When comparing Dungeons of Dredmor vs Caves of Qud, 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 Dungeons of Dredmor is ranked 19th. 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 Combines punishing roguelike game mechanics with silly and satirical humor
The core mechanics of Dungeons of Dredmor are roguelike, but added on top of that is a silly humor that creates and endearing atmosphere.
Pro Several community mods were bundled as a free official expansion pack
In a testament to the quality of the Dungeons of Dredmor modding community, one official expansion pack consists almost entirely of user-created content. It was released for free, since they're not total capitalist jerks.
Pro Skill-based class system improves replay value
A character has seven selected skills, which effectively define that character's class: they have access to every skill selected, and no others. The base game contains dozens of skills, with many more available through both mods and official expansions.
Pro Configurable difficulty accommodates both casual and hardcore play
In addition to basic difficulty adjustment, the player can choose whether death is permanent (in classic roguelike style) or merely resets the current level. There is also a mode called "No Time to Grind" where experience points are increased from all sources, but in compensation, levels are smaller.
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 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 Over 60 factions
Befriend or become enemies with dozens of different factions—crabs, turtles, robots and even trees to name a few.
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
Cons
Con Minor interface issues
The interface feels very unintuitive with aspects such as having to change the default action feeling overly complicated and unecissary.
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.