Caves of Qud

One of those hard to learn but ultimately rewarding type games. Playing cautiously make the stakes so much more. Even in Roleplaying mode, it can be frustrating, but finally getting a successful run through an area feels good. [15 hours in, will update at a later time]

Oh man, this game has been on my wishlist for a few years I believe. Maybe less. But holy cow is this game fantastic! I started to get into the rogue-like genre a couple years ago when my old PC died, and this has been an absolute joy to play. After about 70 hours of gameplay I'm officially hooked. The lore is really cool even though I don't necessarily care about lore in games. The combat is intuitive and fun. The overall experience has been rewarding, and navigating dungeons doesn't feel repetitive. Lots of RNG world generation, so sometimes dying is a relief lol. But so far, every time I spawn in, the world has been fun and interesting. The NPCs, and their random generation, has been really fascinating to explore. I like the fact that not "everything" in the world is randomly generated. But a vast majority of it is. Lots of possibilities to explore with builds between mutants and robotic people. I'm currently running a marauder mutant build with the idea of wielding a two-handed axe with my upper arms, two shields with my lower arms, bucklers, and rifles.
It seems like you never stop learning with this game. AND the game does not info dump you. In fact, there is no hand holding. It feels like you are really exploring the world of Qud and everything it can possibly offer. I learn something new every time I start a new run. It's just incredible. It's even more enjoyable if you wait to read guides and spoilers until after you've explored on your own. Overall, this game has been a 10/10 for me, which I did not expect upon purchase if I'm being honest. Absolutely recommend if you like RPG, open world, and rogue-like. Top tier game!

Love this game. Perfect mix of rougelike and rpg. Immersive and interesting world that is unlike any other.

20 hours in after several false starts, and the early game is finally starting to click with me. So far, it just feels like a slow-paced hack-and-slash, so hopefully it gets more interesting soon.

Not to say this is a bad game--just a bit underwhelming for now. The character build options are still intriguing. I like the audio design as well. Just the basic gameplay loop is a bit repetitive for my taste, and the "lore" presented at this point (which might be randomly generated for all I know) is nonsensical with a bunch of impossible to pronounce names and basic descriptions of disjointed events.

It's pretty cool. Don't get hung up on grinding for water and whatnot, experiencing the game is fun!

ive only played for 4 hours but this game is fucking soul-crushingly difficult. you will wince in pain when that death screen pops up. and it will pop up a lot. but for some reason, its compelling to be defeated so often. you want to get back up and do everything faster and better than before and try out different builds.

This game is awesome. It sacrifices graphics for an extremely vast game. It has many aspects for incredible replayability. I try to keep getting back into it but, personally, this game isn't really my jam. Hopefully I will enjoy it later but it is a bit slow paced. Aside from the graphics and slower pace (it gets rather fast paced at times but is overall slower due to the turn-based system) this game is massive.

If you can step back and let the game work its magic, it will consume you.

I have barely scratched the surface of this strange and wondrous world, but I'm loving every minute of it. The UI and controls need some getting used to (thanks for the HJKL scheme btw) and there's a steep learning curve at the beginning. Still, it's absolutely worth it.
The sheer amount of possible character builds is astounding. I have so many ideas for builds I want to try! The same goes for the gameplay itself. There's just so many ways to tackle each situation and seemingly endless possibilities to try out stupid things and die.
Being able to choose a mode to play is a big advantage, too. Classic mode is the real rogue-like / hardcore experience which has its own thrill to it, while roleplay mode is a little bit more forgiving due to not having to start over after death. There's even more modes, but I didn't try them yet.
I'm really enjoying my time with this game and I'm glad I gave it a chance, even though it has its quirks. The reward is a very unique gaming experience that I wouldn't want to miss!

This is the only game in existence that enables me as a straight man to proudly proclaim,"I LOVE COQ!"

Extremely brutal, and even more so fun!

This game is one of my top 10 (if not top 5) games of all times, even tho i dont have that much hours in this masterpiece yet, and even tho i have seen almost nothing in this game yet, believe me that this game is a gem... as pure and as awesome as they get.
The depth of everything in this game is insane.
If it at all appeals to you, by all means, get it. You wont regret it and you will love this game for many, many plathroughs to come.

This is a truly beautiful game with an underlying message: nothing in life is constant, and there is no greater meaning to it that you'll be able to find exterior to yourself. Even if you strive to make yourself remembered, what others remember will always be a crude facsimile of what you actually were. You must (but are truly free to) make your own meaning.

I don't usually post reviews, but I also don't usually love a game as much as I love Caves of Qud.

The writing and worldbuilding is stellar. I've played for some time and yet have barely scratched the surface. I'm constantly encountering new mysteries or beginning to resolve old ones. There is a generative aspect- which I'm not usually the biggest fan of- but the way it's applied within larger, handcrafted elements is actually very well done. For example, the edge of the forest is the same, but what lies inside is different; factions are the same (usually), but have different relations to each other; this village is scripted, this village is generated, and this village is somewhat between the two. It's carefully made, and it works.

The mechanics of the game seem simple at first, but as you dive deeper it's clear they have great depth and complexity. Every single time I've wondered "will this work?" or "can I do this?" the answer has been "Yes, absolutely". Steal ruined furniture for your hovel? Recruit and outfit a ragtag army? Contract a horrible disease and follow a convoluted cure to eventually heal yourself? Sure thing! And that's not even mentioning the way that Mutations and other synergies play with each other.

The rougelike mode is compelling, and- I think- very necessary for feeling out how the initial gameplay operates. What works well with what, what areas/things should you avoid early, etc feel easy to learn when you're running around haphazardly, almost certain to die. And no matter which mode you play, death will be a frequent companion, for Qud has many ways to kill you. I've spent the most time in the RPG mode, if just to explore the mid-game deeper and be less punished for my mistakes (though you can still screw over a 30 hour build with bad choices). I don't really plan to use Wander, but I respect that it's available for those who only want the story. I DO plan to return to the rougelike mode when I understand the core game progression better.

To be fair, this game is not for everyone. Some folks will disparage it for the minimalist graphics, while others might be put off by the dense and verbose prose that accompanies every item and exposition. But there are some people who this game *is* for... I am one of them, and for us it is a grand and bountiful feast.

Live and drink, traveller.

A [Decent] RPG with nice systems and visuals.

The biggest issue with the game is that it takes a bit too long to understand, and I don't mean 10 hours - more like 20 to 30 hours just to get to the basics. Maybe I just suck or didn't take the game as seriously as I should've had, but the game became incredibly hard after around mid-game, it felt like my choices handicapped me and I was struggling unless I was cheesing the fights. The exploration is nice, but it boiled down to exploring procedurally generated content, which can be uninteresting if it's the primary focus. It felt like I had to grind through that content to fix my mistakes or simply restart the game and make a better character and better choices.

Overall, the difficulty and pacing seem to be more a matter of knowledge; the more you understand the game, the more fun and interesting it becomes, which may require a time commitment. But if you don't invest the time to understand it on your own and you're not particularly interested in this type of game, then it will be really hard to pick up the game without giving up.

I would heavily recommend this game, it is so good. Yes, the visuals may be off putting at first, but once you move past that, this game is excellent.

You may look at this game and think, wow, that is a bunch of noise, I don't understand anything I am seeing and what is going on. But if you give it a try, play it for just thirty minutes, everything will start to make sense. Your brain is great at working out patterns and symbols, and this game has gone through a lot of updates to move away from the abstract to the unique. Every enemy, weapon, etc. all have unique looks now, and more and more things are getting their own. Push through the retro graphics and I promise you, this game will be great!

You will die a lot. Quite a lot. Even when you feel like you have the hang of the game and know what you are doing, you never know when you will walk into a map or a dungeon and be obliterated. But that is part of the fun. Thankfully, they have added in a mode that allows you to save at friendly settlements, so if perma-death is not your cup of tea, you can avoid that now.

The game world is so interesting and unique, it is hard to find something else like it. It is like if the world of Morrowind was made even more insane and crazy and hard to understand, but in a good way. Almost everything is alive now in this weird future, and most of everything that is alive can think and talk. Plants, insects, gorillas, bears, weird creatures and beasts beyond your comprehension. Everything is a faction that you can make friends or enemies with. Is this Earth? Is this another world? All that is known is that it takes place after a massive collapse in the far far future. Everyone is trying to rebuild in their own ways, and exploring new and old powers and tech.

You have access to old tech and new stuff. Weapons, armour, cybernetic upgrades, you name it. You can use psionics to teleport and blow up the minds of your foes, and mutate your body to have extra legs for more movement speed, and extra arms to carry more weapons. You will kind of need to pick whether you are going the pure human cybernetics route, or the mutant route, but the combinations of what you can do and what you can make your character into are pretty crazy.

I have around 150 hours in this game, and I still have not yet reached the end areas of the game, completed the main quest, or seen everything there is to see. There is just so much here to experience and play and explore, it is amazing. I would highly recommend this game, as it is one of the most creative and interesting things I have played in a long time. The graphics may look old, but the music it has, and the atmosphere it creates, sucks you into the game, and you stop seeing retro, and start seeing Qud. Highly, highly recommended.

Amazing game, I absolutely love it.
PLEASE DON'T PLAY IT. DON'T LET IT CONSUME YOU TOO.

I saw someone describe this as "the only game where your boss could walk in and he might think you're working on some fucked up spreadsheet". In my latest adventure this morning I was a 4 armed, 4 legged mutant with night vision and photosynthetic skin. The game is difficult, especially early on before you understand what's going on. Make sure you take a look at the controls. This game is best played with just the keyboard in my opinion. I really enjoy playing it on the couch with my laptop.
1. The tutorial wasn't that helpful for me, but I found the build presets to really help me understand the different skills.
2. Choose your battles. You don't have to fight everything.
3. Movement speed is OP. It's ok to run away.
4. Auto-explore is your friend.

Elden Ring, Apex, Factorio, Team Fortress 2, Caves of Qud; these are my most played games in order. Elden Ring is one of the best games ever. Apex is Titanfall 3, kind of. Factorio is crack, and I didn't mean those hours to get so out of hand, and space exploration didn't help. Team Fortress 2 is really fun.

I want to write a book someday, and Caves of Qud is inspirational. Apparently humans are bad at finding the source of their feelings. It makes me feel satisfied, frustrated, melancholic, hopeful, awed.

It's an amazing game.

Hiiiiii I'm on my fiance's steam account so I can play this game and he said I could post a review on his behalf :-) Caves of Qud is so fun!!!!! The only reason I could possibly have to NOT recommend this game is if you have commitments in your life beyond playing video games, because those things just aren't going to get done anymore lol.

Im not very good at reviews but this is a fun game. Even just going and doing something random is fun.

On my second play through and enjoying every second of this vastly complex, smart, wildly unpredictable game. Live and drink water siblings.

tons of fun, I haven't done the tutorial but the game is replayable as hell only notes I have is when your playing a mutant abomination it can be really easy to piss people off if you have AOE abilities. Sometimes dank acidic fart clouds makes people hate you go figure.

I enjoy this game best on the non-roguelike settings. Saves time and absolutely allows you to experiment and learn about the many fun dangers of the Caves of Qud.

You will never live stories like these ones in any other game.
Live and drink, internet stranger.

it was addictive at first (which doesn't mean it was great fun) but after a while I lost interest and stopped playing about half-way in the main quest. I found the gameplay to be a bit repetitive the more I played, despite the random generation of levels and villages. Those parts vary but the core strategy and gameplay ends up being the same for most of the runs, for the most part.

This game can be a trip. I lost my tongue while exploring Red Rock. After that, my goal changed from doing main quests to getting my tongue back. I wandered through vast deserts of salt, forests of trees looking to flay their victims, and I ended up wandering through a fungi forest. Parched and close to death, I thought it was all over. That was when i realized RNJesus does exist! Imagine my excitement upon finding a weeping ooze flowing nothing but fresh water. The water quenched my thirst, and lifted my spirits to carry on.
After, I ended up in a small village of talking plants and goats, governed by a very friendly albino ape. He gave me a book that listed every remedy to most ailments known in Qud. Elated, I set off to find the ingredients; a dram of cider, honey, and three drams of wine.
After finding all that I needed, I managed to cure my glotrot, but there was still the matter of regrowing my tongue. I kept exploring, leveling up by burning enemies to ashes along the way. That's when I encountered a legendary crab. The combat ensued. I spammed my laser. A few turns later, the crab turned to ash. Behind it was a little blue chest with a limb regenerating serum in it. Finally, my journey could continue. I regrew my tongue and continued through the main quests.

Then I got brutally murdered defending a bunch of genius pandas from racist (speciest?) cyborg templars.
Anyway, 10/10 I love this game. The lore is great! Every run is unique in its own way, the world is vast, and you can befriend sentient walls.

As a huge roguelike, Dune and Book of the New Sun fan, this game feels like a gift from god. Paid full price on Steam and don't regret a single cent.

awesome game with immaculate vibes. i feel like I've barely scratched the surface so far

Very cool atmosphere, kind of reminiscent of Dune. If you want to play the main story I'd probably recommend RP mode since the permadeath can be very annoying in this particular context. Though generally I think it's great. Very deep, I've barely scratched the surface, but I've been really enjoying it.

This game ruined other games for me.

Game mechanic genius, everything has functionality. Its lovingly hand crafted in the right places, and has the most well done procedural generation I've experienced in other places. The difficulty is just so perfectly tuned. The sense of exploration, the atmosphere, the music, the lore, the story, the enormous potential for character builds, the enormous variety of solutions to progression, the progression itself, the charming graphical style, the poetic descriptions... HONESTLY, the EVERYTHING! Caves of Qud has everything.

I'm still running into new things; items I've never used, encounters I've never experienced, secrets I didn't know, character build ideas, you name it. It literally has endless re-play. Even the main story quest has creative ways to be replayed. I do not know if I will ever be sick of it.

The biggest flaw Caves of Qud has... is it shelf appeal. It gonna get overlooked for its tile based graphics and initial clunkiness. I had difficulty trying it at first.
But if you:
- Like hardcore/difficult games (especially traditional rogue-likes)
- Enjoy and respect text based games
- Like creating interesting character builds in sandbox games
- Can push yourself thru something that might not initially click

You will be rewarded with a game that ultimately ruins other games for you. Caves of Qud is that good.

I feel like I have barely scratched the surface after 112 hours played, and have loved it. I highly recommend spending the 45 mins to an hour to familiarize yourself with the systems and then everything will begin to make more sense slowly. Fantastic game that is addicting and highly punishing while rewarding you for out of the box thinking

All the frustration of a classic roguelike, but turned up to eleven. The character I just lost had extra legs, and extra arms growing out of the extra legs, and every one of those extra arms was holding a battleaxe. Unfortunately, so did his evil twin who killed him. I'm not even mad.

The game is fun and is the type of game that should be right up my alley, but the emphasis on it being a super hardcore roguelike with next to no save options even when you turn on the quick save option (Which is broken and does not work properly) just makes the game not fun to play. Might be fun for some, but I don't like to lose hours of gameplay because the game lacks a proper save function. That kind of stuff is just a major waste of time and turn off for me. If they had a more RPG friendly mode that let players just play the game like a normal RPG with proper saves then I could see myself liking the game more, but as is even when you choose the normal adventure mode it relies too much on the hardcore element. You may not lose your character when you die, but you will lose hours of progress if you don't constantly back track to a town so the game will save.

I'll probably get clowns from the hardcore players, but that's fine. I'm just not into the super hardcore roguelite the Dev went for.

The controls, menus and basic systems are also more complicated than they need to be. Which I can forgive if the gameplay is solid, but for me the game just doesn't stick the landing.

Extremely in-depth, turn-based, true roguelike. The included aspects of procedural generation combined with a set overworld, as well as near infinite items to find and powers to unlock make this game very fun and replayable. The learning curve can be a bit tough at first but well worth it as this game has much to offer.

this game has a serious learning curve to it, but there's an immense amount of build variety and so much to do in a massive world. the vibes are on another level entirely.

if you like stuff like Blame! and other Nihei works this game was literally made for you. if you're a fan of a certain pair of french post-structuralist philosophers/psychoanalysts this game will crack you up when you spot the references.

the community is really welcoming and eager to help new players which makes the learning curve far easier to deal with, so don't feel discouraged by people who say this game is difficult. no doubt it is - and there is little to no handholding, but it works to the game's advantage.

A gem of retro top-down exploration games with indulgent strata of lore a la classic text adventures. You can cook up some truly outlandish character builds and the world of Qud will welcome you with open arms, or other limbs, possibly too many appendages for your comfort level. Embrace the complexity and absurdity!

I have played for six hours consecutively and the furthest i've made it is to level four. This game is fantastically complicated and demented. Seriously, I love it.

Not me, 20 hours into a game, heading back from my first dungeon with two pairs of shoes on my four feet and a brand-new stinger, getting eaten to death by a giant amoeba but immediately wanting to play again.

I had never played a game like this before, and it filled a void in my soul that I didn't even know was there. Right when you think you've outsmarted the game, the game throws a crazy twist at you, and you have to rethink with even deeper strategy. Would recommend to an old guy (like me) who loves to sit and think through things.

At the time of writing this review, I've hardly even scratched the surface of Caves of Qud despite just about 50 hours in the game, and I suspect this will join the ranks of Factorio for me in my pantheon of indie games that I've spent way too much time playing.

The way this game works, is you create a character and try to take that character throughout their unique variance of Qud as far as they can in sort of a sandbox way. You can choose to follow the main quest to completion to see the story through, or you can just explore the world, get into trouble, and try to break the game through abusing its mechanics. You can also just spend your run trying to be as goofy as possible, such as in this video where they turn their character into a door: https://youtu.be/nvHjZ9fy5b0?si=leYjoCfYAEJ-gdpF

The game offers a TON of freedom with character creation.

If playing as a Mutant, you get to choose your selection of various physical and mental mutations that your character will begin the game with, as well as a "calling" and a spread of attribute points. Your calling is essentially a background for your character, which influences the items you start with, your starting reputations with the various factions, starting skills, etc. - sort of like a class in other RPGs.

If playing as a True Kin on the other hand, you don't choose from mutations as, being True Kin, you are a rare unmutated human with a pure genome. Instead, you choose a starting cybernetic with which you augment yourself. Lastly, instead of choosing a calling, you choose a caste, which serves (mostly) the same purpose, except your caste is from one of three "arcologies", which ultimately just means the arcology your caste is from decides which unique piece of cybernetic gear you can choose from to start with.

In either case, the number of different "builds" and ways you can play your character makes for practically endless replayability, true for any (good) rogue game, but what I personally find even more interesting about this is that, due to Qud's deep gameplay systems, your build doesn't end at how you deal damage.

If you play as a mutant, you can use dominate mind to forcefully take control of another entity and play as that entity for the duration of the ability. You can use all of that entity's abilities, see their inventory, their stats, etc. You can use dominate mind on a merchant, and make that merchant drop all of their wares for you to pick up and then sell back to that merchant for money. You can use precognition before you attempt to dominate mind, to allow you to see into the future and retry if you mess up the first time. One of the achievements in the game is severing your own face, then wearing your severed face on your face. This is a proper sandbox game, that gives you enough tools to fully interact with the world.

In my opinion, this game is fully worth your time and money at the $30 asking price. If you're on the fence, I recommend just going for it.

Live and drink, watersib.

After a short period of confusion and acclimatization to the systems of Qud, this game is one of the best RPGs of all time. One run you're a psionic egoist eating minds and encountering extra-dimensional assassins while melting turrets made of strange flesh with congealed light from your mind's eye. The next you're a party of mutant knights who's fellowship is built on artificially induced love and mental domination. Maybe a master tinker with translucent skin, a gun rack implanted in your back, and a prosthetic arm that can fling 3-D printed knives 2 at a time.
You will not find this kind of experience anywhere outside of a TTRPG.

I'm drawn to the build crafting, having plenty of (functionally distinct) starting configurations for your character. Not familiar enough with the game yet, but at some point trying to optimise character starts and set them up quickly seems like will also be good fun.

Caves of Qud is a wonderful game, but my expectations were too high. Other reviews get into the positive aspects of this game, but I found very few people talking about how much is randomly generated. There is a main storyline, and several areas and dungeons which are hand-crafted, but they make up a small portion of the time I spent playing this game.

While there are lots of wonderful ideas with faction relations, the wide array of items, and the lore to the world, I think all of these good ideas are hurt by leaning on random generation. Improving Faction relations is entirely dependent on the random people you may (or may not) find, and their random relationships with the factions. The wide array of items is great until you've found your 100th trade item and can't find a merchant to buy anything worthwhile from. The lore is great but the stuff you find outside the main story is mostly small inconsequential details, which are randomly generated themselves and don't really have any useful applications.

I look forward to further updates to the game, but I think it is over-rated at the moment, with way too much filler.

Probably the best roguelike I have ever played. It's a real roguelike in the sense that nothing is unlocked between runs, other than a larger understanding of the game. The lore and atmosphere of this game is nearly unmatched. A lot of love has been put into it.

You will encounter wise talking plants and incomprehensible ancient beings. You can grow extra arms and fight your way through with a half dozen swords, or you can use psychic powers to manipulate the world, and anything in between. The systems in this game offer incredible flexibility and opportunities for creativity.

There's a hugely fleshed out world to explore and experiment with. Underneath the simple graphics which may be understandably off-putting (it was to me at first) is what has become one of my absolute favorite games. And despite the initial impression, this game manages to still be far more immersive than you would expect. The characters, descriptions, sounds, music, etc, come together brilliantly. The lengths of what is possible is genuinely remarkable. You feel like you're really uncovering a wonderful and expansive post-post-post apocalyptic world.

As a recommendation for new players, spend some time on "journey" mode rather than "classic" mode. If you jump into classic mode first, it's easy to get frustrated because you may end up dying in a couple of minutes each time. This could encourage you to drop the game before giving it a real chance. Journey mode gives you the space to make mistakes and try things over again without a full reset of the map. It gives you the space to feel more comfortable taking risks and experimenting to learn the game's systems.

Somehow it seems deep, yet it doesn't scratch any itch.
A sandbox with no motivation to play.

Maybe just not for me. I want to like it, but nothing feels really consequential or like it matters at all.
Fighting boring, talking boring, quests boring.

Pretty sure I just exploded a beetle and caused it to become a door.

11/10.

perfect game.

7/10. It's okay. It offers a lot of gameplay other games simply can't (available due to its ascii and text based nature), but overall it's still a very limited "rpg" sandbox. The basic gameplay loop will be auto-explore grinding until you get to the next part of your knowledge-puzzle, dying, then auto-explore grinding back up to that point and improving.

Very unique experience for what looks to be a pixel/text-based game. There's quite a massive learning/difficulty curve in the beginning, and It's normal to be lost. Once you get past that point, the game is very fun and also very challenging. There's a lot of content and weird mechanics to learn, and even some very interesting strats and items in the game that changes everything. That also means that you have to pull up the wiki on the second monitor to understand what some items/skills do, which is usually the case. There's also a lot of different ways you can start to make your runs unique, and it can get very out of hand once you get things going. Also you need to have an imagination to make the most out of this game, since the pixel art may be a little confusing. It gets better if you treat this like a adventure book, DnD style game. There's just a lot of things in the game that you might find out more and more each playthrough which makes this game very fun.

This game is a classic roguelike with a unique art style that can be confusing at first, but once you get used to it, it sucks you into the world they have created. The developers are dedicated to constantly improving the game, and with a small but growing modding community, it has become one of my favorites.