Caves of Qud (now at Early Access Feature Friday #131) $

[getter77]

Feature Friday #86

Added a new fungal infection: waxflab.
Added a new type of fungus puffer: rosepuff.
Removed the max strength cap from cudgel-like fungal infections that colonize your hands.
Added tiles for all the fungal infections.
Updated the Corpus Choliys to include an account of waxflab.
Gave a chat component to the following creature types (their capacity for speech varies).
humanoids
apes
antelopes
most other mammals
robots
crabs
oozes
unshelled reptiles
tortoises
fish
arachnids
birds
worms
plants
Made birds extra chatty.
Fixed some grammar issues with popup messages.
Party members now prefer not to attack things that share a tile with their party leader.
Fixed tinker-trained NPCs not being able to repair items.
Fixed some cases where multiple sets of limbs were given the same name.
Fixed some cases where fungal outcrops weren't removed when you cured glowcrust.
Lairs no longer generate on top of historic sites, wiping the sites out of existence.
Fixed some cases where natural equipment, like bites, ended up on the ground when the corresponding appendage was dismembered.
When you cure ironshank, you no longer have a residual movespeed penalty.
Fixed some cases where plant-based lairs didn't generate properly.
Journal, water ritual, and faction work proceeds behind the scenes.

[Skeletor]

I recently bought this game and so far I have to say I am really impressed. Attention to details, interesting and elaborate story and lore with good sense of humor, good mechanics, high amplitude of different configurations of possible PCs, good graphics and music. Most importantly, the devs seem very passionate about it and update it on a regular basis. Definitively recommended.

[getter77]

Easily---and the best is yet to come still.      Next week should be an especially potent update at that...

[Skeletor]

Yeah I am really enjoying playing this masterpiece.
As of now is the game complete/winnable or still mostly in a sandbox stage?

[getter77]

Quest line isn't quite done yet---but still a fair bit of an assortment before the gaze turns to the sandbox aspects.

The slick roadmap illuminates the way forward pretty well:

http://www.cavesofqud.com/roadmap/

[Skeletor]

Thanks getter, this is interesting.
I love the new steam achievements planned.. Become a goat. Wear your own severed face on your face... brilliant.

[getter77]

Feature Friday #87! 

This week, we're introducing two new feature arcs that have been in development for a few months. The first is the Journal. As you play Caves of Qud, you accumulate a bounty of knowledge. We added a journal that tracks important locations you discover, gossip and lore you come across, historical snippets you learn about ancient sultans, and your character’s chronology. You can also add your own notes to the journal and keep track of interesting places on the world map.

The second is the Water Ritual. The reputation system lets you befriend any of Qud’s sixty plus factions by treating with or slaying faction leaders. We expanded the rewards for earning high reputation and gave more cultural texture to the process by adding the water ritual, a custom based on sharing precious fresh water with a faction leader to secure a bond with their kinfolk. When you engage in the water ritual with a faction leader, you can spend reputation to learn secrets that get logged in your journal, earn rewards specific to that faction, or recruit the leader to your party.

The details are below.

We added the journal. By default, it's bound to 'J'.
The journal has five tabs.
Locations.
The locations tab lists locations you learn about in game, categorized by type.
When you learn a new location, it'll appear in this tab. You can learn locations by finding them yourself or by learning about them via another method, like the water ritual.
When you go to the world map, there's a marker on the worldmap tile that's home to the location. The description of the worldmap tile includes all the location notes it contains.
The alt display on the worldmap shows an alternate icon for locations with notes.
You can toggle off the worldmap markers for a category by hitting Tab on the Locations tab.
When you enter into a category, you see all the locations of that category and their distance in parasangs to the nearest landmark. 1 parasang = 1 worldmap tile.
You can hit Tab or Space on a specific location to track it on the worldmap. When a location is tracked, it appears green and flashing.
You can enter your own notes on the Locations tab by typing +. Your notes appear under the Miscellaneous category.
You can delete notes with -.
Gossip and Lore. Currently, this tab contains any gossip you learn through the course of the game. Gossip is a type of secret that you can learn during the water ritual. See notes on the water ritual below.
Sultan Histories. When you reveal a secret about a sultan, it appears in this tab categorized by the sultan's name. As you reveal more secrets, they'll appear in chronological order.
Chronology. This tab tracks the narrative of your character's life. This is the same chronology that appears in your death summary. You can add or deleted player-added entries by typing + or -.
General Notes. Use this tab to add any additional notes you'd like. Example: "I hate the crab."
As part of the conversion of character knowledge to journal entries, we refactored world generation and the location discovery process. When you discover a special location, such as a ruined site, historic site, goatfolk village, lair, merchant, pig farm, super secret location, etc, it'll be added to your journal now.
If you descend from the worldmap to a tile with a location note, you have the option to descend directly to that location.
Added procedurally-generated names for goatfolk villages and ruined sites.

We added the water ritual and removed the Offer Gift power.
You begin the water ritual through conversation with a faction leader. You'll know faction leaders by the backstory relationships they have with other factions when you look at them.
You start the ritual by sharing 1 dram of (usually) water with the faction leader. If you do, you gain 100 reputation with the leader's faction, and you gain or lose reputation with factions that like or dislike the leader, respectively.
Once you're engaged in the water ritual, you have several options. Here are some of the common ones.
Share a secret.
Depending on the types of secrets this faction is interested in, you may be able to share a secret with the leader. Check out the right column of the Reputation screen to see what types of secrets each faction is interested in trading. Potentially sharable secrets include anything in the Locations, Gossip and Lore, or Sultan Histories tabs of your journal. If a leader is interested in your secrets, you'll get a choice of a few to share. If you share one, you get reputation with the faction leader. Each leader only has a certain amount of bonus reputation they can give you toward their faction.
You can only share each secret once. Once you do, it's out in the world.
You can't share a secret with the faction you learned it from. Who you learned each secret from and who you shared it with are listed in your journal.
Learn a secret. The leader shares a secret with you. The type of secret depends on the faction.
Share gossip. Factions tend to want to hear gossip about themselves. If you have some, they'll reward you with extra reputation.
Learn a skill. Faction leaders can teach certain skills in exchange for reputation.
Join the party. In exchange for a lot of rep, most leaders are willing to join your party.
Special (oooo). Some factions have special rewards.
Added a new skill: Customs & Folklore.
Tactful (150 sp, 19 int): Whenever you start the water ritual with a new creature, you get an extra 25 reputation.
Trash Divining (150 sp, 21 int): Whenever you rifle through trash, there's a 5% chance you piece together clues and discover a random secret.
Lowered starting reputation with the villagers of Joppa and Fellowship of Wardens.

Some other notes:
Changed the logic for finding directions. Now, only humanoid creatures can give you directions if you're lost.
Fixed an issue with the new input manager not detecting gamepad stick x-axis movement properly.
Fixed an OSX launch issue.
Fixed a rare exception instantiating Sheba Hagadias.

There are countless details; we're sure we're forgetting to mention a few. Play around and explore for yourself. Live and drink!

[Skeletor]

Nice updates.

I just found some quills and accidentally equipped them.. now can't unequip normally. Is there a way to get rid of them? Really needed that hand for a source of light...

[AgingMinotaur]

The same happens with fungal outgrowths and other special body parts that can't be unequipped if you get them intrinsically. Quite obviously a bug, so I think there's no in-game way to fix it, short of getting your arm chopped off and wishing for a new one.

I haven't tried the last release, but I looks fantastic. Just when I was hoping that (something like) the water ritual would become available to all characters And I love the fact that you can chat with anybody since a few weeks back. The old CoQ was already one of the truly great RLs, and development is soaring these days.

As always,
Minotaus

[Tzan]

I got the game at least a year ago and read a noob guide.
I set up a character as they suggested. They also said you really need to be a certain level before doing the first quest.
So I headed north and my guy was way over power compared to the creatures up 5 or 10 screens.
So I got bored grinding on levels then never went back.

Am I doing it wrong?

[Skeletor]

Thanks Minotaurus, that is the impression I had. Oh well, I'll have to find a headlamp or a way to see in the dark without wielding anything then.
Yes, the last update is great, adds further politics and diplomacy in the game. Slaying factions leaders will always often have an impact on your relationship with multiple tribes, such as doing the ritual of water with one who is beloved by its kin but disliked by others.

Tzan, personally I prefer to avoid guides and live fully the impact of a new atmosphere and game world, and even more I stay away from grinding (see signature) - but that's just me.
In terms of game balancing, not sure where you were and which equipment you found, however as far as I have seen even with very strong characters there is always the chance of getting teared apart by some slumbering woken up by a passing dragonfly, a pack of snapjaw doing a contest of grenade-throw, or that little critter which attacks you for 1 damage which triggers your venomous spores which angry that huge pack of equimax surrounding you - stuff like that. Below the fifth dungeon floor is usually when things get more serious.
Anyway not fully sure how the developers handled the balancing so far, however it is nice that one can play mutants (which are supposed to be more difficult than true kins, at least in the early game) and there are weekly and daily challenges with predetermined character/world seeds.


EDIT: my character just went burned alive by a dawnglider right after taking some stairs, 'a stone block hits your head, you die' deja-vu.

[Skeletor]

I just had the most memorable game.. true kin artefix, managed to find a spring of infinite fresh water very close to the town, met a few dromad merchants posted nearby and managed to get very strong artifacts.. crafted electrobow and several grenades, found other absolutely monstrous weapons but decided to stick with the bow because of its infinite ammo with low consumption of energy, light emission, and high penetration value. Blasted my way through becoming millionaire in the meanwhille. Killed a few faction leaders, water rituals with others and became respected by several tribes, but hated by robots.. completed all argyve's missions and the girlshings one but then instead of going for the pilgrmage I had the bad idea of accessing golgotha through the trapdoor and I felt like a lion thrown inside a pool of shark - killed hundreds, thousands of those nastly little crabs while exercising on the threadmill but they kept coming and coming so eventually I had no choice than to get transported to the following trapdoor.. and same thing again, another threadmill.. I had Joppa and Grit recoils with full battery so decided to find a safe place away from the enemies and then teleport the hell out of that madness.. tried to phase my way out with shade oil but looked like it was shalerock everywhere around, then decided to blast my way through and explore around little by little.. countless crabs were teared to pieces by my laser bow, my grenades, and my gaslight kriss.. I managed to venutre a few metres north and at one stage a droid and a slime approached me, both very hostile, and trying to rebuke the bot was what led to my demise as that slime was some sort of super green jelly which stunned and killed me quite quickly notwithstanding my high armor value.
That was full on!

[jim]

I kind of feel like Qud is on the cusp of being a Major Roguelike. It's really come along, and the latest release does a lot to tie the world together.

[getter77]

Qud is/has been/but let's say is* The Beacon for modern Mega Projects of all stripes that, yes...you too, you can also succeed with pluck and luck applied---that there is still room for sprawling projects to achieve that glorious and weighty towering mass as opposed to just smaller experiments and narrow scope(smarter/less insane) ventures.   

The only reason it doesn't yet get such credit is probably down to the project being on this long road for a great many years now as opposed to springing from nothing just recently.

[getter77]

Feature Friday #88

Added and updated some sound effects.
open and close wooden door
open tech door
hover over UI element
acquire a fungal infection
Added procedurally-generated names for starapple farms.
Added procedurally-generated names for pig farms.
Made some gossip more interesting and specific.
Initiating the water ritual is no longer ever the default dialog option.
Sleep immunity from Sleep Gas Generation no longer applies to Narcolepsy or exhaustion from Adrenal Control.
Myopia is working as intended again.
Smart use no longer interacts with party members.
Fixed a typo in the option to initiate the water ritual.
Fixed a few grammatical errors in the chronology.
Removed Yempuris Phi from dynamic encounters.
Graphical elements like the map note indicators no longer disappear after a textbox appears over them in look mode.
You can no longer initiate the water ritual with clones.
Clones of containers are now empty.
Clones of items with ammos slots are now empty.
Fixed some blank popup messages during merchant encounters.
Fixed the default Journal keybinding when J is in use as a secondary keybind.