Caves Of Qud teases a 1.0 release date with a tricksy riddle about beetle moons

The Caves Of Qud developer has posted a cryptic riddle that sounds a bit like a release date in disguise. A post on the game's Steam page yesterday reads: "{n} purple wardens beseech the Chair, What is death, if one rose is fair? How long from beetle moon to beetle moon?" That means absolutely nothing to me. But at least one fan in the comments knows their lore enough to have translated it, resulting in a specific date later this year. If their solution is correct, this could be a characteristically cryptic way for developer Freehold Games to announce the date for the roguelike's 1.0 release. So, let's double check those numbers.

The date the riddle comes out as is 12/5/24. That's December! Just in time to shove Caves Of Qud into the Christmas stocking of some rogue you like. But as I say, I didn't figure this out myself.

"'n' purple wardens beseeching the chair are the twelve from the Quetzal caucus, right?" says player 'pileofoats'. "The second comes from the vintner's dialogue: one is fair, FIVE is death. And 900 game ticks/18 hours between beetle moons... so 12/5/18? 12/5/900?

"Or maybe from one beetle moon to another, is another whole day, so 24 hours? Meaning that release date is December 5th, 2024. That makes the most sense to me."

Sure enough, in the lore there is a set of twelve wardens who make a resolution to the Chair of a grand council. Likewise, the vintner is a character who does indeed talk about roses, saying: "Try some rose wine? One rose is fair, but as you may know from hanging around the Stiltgrounds, five is death."

As for the time between "beetle moons", this is where things become less clear. Caves Of Qud's world has its own fantastical calendar, which describes a "beetle moon" waxing and waning every night. The commenter above has calculated there are 18 hours between the first appearance of these moons (or 900 game ticks). But there are 24 hours between these moons at their zenith (1200 games ticks).

Also, like that commenter notes, the numbers 12/5/24 just make more sense than 12/5/18. Publishers Kitfox Games previously said the full release would be some time in 2024. The Steam page also says the full release is "nearly complete". We were told that the most recent update would be the last before a 1.0 release. In other words, it all checks out.

Caves Of Qud has been in early access since 2015, and it's one of our best roguelikes, having a depth you might expect from a game 15 years in the making. The full release is going to add some extra stuff, say the devs, including a "new, fully graphical UI" and "the last leg of the main quest".

But it's pretty damn solid already. The game is set in a far future wasteland, in which busted technology has become almost indistinguishable from magic. You can travel across a vast map in a mercifully short time, meaning that a huge world is open for exploration pretty much right away. If you visit a graveyard, you'll find it filled with people who "made too many mocking sounds at an ogre ape". You have been warned.