Caves of Qud (ROGUELIKE)

[Hobo Elf]

Its been so long since I last played the game so I can't really word my feelings so well anymore, but CoQ is the rare roguelike where you feel the setting like it's a real part of the game instead of just an excuse / backdrop. The pseudo ascii art really does a great job at making the game world feel more immersive as well. It's very vibrant and strange. Exploring the overgrowth-ridden ruined cities; ransacking them for ammo and other loot while fighting off rogue robots and mutant cannibal tribes just feels right. Just be careful you don't wander into goatfolk territory.

 

[Tom Baker's Arse]

Its amazingly immersive. They haven't fleshed out a story, yet, too early in dev cycle, but the world-building is incredible. This is not your typical shit-ass roguelike where you hack and slash everything in site with no real sense of why in the fuck you are doing what you are doing. CoQ is set 1000 years in the future with a truly distinct retrofuturist slant. The lore is unique, and like I said the world-building is superb.

 

[buffalo bill]

figure I'll repost the friday update, since dev updates in other threads usually get posted (and I love this game--no shame at all--and want to spread the enthusiasm):

• Added legendary gunsmiths. You'll find their workshops as new overland encounters.
  
• Added secluded distilleries.
  
• Added legendary ichor merchants and new overland encounters for their distilleries.
  
• Added a new music track "Moghra'yi Remembrance Circle" to desert areas
  
• Legendary creatures guarding the relic chests on the last levels of historic sites are now leaders of their respective cults.
  
• Relic quests now properly complete when you equip or activate the relic directly from a chest.
  
• You no longer get multiple chronology entries for visiting the same historic site.
  
• Fixed an exception when looking at cybernetic credit wedges.
  
• Move Up and Move Down keybinds will now cycle through multiple objects in a cell in look mode
  
• Added UI options to show or hide plants and pools in the nearby items list, defaults to hide
  
• The new UI multiple-choice dialog now correctly supports capitalized hotkeys
  
• Taught the AI to use: bezerk, force wall and the new long blades tree
  
• Updated several NPCs and creatures to the new skills
  
• Reduced the frequency of several items of stacked walls and furniture occuring in a single cell in areas generated by the historic-style dungeon builder
  
• Changed XP Bar to more conventionally display percentage of progress through only the current level's xp
  
• Fixed dismember allowing you to dismember with non-axe weapons
  
• Fixed invisible objects showing up in the nearby items list
  
• Fixed issues with relics with several stat boosts not being properly displayed, applied or removed
  
• Fixed issue with relics applying their boosts in inappropriate slots
  
• Fixed some layout issues with the popup choice window
  
• Fixed some issues with level stacking of mutation power-granting relics
  
• Fixed the trade button in the new ui conversation screen being un-navigable
  
• Fixed XP and HP bars sometimes not resizing properly
  
• Fixed fungal infections dropping as items
  
• Fixed fungal infection items showing up on dynamic tables
  
• Fixed a few rare cases where Calloused's bonuses would stop applying
  
• Fixed some cases where you'd end up with multiple stairs up in a square
  
• Fixed some cases where you'd end up with a missing stairs down
  
• Fixed many effects that were incorrectly rendering in non-active zones
  
• Improved the layout of conversations
  
• Improved the readability of the selection highlight on new ui dialogs
  
• [modding] Added stat:<statid>:<amount> wish to modify a stat basevalue
  
• [modding] Added statbonus:<statid>:<amount> wish to modify a stat bonus
  
• [modding] Added statpenalty:<statid>:<amount> wish to modify a stat penality
  
• [modding] Added xp:<amount> to award a given amount of experience
  
• [modding] Added cureglotrot and cureironshank wishes
  
• [prerelease content] Metamorphosis no longer duplicates inventory and non-natural equipment and transfers your own equipment during transformations.

 

[buffalo bill]

Friday update

• We added hatters, glovers, armorers, and haberdashers.
  • Added hatter, glover, armorer, and haberdasher tents to the Stiltgrounds.
    
  • Added legendary hatter, glover, armorer, and haberdashers. You'll find their workshops as new overland encounters.
• Descending into a pit or open air while flying no longer grounds you.
  
• Added more variety to the geometry of historic sites.
  
• The Quest screen now has a scrollbar, scrolls smoothly, and properly wraps text.
  
• Added an option to scale the minimap (under Overlay UI).
  
• Added an option to scale the nearby items list (under Overlay UI).
  
• Monster AI now uses the Cudgel powers Conk, Slam, and Demolish.
  
• Monster AI now considers broken and rusted item statuses when equipping gear.
  
• Oboroqoru and rhinoxes now have a few more cudgel powers.
  
• Slam now properly requires a cudgel to use.
  
• Liquid volumes no longer interfere with other smart-useable objects.
  
• 'Spread Klanq' quest steps now properly complete when you spread Klanq to the proper targets.
  
• Made the Pax Klanq quest sequence a bit more robust.
  
• You can no longer choose a square without a target when you charge.
  
• Creatures that live on walls no longer spawn in the middle of a solid group of walls.
  
• Fixed some cases where objects spawned on stairs.
  
• Consuming an Eater's fleshcap no longer permanently decreases quickness.
  
• For clarity, we renamed 'Eater's flesh' to 'elcatl' and 'Eater's fleshcap' to 'Eater's flesh'.
  
• If you have burrowing claws and you use a skulk injector, you no longer lose your claws when the effect wears off.
  
• Made it clear that invoking the Chaos Spiel infuriates Asphodel.
  
• Added more messaging for shaking off dazings and stuns.
  
• Fixed some rare cases where commands were being issued twice in the overlay UI.
  
• Fixed some cases where overlay UI elements incorrectly displayed on top of each other.
  
• Fixed an issue causing the selected conversation option not to be highlighted when a conversation started.
  
• Fixed some rare cases where dismembered limbs didn't drop the items they had equipped.
  
• Fixed some rare occurrences of objects cloning themselves when slipping on slime.
  
• Fixed a rare hang during map generation.
  
• Cleaned up the text for becoming afraid.
  
• Fixed a typo in the hulk honey damage message.
  
• Removed <redacted> and <redacted> from dynamic encounters.

 

[buffalo bill]

when devs were asked about what informed the setting:
"The single biggest inspiration is the pen & paper RPG, Gamma World. It's a 70s D&D derivative set in a mutant-rich waste-scape after a nuclear fallout. I gave a talk about its themes and their influence on Qud at IRDC USA: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wd31PMVy8XE.

Clearly there's also the collision of ancient culture and far-future technology. That's inspired by books like Dune, Canticle for Leibowitz, The Book of the New Sun series by Gene Wolfe (this is one of my favorite series, though it's more of a retroactive influence since most of Qud's lore was written before I read it), and a lot of pre/co-medieval history: the Mesopotamian city-states, Byzantium, Rome.

The darker mood is influenced by the somber, grave, almost Gothic sword & sandal/sorcery authors like Robert E. Howard (Conan) and Clark Ashton Smith. The cheekier, lighter stuff is more Star Control II.

I love the alien-ness of Morrowind's setting. That was also an influence. ADOM and Dwarf Fortress were the primary roguelike influences.

Two more to throw out there: Ursula K. Le Guin and Edward Gibbon's The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire."

Are there better influences? These devs rule.

 

[buffalo bill]

friday dev update

• We added a new drag-and-drop prerelease inventory screen for the new UI. It's available via the "Prerelease: Use overlay inventory screen." option under overlay UI options. It's work in progress and has some bugs. Feedback is welcome!
  • Equipment is manageable via a drag-and-drop procedurally generated paper doll based on your character's body
    
  • Left click to bring up the item's interaction window
    
  • Right click to view an item's tooltip
    
  • Filter buttons along the top allow you to quickly filter to specific categories
• Updated the stilt well picker dialog
  
• Updated the pour choices dialog
  
• Fixed several issues with screens under the current popup acquiring input or navigation selection
  
• Fixed the AI trying to force prison a target and then shoot it with light manipulation
  
• Fixed Enuch's character creation skill list
  
• Fixed some stair placement issues in bethesda susa
  
• Fixed an issue where phase webs would sometimes leave you permanently phased if you saved while you were stuck in them
  
• Fixed some historic-style areas not having proper tile surface paint
  
• Fixed an issue with move-speed adjusting equipment not properly applying bonuses
  
• Fixed an issue with call to arms that wasn't properly respawning Q Girl in the correct circumstances.
  
• Fixed dynmically mixed liquid volumes not having the proper vapor temperatures
  
• Fixed a stack overflow error when containers disintegrated on the ground from contained fluids
  
• [modding] Merged blueprint changes will now propagate changes to children

 

[Taka-Haradin puolipeikko]

http://steamcommunity.com/app/333640/discussions/0/135510393203860790/

Is it even a dating sim?
I've been playing and enjoying Caves of Qud for years now (all the way from back with the free version.) And that entire time, I've always thought it was a pretty good game. But more recently, one thing about it has begun to bother me. Despite all the clever features and innovations, despite the array of tactical options and characters and creatures, I'm just not sure that Qud is a dating sim.

Now, I can hear what you're saying. "Of course it's a dating sim!" And it's true that I have good memories of the long hours spent mooning after Watervine Farmer's Daughters, or trying to win the affections of Pax Klanq, or going on romantic riverside strolls with the Wild-Eyed Watervine Merchant.

At the same time, though, some things about Qud make me think it might not be a normal dating sim.

For example, while pursuing Tam's route recently, I asked him "What manner of creature are you?"

"wow rude" he replied. After that, presumably because of the affection loss, I wasn't able to pursue Tam's route any further. Argyle's route is no better - after gifting him with multiple pieces of the technology he likes, then a huge bundle of romantically-wrapped copper wire, the closest he came to acknowledging our forbidden love was to give me a data disk of our time together.

Anyhow, as good of a game as Qud is, I feel that the dating sim aspects need to be polished a bit more before they can compete with such legendary dating sims as The Binding of Issac and Street Fighter 2.

 

[buffalo bill]

yeah, there's a crazy long idiotic thread on steam this is a parody of--op only has played roguelites and keeps arguing CoQ isn't a proper roguelike

 

[buffalo bill]

friday dev update:

• We made a bunch of enhancements to the paper doll equipment screen. It's still flagged as prerelease content, but you can enable it here: Options > Overlay UI > Prerelease: Use over inventory screen.
  • The new overlay inventory is now also used for item pickup and container manipulation.
    
  • Item filters now entirely hide the filtered categories.
    
  • Item filter buttons now properly respond to the 'use' key.
    
  • You can page up and down now.
    
  • You can use + and - to open and close item categories.
    
  • Items are now properly sorted alphabetically.
    
  • Fixed several filter icons in the inventory list.
    
  • Fixed some issues with scrolling through the inventory list or the paper doll.
    
  • Updated the look and behavior of many graphical elements.
    
  • Item selection is now properly restored when the screen refreshes.
    
  • If the overlay UI and inventory are enabled, the original equipment screen doesn't appear when you tab through your character screens.
• Added tiles for several pieces of natural equipment.
  • wings
    
  • carapace
    
  • horns
    
  • stinger
    
  • quills
    
  • burrowing claws
    
  • flaming and freezing hands
• Added a tile for mechanical wings.
  
• Updated torch tiles.
  
• Sultans now occasionally fake their own deaths or have their deaths wrongly reported.
  
• Added some sultan events involving chariot accidents.
  
• Improved the grammar of sultan history snippets.
  
• Fixed some cases where looking at a painted or engraved item didn't reveal the proper historic site or give the right quest.
  
• Fixed an issue that was causing the secrets about the location of the Ruin of House Isner not to appear in procedurally-generated books. The secrets are back in!
  
• Added a new textbook to the corpus of text that the procedurally-generated books draw from.
  
• Fixed an issue that caused the player to occasionally become a member of the Beasts faction, resulting in neutral NPCs acting hostile toward you.
  
• Added new options to the main Options screen.
  • Display vignette
    
  • Display scanlines
    
  • Brightness level
    
  • Contrast level
• [debug] Added a wish to clear the player's faction membership: "clearfactionmembership". You can use this wish to fix the hostile NPC bug in older saves.
  
• [modding] The look cursor is now more compatible with full-color tiles.
  
• [modding] Display.txt is now moddable. You only need to include the text you want to override in Display.txt. For example, here's the full text of a mod that disables the vignette:
  { "shaders":{
  "vignette":{
  "enable":"false" }}}
  
• [modding] Display.txt now supports a "tiles" category with "width" and "height" variables. You can use it to reskin the game with an alternate tile aspect ratio.

 

[thesheeep]

Man what a great game.

Though there should be a mod that gives you some kind of bonus if you have both Ravenous and Corrosive Gas Generation.

 

[B0rt]

love this game but I'm too feeble to play permadeth

being able to savescum does make the game play slightly more like a straight-up, somewhat austere CRPG, but there's really enough going on now to keep that fun -- it makes the experience of getting tore up by a turret more of a "ahhaha, wow, better approach that differently" moment

anyone new to this game might want to to avoid ironman for a while -- there's so many ways to die, and just random badass mobs getting lucky hits once in a while -- CoQ might just be getting a little too robust for ironman, at least at my skill level. though I bet some of the OHK situations get polished out before 1.0, and people complain about the game going soft for the plebs.

 

[Tom Baker's Arse]

The game is really hard as steel, to be quite honest. On any given save, it will kick your fucking ass in a heartbeat, very easily. I, personally, use the single save game slot simply because of time constraint issues, not to savescum. I simply don't have the free time of a 20-something year old anymore.

 

[thesheeep]

Wish the game had a multiple lives option like ToME.
It is great at offsetting those total bullshit moments that otherwise mean game over, no matter how good you do.

Talking of downsides, I also wish the early stages of the game would be more varied.
You always go to the same place, because it is the only thing you can survive. It just gets a bit boring after a while, which makes you rush, which makes you do stupid errors. Even eating the face off a bear while fighting it does get repetitive after a while.
Would be great if there were multiple first dungeons.
Another thing that I like more about ToME in comparison.

 

[mitochondritom]

They have introduced a random dungeon area to the early game which can be accessed with a shrine in Joppa. The dungeon will contain an artifact item at the bottom for you to mess about with.

 

[buffalo bill]

New dev update with cool new stuff about animating non-sentient objects. Work on gamepad support is pretty lame, though

• We added... well, just read below.
  • Added a new high-tech item, nano-neuro animator, that makes a nearby wall or door sentient (it'll support more inanimate objects soon).
    
  • Added a cheaper, consumable competitor for the nano-neuro animator: Spray-a-Brain.
    
  • Added body types and body parts for animated walls and doors.
    
  • Added a faction: newly sentient beings.
    
  • There's now a very small chance that any given wall or door is sentient.
• Updated compass bracelet's tile.
  
• Made some enhancements to the new input manager.
  • Rebinds are now be properly saved between sessions.
    
  • Improved the 8-way directional sensitivity.
    
  • D-pad left and right now scroll through your activated abilities.
    
  • While scrolling through abilities, 'X' activates the selected ability. Left trigger + 'X' enters the ability screen.
    
  • Next page and previous page bindings now work properly.
    
  • Menu navigation directions now repeat when held.
    
  • You can now navigate to the "buy a new mutation" option on the character screen.
    
  • Holding the Alt button while moving now force attacks in that direction.
    
  • There are now force attack action bindings.
    
  • Added key repeat delay and rate sliders to the Controls options menu.
    
  • Trade bindings now work properly.
    
  • Fixed canceling causing double input on several screens.
    
  • Fixed the pick direction screen not accepting diagonal inputs.
• Removed unused 12-gauge shotgun ammo.
  
• Salt dunes tiles now properly animate.
  
• Fixed some memory use issues on the high score screen.
  
• Fixed some rare exceptions in the following parts: AnimatedMaterialSaltDunes, AIPilgrim, Daylight, LiquidVolume, Juke.
  
• Fixed a rare exception with rendering effects.
  
• Fixed cases where the overlay UI stopped responding when you exited to the main menu.
  
• Fixed the mouse wheel not working on the keybind screen.
  
• Fixed controls in the new inventory screen sometimes incorrectly appearing disabled.
  
• Fixed a spurious serialization error.
  
• Fixed a scripting mod compilation error.

 

[buffalo bill]

There's a new website with a roadmap for development:
http://www.cavesofqud.com/roadmap/

 

[Tom Baker's Arse]

There's a new website with a roadmap for development:
http://www.cavesofqud.com/roadmap/

After reading all of the Coming Feature Arcs, I am so pumped for the 2018 release

 

[PeachPlumage]

I might have to break my rule of not using steam for this

 

[JudasIscariot]

They have introduced a random dungeon area to the early game which can be accessed with a shrine in Joppa. The dungeon will contain an artifact item at the bottom for you to mess about with.

There's more than one of those, actually. Keep examining every painted or engraved object or shrine you come across and you can find another location or two.

 

[Reapa]

Wish the game had a multiple lives option like ToME.
It is great at offsetting those total bullshit moments that otherwise mean game over, no matter how good you do.

Talking of downsides, I also wish the early stages of the game would be more varied.
You always go to the same place, because it is the only thing you can survive. It just gets a bit boring after a while, which makes you rush, which makes you do stupid errors. Even eating the face off a bear while fighting it does get repetitive after a while.
Would be great if there were multiple first dungeons.
Another thing that I like more about ToME in comparison.

there's always a dungeon right under joopa and it's accessible through the upper left pond.

 

[Black Angel]

I'm interested in this after experiencing Tales of Maj'Eyal (and not even done yet!), but holy shit how long has this been in EA?

 

[roll-a-die]

I'm interested in this after experiencing Tales of Maj'Eyal (and not even done yet!), but holy shit how long has this been in EA?

I played it when it was a custom engine before it came to unity in like 2010-2011.

I own it now and occasionally open it up to faff about with the character creation options. The boring early game is a noted problem. The varied characters aren't enough to make it interesting.

 

[Bio Force Ape]

Four pages and no one's made a CoQ pun yet?

 

[roll-a-die]

It's a bit too Coquettish for me to do that.

 

[Taka-Haradin puolipeikko]

This seems to be new.

Spoiler