Game News Caves of Qud - Open World, Post-Apoc Roguelike

Tags: Caves of Qud

<p>The team behind <a href="http://forums.freeholdentertainment.com/content.php?115-Public-Builds-Available" target="_blank"><strong>Caves of Qud</strong></a> would like to invite you to the open beta of their post-apocalyptic roguelike. Here's the pitch:</p>
<blockquote>For the last 5 years, hand of luke, kilmarath and I have been working on a pretty ambitious roguelike project. It's a post-apocalyptic roguelike inspired by worlds like those of Dune, Gamma World, and Gene Wolfe's works. It is an open-world roguelike, heavily inspired by ADOM and Omega, providing a world map that combines static and procedurally generated locations with hand-written quests-lines. The world is deeply simulated; each monster is as "real" as the player -- they wield equipment, suffer all the same effects, and interact with the world in the same way as the player. Everything in the world -- creatures, items, walls, etc -- has a physical presence and can be destroyed, frozen, set on fire, etc. The whole world is contiguous, so if you want (and have the patience) you can go down a few levels and dig your way across the entire world. Though this physical simulation means that the game is fairly resource intensive for a roguelike.<br /><br />We've tried to update the roguelike interface to be as modern as possible, providing user interfaces for conversation, trade, quests, and skills that should feel pretty modern, even though they are provided via a terminal interface. We provide the plethora of commands a roguelike player expects, but also provide a single "smart use" command (bound to 'Space' by default), that chooses the most "reasonable" thing to do in the square. So, for common interactions you can simply walk up to a door and hit 'Space' to open it, walk up to an NPC and hit 'Space' to talk to them, or walk up to a chest and hit 'Space' to loot it. Though if you want to run over to a pool of acid, fill up your canteen with it, and hurl it at a nearby enemy, all of the manual commands are available as well, and may be freely remapped.</blockquote>
<p>Check the <a href="http://forums.freeholdentertainment.com/showthread.php?7-Caves-of-Qud-Reference-Guide" target="_blank">Reference Guide</a> and the <a href="http://forums.somethingawful.com/showthread.php?threadid=3374214" target="_blank">SA thread</a> for screenshots and more details.<br /><br /><em>Thanks to getter77</em></p>
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I like the setting, anything that mentions Gamma World as an influence has strong potential for greatness. I played for 5 minutes and died when I accidentally threw a poison gas grenade at myself whilst trying to figure out the magnificent UI (read: basic to the point of nonexistence).

But I will play again. And this time read the reference guide.

 

Ascii interface? THanks but no thanks.

 

(blinks)

Looks solid, though. Looks like one of those solid games I'll never play for some reason. Like Dwarf Fortress.

 

Its fun. Played it very briefly but the inventory system is good.

there doesn't seem to be an obvious way to change the key bindings though. I'd rather play it with vi keys.

 

Ok, I've heard worse...

Oh yes, this should be good...

OH FUCK YEAH

Meh. Too bad.

 

you can change the key bindings from the ESC menu.

 

Yeah I'm just going to download this random binary made by people who haven't even bothered to create a basic webpage...

 

Rogulike, post apoc, destructible everything, Gene Wolfe.... Sounds pretty damn awesome to me, hope it's as good as it sounds!

 

Wise choice. It may secretly delete your midget porn after all, and we can't have that.

 

There are guys here who hate roguelikes and ASCII?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=plY9hpA_Nbg

Jesse Ventura says it best.

 

Okay, one more game added to my looong to-play list. Fuck.

 

My name's Yeesh and I enjoy the fuck out of ASCII whack-a-mole. Kill, kill, kill; loot, loot, loot. Screw you haters.

 

The top option when hitting escape is Key Mapping.

 

Give impressions or reviews.

 

.NET? Thanks, I'll pass.

 

Played only a bit so far but interesting water-based economy and barter system, world map, quest system, dialog trees, and a very easy to use interface make it unlike a lot of roguelikes I've played. Definitely worth checking out.

 

So, anyone tried CoQ? *pun intended*

 

(FYI, I wrote the Caves of Qud software; I didn't realize it would spread outside of SA so fast; I hope you guys have fun with it! It's very early still, and there's still a ton of work do to. This is literally the second day of open beta, so there's alot of issues to work through. It's fully playable though, so I encourage you to try it out and post bugs!)

FYI, I've done a bit of troubleshooting in the SA thread: http://forums.somethingawful.com/showth ... r=61#pti12

Basic Troubleshooting:

I get an IOError when saving, or I get a Prognition.SAV isn't found: I'm bad a programming and I'm creating saves under program files in Vista and Windows 7. Run as administrator, or re-install outside of program files (c:\games\coq or whatever)

My screen is all black or all white and nothing happens: Post your video card in the Freehold bug reports forum, and then try the 'Caves of Qud - Console' shortcut, it will probably work till I can fix these issues.

The font is hideous: Try the OpenGL Filtered shortcut.

I resized my screen now it's even more hideous: Download the latest and hit escape once you're in-game. Select the "reset aspect ratio" option and it should automatically resize based on your width to a correct aspect ratio.

How do I run in filtered or console mode from the zip installer?: Make a shortcut to xrl.exe with the -filter or -console argument, respectively.

 

Damn, too bad that I can't install Net2.0 on my Wine due to some stupid bug.

 

ASCII is the only proper way to play a roguelike.

Seriously, people bitching about ASCII graphics, what has the codex come to?


Btw, Coq seems to be pretty good so far.

 

Isn't that widely installed on Windows platforms? Or some other reason to dislike it? Just curious as a non regular Windows user.

 

First quest: Go to some red rock and kill sum monstars!! Derp.
Learn to design a fucking roleplaying game before you make one.