When comparing Caves of Qud vs Out There: Ω Edition, the Slant community recommends Caves of Qud for most people. In the question“What are the best roguelikes/roguelites on PC?” Caves of Qud is ranked 11th while Out There: Ω Edition is ranked 75th. The most important reason people chose Caves of Qud is:
Mutations are one of the biggest parts of Caves of Qud. Want to be a two-headed beguiling spider-thing? A four-armed flying plant-man? You can. There's also lots of armor, weapons, and equipment, which can be found enchanted, as well as a bunch of "spells" (mental mutations) and skills.
Specs
Ranked in these QuestionsQuestion Ranking
Pros
Pro Tons of customization
Mutations are one of the biggest parts of Caves of Qud. Want to be a two-headed beguiling spider-thing? A four-armed flying plant-man? You can. There's also lots of armor, weapons, and equipment, which can be found enchanted, as well as a bunch of "spells" (mental mutations) and skills.
Pro Fantastic User Interface
The UI in Qud is very well designed, which helps to make it easy to get into.
Pro Over 60 factions
Befriend or become enemies with dozens of different factions—crabs, turtles, robots and even trees to name a few.
Pro Interesting and original setting
The game is set in a post-apocalyptic world that feels truly unique. Caves of Qud's world is like no other, and everything from the creatures/characters you'll encounter, to the items you'll find, and the locations you'll discover is different from what you would find in most rogue-likes.
Pro Unique idea
Unique content and idea of "retro-future" make this "not another rogue-like", in a way.
Pro Unique and evocative prose, art and music
Extremely well written, with highly evocative prose which brings this unique world to life. The fantastic writing is supplemented by a unique art style and sublime otherworldly music.
Pro Huge, procedurally-generated world
Pro Non complicated resource management
Out There's gameplay revolves around resource management, what the player can find and how they utilize it. It is quite a tight rope of choices that makes for a many "biting your nails" scenarios. Should one venture down to a planet for resources to craft new alien technologies or repair equipment and the ship, risking their fuel and air, or should the venture forward to a new system to try and find more fuel rich planets?
Thee great aspect about all of this resource management is that it is a pretty streamlined system, no weapons or crew to worry about, just fuel air and equipment/ship.
Pro Fantastic music
The music in game fits so well with the atmosphere, giving a very lonely yet somewhat hopeful feel. Created by composer Siddhartha Barnhoorn (The Stanley Parable) one knows quality is rightfully behind the whole score.
Pro Choose your own adventure aspects
Out There has many similarities to a choose your own adventure book where many choices end with a story and particular situation to each that can not be guessed or assumed before the choice is taken. So no game ever has the same outcomes to any particular choice within, which makes for a new adventure each playthrough.
The Omega edition has new voicework to go along with these stories behind each choice, which ads another level of immersion, which is nice. With over 350 unique texts, there is quite a bit to see before they become too repetitive.
Cons
Con Can be difficult to get started
The beginning of the game explains little, depending on what attributes you put points into in character creation will have a high level of impact at the start of the game. This is not explained to the player, so if you do not put 18 points into "toughness" without having a very particular build in mind that will have some way of dodging or avoiding attacks, the result will just be plenty of death with little advancement.
Con Cooldown simulator
Con UI is in the way
UI is in the way, literally. Even with the overlay mod you'll have issues. The original overlay is too bulky and hard to read.
Con Completely random
Being that the whole game is completely random, some sessions will not turn out that great. Many times there is the unavoidable bad luck that will make the player run out of fuel or air. Sure there may have been a choice the player should not have made, but really, there is no way to really know.