungeons?”