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KickStarter STRAFE® - fast-paced, gib-fest FPS with procedural generation, 1996©

Astral Rag

Arcane
Joined
Feb 1, 2012
Messages
7,771
Going with randomly generated levels is the stupidest thing ever, those screens have no soul in them. Doom, Quake and of its ilk are all famous for their level design, not some pre generated shit. :argh:

Who needs level designers when computers are now capable of generating gems like this:




:troll:
 
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Melan

Arcane
Patron
Joined
Oct 20, 2012
Messages
6,603
Location
Civitas Quinque Ecclesiae, Hungary
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So this is their first gameplay video, and while I don't want to judge a pre-alpha too harshly, there are problems here. The level doesn't look inspiring. If this is what random generation is capable of, it isn't enough. The graphics gave me a headache, which doesn't happen in other FPS. I probably shouldn't comment on AI behaviour and the weapons, since they'll clearly change, but the whole combat experience looks monotonous, without the mobility and variety of Quake. Waves of AI assaulting the player is really not the same experience as deliberate AI placement.

The video didn't serve as much of an encouragement. I know, subject to change. But still.
 

Tehdagah

Arcane
Joined
Feb 27, 2012
Messages
9,236
Quake combat is not fun at all.

About the video, I liked the heavy focus on projectiles. Player's weapon looks too big, though.
 

grudgebringer

Guest
Alas, this is not inspiring in any way. It looks like Teleglitch from 1st person perspective - some nice visuals there and there, but overall feels empty and lifeless. Player movement is clumsy. The gunfight should be smooth and satisfying, instead it feels like some kind of annoyance on your way through environments, which are too tight and claustrophobic (maybe they should play a bit with scaling of those levels). Also projectiles are too slow and just obstruct players moving around.
Well, at least they're trying.

What engine do they use btw?
 

Destroid

Arcane
Joined
May 9, 2007
Messages
16,628
Location
Australia
Having you pick a single main weapon seems like an odd choice, since classic FPS had you usually selecting from quite a large pool of weapons to fit the situation and manage your ammunition usage. Graphically I like the design of the environment (although it's a tad claustrophobic as others have mentioned), but I think the monsters, effects, and HUD/UI are especially bad. It's a poor choice to obscure half the players screen with window-dressing between the helmet and huge gun model when it's supposed to be an intense fast paced game. The low resolution of diagonal text elements on the HUD for health and ammo look bad too.
 
Self-Ejected

Ulminati

Kamelåså!
Patron
Joined
Jun 18, 2010
Messages
20,317
Location
DiNMRK
Having you pick a single main weapon seems like an odd choice, since classic FPS had you usually selecting from quite a large pool of weapons to fit the situation and manage your ammunition usage.

Half-life did. In quake, the only time you'd switch weapon was if you ran out of ammo for the lightning gun/rocket launcher. And there was no reason to equip the regular nailgun after the super one. In the first Unreal, most of the weapons were pretty much useless too. It got better by UT of course.
 

Peter

Arcane
Joined
Jun 11, 2009
Messages
1,570
Despite the brilliant marketing material, they seem to have fumbled the most important part of the marketing strategy by announcing the game too early.

It does seem to have potential, though, just needs a shit-ton of work. Visuals are quite nice (I enjoy the crisp low-poly look very much), movement seems fluid and there's generally a pretty high level of polish already, but, yeah, the HUD is dreadful (covering 70% of the screen with useless bullshit in a fast-paced shooter is always a great idea) and the level generation is a bit of a mess right now. That said, it's certainly the best-looking attempt at random FPS level generation I've seen (lightyears ahead of all the other games in the recent crop of roguelite FPSs). With some more visual variety and tweaking of pacing and scale, they could get the levels to be pretty decent. Could do with more open spaces, more corridors breaking up the cramped, visually cluttered rooms, just more space to move around in general. If they fix it up, the random levels will be perfectly fine for a coffee break game (which this seems to be, despite the nods to id's more atmospheric, long play-session shooters).

In dire need of enemy variety. There's probably more enemy types being made, but don't show off your game yet if all you have so far is the shitty melee grunt enemy and the boring flying enemy.

Having the single main weapon is an odd choice, yeah. I feel like having a roguelike run depend so strongly on an initial choice is a really lousy, counterintuitive idea. De-emphasizes loot/powerups completely and kind of standardizes every run. The beauty of these games is the massive impact the RNG can have on a playthrough (it's why something equally simple like Binding of Isaac works so well), and the lack of proper weapon pickups might rob individual playthroughs of a lot of colour.

So yeah, dunno what to think. It might be a fun casual game, but needs a lot of work down to the fundamentals of the design. I'm sure that if they'd shown the game after like another 3 months of work, with more enemy variety, tweaked design and level generation, the reception would've been a lot more positive. Right now I'm just crossing my fingers that they do the common-sense fixes.
 

Destroid

Arcane
Joined
May 9, 2007
Messages
16,628
Location
Australia
They did mention there are other gun pickups, but you won't collect ammo for them so they will be a short term boost.
 

Peter

Arcane
Joined
Jun 11, 2009
Messages
1,570
They did mention there are other gun pickups, but you won't collect ammo for them so they will be a short term boost.

And that's what I find weird. I dunno, to me the traditional FPS way of starting the player off with a shitty weapon, so that they can look for better stuff, makes a lot more sense in a roguelike context. With the system they have now, it sounds like weapon pickups are essentially just temporary powerups.
 

Mutavore

Literate
Joined
Nov 25, 2014
Messages
10
While the environments are nicely designed, as far as visuals go, I think the lighting is too even. They advertise as a game that would have cutting-edge graphics if it came out in 1996, but the textures look like they're trying hard to have a retro pixelated look whereas a 96 shooter would try to cram as much detail and material definition as possible in a small resolution, including a lot more color variation. The music in the demo sounds awfully dated.

I think the worst thing about the procedural level design here is the random placement of enemies and resources. There's a lot that I like and a lot that I dislike, so would play, but would not kickstart.
 

mastroego

Arcane
Joined
Apr 10, 2013
Messages
10,250
Location
Italy
Mouse sliding on a pool of blood.
Mother trying to recompose her son's head from the heap of bloody goo.

There's legit entertainment value somewhere in there.
 

LESS T_T

Arcane
Joined
Oct 5, 2012
Messages
13,582
Codex 2014
They've released pre-alpha SPEEDRUN gamplay demo: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/strafegame/strafe/posts/1136891

But it’s broken. Seriously. READ THIS FIRST.

YOU ASKED NICELY TO PLAY STRAFE®.

WE SAID HAHA NOT A CHANCE IN HELL.

YOU DEMANDED TO PLAY STRAFE®, OR ELSE.

WE SAID REALLY, IT’S NOT READY.

YOU KIDNAPPED OUR LEAD PROGRAMMER AND HELD HIM AT GUNPOINT UNTIL HE RELEASED A BROKEN STRAFE® BUILD.

WE PULLED OUT A RAILGUN AND EXPLODED YOUR SKULL IN SELF DEFENSE.

AND THEN RELEASED A BROKEN STRAFE® BUILD AFTER JUST TO SPITE YOU.

So here it is, world. A small sign of things to come for STRAFE®. The SPEED RUN with high score tracking!

That means it’s pre-Alpha, BROKEN and not representative of the final game. It was custom built in days to get into the hands of streamers. The overwhelming positive response encouraged us to release it to the public. BUT this is A TINY FRACTION and modified version of STRAFE® that lacks most final features likes:
  • Custom options (inverted mouse, FOV/visor/gun sliders, etc)
  • Procedural level generation
  • Finished enemy AI and pathfinding
  • Secrets
  • A ton of things, you get the idea
We love what we’ve seen. But unfortunately it might not run on your particular computer right now. It might have major bugs, like enemies literally dancing for death. It might begin WWIII after your computer is mistaken on radar for a nuclear warhead. And if you don’t remember Doom’s elevator lifts, you might get stuck and not know how to move forward. Press E toward the ground, damn it.

If it works, great, see if you can beat the streamers’ speed run times! Just don’t be an asshole and cheat.

Enjoy. Get excited, but please realize we initially didn’t want people to play it until it was perfect.Remember this is just the beginning. We’re excited to build on this and complete STRAFE® in the most amazing way.

Here’s the download:

PC / MAC

Share it with anyone who was on the fence for pledging! And check back early tomorrow morning for our final update we think everyone will enjoy. We're close, we think we'll can pull it off, but not without you sharing these updates!

Thanks again.

Thom

It doesn't work for me, duh.
 

Astral Rag

Arcane
Joined
Feb 1, 2012
Messages
7,771
Gunplay and movement look very floaty. It's pre-alpha I know, but still...it's the most important part of any FPS.
Level layout, environments and art in general look bland, like a cheap Quake 2 clone or a bad mod.
Enemies look uninspired and they don't seem to pose any real threat, the weapon model is huge and sounds weak.
The gore and huge particle effects are ugly and distracting, on-screen visors are almost always a bad idea.

I don't understand how people who have played Doom, Quake etc can be excited about a game like this. I mean I would love to see a revival of the classic FPS genre and the idea of playing a game that looks, sounds and plays like it could have been made in 1996 also sounds very appealing to me. This is not that game though.


Quake combat is not fun at all.
:updatedmytxt:

What are some of your favorite FPS?
 
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Melan

Arcane
Patron
Joined
Oct 20, 2012
Messages
6,603
Location
Civitas Quinque Ecclesiae, Hungary
PC RPG Website of the Year, 2015 Codex 2016 - The Age of Grimoire Make the Codex Great Again! Grab the Codex by the pussy Insert Title Here RPG Wokedex Strap Yourselves In Codex Year of the Donut Codex+ Now Streaming! I helped put crap in Monomyth
Unexpectedly, they have $159,876 of their $185,096 goal with 48 hours to go. If they throw everything in for the finale, they may just... strafe over the finish line.

But if they make it, they have a helluva lot of work to do, because as Astral Rag has written, the game in its current state is beyond disappointing.
 

Mutavore

Literate
Joined
Nov 25, 2014
Messages
10
Things I definitely like :
- enemies are not bullet sponges
- individual areas are properly designed (a lot of variety and vertical level design)
- the toxic blood enemies are really cool

In the end I got used to the clean and crisp art style, I just hope to see more contrast with the lighting.
What I want to see improve : the movement, while I love the big jumps with air control, it's indeed quite floaty. The overall sound design annoys me, enemies sound bland or don't sound yet (in Quake, when you enter a room, the monster warning sounds are key), the music is terrible and weapons lack something that I can't tell.
Looking forward to this game.
 

Crooked Bee

(no longer) a wide-wandering bee
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In quarantine
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The trailer is really great. Hard to say anything about the game when all they've got is a pre-alpha build, though.
 

orcinator

Liturgist
Joined
Jan 23, 2016
Messages
1,704
Location
Republic of Kongou
wait hold on I go this

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good enough
 

Kontra

Educated
Joined
Jan 23, 2016
Messages
153
Man the trailer is such a missed opportunity... It starts really good but it ends WEAK.

After the little kid gets his brain blown, the mom shouldve picked up the controls to get revenge. As she plays the game, dad comes home from work saying honey im home! unaware of the situation upstairs. The gameplay intensifies and just as you think moms going to win she loses and dies in some horrible fashion. Dad goes upstairs to investigate and finding this gruesome scene he loses his mind and starts playing too. The game becomes even more intense and this wakes up the little daughter.... Dad in his crazy rage loses and just like the rest dies in some fucked up way. Now, the little girl enters the room rubbing her eyes but she doesnt get it, she thinks this is some Halloween charade or something. So she starts playing STRAFE giggling all the way and now your thinking: oh i get it the little girl is gonna win the game how unexpected. And she does... But, taking for granted how nothing bad can happen to little girls on TV youre caught by surprise when a portal opens in the middle of the room leading straight to Event Horizon Hell Dimension. It sucks up the little girl and she dies in the most horrible way imaginable. So the whole family gets slaughtered and the trailer ends with the slogan :
STRAFE, a game for the whole family.

Now that wouldve been something... What a shame.:?


edit

The second trailer just sucks... I dont get it.
 
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