210.6 - 'beta' branch

• Particle effects now respect visibility and won't render on top of objects that stand over them.
  
• Improved performance when many particle effects were active onscreen.
  
• Improved performance when the you hold a light source at night.
  
• Improved performance when you move.
  
• Increased the render layer of the still chime.
  
• Fixed a bug that caused important items to be traded or stored when toggling all items to trade.
  
• Fixed a visual bug in the popup frame decoration.
  
• Fixed a bug that caused you to have multiple primary limbs if you regenerated a previously dismembered primary limb.
  
• Fixed a bug that caused 3D cobblers to ignore walls of the same type, even if they were visually different.
  
• Fixed a bug that caused the poisoned effect to sometimes ignore immunity.
  
• Fixed a bug on the Windows build that caused prompts for opening Player.log to instead open an unrelated folder.
  
• Fixed a bug that caused the mod manager to close after a popup was dismissed.
  
• Fixed a bug that caused the mod manager to still receive key input while a popup was displayed.

The 210 sequence will be leaving 'beta' soon, kick it around and see if anything breaks!

210.5 - 'beta' branch

• Options that require a game restart to take effect will now prompt you to do so upon exiting the menu.
  
• Creatures with photosynthetic skin will now bask in the sunlight.
  
• Fixed a bug that caused rare sultan statues to appear as missing textures.
  
• Fixed a bug that caused 'Melee attack nearest enemy' to walk on top of plants like dreadroots.
  
• Fixed a bug that caused items placed next to the golem mound to report as valid for construction but fail when asking Klanq to build it.
  
• Fixed a bug that caused Girsh Qon to lose the use of her shave flaps when absorbing the chord of Agolgot.
  
• Fixed a bug that caused Girsh Qon to confuse herself if under player control.
  
• Fixed a bug that caused various messages involving pariahs, such as those for petting, to become malformed.
  
• Fixed a bug that caused the individual steps for 'The Golem' quest to not complete when providing materials.
  
• Fixed a bug that prevented opening the character status screen if you had a mutation with an invalid variant.
  
• Fixed a message that referred to the wrong object when attacking a creature that blinks away on damage.
  
• Fixed a bug that caused disabling the zone transition autosaves to instead save on every transition.
  
• Fixed typo in "Chiliad Creature Hoof" which prevented the blueprint from loading
  
• Fixed bug where the teleport animation didn't respect tile flippedness
  
• [modding] Conversation parts now have a disposal step after the conversation is over and no more events will fire.
  
• [modding] Combo options can now define a separate display value using '|', e.g. '0|None'.

210.3

Hey friends!

We are thrilled to announce that Caves of Qud recently won the Excellence in Narrative award at the Independent Games Festival (IGF)! Several members of our team flew out to GDC to attend the award show, which meant some of us met in person for the first time. It was a surprise and honor to win, especially in the narrative category, since Caves of Qud's systemic approach to story is unusual among narrative games. We posted Jason's acceptance speech to the Kitfox Youtube if you wanna check it out.

More good news: Caves of Qud is nominated for Best Game or Interactive Work at the 2025 Hugo Awards! This one is particularly special to us, as several members of the team grew up reading science fiction and fantasy, and so have been aware of the Hugos for quite a wall. The winners will be presented on August 16 at Seattle Worldcon 2025. Expect to hear more as that date approaches.

Next updates are continuing to fix bugs and improve performance, as well as beginning to lay the groundwork for bigger work ahead, including localization and expansions.

- Kitfox + Freehold

E: Issues resolved. Hotfix build 209.46 on main and 210.4 on beta.

E2: If you're still experiencing the problem, you can verify client files in steam force steam to update to the latest.

We're temporarily rolling back the default branch to 209.44 while we work an input bug.

Saves that were upgraded by 1.0.3 will report as being 209.45 when you attempt to load them in 1.0.2, but are safe and can be played on the 209.45 branch or on the next hotfix once we fix the issue.

We're working on the input problem and will repost the patch as soon as it's fixed.

1.0.3 (build 209.45)

• The build library is now synced to Steam Cloud.
  
• Auto light/douse torches is now toggled on again by default.
  
• Horns now benefit from the Jab skill when used for secondary attacks.
  
• Thrown weapons equipped in a non-thrown-slot hand now display their melee properties, rather than their thrown properties.
  
• The penetration estimate of missile & thrown weapons now respects their respective penetration caps.
  
• You are now prompted to stop traveling if your HP falls below the warning threshold.
  
• Fixed an issue with the ordering of certain tomb murals.
  
• Fixed a bug that caused some sub-limbs to stay permanently dismembered even after their parent limb was regenerated.
  
• Fixed a bug that caused some bodies to never recover the use of their missile weapons after dismemberment.
  
• Fixed a bug that caused hostile creatures with a short kill radius to not react when shot from range.
  
• Fixed a bug that caused the turbow to not apply its penetration bonus.
  
• Fixed a bug that caused the displayed penetration value of thrown weapons to be lower than intended.
  
• Fixed a bug that caused the psychal fleshgun to double its penetration bonus from Ego.
  
• Fixed a bug that caused you to never forget secrets even with Amnesia.
  
• Fixed a bug that caused the mouth of Shug'ruith to always be built straight down.
  
• Fixed a bug that caused liquid stains to be included in water ritual reputations.
  
• Fixed a bug that caused water ritual options to be selectable even when you did not have the required reputation.
  
• Fixed a bug that caused a southeast pointing arrow to be displayed on the western map border.
  
• Fixed a bug that caused you to acquire the Change Grip ability regardless of equipping [redacted] properly or not.
  
• Fixed a bug that caused the Cleave skill to apply a -2 penalty to AV per hit instead of the intended -1.
  
• Fixed a bug that caused Hook and Drag to display popups when other creatures failed to use it.
  
• Fixed a bug that caused faces dismembered during domination to not modify reputation.
  
• Fixed a bug that caused the conch of the Aji to grant its ability when equipped in the thrown slot.
  
• Fixed a bug that caused Stopsvalinn to give its ability when improperly equipped.
  
• Fixed a bug that caused quest objectives to pick up items to complete when just looking at them.
  
• Fixed a bug that caused flying with cathedras to impede other movement abilities and remove cooldowns when teleporting.
  
• Fixed a bug that caused the tile of [redacted] farmers to be overridden.
  
• Fixed a bug that prevented music from playing in Brightsheol.
  
• Fixed a bug that could cause an object to be attached with invalid parts, preventing the game from being saved.
  
• Fixed a bug that caused some zones to build very slowly.
  
• Fixed a minor inconsistency between XP being awarded from turning in Resheph secrets vs. turning in Sheba books.
  
• Fixed message ordering of space time vortexes appearing.
  
• [modding] Added an alterable Icon to ConversationUI, also accessible via BeginConversationEvent.
  
• [modding] Added a RenderNodeEvent to conversations, which can temporarily override the rendered icon and title.
  
• [modding] Variants to the Hooks for Feet mutation now use their blueprint's display name in the mutation description.
  
• [modding] Undefined tables in Mods.xml now properly initialize an empty table list.
  
• [modding] The RenderEvent has been extended with new parameters to alter rendering in specific contexts.
  
• [modding] The quest 'O Glorious Shekhinah!' is no longer hardcoded to a specific zone ID.
  
• [modding] Sultan statue tiles have now been extracted to a weighted population table: SultanShrines_StatueTiles.
  
• [debug] Creature attitude info can now also be enabled via the 'Show attitude info on objects' option.
  
• [debug] Journal note attributes are now separated for readability (these are only visible when the object internals debug option is turned on).
  
• Fixed a bug that prevented the game from recognizing you were marooned in [redacted].

beta branch (build 201.3)

• Minorly improved performance across the board.
  
• Fixed a bug where Ornate Tables would change colors when items were placed on them.
  
• Fixed a bug where enclosed objects could appear above their encloser.
  
• [modding] Various methods on Tinkering_Disassemble have been made public & static.
  
• [modding] Added an OptionFlag attribute, which can sync an option's value to a field or property.
  
• [modding] Added a Options.HasOptionValue method to check if an option has a player-configured value.
  
• [modding] Fixed a bug that caused displayed version numbers using the upgrade operator to be parsed as a color code.
  
• [modding] Fixed an exception when specifying invalid attribute requirements for powers.

build 210.2 - 'beta' branch

• Added a fallback font for the modern UI with many previously missing international unicode characters.
  
• The message for blocking will now include what shield you blocked with.
  
• Fixed a bug that caused some historic regions to generate without articles.
  
• Fixed a bug that caused common phrases for "cooking" to not generate.
  
• [modding] Steam workshop mods will now check for updates and prompt downloads if you've declared a version in your manifest.json.
  
• [modding] You can now add HistorySpice.json files to your mod which will merge with that of the game.
  
• [modding] Added LoadBefore and LoadAfter to manifest.json which can influence mod load order without creating dependency cycles.
  
• [modding] The XRL namespace is now checked for type name conflicts which could previously cause silent incompatibilities between mods.
  
• [modding] Map files in subdirectories will now merge together by their ID, if no ID is defined the relative path is used.
  
• [modding] You can now add 'Textures' folders for your sprites anywhere in your project, respecting your manifest.json directories.
  
• [modding] Added an alert to the main menu if enabled mods are missing dependencies.
  
• [modding] Added a new GetBleedLiquidEvent which defaults to the old BleedLiquid tag or property.
  
• [modding] XML files loaded by root now print an info block of file counts to the Player.log.
  
• [modding] Fixed a bug that caused the default values of options to be ignored when used as conditions for manifest.json directories.

build 210.0 - 'beta' branch

• Unity version upgraded to 6000.0.41f1.
  
• Windows builds are now 64-bit.
  
• DLC is no longer subject to the 'Enable mods' option.
  
• [modding] The game is now restarted when the mod configuration is changed to fully unload old mod data.
  
• [modding] Mod approval has been replaced by a one-time option to opt-in when installing a script mod for the first time.
  
• [modding] We added some new features to manifest.json.
  
  • Mod dependencies can now be declared, allowing your mod to require and be loaded after others.
    
  • Separate subdirectories can be loaded depending on what version of the game is running, allowing further mod compatibility.
    
  • Subdirectories can also be loaded only if a certain mod is present, allowing optional interwoven features.
    
  • Defining a manual LoadOrder is deprecated, in favor of dependencies.
    
  • Refer here for usage: wiki.

1.0.2 (build 207.44)

• Changed Make Camp so that only campfires you made are considered when checking for existing campfires.
  
• Psychic hunters now ambush you less often in [redacted].
  
• The pool of brain brine effects no longer includes adding skills or skill points if you already have every skill.
  
• Distracting holograms now have a higher render layer.
  
• Increased the render layer of lit campfires.
  
• Fixed the circle of light in the chord of Rermadon not displaying its resistance boosts.
  
• Fixed a bug that caused the golem to sometimes remain in a semi-piloted state after being destroyed, preventing player control.
  
• Fixed a bug that caused Rodanis Y to not receive power from Grit Gate's broadcast power station.
  
• Fixed a bug that caused social coprocessors to not be accounted for in some water ritual contexts.
  
• Fixed a bug that caused Spinnerets to not deactivate on the world map.
  
• Fixed a bug that caused your cryo clones to sometimes prevent the game from saving.
  
• Fixed a bug that allowed you to repeatedly gain the reward for completing "A Call to Arms" from Otho by mentioning the slynth.
  
• Fixed a bug that caused dreadroots to be unable to travel on the world map.
  
• Fixed a bug that caused salt krakens to leave trails on the world map.
  
• Fixed a bug that prevented companions from satisfying the objective of spreading Klanq to their original faction.
  
• Fixed a bug that caused the cooldown reduction from Willpower to be uncapped when applied to Ultra Fire.
  
• Fixed a bug that caused items cloned via cryotubes to conflict in unpredictable ways when equipped together with the original item.
  
• Fixed a bug that caused Blinking Tic to teleport you outside vehicle interiors, inflicting large amounts of fall damage.
  
• Fixed a bug that caused conflicts between complex parties to not propagate opinions between the leaders, leading some members to remain neutral.
  
• Fixed a bug with hotkey inputs from the ability menu not being properly consumed when activating an ability.
  
• Fixed a bug with hotkey inputs from the ability menu that rarely caused an ability mapped to 'a' to be immediately used when entering the screen.
  
• Fixed an exception during missile weapon fire when a cell was fully drained during a multi-shot action.
  
• Fixed an exception thrown during explosive projectile impacts.
  
• Fixed a typo in the tutorial.
  
• Added some names to the credits.
  [modding] Fixed an exception in FromWebColor when passing in a color code starting with #.
  [debug] Added party leader and inherited feeling towards the player to the attitude menu.

Hey friends,

It’s Alexandra from Kitfox here with a quick update on how things are going. Development has started again after the Freehold Team was on a much deserved break! As we mentioned last month, the major focus post-1.0 will be to explore localization and porting to mobile and consoles but there’s so much more in the works. There’s a couple of updates you can expect in the next few weeks:

February 28th

This week there will be a maintenance patch on the main branch with bug fixes.

March 7th

Then we have the initial 'beta' branch release of 1.1, including an upgrade to Unity 6 and Windows 64-bit builds. No new game features yet, just technical and modding platform updates for now.

Future

After that, the team will return to a regular maintenance fix cadence, probably slower than weekly updates. The team is also building the technical localization API, and starting builds for mobile & consoles but we are just in the very early stages of this so we will have more to say later.

We are excited for more folks to be able to play Caves of Qud!

See you in the next one.

-Alexandra

Hey friends,

Happy 2025, happy lunar new year, and we hope you’re still enjoying the Caves of Qud 1.0 update. We have some updates to share with y’all. The team is still taking a rest, but we are still planning out the future of Qud, and the first priority will be looking at localization and console porting. Awards season is also in full swing and we’ve been nominated for some very prestigious categories!


First is “Best Strategy/Simulation Game” at the D.I.C.E Awards. The show takes place on Thursday, Feb. 13 at 8:00PM PT/11:00PM ET and you’ll be able to watch from home on IGN’s streaming channels. See if you can spot Jason (lead developer, writer) and Tanya (Kitfox lead) in the crowd!



Caves of Qud has also been nominated for Excellence in Design, Excellence in Narrative, and the Seamus McNally Grand Prize at the IGF Awards. You can watch along on Wednesday March 19th at 6:30PM PT/9:30PM ET on the GDC Twitch channel.

We're honored to be nominated alongside these other fantastic games. Any time a game releases it's a miracle, but especially the 17-year wandering journey that it took to make Caves of Qud. To be recognized by other developers is really just the icing on the cake.

You can also participate in voting for Caves of Qud for the IGF Audience Award right here. Voting closes on Friday January 31st at 11:59PM PT so make sure you get your vote in ASAP! RIGHT NOW! Don’t keep reading! Go vote and come back!




OK you voted? Cool. FYI, Caves of Qud is also eligible for to be nominated for a Nebula Award. The only way a game can be nominated for the “Best Game Writing” award is via an SFWA (Science Fiction and Fantasy Writing Association) member. If you are a member you should be able to access this forum post and get a game key, to help you judge! If you have friends who are Nebula voters, send them our way if you think they would appreciate Qud’s unique writerly vibes.



Jason is also going to be hosting a special Writing Caves of Qud Nebula stream on his Twitch channel on Monday February 3rd, 3-5PM PDT. He'll be talking through the dev process and showing off some of the game's writing.


As we’ve said, first the team is resting. But, when the team is back from their break, one of our focuses will be to explore localization and porting to mobile and consoles. Localizing a game with procedural text like Caves of Qud is a unique challenge that’s not easily solvable, but it’s also a fun problem to dig into. We already have an international audience excited to take a look, so we need to take the time to figure out how to get it done properly and make sure its unique tone and writerly virtues shine through in every language.

And of course consoles and mobile are also not trivial projects to undergo, but we are committed to getting Caves of Qud available to more folks out there.


Here are the winners of the Caves of Qud Launch Speedrun contest! You can check out the Wander, Classic and Bzzt runs on Speedrun.com and the Ultra Ending run on Twitch. Thank you everyone who participated, whether it be the streamers, the viewers, or the folks who volunteered to help organize the event. If you’re interested in Caves of Qud speedrunning, you can check out the qud-speedrunning channel on the Caves of Qud Discord or https://www.speedrun.com/caves_of_qud. We are interested in running another speedrun event in the future for non-streamers too so let us know if that’s something you’d be into. Winners will be receiving their prize packs from Mighty Merch soon.



That’s all for now! Please tune in and watch the award shows and cheer us on. We will have more to say on development soon.

-Kitfox + Freehold Games