Caves of Qud review — The everything machine

Caves of Qud isn’t for everyone, but is an absolutely fascinating game. I’m not even sure where to begin describing it, because I feel like I’ve only scratched the surface of what this game is. And scratching the surface is an apt metaphor because, as the name implies, the world of Qud isn’t just the surface. The myriad, complex game systems are complimented by equally expansive and deep cave systems to explore.

I guess we’ll start at the start. There are multiple modes to play in, Classic, Roleplay, Wander, Daily, and Tutorial. These aren’t really difficulty selections, and more styles of play. Some may have permadeath with more hostile creatures, while others minimize combat and let you reload a checkpoint upon death. It’s all about what you want out of a particular playthrough.

After selecting a mode, you need to create your character. You can choose from a few presets, which is what I did, or get into the weeds and select abilities, stats, mutations, and more. Once all that’s ready, you pick a starting location and begin your journey. What you do on that journey is all up to you. There is a main quest, but it’s not really the point of the game. Caves of Qud is a random generation machine. Some things, like certain villages and towns, will always be in the same place and configuration on the map, but everything else is totally random.

Upon starting a run, Caves of Qud will generate thousands of years of history for you to discover, books to “read”, and massive cave systems to explore. You can wander the surface for a while, find some stairs down, and down, and down, and down, then find a weird little library with some nonsense books you can take. Even after multiple runs, I still don’t really know what I’m doing, but I’m also constantly in awe of how much this game can do.

On your adventures, you’ll also find a variety of gear to equip, though where you can equip it will depend on your character. For example, if your character has the mutation that gives them an extra set of legs, you’ll be able to equip two sets of shoes at once. There’s a whole host of mutations, good, bad, and neutral, that could affect the way a particular character plays.

There’s a ton of complexity and hidden depths, but the moment to moment gameplay is actually pretty simple. The game functions entirely on turns; so if you’re not doing something, time isn’t passing. The game really stresses this point in the tutorial, to not panic and remember you have as long as you like to think things out. This is because dying is very, very easy. The first achievement I got was called “Welcome to Qud” with the description “Die”. So yeah, this is that kind of game.

At least if you play on Classic, Roleplay, and Daily (though Roleplay has checkpoint saves). Wanderer was the mode I spent the most time with, as I didn’t really grasp how combat worked – at least not how to win fights. Exploration is simple enough, you click where you want to go and your character will attempt to reach that tile. It might take some doing, especially if you haven’t discovered that part of the screen yet, so it’s usually worthwhile to press the button for auto-exploration. This will attempt to reveal every tile on the current map, though it can easily be interrupted by blocked paths or enemies. I generally find it more useful in caves, as the surface has much wider areas as opposed to cramped hallways.

If you do run into a hostile creature, you can attack them by being on an adjacent tile and clicking on them. This will have you swing whatever is in your hands at the moment, whether that be claws, fists, a sword, or a torch. You also have an ability bar at the bottom of the screen, though some abilities aren’t suited to combat. For example, you might want to use Freeze Ray to stop a foe in their tracks and run away, but you won’t be building a campfire or staring at them intensely to win the encounter.

Enemies hit hard and, from my experience, you start out very fragile. So at least at the start fights are something to avoid unless you’re sure you can win. The game will actually give you the odds if you right click and look at a creature, showing a description and their current status alongside their toughness compared to you. You can look at pretty much everything and receive some kind of information. This is where the aforementioned randomly generated history comes from, and it’s neat to see every single time.

That’s kind of where my opinion on Caves of Qud currently lies. It’s incredibly neat, but it’s going to take a lot more time and a lot more runs to really see what the game can do. I don’t really blame the game for that, because that’s kind of the point. I want to dive into a world’s long history and culture, to explore a mysterious and unknowable world, then do it all over again in a different one. That just takes time, there’s no shortcuts or getting around it. Like an iceberg, I might be able to see what waits for me within, but I haven’t dug far enough to get there yet.

But even so, that’s a pretty big “neat” in my book. There have been tons of games with random generation in the past, but I can’t remember anything on the level of Qud. It’s massive in both scope and depth, so don’t underestimate the relatively simple graphics. This is a fascinating game that feels like it’s pushing the medium forward in a novel way.

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