When comparing Caves of Qud vs Invisible, Inc., the Slant community recommends Invisible, Inc. for most people. In the question“What are the best roguelikes/roguelites on PC?” Invisible, Inc. is ranked 7th while Caves of Qud is ranked 11th. The most important reason people chose Invisible, Inc. is:
Invisible, Inc. offers you a few different choices on how to play the game. Maybe you want to have a team full of stealthy people and sneak your way toward your goal, or maybe you just want to run in and beat the bad guys down. Both of these options are perfectly viable, even though the game is more favored to the stealth style.
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 There's different ways to play
Invisible, Inc. offers you a few different choices on how to play the game. Maybe you want to have a team full of stealthy people and sneak your way toward your goal, or maybe you just want to run in and beat the bad guys down. Both of these options are perfectly viable, even though the game is more favored to the stealth style.
Pro You get to choose which missions to take
When playing the game, you're presented with options of several different missions to take, and they all result in different perks. For example, you may need some extra money, so you take a mission with a much higher payout than the rest. Or maybe you need new gear, so you set out on a mission with a new piece as a reward.
Pro Excellent difficulty progression
As you take longer time during missions, the general difficulty level increases gradually. Time and mission profits must be balanced wisely.
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 Very static story
While the gameplay is randomized and meant to be played repeatedly due to the randomization, the story is still static, so after every mission there will be cut scenes that are always the same. After a while this becomes annoying due to familiarity, while they can be skipped, it would be nice to turn them off completely in order to save time.