u/Draconius0013

I just broke the World Record by almost 20 minutes, winning at Level 10, and I think you could easily cut my time in half if you wanted to try.

I'm sharing it here to see how much interest there is in speedrunning Qud. It doesn't appear to be that popular on Speedrun.com, and maybe that's because the right strategy didn't exist yet? What are your thoughts?

I left some commentary at the beginning of the video, but in short, here's the strategy:

1. Started Consul True Kin for the force bracelet (unnecessary but safe) and Optical Technoscanner
2. Joppa start for the easy first level, learn Wayfaring
3. Travel to Six-Day Stilt for more XP, learn Carbide Chef
4. Goals then are the mushroom recipe that allows phasing for 20 turns, and a tattoo gun
5. Skip the entire storyline quest, never go underground, phase and force bubble to the top

Overall, my RNG was poor on this run - both finding the tattoo gun and getting through Tomb. A future run could easily cut this time in half by following the same strategy, but solving both of these steps faster. An even faster run could skip the tattoo gun and use phasing + multiple legs + quickness to run through Tomb in around 20 minutes, I expect.

I recently posted a video argument that poses the question above and attempts to answer it. This is effectively the most spoilery video I can make, so new players should probably steer clear. But for those interested in an academic exercise of optimizing the fun out of Qud, I'm inviting your feedback.

The feedback so far has come in a few flavors:

1. I've always thought it was, nice to see it laid out (I feel most good players fall in this camp, but they may be unsure).
2. You're wrong because of failcase X (so far I've not found a failcase that is not overcome by a skilled player; but I think this is the most interesting feedback most people can provide, so by all means add to it).
3. The post-Stilt section appears to be a hard solve, but the pre-stilt section appears like a weak solve at best and would need extensive testing to prove.

There's also a very interesting article by ZenoRogue laying out complexity arguments and how they may apply to roguelikes. Now, I'm not very well-versed in this particular field (my background is science, not math, so forgive my relatively weak read of this article), but the way I read it is that there's an assumption that traditional roguelikes must fall into one of the high complexity categories (PSPACE) and therefore, none have been solved.

But what I'm arguing for is an algorithmic solve (P/NP), which can be utilized and assessed in a single sitting(the stilt/post-stilt section in particular). If so, the first of it's kind in traditional roguelikes (I believe; and even if I'm wrong for some unforeseen reason, Qud still seems to me the easiest place to start for reasons the video lays out).

So I'm inviting more feedback from the community on the problem in general. Do you think Qud is a solved game, why or why not? Do you accept my solution, or do you see a flaw in the argument that you think I've missed?