Hi Aftermath readers! Welcome to the weekend open thread. Here’s what I’d like to try. I’ll tell you a story about a game I’m playing, and then you share one in the comments.
I have been playing an ungodly amount of Caves of Qud, mainly in “roleplay” mode, which allows you to create checkpoints in settlements that you can return to if you die. And you’re going to die a lot in Caves of Qud. Its combat system is so interesting and robust that almost every encounter can be deadly if you’re not careful. Before I entered the very first dungeon, one of my first characters was stoned to death by angry baboobs, a fate apparently so common I got an achievement for it.
In Qud, the world ticks along turn by turn. If you take a step, that’s a turn. Attacking someone is also a turn. If you initiate a turn, the entire rest of the world also takes their turn simultaneously. You can cheese your way through a lot of enemy encounters when you’re overpowered by taking advantage of this cadence. Ranged enemies need sightlines to attack, so you can avoid aggro-ing enemies by stepping behind a tree. You can coax enemies into a choke point peeking into a room and then sprinting down a hallway, forcing enemies to attack one at a time. It’s also nice to be able to pause the game at basically any point, either to figure out a strategy or to just go do something else because you’re old.
Right now I have what feels like an incredible combo of mutations and weapons that has made me a little more courageous in my exploits. I was able to buy a new mutation that granted me a second set of arms. I’m using daggers, which aren’t very deadly but have a chance to give enemies a “bleeding” status effect that does damage over time. I also invested some points into tinkering, which allows me to modify my weapons, so I am now wielding four electrified daggers. The electricity flies out in arcs when I attack, often obliterating two or three in one stab. On top of this, I also have a fungal infection on my hand and my foot that essentially gives me a free healing item, if I’m willing to eat mushrooms that sprout from my feet. It makes members of the faction the Consortium of Phyta all hate me, which I have discovered may bite me in the ass later—but that’s a later problem.
I have been gallivanting across Qud with my four electric daggers, basically melting everything in my path. The one major issue is that the electric arcs from my dagger often also kill other random animals in the area, meaning I’m still fucking dying to like, an angry horse. Roleplay mode makes trying things out and exploring a little less intimidating. There’s a part of me, though, that sees how bizarre and interesting the game can get when you let its systems crash into each other, and wants to just start a new character anyway.
How about y’all? What games have you been playing that have given you a story worth sharing? And who else out here is completely obsessed with Caves of Qud?
