Caves of Qud

I bought this through Itch, but I like it enough to want to speak fondly of it here! But then saw a few reviews focusing on a controversy with the developers specifically, and I wanted to provide a summary for others who're considering the game but don't wanna give money to awful people. So here's the controversy: The controversy surrounding the developers of Caves of Qud, Freehold Games, primarily stems from a combination of community management decisions and a specific incident involving a popular YouTuber. In October 2020, YouTuber SsethTzeentach released a review of Caves of Qud, which was largely positive but included a brief segment criticizing the game's Discord community for banning him after he made a sexist and homophobic joke. He then jokingly challenged his viewers to get banned from the Discord as quickly as possible. This led to a wave of his fans attempting to disrupt the Caves of Qud Discord, prompting the developers to make the server private and vet new members individually. This decision was met with criticism from some who viewed it as an infringement on their free speech, while others supported the developers' right to manage their community and maintain a certain standard of behavior. That's it. That's the controversy. There were other rumours flung at the developers, but none of it was proven or substantiated in any way. Get the game, it's great.

The game it a fantastic rouge-like that will be a joy to play for people that enjoy the learning curve styles of say CDDA. However I would also like to add that the top comment, and a few others have said that they couldn't get ahold of steam mods. Either something has changed since then or they used another method but https://steamworkshopdownloader.io/ has always worked for me, and shows a 99% success rate on their website. So don't let mod access deter you from buying the game on gog.

Caves of Qud is the most complicate game to rate i've ever seen. That's why I will be straightforward. Why would you buy Caves of Qud ? If you want to try the hardest rogue-like rpg up to date with minimalistic graphics but rich stories and amazing gameplay possibilities then you can buy this game. Otherwise forget it. Because you can have a lot of fun and really rewarding moments as you can become so frustrated and angry to smash your keyboard (wich is actually the only controler). BUT if you still want to buy this game: Few things you must know before playing. Creating character with so much possibilities is a joy but you must follow some rules. You can fail your character build pretty easily. Always think about your vital needs, drinking, eating, staying cool or warm, light your surroundings. Your "origins" have its importance, playing a Mutant is different than playing a True Kin ( The "Vault Boys" all newcomers into Caves of Qud start with). True Kins can discover/craft augments but Mutants can starts right away with crazy mutations. Having 4 arms ? You should use them in combat... quad dagger fighter with a specialty in status effects is a good start. Your a really fast moving guys ?... rely on dodge less than armor value because armor weights a lot. This example goes for almost every mutations, augments and skills. Add to that Wayfaring and Social skills... YES in Caves of Qud you can lost yourself in the wilderness and YES you can learn to befriend people and ask them to join you ! (and there's so much more to tell but not enough space to do so...). Keep your time to learn how to survive in this world otherwise you will miss everything about this game. This is not a walk in the park, this all about discovering a new world tailored by passionate developpers. You have to support them because I can't think about a rpg that deep. About immersing a player, they just nailed the job. A MUST BUY.... if you dare. N.B: Don't forget to save your characters builds and copy and paste in a folder your World seeds. Quests are always hard, expect the worst. Teleportation/Mines might be your best allies... trust me. Roadmap is something you HAVE to read, you can't imagine how they did until this game got released on Gog. Also even without Steam Workshop, you can dowload mods from Freehold Forums.

I've always avoided these types of games simply because there is always too much text. This is a shortcoming of mine, not of the game. After hearing the absurd things that are possible in this game, I decided to try it. Its simply great. I'd love to compare this to other roguelikes, but I have no experience. If you suffer from ADHD and color blindness and you enjoy these kinds of games, then this thing is gold. The main selling point for me is that the text looks like syntax highlighted code. Even when bombarded with it, its easy to read and continue on.

Caves of Qud is a part of a current wave of commericially available Roguelikes, and for a genre that traditionally has been seen as free games that might seem a bit weird. Make no mistake, Qud is worth the asking price - in fact, I'd go as far as to say that it's worth more than that. This is a game which will give hours upon hours of fun gameplay, despite the tough nature of the game. Mitigating what might set in as tedium in other games, when restarting after dying (as it continues the RL tradition of permadeath), is the character creation. When creating a character, you have a myriad of different choices to make, with mutations ranging from a stinger that has a chance to hit enemies to the ability to take over another creature's conciousness and use it as a second body, essentially. The game itself plays like other Roguelikes, but abilities are given by mutations etc, which allow you to do a range of things. It's a satisfying RPG-style system. As mentioned previously, Qud is a Roguelike, so some people might not get along with that. The tiles are nice, but some may find it lacking graphically. I'm fine with how it is, as it's more of a game where you imagine what is being represented, so the graphics are simply there to convey information. For what Qud is, the graphics are nice and work - it looks nicer than just pure ASCII. All in all, Qud is a wonderful Roguelike which is worth every penny, and will provide plenty of hours of entertainment