[marcellus23]

I've always wanted to get into Caves of Qud but it seems so daunting, similar to Dwarf Fortress. It's been a few years though, maybe I should give it another shot. Does anyone here play it? Are there any good guides or tutorials out there?

[ninininino]

If you're the type that likes to optimize or solve problems perfectly, it's easy to get into a situation of feeling overwhelmed by the scope of choice and scope of the problem space, so it's best to just accept imperfection and avoid thinking too hard for your first 3-5 playthroughs (accepting you'll likely lose/die), and -then- be more strategic or pre-optimize if you wish to. That or lean into roleplay for your decision making and always just immediately choose what the character/archetype you're imagining would choose, even if it feels suboptimal.

[cdiamand]

I come back to it from time to time and play for a week. It looks like it's been getting more accessible over time, with a new UI update having been rolled out recently.

There's definitely a certain mindset that helps make it more enjoyable. Imagination being key! From the technical side, the developers have peeled back the curtain on how they've created parts of the game:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U03XXzcThGU&ab_channel=Logo%...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jV-DZqdKlnE&ab_channel=GDC20...

[VagabundoP]

DF is such a time sink and its got a lot of hacking potential with DFhack and some lua skills.

However the recent update for Steam - and I'm very glad for the dev success - has left me cold and I haven't played it since.

I've been building dorf death forts since 2010 though and will always remember the goblins riding giant sparrow invasion of my underground cavern level fort in v0.34.

[BadHumans]

Why is the Steam update a deal breaker?

[VagabundoP]

UI changes mean that you need to use the mouse for some essential stuff. The old interface was 100% keyboard.

That combined with an increase in the complexity for tileset creation means it feels like a different game tbh.

The old game had a commuity release called the lnp that had tonnes of community content, tweaks and utilities bundled together, while they have slowly being coming out on Steam as mods it just doesnt feel like the same game.

Again, I'm happy for Toady as him and his brother - and cat - are far more financially secure, but it feels like a different game. I might come back in a year or two and see then.

[ultimafan]

Not him but as someone in a similar position- I didn't like how the steam release axed the UI that had stayed more or less the same for the decade I had been playing DF for on and off in favor of a new one. I still love the game and highly recommend it, it (and the devs) are gems. But it put me off playing the steam release because while the new UI is cleaner it also (from the limited time I spent with it) felt less deep and less powerful. The old text UI was a kludged together mess that used just about every key and sometimes combinations of keys on your keyboard and had little to no consistency in layout or navigation between screens but once you got the muscle memory down you could navigate the menus and input commands blazingly fast compared to the new mouse and graphical oriented UI. I completely understand why they had to change however because it wasn't user friendly.

[xipho]

Caves of Qud 1.0 is out as of a couple days ago. It has a built in Tutorial now, and lots of UI improvements (though I pine for Nethack feel it started with). They have a publisher, Freehold Games, and their first DLC. I suspect the push to 1.0 was a good ting in terms of recognizing that they can make the came more accessible?!

[eddd-ddde]

FWIW it's MUCH easier to get into than dwarf fortress. You don't really need a guide like you need for DF.

[brunoqc]

Don't be afraid to play using "role-play mode" which is, IIRC, the one that saves in each settlement. There's no shame in that. You'll still be careful not to die, but it's a lot less punishing.