Caves of Qud
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salt / rust / rain
ASCII illustration
Ruins with a history that changes between lives.
2010: public beta; 2015: Early Access; 2024: version 1.0.
By Jason Grinblat, Brian Bucklew and Freehold Games.
Caves of Qud began development in 2007, reached a public beta in 2010 and entered Steam Early Access in 2015. Its 1.0 release followed on 5 December 2024. Those are different milestones in the same long project.
Its setting brings mutations, machines, plants and old civilisations into a traditional turn-based world. Handwritten places and stories coexist with generated details. A character’s body and allegiances can change which problems are dangerous and which solutions are available.
Qud also makes procedural generation an instrument of historical texture. Its designers describe generating the lives of ancient sultans, then leaving traces of those histories for the player to discover. The past arrives through objects and places in the present.
That is a different use of randomness from merely rearranging rooms. It gives exploration something to read as well as something to survive.
This archive considers Qud’s Classic mode, with permanent death. The game also provides modes with different expectations about loss and exploration; their existence does not make the Classic rules disappear.
Sources
Freehold Games: generating mythic biographies
Official release dates and mode descriptions