If you're looking at Caves of Qud because you played games like the binding of isaac or slay the spire, and you said to yourself "wow, overwhelmingly positive reviews, and people have a lot of hours in this, and everyone says it's the best thing ever? I gotta try it!" run away immediately. Even as someone who likes traditional roguelikes like DCSS and Shiren, this is maybe one of the least accessible games I've ever played. It's got all the tank controls, confusing numbers, menu mess and heavy difficulty every other traditional roguelike has, just now combined with an art style reminiscent of ET on the Atari and an open world sandboxy feel that'll constantly leave you wondering "Where do I go? What I am doing???" before dying because you wandered into an overleveled area (or worse, being bored in an underleveled area). It's so immensely confusing an experience that even after 10 hours of trying my best I could not even begin to parse what I was even supposed to do (also reminiscent of ET on the Atari, wow). And that's not really a knock on Caves of Qud, the people who love it do earnestly love it, and for the right reasons. But it's a game that feels like you already need to have played 100 hours in order to enjoy it. For that reason I literally do not know who to recommend this to. And there's another issue here: the community is by and large oblivious to how niche this game really is, which I believe can lead to a lot of folks thinking they'd be into this only to realise oh dear god no.
If you love traditional roguelikes, and you love the idea of Caves of Qud, and also traditional oldschool rpgs like fallout 1, all simultaneously, yea maybe pick it up and give it a try. If you were anyone else, I couldn't recommend it in any good conscience.

If you're looking at Caves of Qud because you played games like the binding of isaac or slay the spire, and you said to yourself "wow, overwhelmingly positive reviews, and people have a lot of hours in this, and everyone says it's the best thing ever? I gotta try it!" run away immediately. Even as someone who likes traditional roguelikes like DCSS and Shiren, this is maybe one of the least accessible games I've ever played. It's got all the tank controls, confusing numbers, menu mess and heavy difficulty every other traditional roguelike has, just now combined with an art style reminiscent of ET on the Atari and an open world sandboxy feel that'll constantly leave you wondering "Where do I go? What I am doing???" before dying because you wandered into an overleveled area (or worse, being bored in an underleveled area). It's so immensely confusing an experience that even after 10 hours of trying my best I could not even begin to parse what I was even supposed to do (also reminiscent of ET on the Atari, wow). And that's not really a knock on Caves of Qud, the people who love it do earnestly love it, and for the right reasons. But it's a game that feels like you already need to have played 100 hours in order to enjoy it. For that reason I literally do not know who to recommend this to. And there's another issue here: the community is by and large oblivious to how niche this game really is, which I believe can lead to a lot of folks thinking they'd be into this only to realise oh dear god no. If you love traditional roguelikes, and you love the idea of Caves of Qud, and also traditional oldschool rpgs like fallout 1, all simultaneously, yea maybe pick it up and give it a try. If you were anyone else, I couldn't recommend it in any good conscience.