Ignore that Caves of Qud is one of the best roguelikes out there and is just straight up weird.
Qud is also probably one of the best Steam Deck experiences out there because the devs (singular?) put the work in to make an amazing interface that controls spectacularly on a keyboard, with a mouse, or with a gamepad.
So... yeah. Caves of Qud. Curses-ish based roguelike and one of the best Steam Deck games to ever exist.
Depending on when you played the UI changed to be more mouse friendly. Still a game that is keyboard driven but it does have solid mouse based controls as well.
Well lucky you, there is! Wander mode makes all factions neutral and changes XP from being granted by kills to being granted by exploration and water rituals.
I fucking love this game with a burning fervor that is not matched anywhere else. Qud could have been made for me personally and it wouldn't be any more perfect than it is. I've been playing this game damn near ten years and I still come back to it for every single major update. I'm stoked to see the 1.0 finally release and I hope it gets the attention it deserves.
Literally my favorite game right now. Most of it is randomly generated and it still manages to captivate you in a world thats both weird and enthralling. Live and drink, water-sibs.
Works great on the deck and one of the primary goals for 1.0 was polishing up the controller support. I still think M+K is the superior method (I've been playing it like that for probably 10 years now) but Deck is totally supported.
My mind went to "we're the Monkees," but that's a bit of a bastardization and also ages me somewhat. I'll just pretend I've ever heard of Sseth. Yeah! References! And so on.
I wake to the warmth of the waxing salt sun, and before I draw breath it sidewinds to the beetle moon. I muse on my many selves, think of the jewels I've loosened from the lime, and all the myriad forms space and time have lathed me to. I dream of the sky shelf and its cosmic tilt, the movers that ferried strangers across stellar gulfs and toward their numinous ends. The earth falls away to light and dust, and I dream no more. Now we become the specters that peopled the Caves of Qud.
I bought this on itch. Played through all the way to the non-ending and I didn't undestand it. Is it some mythology or cultural reference? What is Qud?
It's an absolutely massive game, and has been in development for 17 years. They also were pretty upfront with the fact that there would be a price increase at launch. I'll also mention it's one of the rarer games where the devs opted out of any Steam DRM, so you can copy the game files and run them on any machine without needing Steam installed. I keep the game on a thumbdrive for playing on my work PC when I have downtime.
All in all I think the price is well deserved, and I hope they do really well.
Tried it in the past. It's complex. Lots of stuff to do, but I couldn't get into it overall.
If the demo is still available, I'd recommend going for it first.
Yeah it looks fun but I'm worried the learning curve is a little too steep to approach casually. I could see getting into it but it'd have to be at a time when I could really sink some hours into gaming time, like during some holidays or something.
It's been some time, but if I remember right, you can spend a few hours in character creation alone just trying to understand all the different selections.
And if I'm not mistaken, the factions hostile to you might change depending on which path is taken.
There were biological mutation, cybernetic enhancements and psychic powers. And I think they restrained each other similar to Arcanum's magic vs technology. Or maybe that was just wishful thinking on my part.
And the controls are a class of their own. It should be easier if you've played other games that use the entire keyboard, but there are a lot of shortcuts to learn.
If you go in casually, you will die to the first hostile mob that sees you. I know I did.
I love being a mutant mushroom man who survives by eating his own budding body, and protects himself by budding clones. Also I once found juice that allowed me to make literally any object sentient, so I had a big metal wall for a companion.