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Tags: Caves of Qud; Freehold Games
Caves of Qud is a roguelike by developer Freehold Games released earlier this month after 17 years of development. The Codex has never really been a roguelike-oriented community, but Qud nevertheless managed to become an anticipated title among the genre's fans on the forum throughout its years in beta and Early Access. Or at least it was until a a couple of, uh, events in recent years marred its reputation. Some however pay less attention to such things, among them esteemed member buffalo bill who decided to write an extensive review of the game. Like other roguelikes of its type, Caves of Qud is packed with interesting features, but what makes it stand out is its Gamma World-esque post-apocalyptic science fantasy setting. It sounds like a good entrypoint for genre newcomers. Here's an excerpt from the review:
Read the full article: RPG Codex Review: Caves of Qud
Caves of Qud is a roguelike by developer Freehold Games released earlier this month after 17 years of development. The Codex has never really been a roguelike-oriented community, but Qud nevertheless managed to become an anticipated title among the genre's fans on the forum throughout its years in beta and Early Access. Or at least it was until a a couple of, uh, events in recent years marred its reputation. Some however pay less attention to such things, among them esteemed member buffalo bill who decided to write an extensive review of the game. Like other roguelikes of its type, Caves of Qud is packed with interesting features, but what makes it stand out is its Gamma World-esque post-apocalyptic science fantasy setting. It sounds like a good entrypoint for genre newcomers. Here's an excerpt from the review:
Caves of Qud (‘CoQ’ henceforth) is an open-world roguelike RPG made by Freehold Games, and was released on December 5, 2024 after fifteen years of development. The only other release from this studio is a game called Sproggiwood from 2014, but Caves of Qud seems to have been their primary focus. As a roguelike in the traditional sense, this game features a top-down perspective, simultaneous turn-based action, deep mechanics, a great deal of player agency, procedural generation, and minimal graphics. I love traditional roguelikes like ADOM, and have been playing the EA version of CoQ for several years, so I have been looking forward to its full release for a long time.
The game styles itself as a “retro futurist fantasy”, and clearly is inspired by tabletop RPGs like Gamma World or certain GURPS settings. It is set in a long-in-the-future post-apocalyptic Earth. Unlike the desolate post-apocalyptic settings of Fallout or Dark Sun, which depict uninhabitable and barren landscapes, in CoQ the natural world is thriving, and intelligent and non-intelligent mutant creatures have evolved to fill the void left by a nearly-eradicated humanity.
You frequently come across remnants of the old world in the form of ancient high tech gadgets (“artifacts” until unidentified), robots, and computers. Sometimes the computers and robots are worshipped by NPCs, such as pygmies (“Naphtaali”) who are led through the jungles by their chrome idol, or the Mechanamists who throw artifacts in a well or worship a deep-underground computer. Mutated creatures are everywhere, and often have strange abilities. For instance, the twinning lamprey (or the more dangerous trining lamprey) come in pairs, and killing just one of the pair causes a new lamprey to materialize near its brethren.
Among the mutated creatures are familiar genre staples like giant bugs and lizards and hyenas and frogs and baboons, but also stranger beings like boulder giants (“Cragmensch”) who hurl pieces of themselves at you and sometimes bleed gemstones, barbarous and often psychic goatfolk, Dune-inspired cyclopean worms which roam the desert, plants and fungi of various levels of intelligence and mercantile interest (the “Consortium of Phyta” faction is a group of trade-obsessed plants), quilled albino cave bears, a tree of somewhat-hive-minded crystalline leaves, and so on. By my count, the number of broad types of NPCs is sixty, with each broad type typically composed of many specific creatures with unique stats and abilities and behaviors. For instance, just the insects have twenty three specific creatures.
The faction system allows the PC to befriend or make enemies with anyone in the game. Higher reputation leads to less aggressive behavior by the members of that faction, and lower reputation leads to more aggressive behavior. Factions have holy places which they will not let you into without violence if your reputation is too low. The PC can increase reputation by performing the “water ritual” with legendary creatures, which involves offering that creature your water (water also serves as this world's base currency, and must be consumed to stay alive). You can also offer secrets in exchange for a gain in reputation.
You can obtain secrets, or ask the legendary creature to join you, or learn psychic powers, or normal abilities, or food recipes, or crafting instructions, in exchange for loss of reputation. Some secrets (like the locations of certain legendary items or the “Cradles” of some of the ancient titanic agents of the apocalypse) are almost impossible to obtain without trading for that secret from a legendary creature of a relevant faction, and sometimes it is very hard to increase reputation with that faction (I’m thinking of trolls in particular, which have exactly three legendary creatures in the game). Killing a legendary creature costs reputation with its faction and factions who like that creature, but gains reputation with factions who hate that creature. Like nearly all of CoQ’s systems, this system is quite deep and unique.
The gameworld consists of a mix of handmade and procedurally generated locations. One issue I have with the game is the procedural map generation. Compared to some roguelikes like DoomRL or Infra Arcana, maps in CoQ sometimes feel a bit too random and relatively less interesting in layout. However, the procedural map generation is much better in plot-critical locations like Golgotha, which consists of a series of conveyor belts and different sorts of dangers as one descends, or Bethesda Susa, which has four floors that are always the same, and overall a unique feel in the gameworld compared to other dungeons. Most of the major cities are handcrafted rather than procedurally generated.
The game styles itself as a “retro futurist fantasy”, and clearly is inspired by tabletop RPGs like Gamma World or certain GURPS settings. It is set in a long-in-the-future post-apocalyptic Earth. Unlike the desolate post-apocalyptic settings of Fallout or Dark Sun, which depict uninhabitable and barren landscapes, in CoQ the natural world is thriving, and intelligent and non-intelligent mutant creatures have evolved to fill the void left by a nearly-eradicated humanity.
You frequently come across remnants of the old world in the form of ancient high tech gadgets (“artifacts” until unidentified), robots, and computers. Sometimes the computers and robots are worshipped by NPCs, such as pygmies (“Naphtaali”) who are led through the jungles by their chrome idol, or the Mechanamists who throw artifacts in a well or worship a deep-underground computer. Mutated creatures are everywhere, and often have strange abilities. For instance, the twinning lamprey (or the more dangerous trining lamprey) come in pairs, and killing just one of the pair causes a new lamprey to materialize near its brethren.
Among the mutated creatures are familiar genre staples like giant bugs and lizards and hyenas and frogs and baboons, but also stranger beings like boulder giants (“Cragmensch”) who hurl pieces of themselves at you and sometimes bleed gemstones, barbarous and often psychic goatfolk, Dune-inspired cyclopean worms which roam the desert, plants and fungi of various levels of intelligence and mercantile interest (the “Consortium of Phyta” faction is a group of trade-obsessed plants), quilled albino cave bears, a tree of somewhat-hive-minded crystalline leaves, and so on. By my count, the number of broad types of NPCs is sixty, with each broad type typically composed of many specific creatures with unique stats and abilities and behaviors. For instance, just the insects have twenty three specific creatures.
The faction system allows the PC to befriend or make enemies with anyone in the game. Higher reputation leads to less aggressive behavior by the members of that faction, and lower reputation leads to more aggressive behavior. Factions have holy places which they will not let you into without violence if your reputation is too low. The PC can increase reputation by performing the “water ritual” with legendary creatures, which involves offering that creature your water (water also serves as this world's base currency, and must be consumed to stay alive). You can also offer secrets in exchange for a gain in reputation.
You can obtain secrets, or ask the legendary creature to join you, or learn psychic powers, or normal abilities, or food recipes, or crafting instructions, in exchange for loss of reputation. Some secrets (like the locations of certain legendary items or the “Cradles” of some of the ancient titanic agents of the apocalypse) are almost impossible to obtain without trading for that secret from a legendary creature of a relevant faction, and sometimes it is very hard to increase reputation with that faction (I’m thinking of trolls in particular, which have exactly three legendary creatures in the game). Killing a legendary creature costs reputation with its faction and factions who like that creature, but gains reputation with factions who hate that creature. Like nearly all of CoQ’s systems, this system is quite deep and unique.
The gameworld consists of a mix of handmade and procedurally generated locations. One issue I have with the game is the procedural map generation. Compared to some roguelikes like DoomRL or Infra Arcana, maps in CoQ sometimes feel a bit too random and relatively less interesting in layout. However, the procedural map generation is much better in plot-critical locations like Golgotha, which consists of a series of conveyor belts and different sorts of dangers as one descends, or Bethesda Susa, which has four floors that are always the same, and overall a unique feel in the gameworld compared to other dungeons. Most of the major cities are handcrafted rather than procedurally generated.
Read the full article: RPG Codex Review: Caves of Qud
