You may read my earlier posts about Caves of Qud here. As always, you may click on images to view larger versions.
I last wrote about Caves of Qud almost two years ago. But I’ve been following the weekly updates for this excellent far-future roguelike about scavenging ancient sci-fi technology the whole time. There have been some big ones. A whole new segment of the main storyline was added, centered on the Tomb of the Eaters, where the ancient rulers of Earth and the stars beyond are interred. A large swath of the southeastern jungle has been replaced by a vast lake, hosting a new area known as the Palladium Reef on its eastern edge. This even includes a new friendly settlement known as the Yd Freehold. Then there are some big mechanical changes: the option to ease up the punishing permadeath mechanics by playing in RPG mode, where the game is checkpointed at towns, or even Wander mode, where no experience points are awarded for combat and most factions start out neutral to the player.
All of that was tempting, but not quite enough to lure me back, since I knew that once I started playing it would devour my free time. No, what finally convinced me to dive in again was the announcement that the early game areas of Red Rock and the Rust Wells had finally been redesigned. Many new characters meet their deaths in these relatively uninteresting caves, meaning players may never see the much, much cooler stuff to come farther along the storyline. A redesign hopefully meant the early quests were brought up to par with the rest of the game. I decided to find out.
