I have fine memories of Caves of Qud from when I was younger, and I'm happy to say that they have not disappointed. I'm running the beta build right now so don't know how much has been fully implemented into the standard version, but many if not most of the UI issues and difficulty navigating the menus has been taken care of. It looks really cool now, no more fiddling around for minutes trying to navigate between the quest menu and the locations menu, you're able to look at your quests and hover over them, which will show their location on the map, then you can click the quest and have it automatically take you to the locations menu so you can more easily mark where you need to go on the map.

I've logged more than 100 hours between all the iterations of this game I have played, and it's so cool to see the world come alive in its current form. The story and static characters are awesome, so much has been added since the last time I've played!

I will say to folks that if you're looking for procedural generation in the same vein as Dwarf Fortress, it's definitely different in that regard. Most of the procedurally created characters are not much to behold, mainly serving as trading partners and quest givers. They don't move away from their individual zones generally, the cultural mechanics are very interesting but not as depthy as Dwarf Fortress.

I would more readily compare this game to a retro-futuristic Cataclysm: Dark Days Ahead, in that it is fundamentally not a story about the random NPCS you meet around the world, it's about your character and your actions throughout the narrative. And now with the beta update on the UI, it's much easier to navigate and enjoy yourself in a way that neither DF or CDDA can bring to the table. The graphics are smooth, there are cool effects, you can chop off your own arms and regrow them with injectors and mutations, and many of the performance issues have been improved dramatically since I went to the beta branch.

As far as the story is concerned, the narrative is really cool. It touches on very serious issues in a wholesome way, that makes you think about the situations that come up in a complex and nuanced way. There's surprises, hard choices, and those choices define your character and the world's interactions with them. There's also hidden nuggets of wisdom and complexity to many of the characters.

As an example without going into too much detail and spoiling anything, in the early game you'll encounter a character that's mute, and the game very adeptly describes the hand motions that go into the character's use of sign language in their response to your questions. It took me a while to notice that was what was happening, but it's little touches like that that bring depth into the world of Qud. The story is full of moments like that, little moments of inclusivity that are touching without the game feeling like it's preaching to you. Pay attention, and you'll learn something.

And if story's not your thing, you're completely unbound to follow it. Travel to the bowels of the earth to battle rock monsters for the precious gems you can extract from their rocky corpses, grow wings and fly to anywhere on the map without worrying about getting killed early. Wear special clothes to make you look like particular sects of people, then schmooze their leaders that you'll find procedurally generated around the world, become a fungus ridden plaguebringer that drips wax everywhere.

There's so much to do in this game, the worldbuilding is great, the world is open but confined at the same time, which brings a degree of focus to it which games like Dwarf Fortress and CDDA sorta make you figure out for yourself. The game walks you through the more heady elements of it, and if you can get past the retro graphics, you'll have a good time running around the world, discovering artifacts and forgotten lore. Great game, and glad to see so much care and work continuing to be put into the game after all these years.

Thanks to the developers for bringing such life to their vision! Strongly recommend to anyone looking for something a little different that they can sink some time into.

I purchased this to gaslight myself into thinking I could play games like these, like ToME and Adom, and this looked the best. I watched a few youtube videos, definitely helped, started off with a beta ass rpg run to get my feet wet, I even bought a num pad since it looks like it uses it the best. I started to get confident, maybe too confident. Confidence is an insidious killer after all. Got uber depressed because life, decided, ok lets do permadeath. I started off a good run, looked up a few wiki's with build ideas, had something great going. I kept pushing and pushing my luck, I kept getting better and better mutations. I started to feel like a dungeon crawler god, only to have the crushing weight of my reality to fall upon me. Unbeknownst to me, I fell into a sticky web trap, and the beetles that I've been thrashing all decided to collectively come together to put me down like a sick dog. No matter what I did, I could not escape my fate. I was glued into the sticky web, I had CD on my corrosive gas

There was too many beetles.....

I've slain plenty of beetles, and now they contacted their cousins to take my ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ lunch money while they spat in my face. I got jumped JJK style, and did not survive. Defeated, I stared at the screen after losing hours of progress. I shed a tear, not because I lost my character (It hurt tho). I cried because I realized that it was too late. I knew in that moment, I was in a trap irl. Just like the beetle, the game had me glued to it.

I booted a new character.
9.2/10 tho, you gotta do a bit of research to play the game (Recommend Big Simple the YouTuber)
Would trade my dead hamster and a large chunk of people I've met in my life for this game to have come sooner in my life.

There's a learning curve here but the moment you get past it you're suddenly playing one of the most jaw-dropping games of all time. There's no game or game world like this.