Chewing the Qud

Update:Looks like the prophets were right. A press release today confirms that the game is getting a 1.0 release on December 5th. It’ll cost $30 on Steam, Itch, and GOG.

Original story:TheCaves Of Quddeveloper has posted a cryptic riddle that sounds a bit like a release date in disguise. Apost on the game’s Steam pageyesterday reads: “{n} purple wardens beseech the Chair, What is death, if one rose is fair? How long from beetle moon to beetle moon?” That means absolutely nothing to me. But at least one fan in the comments knows their lore enough to have translated it, resulting in a specific date later this year. If their solution is correct, this could be a characteristically cryptic way for developer Freehold Games to announce the date for the roguelike’s 1.0 release. So, let’s double check those numbers.

The date the riddle comes out as is 12/5/24. That’s December! Just in time to shove Caves Of Qud into the Christmas stocking of some rogue you like. But as I say, I didn’t figure this out myself.

“‘n’ purple wardens beseeching the chair are the twelve from the Quetzal caucus, right?” saysplayer ‘pileofoats’.“The second comes from the vintner’s dialogue: one is fair, FIVE is death. And 900 game ticks/18 hours between beetle moons… so 12/5/18? 12/5/900?

Sure enough, in the lore there is a set of twelve wardens who make a resolution tothe Chair of a grand council. Likewise, the vintner is a character whodoes indeed talk about roses, saying: “Try some rose wine? One rose is fair, but as you may know from hanging around the Stiltgrounds, five is death.”

As for the time between “beetle moons”, this is where things become less clear. Caves Of Qud’s world hasits own fantastical calendar, which describes a “beetle moon” waxing and waning every night. The commenter above has calculated there are 18 hours between the first appearance of these moons (or 900 game ticks). But there are 24 hours between these moons at theirzenith(1200 games ticks).

But it’s pretty damn solid already. The game is set in a far future wasteland, in which busted technology has become almost indistinguishable from magic. You can travel across a vast map in a mercifully short time, meaning that a huge world is open for exploration pretty much right away. If you visit a graveyard, you’ll find it filled with people who “made too many mocking sounds at an ogre ape”. You have been warned.