Caves of Qud (ROGUELIKE)

[MisterStone]

I've been playing this game for a bit and have just barely scratched it- I keep using the same build until I can survive past level 3. Anyway, looks awesome. Setting is good, writing and world design (even compared to games that aren't roguelikes!!!!) are good.

Cool stuff:

+THe game is a huge open world, and the world map is similar to Dwarf Fortress in that it is just a representation of a grid of local maps rather than a separate movement mode (if that makes any sense).
+ Mutations!
+ Water is money!
+ Nice interface (I think it is very easy to use, inventory handling takes two key touches, lots of collapsable/explodable categories, etc. etc.; interactions can all be handled with spacebar and one or two addition key touches from a menu)
+ Monsters are rather unique, seem to exhibit different behaviors
+ Massive array of items from firearms to weird artifacts to melee weapons (including energy powered melee weapons!)
+ Lots of skills and abilities, and not just 'use power x to do Y damage, cools off in z rounds'
+ Random stuff in the world map (i've bumped into 'lairs' and 'ruins' so far)
+ seems to be extensive crafting, but I have not made use of it yet
+ Races: True Humans (Get resistances, bonus to skill gain, ability to rebuke robots), Mutants (Get all kinds of crazy mutations, physical and mental)
+ Robot rebuking is a fun game concept that I have not seen in action yet. BAsically the idea appears to be is that old robots recognize true humans as their masters, but will not listen to mutated humans, so it's kind of like they are the undead of the post apoc world and humans can 'exorcise' them. I'm guessing this is something that they picked up from Gene Wolfe short stories (ex: "Tracking Song" IIRC) and Book of the New Sun, but it's a fairly simple enough that it likely could be from any number of other sources

Granted, I've just barely gotten started on the game, but it seems like loads of fun. I can only hope it gets better as I play more and development continues. I'm hoping it will be a new Roguelike classic!

 

[MisterStone]

Oh, here are some threads/forums regarding the game:

http://forums.freeholdentertainment.com ... 3a3b9502f6

http://forums.somethingawful.com/showth ... id=3374214

http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.ph ... =73201.525

 

[Turisas]

Graphics or gtfo!1

 

[MisterStone]

(leaves)

 

[SimpleComplexity]

This was already in the news where i've bashed it into oblivion.

 

[Gwendo]

I can see a lot of people who like CoQ here.

 

[Fowyr]

This was already in the news where i've bashed it into oblivion. :forever alone:

fixed

 

[SimpleComplexity]

You like CoQ don't you?

 

[Fowyr]

Haven't played. But you don't touch roguelikes with your dirty plebian hands! It's a serious business (tm)

 

[Konjad]

Sounds interesting, i;ll try it out

 

[reaven]

This is how the game usually goes for me:
Wander around the worldmap.
Get lost, appear in a cave.
Get one-hit killed by some monster, turret whatever.

 

[Yeesh]

This is how the game usually goes for me:
Wander around the worldmap.
Get lost, appear in a cave.
Get one-hit killed by some monster, turret whatever.

Yes, I was merrily hacking my way through, I beat the first few quests and was sent to the next area, and then WHAM, I get lost (again). But this time I find myself spawning next to a bunch of baddies, one of which eats half my health with one hit, and it's like, thanks for wasting those 4 hours Yeesh!

When you get lost, you can so easily be fucked. You start at the edge of a map, but if you try to retreat to the next one, you'll probably just wonder into another ambush, only now all the beasties from the last screen are going to follow you to the next one to join the gangbang. Which is fine except FUCK YOU.

 

[Scream Phoenix]

Stable Elona update fucking where?

 

[Orgasm]

Color use is shit.

 

[Elzair]

Why do these assholes never release their sourcecode anymore?

 

[MisterStone]

SC I'm starting to think maybe you aren't very smart.

Yes, the game is pretty brutal right now. I can't get very far. Hopefully that's the point of this beta testing, to balance shit out.

As for people who nitpick about ascii graphics, eat a dick and go post somewhere else.

 

[SimpleComplexity]

Sorry i don't like roguelikes i won't be able to judge them. Roguelikes are an excuse to keep the graphics at a minimum but what do they offer in return? Only fedex, kill X monster quests and bad writing, not even a story! So what's the point of no graphics and shitty writting, shitty quests, shitty combat, shitty everything. Don't get me wrong there are actually some playworthy ones but CoQ ain't one of them.

 

[Zomg]

Go post in whatever the fuck thread of games you play

So far Qud is Dwarf Fortress Adventure Mode: Less Pointless. Kinda directionless. I'd like a set of starting scenarios/tutorials/achievements a la Unreal World, I'm not feeling too driven to learn the game and all the build bullshit kids these days love so well.

 

[MisterStone]

THere's no building as far as I know, it's more like Adom (world map + dungeons, but with a more random world) than DF or URW to be honest. It seems to be hack 'n slash, but with lots of ways to hack and slash, or shoot, or burn, or freeze, or shock, or blow up, etc. etc.

 

[Zomg]

Naw I meant build like "this is my 3.5ed Dungeons and Dragons Wizard/Thief/Fighter/Barbarian multiclass build." Character build. I picked a mutant for a game and had a million choices in character generation that I don't really want to learn the nuances of cold. Whereas in URW you get achievement-based tutorials (e.g. "dry some fish, build a hut") that kinda instruct you on the groundwork of the game (and I had to resist putting "game" in quotes for URW). I like getting thrown straight into games that are meant to be games like Crawl, but for simulated world sandbox type stuff with no obvious point I like to know what they've implemented and how they expect you to mess with it before I start ad libbing.

 

[Mackerel]

Played for a good ways as a True Human Praetorian when it was first mentioned in the news, had fun. I see they went to point-buy for the mutations and attributes instead of the random roll it was before. Development sure is going at a brisk pace, with several updates a day sometimes, so I'll probably just wait a while to let things flesh out even more.

 

[PorkaMorka]

Sorry i don't like roguelikes i won't be able to judge them. Roguelikes are an excuse to keep the graphics at a minimum but what do they offer in return?

Challenge. (at least the good ones do)

 

[Albers]

As for people who nitpick about ascii graphics, eat a dick and go post somewhere else.

I've played a ton of roguelikes so it's not that I dislike ASCII. What CoQ is doing with it is interesting (like the ripple effects) but there's an ugliness and graininess to it that I don't like. It's also really cluttered and messy looking.

Compare that to other roguelikes, like brogue, for example:

 

[zeitgeist]

It's also really cluttered and messy looking.

Absolutely correct. Its extremely unreadable, especially in comparison with games like Alphaman or ADOM. I don't think it's a matter of trying to do things inherently unsuitable for ASCII graphics, it's just that they're not quite proficient enough in ASCII to pull it off.

 

[MisterStone]

Well I thought the terrain was decent, but the monsters are sort of hard to notice in my experience. I think you all are right about the ground needing to be less cluttered. Still, it wasn't bad enough that I didn't still want to play the game...