STRAFE's bugs and issues

[SkaarjElite]

Getting this out of the way: I know the devs aren't working on the game anymore and that it's done, but if this can help some people know about issues the game has, or perhaps help share fixes or even just discussing them, I think it's worth it. And if one of Pixel Ttitans's dev read this, I think you might be interested to look at some of the game-breaking/completion breaking bugs one can encounter.

Introduction

With that out of the way, welcome to the ultimate list of bugs and issues in STRAFE that I found after around 50h of playing this game I guess (about 20h on GoG before that)
The list will be divided between Main Game issues and Murderzone issues, with 3 categories each, from smallest little bug to annoying to game-breaking
I only played a few mutators, so I do not know if some have specific issues or issues that are the same as others mutators.
I will not mention performance issues, as I have nothing new to add to that.

Main game

These are the issues or bugs for the standard game, experienced on basic runs or runs involving a mutator.

STRAFE's Minor issues

- Weird generation : this could be a rock levitating, a food dispenser strangely high on the wall, or a prop half-spawning in the wall. The worst that can happen is an upside-down power-up box but it's rare and only happens in the Black Canyon.

- There's a small part in the boss room that doesn't get covered in blood.

- No enemies spawning: happened twice in all my game time so safe to say it's very rare, but one room was completely devoided of any enemy, the only enemies were from monster closets. It happened a second time using the Rocket Launcher Only mutator, where the whole second level of the Burbs was empty, even monster closets.
First time also happened in a room from Level 2 of the Burbs.

- Bugged Ammo display: When you reach more than 99 ammo with a picked-up gun, the ammo display starts acting weird. It results in either only seeing 1 number instead of the usual 2, or seeing a low amount of ammo as if there was a reset. My suggestion is to either keep the ammo display at 99 but add a + to it, or change the ammo display from 2 numbers to 3 numbers shown.

- Wrong tooltip for the Explosive Mag perk: it says that "Every empty mag becomes a grenade", it's actually quite the opposite: you need to reload with around 30% (I think?) ammo left in your mag for it to become a grenade.

- The final boss fight drops ammo when using the Wrench; drops ammo and weapons when using the Rocket Launcher Only mutator; and drops guns when using the 3 Main Guns Only mutator. This can cause the game to act a bit weird as you can switch to these weapons but they won't be shown in your arsenal and sometimes you might not be able to switch guns until it's empty. It also kind of ruins the concept of these two mutators.

- You can't check your inventory nor the map when using the Rocket Launcher Only mutator.

- During the boss fight, enemies (mostly the Stalkers) will pile up when spawning, sometimes going up to 3 enemies being on each others's head.

- A very rare bug can occur in Level 2 of Black Canyon, where the merchant and the robots don't spawn. Since it's incredibly rare I do think it's a minor issue. If this issue happens to you, here's a tip: Steal the items. This will not affect the rest of the playthrough as the robots were not triggered by you stealing items. Hehe.

- Lava turns completely red when a little drop of blood gets in. I know, huge issue. I just think it's ugly and a bit distracting.

- Secrets that involves a Reward Safe (like Luftenstein for example) still give you a weapon power-up when using the Wrench, which is completely useless. Perhaps replace it with a food can or an armor battery?

- The fists only appear when you make your very first weapon upgrade at an upgrade machine. You can't use them again afterwards, which is weird.. (When I said minor issues, I really meant it)

-Travelling Merchant, Upgrade Machines or just level props can spawn in front of monster closets, which make the enemies kind of act weird (or make the merchant dead within a second).

- Rather rare but some wall detail sprites can spawn in front of hallways or entrances. For example in Icarus, a sprite of a broken wall machine will spawn in front of a hallway. You can go through it as it's not solid, and you can also see through it once behind it.

- Power-up boxes can sometimes spawn inside those annoying orange volcano enemies in Black Canyon. Once dead you can go through their remains and check if there's one but it's not something you'll see until doing this.

- A lot of paintings aren't breakable for some odd reasons (it's often the red and white one). It's inconsistent in my opinion.

- Sometimes, that Flying Orange Spawner thing in Icarus can spawn in weird angles or surfaces, so like half of the thing is just being held in the air, and you can see through it.

- The boss room is still working after beating the boss. (You know, the shield going on and off)

- The Trappymine console still says that it's all out of juice, despite the fact that you no longer need a battery to play the easter egg.

- Athena Soldiers's death screams are oddly very quiet compared to the other enemies. Until just recently I thought they didn't make any sound.

- I found Icarus's first level music to be louder than the others.

- After removing your weapon upgrades in a Bench, it will keep playing its "working sound". (the sound it makes when crafting soemthing)

- Got a weird texture z-fighting in Luftenstein at some point. Happened only once.

- Talking about Luftenstein, sometimes exploded barrels have a weird hitbox bug preventing you from shooting enemies behind. Enemies can shoot through though. Just a minor annoyance.

STRAFE's Medium issues

- The health upgrades you get by eating food while max hp always reset when pausing your run in the cryo tube. It doesn't reset your max HP, meaning that if you are at 120hp you'll come back with the same amout. The upgrades are back to 0 however, which is annoying.

- If you pause your run while playing with the RPG mutator, be ready to see all your stats upgrades back to 0.

- There are still instances of orange blood/radioactive liquid puddles being invisible or having a bigger hitbox than what's on screen. Worst case is the grate stairway in one specific room in Icarus : the blood can sometimes hit you despite the puddle being under the stairs. Or it's invisible on the stairs, I don't know.

- On rare occasions, a turret during the boss fight will keep shooting despite being down and will never stop even after the boss fight.

- Even more rare, I encountered a bug where my ricocheing shots from my Railgun got stuck on a turret, making so much noise it broke the sound of the game until I came back on the space ship. Also broke my ears.

- Enemies can get stuck in the spawn tunnels once the boss fight ends. While it doesn't matter for Gluttons, the Stalkers can shoot you through the tunnel trapdoors and it can be incredibly frustrating to die from this.

- The Shopkeeper in the Black Canyon rarely doesn't throw your item properly, basically resulting in you getting scammed. While it's a rare issue, this is very frustrating when you're not having the best run, or playing with a difficult mutator.

- The way the game handles you falling through the floor between the canyon and the burbs is a mystery to me. Sometimes I get nothing, sometimes I get a bit of fall damage, and a few times I lost up to 20hp or 30 armor.

- Rarely, enemies are already in front of you right after you start a level. This happened to me in Level 2 of Icarus and Level 2 of Athena Facility. Both times, I got destroyed within seconds.

- Air Bud collides with projectiles, especially yours. And I hated it with my whole heart when this little f***** came right in front of me as I fired a rocket, resulting in my death during the boss fight. Not counting all the times he ate my machinegun grenades, usually in front of me.

- STOP SHOOTING LITTLE JOBYS AIR BUD YOU MONSTER

- Sometimes, grabbing a barrel or a Little Joby just... doesn't work. Not too rare with barrels. Might have something to do with the angle they're on.

- Sometimes, you throw a barrel and it justs doesn't launch. It gets in the air a bit and fall on you. This often happens with the Steroids while in movement.

- Forcefields go back on the moment an enemy crosses it to reach you. It's annoying as all hell.

STRAFE's Major issues/game-breaking bugs

- There's a specific, totally normal looking spot in the very beginning of Level 2 of Athena Facility that can ruin your whole run in a second. It's in the hole in the wall where you exit the bloody room you dropped in. If you jump while being somewhat close to the bit of metal/fence looking thing coming out of the broken wall, you'll get stuck in it. It happened only once to me as I now avoid this thing like the plague. It happened as I jumped backward to escape a monster. Who knows what other spot as terrible as this one is in the game.

MURDERZONE.EXE

It's now time to talk about that really cool survival mode.

MURDERZONE's Minor issues

- Sometimes Stalkers stay in monster closets, hence preventing you from collecting the scrap they can drop.

- Barrels almost never spawn in maps.

- In some maps (mostly the second Burbs map), enemies gets stuck behind level geometry. In this second Burbs map it's especially visible, as there's a monster closet right behind some sort of window hole or counter. The enemies just keep trying to run through it with no success.

- Ammo sometimes doesn't reset when choosing the main weapon that you used on a normal run right before that.

- The number of mags you have is at 50 when you first take the main weapon. Reloading for the first time correctly puts it back to 99.

- Sometimes the number of mags goes down without going back to 99. Usually goes back to 99 after a bit. Yeah I know we're really talking about big issues here.

- For some reasons, there are corpses piling up on top of spawn ramps in Black Canyon maps.

- There's a dev texture issue that can occur in the second Black Canyon map. More on that later.

- Enemies often despawn when new enemies come down from the spawn ramps in Black Canyon maps. It only happens with enemies spawning from ramps, enemies spawning from monster closets do not make other enemies despawn as far as I know and experienced.

- In the second Burbs map, one of the murder room was completely empty and completed itself after an empty monster closet opened. Interestingly enough, this room had the same design and layout as the room where this same bug happened for me during a normal run.

MURDERZONE's Medium issues

- I often experienced a weird brightness issue when playing certain maps such as the Burbs maps or Athena maps, as if extreme bloom was on, making the lighting super shiny and yellow, and hurting my eyes.

- Sometimes, monster closets don't open, making the enemies stuck inside. It doesn't happen often, only on Black Canyon maps from what I experienced. The enemies can be killed with anything that does area damage, like explosions, hence why I don't think it breaks the game per say. And it's only on Black Canyon maps.

- I had an issue with the first Black Canyon map where I couldn't end the map once I cleared all the rooms. It was a softlock but playing it again right after restarting the game fixed the issue, hence why I don't put it in game-breaking bugs.

- Had an issue where two enemies where stuck on top of the cliffs in a Black Canyon map, in a murder room. Happened only once and was able to kill them after a good moment shooting grenades at them trying to reach them. Because it only appeared once, I don't consider it game-breaking.

MURDERZONE's Major issues/game-breaking bugs

- The second Black Canyon map is broken and unbeatable. It's missing a murder room, preventing you from going further than Room 9 Cleared. Remember that dev texture I talked about? It's supposed to be a murder room acces. This prevents you from progressing any further. Other people reported this issue too.

Conclusion

I hope that someone somewhere will find this useful or interesting, I spent two hours writing this just because of one huge softlock issue that I really wish could be fixed. If one of Pixel Titan's developper reads this, I hope something can be done about it, even if you're done with the game. It's a game-breaking issue.

[ExcretumNecris]

I encountered a different bug as well that is rather aggravating:
On the jump map, if you manage to get to a certain point and restart from the beginning, the STRAFE letters will be moved upwards from their original position and out of reach of the player, so completing the jump map, after restarting it from a specific point onwards, will make it incompletable.

Very annoying since that means, you can't practice and finish the jump map in the same run. So if you're trying for the gold or silver times and ♥♥♥♥ up at the end, you better take the bad result or will have to skip out of the jump map.