I did the #daily#CavesOfQud build. Died horribly (this is the way) quite proud of what I achieved though. It was a fun break from reality. exploring a procedurally generated high tech-low-life fantasy swamp. Love me a good chrome revolver and salve injector.
I played one of this game’s endless march of pre-release versions last year on #SteamDeck. It provided some of the finest hours of gaming I’ve ever experienced, stopped dead by one of the absolute worst single moments.
I hope they’ve tuned that balance a little better! (Though honestly that mostly means “make non-permadeath the first option on the new-game screen, and rename the options to suggest it’s the best starting place”) #CavesOfQud https://mastodon.social/@gamingonlinux/112280874814360993
Trying to do the #Daily#CavesOfQud character build. First thing that happened was I got lost... in the first parasang from the starting village. (How the everliving fuck does that even happen?)
And now this. I got lost again... and ran into another fucking novice of the fucking sightless way. AHHHHHHH
...thankfully I decided to just go and whack him in the face until he suffered critical integrity failure and that worked.
I did not tell my father I was leaving. I hadn’t told him much for years. I took his sword, his chainmail, his buckler. I laced my boots–a gift from my mother. I marched. Down the long road. Through the dark forest. Over the high mountains. Trudging through salt marshes.
I sucked buttons because I was thirsty, and without water. I slashed at crocodiles. I threw rocks back to the baboons. I set foot in Joppa.
My father would never know. I became a ghost when I left–something transient that never returns.
You know what would make #CavesOfQud really really awesome? Community bones files. Like #Nethack. Imagine finding the bones parasang of some other player... And wither surviving or running away from the thing that killed him.
Welp. I hear that Golgotha is the tomb of new players... I got lost on my way there and fatally murderboned by Goat people.
I went out screaming into the dark night. I had a full auto carbine in one hand, a sword in the other, and the pin of a grenade in my teeth.
I need to figure out what the good escape items are... and HOW DO I KILL THESE GOATMEN QUICKLY?
...
Anyways can I have an F in the chat for my latest character? Following is the log of his final days...
> The goatfolk yurtwarden takes 19 damage from your disintegration!
> You died.
You were accidentally disintegrated.
> You take 10 damage from your disintegration!
> The goatfolk bully takes 16 damage from your disintegration!
> The flaming goatfolk bully takes 20 damage from your disintegration!
> The flaming goatfolk bully takes 11 damage from your disintegration!
> The resonance grenade mk I detonates!
I just survived my first encounter with goat people... (Killed three of them with my spray and pray carbine, got some nice chainmail gloves and booties, then three of them started to corner me so I recoiled out of there... but not before throwing a napalm at one of their houses...)
Now I'm doing a side quest for a Village of Chameleons! If "wanting the holy object to hiss at" isn't a relatable mood I don't know what is.
I finally got to Grit Gate! man these guys seem... isolationist and rather up themselves. They remind me a bit of the hub01 guys from #cataclysmdda
I even got a cool side quest to be a detective for a farming village on the way there. Really felt like the lone ranger at that point...
I'm really enjoying Qud. The main storyline is quite cool. But I also like diving the random other ruins. Especially now that I have a recoiler so won't get lost endlesssly underground like I've done at least once before...
Finally cracked the seal on #CavesOfQud (thanks to the mod "The Qud Survival Guide"¹ and its lore-friendly tutorial NPC) and was able to have a playthrough that lasted more than 20 or so minutes.
Naturally, I was killed after "only" ~7k turns of play, but looking forward to taking another run at it soon, and I suspect I am now over the activation-energy hump.
I think the Gunwing is the prebuilt character I am finding myself most comfortable with, although I still have not worked out how to reliably keep the character supplied with ammunition for the two revolvers they start with.
On this life, I found a small party of Mechanimist pilgrims and zealots following a mysterious fellow who appears to have done some contentious mathematics. Wonder where they're going, perhaps the desert.