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Caves of Qud: The New Best Roguelike in Town
Mojo_Jojo
We are only now beginning to understand the full power and ramifications of sexual intercourseRegistered User regular
We are only now beginning to understand the full power and ramifications of sexual intercourseRegistered User regular
Note: Search is disabled, so my efforts to make sure that there wasn't another thread floating around might have been in vain. Also, I ripped a majority of the OP from the Something Awful one written by one of the developers.
Give it to me now
If you'd just like to directly download the game without registering here are the direct links, these are always the latest public build:
https://s3.amazonaws.com/CoQ/setup.exe
https://s3.amazonaws.com/CoQ/coq.zip
Mojo, what is this?
You ADOM? That glorious roguelike with glacial development speed (which now seems to be being developed for the iPhone or something). Well, this is a roguelike really along those lines. It also claims inspiration from OMEGA, if any of you are familiar with that.
I'll highlight the salient points
The team have gone out of their way to make the word a living entity, so in their own words
What do you mean modern interface?
The philosophy taken to the interface is the polar opposite to something like Dwarf Fortress. So, it's quite rare to actually need to look up the key-binding table as in most cases you can just press space.
Does it have beautiful graphics?
No, it's a roguelike. So, while one day in the distance future you may be able to get tilesets that obfuscate what is going on, for now, we have to deal with basic ASCII. For some reason, this is actually one of the uglier roguelikes, but in general the usual symbols are used and you can just look at anything you don't understand to get a nice description.
The static world map
Talking to people
Look at stuff in town
Stuff. Lots of stuff
A very modern quest system
More skills than you can shake a stick at
Create your own grenades and guns from junk
Most NPCs will trade with you, letting you offload your crap for valuable fresh water.
Is it finished?
No, the devs are calling this an "open beta" - although really this is the state that most roguelikes reach and never pass. You can merrily download, play it, and get the latest version every couple of days.
If you want to talk to the developers directly, head to their
forum
Any Tips?
Can't make it work?
Here's the .NET 2.0 framework if you need it:
http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/...&displaylang=en
http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/...&displaylang=en
Now lets all bitch about how unfair it is to start with a knife and get killed by a two-headed boar as soon as we step out town.
Give it to me now
If you'd just like to directly download the game without registering here are the direct links, these are always the latest public build:
https://s3.amazonaws.com/CoQ/setup.exe
https://s3.amazonaws.com/CoQ/coq.zip
Mojo, what is this?
You ADOM? That glorious roguelike with glacial development speed (which now seems to be being developed for the iPhone or something). Well, this is a roguelike really along those lines. It also claims inspiration from OMEGA, if any of you are familiar with that.
I'll highlight the salient points
- A combination of random generation and set pieces
- A modern interface
- Very fast development and a dev team who interact with the userbase on a daily basis
- Ancient Gods From Beyond Time and Space (TM)
- Shotguns
- A post-apocalyptic setting
- Mutant powers
The team have gone out of their way to make the word a living entity, so in their own words
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.
What do you mean modern interface?
The philosophy taken to the interface is the polar opposite to something like Dwarf Fortress. So, it's quite rare to actually need to look up the key-binding table as in most cases you can just press space.
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.
Does it have beautiful graphics?
No, it's a roguelike. So, while one day in the distance future you may be able to get tilesets that obfuscate what is going on, for now, we have to deal with basic ASCII. For some reason, this is actually one of the uglier roguelikes, but in general the usual symbols are used and you can just look at anything you don't understand to get a nice description.
The static world map
Talking to people
Look at stuff in town
Stuff. Lots of stuff
A very modern quest system
More skills than you can shake a stick at
Create your own grenades and guns from junk
Most NPCs will trade with you, letting you offload your crap for valuable fresh water.
Is it finished?
No, the devs are calling this an "open beta" - although really this is the state that most roguelikes reach and never pass. You can merrily download, play it, and get the latest version every couple of days.
If you want to talk to the developers directly, head to their
forum
Any Tips?
- Guns are your friend - Buy a gun. Any gun. Kill things before they get near enough to kill you
- Mental-type Mutant powers will level up automatically if you have a high Ego
- Tinkers can make any ranged weapon(i.e. those hundreds of shortbows you keep finding) into turrets that don't seem to use ammo and provide covering fire
- Water is heavy, keep some but carry your wealth in trade goods
Can't make it work?
Here's the .NET 2.0 framework if you need it:
http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/...&displaylang=en
http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/...&displaylang=en
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.
I'm mysteriously getting slower and slower!: I fixed it! Download the latest.
Now lets all bitch about how unfair it is to start with a knife and get killed by a two-headed boar as soon as we step out town.
Homogeneous distribution of your varieties of amuse-gueule
Mojo_Jojo on
0
Posts
I'll stick with Dungeon Crawl and Powder, thank you...
..."modern interface"... very funny. :P
(It does look ambitious, though.)
So far, I mainly play mutant tinkers. Beguiling creatures to serve you is really handy except that they tend to start fights they can't finish (so never return to the first town with a beguiled creature more than once or he'll target the Warden, who has a massive gun). Run can be a useful skill when your good for nothing pet boar has attacked a beetlebum and you need to get the hell out of there.
i think tilesets have ruined roguelikes for me forever
Me too. It's especially bad for me because my first roguelike was Powder, which looks like this:
I also found while playing Qud that water seemed to move around; the shapes of bodies of water changed sporadically. Why is that?
Anyway, I haven't played a roguelike in ages but this sounds pretty neat. If nothing else, playing a non-fantasy roguelike will something different. And I like the idea of an updated interface; something like, say, the key scheme for Dwarf Fortress in Fortress mode works really well, but I got pretty fed up just with roguelikes using multiple keys just for scrolling in a couple different screens.
I'll still give Caves of Qud another try tomorrow, though.
Thanks!
Edit: hrmmm. wants to be run as an administrator? pass for now.
actually thats because it really does look a lot like dwarf fortress, at least the world parts, not so much the inventory etc
i might try this out though, doubt itll take me from my love of my life nethack
Downloading. Not sure when I'll get around to checking it out (whoa Steam sale), but if I keep it on my desktop long enough, I'll play it sooner or later.
Quite a lot has surpassed Nethack, I really don't like that one, I can't understand why it is in the least bit popular.
And yes, it needs to be run as admin. The annoyances of Vista.
PSN ID : Xander51 Steam ID : Xander51
That said, I've moved over to playing True Men now that point buy stats are in. Largely as playing a mutant is tricky with the need to spread points over so many areas. I've not got past Grit Gate yet, although I am not sure the storyline currently has been implemented much past this point.
Also, be careful if you are going to the jungle town, if you get lost around there the local wildlife are a real step up from the stuff around the starting point.
Fortunately, that is just the world map, still it is super busy compared to ADOM
Yep. Buy butchering and then killing an animal makes a check to see if you get any delicious meat.
Buy it to the max level and you'll be dumping boar meat every so often and gaining access to nifty weapons and armour.
Game is awesome, way better than Stone Soup. I hope they keep rolling updates.
EDIT: You weren't kidding about that jungle town, those goatfolk are crazy mofos.
Also, acid grenades can open those security doors.
For data discs, make sure you're on the latest version. There's a tinker skill that gives a small chance to learn a recipe when you disassemble something which is really handy for boosting your options.
Indecipherable? Really? It's pretty clear and goes out of its way to explain what the various numbers mean.
Heavy Armour gives an AV bonus but a DV penalty? Whatever could that mean? Looks like a job for Poirot to me.
But I shall not argue further, it is clear you have a very strong opinion on this game. I am not saying it is bad by any means, just that I do not understand it.
Edit: Just found the help section
Excellent, I'll call Hercule and tell him his services aren't required this afternoon.
I can see there being an argument that roguelikes generally have a steeper learning curve than other games, but this one goes out of its way to be straightforward, transparent and loaded with explanation.
You may tighten your carapace to recieve double the AV bonus
Cannot wear armor
There seems to be no stated downside to tightening your carapace, unless it is only when you have done so that you cannot wear armor.
Does registration have any kind of benefit besides the obvious important one of supporting the game and its developers?