The Generated Villages and Alternate Starts Feature Arc
"Joppa? Never heard of it." -Mehmet
Previously you began every game of Qud in Joppa, a starting village with handcrafted architecture, history, customs, NPCs, and player quests. Joppa’s consistency helps new players acclimatize to the strange world of Qud, both its unfamiliar, far-future setting and its hybrid handcrafted / generated approach to worldbuilding. But for veterans who’ve started dozens+ games of Caves of Qud, the opening can feel repetitive. So, as an alternative to Joppa, we added procedurally generated villages to start the game in. They have their own generated quests that’ll take you through the early game and link you back up to the trunk of the main quest. Or you can you use them as a launching point to explore the world on your own terms.
The two big cornerstones of this patch are village generation and dynamic quest generation.
In addition to the starting village, we added villages across the rest of Qud, too. Every aspect of these villages is generated, including their own unique histories that are discoverable through various storytelling traditions. They also include their own fully dynamic quests. In sum, generated villages are a culmination of all our generative systems work up until this point.
- We added generated villages across Qud. Each village has its own generated faction, history, architecture, relationship with local resources, storytelling tradition, proverb, signature dish, signature skill, named & unnamed NPCs, and quests.
- We added a fully dynamic quest generation system that produces unique quests for each village. This may have additional applications in the future.
- In addition to Joppa, you now have the option to start the game in a generated village in one of four regions.
Each option has its own benefits.
- Random village in the salt marsh:
- Village teaches Harvestry.
- +50 reputation with insects and fish.
- Start with a pair of croccasins.
- Random village in the salt dunes:
- Village teaches Fasting Way.
- +100 reputation with reptiles.
- Start with an Issachari banner.
- Random village in the desert canyons:
- Village teaches Wayfaring.
- +50 reputation with equines, tortoises, and vines.
- Random village in the hills:
- Village teaches Butchery.
- +100 reputation with hermits.
- Start with a blood-stained neck-ring.
- Starting villages are guaranteed to have two questgivers, a warden, and a merchant.
- Starting villages are guaranteed to have a quest that gives you a recoiler reward and a follow-up quest that leads you to Grit Gate.
- Added a new quest, A Signal in the Noise.
- Added various types of monuments that depict village histories.
- Added a whole slew of new furniture, including chairs, beds, floor cushions, dressers, tables, vessels, and high-tech furniture.
- Added procedurally-generated wall types sourced from plant parts, animal parts, or metals.
- Added a new static faction, the Farmers' Guild, and dozens of new generated factions.
- Added procedurally generated stone and marble statues.
- You can now pray at shrines and statues.
- You can now desecrate shrines and statues.
- Fixed many, many bugs and made many other small feature tweaks.
- As with everything in Qud, villages will continue to grow.
