Good day folks,
We're back again for another 1-hour-max Daily! Today's seed is for Day 131 of 2026, and we're given a Praetorian True Kin to play with.
For those unfamiliar, Caves of Qud has two styles of character. One is the Mutant, which as the name implies is a humanoid that has and can gain all kinds of various mutations. There are both physical and mental mutations, and some of them get downright wild. I love my muties.
The other option is a True Kin build. The True Kin see themselves as genetically pure offspring of original humanity (more or less), and cannot gain mutations. They can however, become cyborgs. They're able to implant various cybernetics over the course of a run to make up for their lack of mutations.
This chap today has 'Rapid Release Finger Flexors' which allows him to fire pistols faster. In my case, I didn't end up with Pistols to really make use of that cybernetic... but they're often a very good choice for ranged True Kin builds.
We end up with a daily score of about 12k, which is respectable. At the time of recording it put me 9th on the daily leaderboard, which I'm sure will go down by the evening. Still, a fun, quick little dive into the Caves of Qud today.
▶️ 3Speak
I actually have it in my notes here that I wanted to study this game because it seemed unique and employed hardcore permadeath. Can you tell me anything about the economics or mechanics of the game that are unique?
Classic Mode and Daily Mode are both permadeath, yeah. There are two other modes you can play that are more forgiving, but I like churning through character builds lol.
The whole thing is a brilliantly constructed weird-science-fantasy mashup in a post-post-post-apocalypse landscape that has been twisted and mutated and is full of ancient machines and such.
I kind of mention it in this video indirectly, but the setting uses Water as the primary form of currency - it's heavy to carry, you also need to drink, and you have only as much storage for water as you have waterskins. So you end up needing to do trades for various expensive trade goods or artifacts (guns, grenades, gadgets, tonics, etc).
When you're looking at the map, a good rule of thumb is that the further to the Right you go, the harder the mobs are. Secondly, the deeper you go the harder things get. You can get very very deep into caves. I'm not sure what the "bottom" is, because I usually die before I am 15 z-Levels deep lol.
You can do various water rituals with NPCs now and then to gain secrets, skills, or even add them to your party as companions. There's traders wandering around the world and the depths, and there's a complex relationship system with basically every entity in the world. If you hate fighting Oozes, you can work to increase reputation with oozes and then you don't need to fight them, for example.
It's honestly among the most complex and yet easily approachable games I've played.
I'm trash at it, and I've barely scratched the surface after almost two years of playing... and I love it.