Strafe

Overview

Strafe is a retro-styled roguelike shooter, advertising itself as, "the fastest, bloodiest, deadliest, most adjective-abusing, action-packed first-person shooter of 1996!" The game is much more centered on its roguelike aspects than its shooter ones. Gameplay is much more defensive than the older shooters, such as Quake, that it's themed after. The player's weapon selection is limited to just their primary weapon and a handful of disposable secondaries they pick up and drop after they run out of ammo.

Gameplay

Strafe's primary mode of play has the player start on their ship and selecting from three primary weapons, a shotgun, a machine gun, or a railgun. After choosing one (or none, if they're feeling adventurous), they make their way to the teleporter in the back of the ship. This takes the player to the crashed ship, The Icarus, which is procedurally generated with a combination of pre-constructed chunks. Fighting their way through three levels of the ship, the player then arrives at level 2-1. There are four different environments, the first of which have three levels, with the last being two final levels.

The player can find various parts to teleporters in between worlds allowing them to get a jump start on their next run. In addition to the teleporter parts, the player can find upgrades for their primary weapon in the forms of minor stat upgrades, as well as more involved upgrades that completely change the weapon's primary or secondary firing modes. The various levels also have various disposable secondary weapons lying around with set, limited ammo, intended more for either specific uses or just to conserve primary ammunition. Enemies also drop scrap or money, two currencies which can be traded in at workbenches or shops respectively for items.

Strafe also has an additional game mode called MURDERZONE.EXE that is an arcade survival mode. The player is challenged to survive ten waves of enemies across various rooms. The game keeps score in gallons of blood spilled by enemies, and the survival mode has global unlocks based off how much blood is spilled, such as a work bench to trade in scrap, and extra weapons.

Development

Strafe was initially shown as a tech demo for a procedural, retro-themed first person shooter. After launching a Kickstarter on January 20th, 2015, Strafe ended its campaign on February 19th, 2015 with $207,847 of its $185,096 goal. Spending over two years in development, the game finally released on May 9th, 2017.

The game offers a wide variety of features, such as procedural levels, roguelike progression, and an extremely detailed and involved gore system. The developers have released a trailer highlighting their involved violence.

Soundtrack

The Strafe soundtrack is composed by ToyTree.

Track Listing

PC Hardware Requirements