Caves of Qud News

Hello friends,

We just released the Caves of Qud tutorial on our beta branch. It’s designed to teach the very basics of Caves of Qud and ends with your character arriving in Joppa, just like in a standard game. If you’re already a seasoned Qud player, you’ll likely be familiar with most of what gets taught (though there may be some useful nuggets for you); if you have a friend who’s been itching to try the game, this is a great opportunity to get them going!


To access the beta, select Caves of Qud in your Steam library, then Properties > Betas choose “beta - beta” from the dropdown. For feedback, we’re specifically looking for bugs and breakages… so experienced players, feel free to go in and try to break it. Please post your issues here.

The tutorial along with the last segment of the main story will come into the main branch when 1.0 releases. No date just yet, but be on the lookout.

And a reminder: the game and soundtrack prices are going up on October 29th. One last month to buy at the current price!

Soon,
Live and drink.

Hey folks,
If you missed this announcement, tonight's Feature Friday will be the last one before our 1.0 launch later this year. We're going heads down to give full focus to the endgame. Thanks for observing this Friday ritual with us week after week, and we'll see you again soon!

Live and drink.

207.100

• Added a clickable close button to the status screens frame.
  
• We changed how the procedurally generated, white-titled books work when read.
  
  • Most of the time, reading a generated book displays a short excerpt from the book instead of the full, several-page text.
    
  • You'll occasionally still find full-text books.
    
  • Due to this change, Ruin of House Isner secrets are still findable but rarer. To offset his, we've made the location secret appear more frequently when you trade for or discover journal secrets.
    
• The gun rack and cathedra cybernetics can no longer rust.
  
• Removed biome and stratum information from slynth sanctuary choices.
  
• The "of terrifying visage" mod now shows the effect on cooldown for Berate, Intimidate, and Menacing Stare in the ability menu.
  
• Removed "fast travels much faster" from the description of the flying effect since that bonus is no longer tied to the effect.
  
• Horns now displays its to-hit bonus in the mutation description and on the Horns (or variants) natural weapon description.
  
• Tweaked troll foal character level.
  
• You know complete the Disable the Magnetic Field step of the Tomb of the Eaters quest after [redacted].
  
• You can now enter the [redacted] without the Tomb of the Eaters quest without having the game lock up.
  
• A sound is now played when your sharpened polyp crumbles to dust.
  
• A sound is now played when you activate the Temple of the Rock platform.
  
• World generation tier is now set correctly for objects generated at worldgen time such as lair owners.
  
• Gave becoming nooks way more HP.s
  
• Made the ingredient baskets and medical chests in the Yd Freehold unowned.s
  
• Added missing grenades to some artifact tables.
  
• Fixed Mass Mind not properly cooling down mental mutations.
  
• Fixed a bug that caused the second golem spawned from using cloning draught as a catalyst to not be your follower.
  
• Fixed a bug that caused ickslugs birthed by a snailmother to adopt a docile demeanor.
  
• Fixed a bug with village apothecary stats.
  
• Fixed an error in the display of the cleave amonut for gigantic axes.
  
• Fixed an issue that caused mutations added from cooking recipes to not be applied properly in some cases.
  
• Fixed an issue that caused cooking effects to not apply their effects but still remove the effect when wearing off in some cases.
  
• Fixed an issue that caused skills added from cooking recipes to not be applied properly in some cases.
  
• Fixed a bug with the tier of metal locker contents.
  
• Fixed some issues with cybernetic credit wedge chests.
  
• Fixed some description typos in Syphon Vim and some creature objects.
  
• [modding] Added a RegionalObject part, which can place keyed groups from a population table based on the zone's terrain region.
  
• [modding] Cleaned up the StreamingAssets folder.
  

Hey friends,

It’s been a while since we’ve had a big news post, so we want to give you an update as we head towards our 1.0 launch at the end of the year. We don’t have a more specific release date yet, but we will let you know as soon as we do...

The team has reached some major milestones in completing the enormous amount of detail work it takes to get Qud to 1.0. We recently finished rewriting descriptions for the 2,000+ (!!!) objects in the game. Here’s the last one we did: it’s trash.



We also finished activated ability descriptions, message log messages, sound effects for everything in the game (over 1,000). And we fixed some long-standing bug chains with cooking, cloning, and creature attitudes.

So what is left to do? Aside from more detail, there are two major pieces. First is the tutorial, which we’re designing specifically to teach the very basics of Qud and help new players get their footing. We’re far along and will be making it available to Patreon backers and private testers soon.

Second is the endgame. How do you end a game like Caves of Qud? Well, we’ve had the outline for 15 years, and we’re finally making good on it. Endings are hard, we take the task very seriously, and to be frank: we are absolutely cooking! Can’t say anything else yet, but we’re so excited to share it soon.

[h2]As we head into the endgame…[/h2]

A few important things to know as we approach the finish line.

1. No More Feature Fridays. This Feature Friday (September 20th) will be the last one until 1.0! We’re going heads down to give full focus to the endgame.
   
2. Tutorial Beta is Coming. Early next month, we’ll put the tutorial up on a beta branch and ask folks to help us test. Be on the lookout!
   
3. The Price is Going Up. After much consideration to many factors, including how far the game has come since our Early Access launch in 2015, we’ve decided to raise the price on October 29th to $29.99 USD (and the OST to $9.99). This will be the final price heading into 1.0. We wanted to give as much notice as possible so that folks can get the game at its current price and take advantage of the 10% off sale running now. Please tell your friends who’ve been on the fence to pick up the game before the price goes up!

We are nearly there, and we’re feeling it: excited, exhausted, etc. We’re committed to having these last few updates put a satisfying capstone on the game while also welcoming new players with (multiple) open arms. Thank you so much to everyone who has stuck with us for the long haul.

Soon...


Live and drink!

207.99

• Added the rest of the activated ability descriptions.
  
• Added several more descriptions for creatures and items, finishing a full pass.
  
• Added icons to the pet selection menu during character creation
  
• You may now cook with objects from adjacent cells (eg, open bodies of water).
  
• Inanimate objects that are on fire or being attacked will no longer be too distracted to allow you to place objects on or in them.
  
• Clicking on zone transition arrows now walks you to the edge of the screen instead of taking a single step.
  
• The pet Frondzie now more reliably uses it's taunt whenever you are in combat.
  
• Fixed the "NoCombat" tag used on various pets.
  
• The pet Ercolano should be properly animated now.
  
• The lairs of legendary girshling should now be populated with more girsh creatures rather than random creatures.
  
• Added a verification step when saving the game to ensure it was written to disk correctly.
  
• Gave decarbonizers turret bodies rather than hover robot bodies.
  
• Fixed a bug that caused the Precognition vfx to get stuck or not wait until the zone was rendered before animating.
  
• Fixed a bug that caused companions to have the incorrect water ritual liquid.
  
• Fixed a bug that caused creature opinions to temporarily be ignored after a save was loaded.
  
• Fixed a bug that caused multiple redundant popups to appear if your precognitive vision was about to run out after you already chose to return.
  
• Fixed a bug that rarely caused you to die after choosing to return to the start of your precognitive vision.
  
• Fixed a memory leak when choosing to not return to the start of your precognitive vision.
  
• Fixed a bug that caused cloned abilities to never come off cooldown.
  
• Fixed a bug that caused Ultra Fire to not have a cooldown.
  
• Fixed a typo in the Empty the Clips activation message.
  
• Fixed some typos in worldmap messages.
  
• [modding] Added a 'clearcooldowns' wish that can be used in some cases to resolve issues with non-ticking cooldowns.
  

Hey all,
We've been working hard on finishing the game for our 1.0 release, so we're taking a break from Feature Friday next week to get some much needed rest. FF will return the following week.

Live and drink, friends.

207.98

• Clicking on an interactable object or hostile creature now advances one square before warning instead of preventing movement altogether.
  
• The accomplishment for donating books to Sheba can now only be engraved on your [redacted] once, if other deeds are available.
  
• Proselytizing a creature is now only an accomplishment if they have not previously been your companion.
  
• Fixed a bug that took some loot away from the ancient bones in the asphalt mines.
  
• Fixed an issue with metabolizing effects from cooked recipes not triggering properly.
  
• Fixed the character sheet description of Light Manipulation to properly show the PV and reflect chance of the next level.
  
• Fixed a bug with installing two onboard recoilers at the same time resulting in only one being usable.
  
• Fixed a bug that caused the ceremonial vibrokhopesh to clack and buzz constantly on the world map.
  
• Fixed a bug that caused popups referring to the chime '_' to be incorrectly capitalized.
  
• [modding] Added float and double gamestate methods.
  
• [modding] Added several methods for getting properties from HistoricEntity and HistoricEvent.
  
• [modding] Fixed a bug that caused the Circuitry part to lose all charge on the world map.
  
• [modding] The IXP multiplier wish (xpmul:#) behavior is now stored as a float game state "XPMul" and will persist on save load.