It’s probably safe to say Caves of Qud is one of the most advanced RPGs ever made when you consider all of the complex systems running underneath it coupled with the fact that you can do almost anything within its world while almost anything can happen to your character. I would even go so far as to say that Caves of Qud ventures into the realm of simulation gaming, especially given how much history and depth has gone into its world’s creation.
Caves of Qud is very much a roguelike title and not just because players can get permanently killed and end their run in a myriad of ways. It also looks a bit like the 1985 title that roguelikes are based on, the original Rogue. Like Rogue, Caves of Qud is at least somewhat comprised of ASCII text graphics, although it mixes in a lot of pixel art as well. This is not a criticism of Caves of Qud by any means, although if you prefer the latest and greatest graphics, you won’t find them here. This is no Baldur’s Gate 3, but you can easily tell what almost everything is in Caves of Qud, making it perfectly functional and playable graphics-wise. It also runs perfectly well on more modest systems in our testing, so if you are looking for a deep RPG to play on an aging laptop, Caves of Qud will likely fill that role nicely.
The other big comparison title for Caves of Qud will be another game we reviewed a few years ago, Dwarf Fortress. Both titles have deep systems running underneath their top-level interface. And in both the astounding level of complexity creates a bit of a barrier to entry for new players. However, while Dwarf Fortress is all about building, running, maintaining, avoiding death spirals and defending a home for hundreds of sometimes crazy dwarves, Caves of Qud by contrast is all about serving players a really deep single player type of RPG experience. Note that Dwarf Fortress, which is also published by Kitfox Games, recently released an Adventure Mode to try and tap into a more traditional RPG experience too, but we have not had a chance to review that new addition just yet.
Caves of Qud is much easier to get into compared with Dwarf Fortress. Not that Caves of Qud offers an easy world to survive in, but you won’t need a 250-page strategy guide just to master the basics either. A lot of that comes down to the excellent tutorial that developer Freehold Games added to Caves. The tutorial is amazingly well done, giving players just enough freedom to try different things while walking them through a very tightly controlled area and explaining all of the key elements like how combat works and how to manage their inventories. The tutorial also hints at how open Caves of Qud is to everything and anything, although for that, players will have to experiment and find out how it all works. But that can be really entertaining since they already will have the basics down following the tutorial level. In any case, it’s great to find that the developers did not skimp on the tutorial to help open up their world for new players.
While the graphics are pretty basic for a modern computer game (but passable and playable), the soundtrack is absolutely amazing. In a lot of ways, it’s better than some others that are kind of known for their soundtracks, like Starfield. The music for Caves of Qud is haunting and ethereal or lively and fun, depending on where you are or what you are doing. In any case, it’s great and really helps to set the mood for exploration. There are 32 tracks on the soundtrack, and all of them are really well-done. The full soundtrack is for sale on Steam separately from the main game, and I would highly recommend picking it up. All of the music is really perfect for something like a game night with friends, or just to chill out with when you are studying or doing something that requires good background music. There is however, not surprisingly, no voice work in Caves of Qud, so expect to read a lot of text.
Caves of Qud is available on Steam for just under $30. And considering that it offers nearly unlimited adventuring, it’s more than worth the price. Now, here is where my review gets a little bit tricky because there is no way that I can explain everything that the game allows players to do. Most of the people on Steam who have tried to review it basically just start telling stories about odd things that happened during their adventures. I could do that too as my adventures were pretty spectacular.
For example: In one adventure, I played as a sword slinging ninja turtle who was killed in a relaxing moment of downtime by an evil twin. In another, I was a mutant who rode on the back of a flying canine-like creature who barked at enemies before blowing them up. In yet another run, I learned how to make objects in the world sentient so that they would come alive. I needed to get through a locked door, so I made it sentient and politely asked it to move aside for me. The door began to question its lot in life as a simple portal and ended up trying the adventuring life and traveling with me for a time. Then there was the time I befriended a nice robot who helped me replace my arms with machine guns, or the time plants taught me how to use photosynthesis to heal my wounds, only to have other sentient vines deciding to ditch the sun to become carnivores, with me as their first meal.
I could go on and on with stories, but the developers do a much better job of explaining how Caves of Qud works and why it works that way in the video below.
You should know that not all of Caves of Qud is chaos. A lot of it is, but there are systems that exist which govern its world and make an RPG system. For example, you get a skill point when you reach level three, and you earn experience from, among other things, killing monsters. Then all your skills go up at level six and so on. There are also quests just like a normal RPG, and most of them fall into the basic types that we are used to from other games like fetching an object or killing some boss somewhere. The crazy chaos normally happens while players are out there doing quests in the world.
Also, while Caves of Qud seems designed to basically be a sandbox, there is also a traditional RPG mode where the main character (however you design them using over 70 mutations and about 30 cybernetic implants among other choices) is attempting to traverse the rather large map on an epic main quest. I am not sure which mode I liked better because most of the time when I played the traditional RPG mode, I pretty much let things devolve into a sandbox anyway. Or I was killed in spectacular and unexpected ways before I got very far into the main mission.
Caves of Qud is not for everyone, but if you have the patience to learn the title’s systems and don’t mind going with the flow when things take turns for the random or absurd in the story, then there is a lot to enjoy here. I can’t think of any other title that gives players as much freedom to do what they want. And when you consider how much it has to offer and how complex the backend of Caves of Qud is, then the learning curve is understandable, and a lot lower than it would be had the developers not made a strong effort to open Caves of Qud up to new players.
I do wish there was some kind of a demo to let people try it out. The ASCII-like frontend will probably put a lot of potential players off, especially if they have tried titles like Dwarf Fortress which are much more difficult to play. I think if there was a demo, that a lot more people would give it a try and at least some of them would really enjoy this extremely unique RPG as much as I did, even when I was being killed by a sentient chair who was jealous that I was spending too much time with a nearby table.