Explode Your Face: Strafe Demo Released

The headline refers to the trailer for procedurally generated Quake-a-Like Strafe [Kickstarter page], which is entering its final hours on Kickstarter. At the time of writing, "the fastest, bloodiest, deadliest, most adjective-abusing, action-packed first-person shooter of 1996" has $35,000 to raise with less than three days left on the clock. To win over the masses, developers Pixel Titans have released a Speed Run Zone to the world. Playable on PC or Mac, it was previously available exclusively to streamers. Now you can play it even if the world isn't watching.

Set your phasers to ludicrous gibs and your expectations low. Hopefully it'll be good times, but this Speed Run Zone isn't particularly representative of the game as a whole. Pixel Titans explain their reasoning behind releasing now at length. Shouty, capitalised length. It's faux-shouting though, like the faux-blood in the trailer. Probably.

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.

I haven't been able to play it yet because I can't cope with the lack of inverted mouse controls. Or I'm far too busy writing about grand strategy games and playing TOTAL WAR: HUNFEST.