The most graphically advanced, blood-soaked shooter of 1996 has been successfully Kickstarted in 2015. STRAFE, an über violent game with a hilarious marketing campaign announced, in STRAFE-like fashion, last night that they had passed their original $185,096 funding goal:
$$$$$$$ WE FUCKING DID IT. $$$$$$ pic.twitter.com/UVtcxAtYAU
— STRAFE® (@Strafegame) February 18, 2015
The project, currently sitting at over $190k $191k (raised another thousand while writing this) with 20 hours to go, looks to bring retro FPS gaming into the VR future, with “bleeding edge” graphical features like “32-bit graphics!” and “colored lighting!” A clever marketing campaign, combined with a last act push from getting named a “Kickstarter Staff Pick,” helped the game make up around $40k in the last three days of the campaign. As tongue and cheek as the game’s marketing campaign has been, the execution of the game itself is even better. Playing through an early demo released by the 
Pixel Titan’s team I was immediately struck by how amazing those simple graphics looked in VR. The gameplay was also incredibly smooth, with no nausea whatsoever at extremely fast gameplay speeds (disclaimer – as a VR vet I do have my sea legs a bit). The use of a slight helmet enclosure in the game definitely helps give you a sense of grounding that helps reduce any motion sickness, and is currently one of the best ways to execute a VR FPS. The team has also implemented a control scheme many early demoers are calling the ‘best control scheme in VR,’ using a system similar to Time Rifters with the head being disconnected from the mouse controller.
The STRAFE team recently released a more thoroughly playable demo of their game, but it comes with a caveat, “it’s broken. Seriously.” However, even in it’s broken pre-alpha state, the response from backers of the game has been fantastic. “It’s It’s not false advertising, I think my head actually exploded! But it’s ok, it got better again…” says one excited backer.
I fully believe that with this team’s sense of humor the game could become a cult classic, and potentially a candidate for VR FPS of the year (although, I am holding my breath until we see what Reload is cooking up). Simply put, with the displays we currently have games that have a more colorful and vibrant graphical style tend to pop more and look crisper. VR has the power to transport into worlds that are impossible, such are 32-bit graphical worlds, these are experiences not accessible to us by any other way other than VR. Which is why we should embrace them. It’s a new medium, it’s time to start rethinking what ‘good graphics’ are.
Update:
Now that the project has soared past the original goal, the team has begun discussing what some of it’s stretch goals might be:
@chertions @HumbleJackson extra $$$ would help that. #coop #modtools
— STRAFE® (@Strafegame) February 18, 2015
So if you haven’t backed yet, let this video “from 1996” convince you otherwise:
