Recent reviews by Boss Sauce

This game is
1. Perfect
2. Simple
3. Easy

Play the game and you'll understand

Replay value, excellent writing, and classical liturature blended with steampunk alternate-history? Please and thank you.

Excellent game. Only ran by two guys, but they showed lots of support to me personally when Linux was not working correctly. It still isn't working for everyone, but the devs has lots of passion and desire to see the game succeed. You should help it do just that by buying the game and having lots of fun!

I hacked into a secret corperation's mainframe protected by layers of security and passwords that I had to uncover by tunneling through their network, and I found an IRC chat log containing a conversation about weed.
10/10

Bought it not expecting too much. Had heard good things about it so decided to give it a try keeping Steam's refund policy in mind. 6 hours later at 2 a.m. I realized it was much too late to get a refund and I was having too much fun to worry about it. Great game for early access, looking forward to where it goes in the future. Buy it yesterday.

*EDIT* 9/12/2016
So I decided to come back to this game after a year of development and...wow. The game has grown by leaps and bounds especially considering that there is only one developer. Many new features have been added to the game, the buisness simulation has been fleshed out, AI companies are fleshed out, and generally the game has a better feel. The graphics have also been upgraded which is a nice plus especially considering that its a simulation game. After a year since my original review(below) I continue to support my decision to reccommend this game. Please buy and play this game. My main complaint so far is the lack of guidence as to how to get succesful software out. I realize that most of the fun is figuring out how to make good software and when to release, but the first few hours I played were spent being frustrated that my good, great, and oustanding softwares were going unnoticed.

*Original Review* 5/15/2015
Great early access game. Is updated pretty often, has surprising depth considering its being made by one guy, and has a lot of charm and potential. As you can see, I've gotten 17 hours out of this game even though its only in Alpha. I strongly suggest picking it up if you are a fan of games like Game Dev Tycoon or other buisness simulators, cause this one is a gem

I've played this game enough to get a feel for it, so I wanted to share my opinion. *Note* This is a MOBA, that means it takes hours upon hours to truly understand and appreciate its depth, thus my take on the game is still rough around the edges
That said, I'd like to dispel some of the negative reviews that pop up in the "Helpful" reviews.
TL:DR
Try for yourself, the people posting bad reviews probably had one bad game and complain for the sake of complaining. Its free, so you won't lose anything by trying it! Strife is the player's MOBA

One person complained about the tower power and length of games. In my opinion, these are not cons. Towers are powerful, have large aggro sizes, and scale throughout the game. Is this bad? No and heres why.
*Towers are powerful to discourage kill-chasing, that is chasing another player who has low health into their tower area to get a kill. Why is this bad? Because Strife is not a game about kills, it is about objectives. You aren't playing to get a K/D, but to get a win, thus towers punish you for being greedy. Want to get around it? Destroy the tower first.

*Normally games take anywhere from 30-60 minutes on average. It depends on the game, the players involved, and team matchups. This is a MOBA. The standard is to have longish games. There are bot games which take 30 minutes roughly, but player games take a while to develop. I find this to be more personal preference than anything else, I don't mind having a long game, but this point wavers between pro and con because sometimes games drag on even though one team has the advantage. Don't make your decision based on this point

*This game features an innovative crafting system that requires an in-game resource obtained by playing. In my 25 hours, I have crafted exactly once. To me, it seems like the diference between crafted and normal items is simply what specilization the item has. You can add more health to that item, but you will need to give up mana regen. Overall seems balanced, and I'm sure high level players use enchantments (random modifiers) obsessivly, but I don't find it to be necessary nor pay-to-win

*A definite con for me is matchmaking. You choose what hero you want to play as and jump into a game matched with other people who have already picked their heros. That means you don't collaberate on team design, but get thrown into a team whether it is good or bad. On the bright side, you don't have to fight other players for the hero you have your heart set on playing

*Finally, Strife is an excellent MOBA that encourages good behavior, a trait modern MOBA's often fail to do resulting in bad (or Toxic) behavior that often ruins the game. Doesn't mean this toxic behavior doesn't happen, people leave, intentionally feed the other team, or just generally don't listen to their teammates, but Strife does a good job here and the community as a whole is praiseworthy. Once you get that perfect game, where the teams are evenly matched, team composition is good, your teammates are fun and play the objective, you will be hooked, I promise you.

*So try for yourself, it doesn't cost anything. Nobody forces you to pay in this game, and honestly most of the things you buy with the ingame currencies do not break the game by being OP, but instead allow you to further specilize your hero of choice. Want to do more lifesteal/quicker attacks? Craft a couple items and buy a new pet to do that. You pay for these things with currency earned (albiet slowly) by playing. Gems of course (premium currency) can be used, but mostly gems are used to buy cosmetic apparel for you and your pet, and you earn them at the rate of 1 per game. (Doing the math, it will take about 30 games to earn a new color for a hero, or 100 games for a new costume) There is still much to be done in this game, but much to love as well. As long as you play for fun, you will enjoy this game. If you are looking for a super-competative MOBA with perfectly balanced gameplay and clear-cut OP item choices, look elsewhere. Strife is the player's MOBA

Drill Fixing Simulator 2014

Let me start out by saying I am a newcomer to games like this. I haven't played the old cRPG games, I haven't explored the roots of this game, and I am generally speaking, a newcomer to this type of game unless you count Torchlight but nobody does.

Knowing that, my opinion is based solely on the merits of this game and not because I hold some sort of affection for its genre. Also, I have only scratched the surface of this game with a mere 10 hours played. This is my initial reaction.

Lets start with pros and cons shall we?
Cons:
-No hand holding at all (can be good or bad)
-Crafting isn't explained at first making it obtruse as to how to go about making stuff
-This game is difficult
-Story isn't spectacular
-Modding support and custom campaigns is currently broken. Should be fixed soon

Pros:
-Fantastic graphics. Zooming in is reminicest of looking at SimCity (The new one) making everything feel like a toy box
-Combat is tight, fun, and hard. Like I said, no hand holding. You gotta figure stuff out for yourself and that includes tactics. That said, enemy AI is good as they avoid dangers, use spells, elements, potions, rely on allies, etc making for every enemy encounter to be tense.
-No hand holding at all. I put this in pros as well because this game treats you like a problem solving individual not a baby who needs to be told how to do 1+1
-Easy to Role-Play. From the start, you control two characters including their interaction with each other. Your characters can disagree over a key decision.
-You can kill everybody in the game and still find a way to complete the main quest
-Freedom. As statedd, you can kill anyone, steal whatever isn't nailed down, find clever ways around obstacles, or do whatever you feel like doing. Tired of playing by the rules? This game encourages you to break them.
-Decent writing for the most part with several times it truly shines.
Overall a polished testament to a successful kickstarter and early access period.

Verdict - 9/10
Still some kinks to work out, I wish there was a way to have items show up on screen at all times instead of holding alt to find that mysterious key that is hiding. The hand holding thing is usually for the better but can make quests frustrating when you don't know where to go or who to talk to. Patience is a must if you want to play this game.

But it offers a ton of content, fun, tense combat, hilarious encounters, and lots of replayabillity. I would reccomend this game to any RPG lover or Turn-Based Tactical Combat lover.

Oh and you can talk to animals.