pram posted:

factorio

Doc Block posted:

Strafe is a fun game, and I like it a lot. I wasn't a Kickstarter backer, but I don't regret the $19.96 (LOL) purchase.

A lot of people thought it was gonna be Quake and/or Doom, didn't know what "roguelike" meant, and based their whole opinion of the game on the first level or two (since the game is hard & they couldn't get any further). They seemed to think it was gonna be just run-and-gun with lots of ammo and health sprinkled everywhere. It has plenty of run-and-gun, but health is scarce and armor is expensive if you don't know that you can keep shooting the scrap crates to get more and more scrap.

Strafe:

• Permadeath. If you die, you have to start at the beginning (or at the last teleporter you completely fixed). Starting from a teleporter has downsides, though, since you'll miss the weapon upgrades in the levels you skipped.
  
• No saves, otherwise you could get around the permadeath.
  
• Randomly generated levels. They're made from a bunch of pre-designed rooms, but the rooms are randomly chosen and placed. Sometimes this results in levels that aren't completely fair. And yes, this means that sometimes the levels don't "flow", but it would be boring to have to play through exactly the same hand-designed level over and over.
  
• Only one "main" weapon. You can get other guns, but the only one you'll get ammo for is the one you pick at the very beginning of the run. Other guns are left all over the place, though.
  
• Lots of melee enemies at the beginning that everyone seems to be basing their opinions of the game's enemies on. Later zones have different, more varied enemies.
  
• You'll have to play through the same zones multiple times, hence them being randomly generated. This is a roguelike thing, and goes with the dying a lot and permadeath aspects, which are also due to it being a roguelike. Strafe takes it up a notch by requiring multiple play throughs for each zone if you want to find all the secrets, teleporter parts, etc.
  
• It's hard. It's easier now than it was on release day, but it's still hard. It's supposed to be hard.
  
• No adjustable difficulty. See above.
  
• The first zone, Icarus, has some cramped rooms, but also some bigger, more open rooms. People were complaining a lot about only getting the cramped rooms early on, but the developers seem to have adjusted the level generator to use more open rooms. Later zones are a lot more open.
  
• You won't get far if you don't know how to circle-strafe. There's a secret level that you can't beat if you don't know how to strafe-jump and rocket-jump.
  
• Some performance issues, but most of them seem to have been fixed.
  

It's a fun game, though. As long as you don't get attached to a run, and understand that they're supposed to be short and you're supposed to die a lot, it's pretty fun IMHO. Lots of running around and blowing things up and making gore splatter everywhere, you just have to be decent at dodging incoming fire.

There are lots of secrets, most of which are also randomly chosen and placed. One time I got the big cannon from Serious Sam, which shoots huge cannonballs that crush a bunch of enemies then explode. Last run through I found a secret room that had the dagger from Devil Daggers, which when picked up gives you that game's sole weapon (a hand that shoots daggers) and pixellates the screen.


(they even made it work like Devil Daggers, where tapping fire shoots a shotgun-like spread of daggers, but holding down fire is more like a dagger machine gun)

qirex posted:

Smythe posted:

You're a secret santa failure. A real piece of poo poo. gently caress you.