KickStarter STASIS 2: BONE TOTEM - new isometric adventure in Stasis universe set in deep sea installation

[agris]

i may be misremembering, but even if you hovered over the poi you got an individual rgb strand running back to the character right? i would have appreciated the ability to disable that entirely

 

[Alienman]

This is what I wrote in my review about it, if curious:

The gameplay. Oh boy, where to start? Right off, there is nothing wrong with the fundamentals per se. It has the classic top-down isometric perspective like the older games in the series, and being an adventure game you will find items and combine them – the usual stuff with lots of trial and error. You control by clicking around, and you interact with items by dragging and dropping. Nothing bad here, fairly standard stuff. However, one major thing that brings down the gameplay is the presentation of interaction nodes. It demolishes the exploration aspect of Bone Totem by making everything visible with one simple right click.

The highlight function shows everything interactively on each map, it’s even color-coded – green for description and blue for interaction. This means that you don’t even have to move from the start location for each new area, everything is presented on a platter with zero input required from you. A green descriptive node in another room? No problem, somehow the character you are currently controlling can sense the blood splatter in the next room and describe it. It absolutely annihilates all potential investigations since you know where to go and look at all times. It lessens the gameplay to such a degree that Bone Totem feels more like a visual novel than an adventure game. Baffling design decision.

That is not all. The UI is sensory overload. There are nodes to inspect everywhere, and everything is always available – texts are constantly popping up when you move around the mouse cursor as it’s inevitable that you will hover over something. A better way to design this (in my opinion) is to make nodes only become visible as the character you control moves close. Additionally, only have text pop up if you inspect through right-clicking, and if interactable then show so at this point. It would make the game so much more immersive, and even if it could be considered simple in gameplay terms, it would at least be something.

I do understand that you don’t have to highlight stuff. Even so, it doesn’t change how the descriptive text nodes work. This is with consideration that highlighting is mapped to the right mouse button, which is a pretty prominent button. It tells me that this is something that should be used during play and that the game is designed around it since there are no other visual hints beyond this system.

 

[Pyke]

Makin' games man - always difficult to know what will work for some and not others!

 

[agris]

i brought some 'tism to the ping lines a while back too

1. Visual clutter. Pinging POIs makes a really cluttered visual that can be both overwhelming and pull you out of the moment. I think the visual clutter contributes to both of those things. The flat textured, primary color lines that connect to each POI, and then the rings showing their approximate interaction zone, could be changed to achieve the same result (show players POIs) while lessening the problems. I don't know exactly how it would look, but here's some suggestions
   
   Texture the lines. Rather than a flat textureless line connecting from the player to each POI, something simple that looks in-world (like the drone's laser scan VFX?) only color coded in a similar manner to how they are now: green for read, blue for interact. By switching to something similar to drone's scan VFX, you have a much more diffuse visual indicator that doesn't read like current RGB spaghetti connecting the player to everything in the map.
   
   Change the rings. I don't know if the above would apply to the rings indicating approximate POI location, as in change it from a RGB donut to a textured donut or perhaps something more believable that would be drawing the player's attention in-universe. Building on the suggesting of the drone scan for the indicator lines, maybe the donut/circle is replaced with a small square area made of a laser raster/hologram indicating an area of interest with the color. It's still a simple geometric shape, but rather than RGB donut smacking you in the eyes, the graphic is more diffuse.
   
   
2. Change mouse-over graphics for POIs when ping is OFF. When you mouse over a POI, the RGB spaghetti strikes back! Unlike ping, where I know and understand the value of the drawn lines, I don't see what this line is doing for the player. It adds to the visual clutter, a bright line that constantly resizes itself and shifts as long as the player is walking. It's unnecessary and doesn't add value, while being distracting.
   
   The second part of my argument that the way POIs are presented is distracting and doesn't work well is: text description placement! I don't think this has ever been an issue in other AGs for me, but perhaps because I can actually render BT at 2560x1600, there's a big disconnect between looking at the POI itself and reading the text. I have these bright lines and rings showing me approximately where the POI is, it's relation to me, and my eyes are fighting with that visual while also trying to drag themselves to the bottom of the screen to read the text. I don't think this would be an issue on a small screen like a handheld, but on a big modern monitor, it feels like my eyes are darting all over the screen just to look at the object and read the description. The description appearing in a semi-translucent text box adjacent to the POI itself would vastly improve the experience.

 

[gooseman]

Its strange - I always saw it as an optional thing, cos you had to actually do a very purposeful 'click' to use it. Maybe people felt that because it was there, it had to be used?

I've found myself spamming the highlight button. I think this was mostly due to how quickly the highlights disappear (and specifically the lines that point to objects, which I wanted to always see in bigger rooms). I felt like it should be a toggle instead.
It takes me out of the world, I'm not looking at the actual detail in the level, but at the circles, similar to the descriptions, which focus you on the text box at the bottom. But it's an infinitely better compromise to pixelhunting in highly detailed and very, very dark rooms.
Maybe some other form of highlighting would be better, like an indicator that there are still items in the room, or glinting or something and this could be saved for a last resort sort of thing like the hints if you can't solve a puzzle for too long.
Hand drawn animation and by extension hand drawn older adventure games (I think Broken Sword is a very good example, at least for characters) had an interesting, likely unintentional highlighting effect. I'm guessing it's due to backgrounds and other objects being drawn separately, so the items, npcs and interactables usually had less detail, different artstyle and less or no shading, and stood out because of that. Sort of a cool feature we lost now that games have dynamic lighting.

 

[Pyke]

We did the 'glint' thing on Stasis - it worked quite well - but the scenes in BT were around 8x bigger, so we had to rethink how it worked.
I think that Broken Sword did do something similar in their rerelease. I remember reading about it... or watching a presentation? My brain isn't what it used to be. :D

 

[Pyke]

Seems I may be moving forums... :D

https://rpgcodex.net/forums/threads/animal-use-protocol-from-the-makers-of-stasis-bone-totem.151730/

 

[Jenkem]

what is the proper order of play? Stasis, Cayne then Bone Totem? I believe that's the release order but not sure what is the preferred order.. I already played Stasis and half of Cayne but I'll probably replay them (and start over Cayne) before BT.

 

[Spukrian]

My thoughts is maybe restrict the highlights to proximity somehow? Or have the spots not appear untill you've "discovered" them and instead of lines maybe have small arrows?

 

[Durq]

Sometimes, the characters are stuck apart from each other in different locations but can still swap items. How are the characters swapping items with each other in these instances? I don't get it.

And I definitely stopped reading the descriptive text on the green nodes. They are written as if some college freshmen is in his first writing class and just discovered a thesaurus. I assume the text is supposed to make the game more immersive, but it is the opposite for me.

 

[Tom Selleck]

Sometimes, the characters are stuck apart from each other in different locations but can still swap items. How are the characters swapping items with each other in these instances? I don't get it.

and while we're at it, why come mario dont get brain damage from hitting his head on them bricks all the time

But if you must need an explanation, there is an entire dialogue about the Quantum Storage Device that explains the gameplay mechanic in world-appropriate lore.

The Quantum Storage Device is a technology that allows a person to access a pocket of interdimensional space to store items. Charlie has altered it to allow Mac, Moses, and herself to share the same pocket of space-time. Black market alterations of Cayne technology are frowned upon, but this is beyond helpful for a salvager! Items inside the QSD (as they refer to it) can be shared instantly between all parties.

 

[Durq]

Sometimes, the characters are stuck apart from each other in different locations but can still swap items. How are the characters swapping items with each other in these instances? I don't get it.

and while we're at it, why come mario dont get brain damage from hitting his head on them bricks all the time

I don't think the analogy works because Stasis: Bone Totem leans toward hard sci-fi while Mario games don't.

But if you must need an explanation, there is an entire dialogue about the Quantum Storage Device that explains the gameplay mechanic in world-appropriate lore.

The Quantum Storage Device is a technology that allows a person to access a pocket of interdimensional space to store items. Charlie has altered it to allow Mac, Moses, and herself to share the same pocket of space-time. Black market alterations of Cayne technology are frowned upon, but this is beyond helpful for a salvager! Items inside the QSD (as they refer to it) can be shared instantly between all parties.

Thanks for this. Either I missed that part about the quantum storage device or had forgotten about it over the weeks I've been slowly playing through the game.

 

[Blaine]

I reached Part 3 of Bone Totem yesterday evening, and I've really been enjoying myself. Its production values definitely stand out, particularly in the realm of adventure games. The Gigeresque visual design and art direction are peerless—not that that's news; Codexers have been gawking at Pyke's games for well over a decade. The soundscape and music are also on point, and the voice acting is excellent.

Personally, I enjoy the UI design. Functionally speaking, I find it to be simple and straightforward. Everything is animated (the inventory bar subtly writhes with electric current, inventory item icons pulsate or glow, the “hologram sidebar” fluctuates subliminally, etc.), yet somehow the unending restless motion never crosses the threshold into annoyance, and no doubt contributes to the game's overall atmosphere.

Of course, this is all mostly superficial, though arguably important for an artistically lavish, atmospheric, sci-fi horror adventure game. How are the dialogue and story? What about the gameplay and puzzles? For this I find it useful to respond indirectly to some of Alienman's points above.

The elephant in the room here is the ping function activated by right-click that leads the player directly to all on-screen points of interest, of which there are two types: text description nodes, and interaction nodes (almost all of which transition into genre-standard scaled-up detail screens with interactive puzzle elements). I can't disagree with Alienman and others that the ping lines detract from the sense of exploration and discovery, although I agree with Pyke that it's a quandary because with no aids at all, the pixel-hunting might be too severe. The environments are large, dark, visually busy, and completely hand-crafted—no repetitive tilesets here. It is what it is, and the best approach is to use the pings sparingly.

As a corollary to the above, the writing quality of the many descriptive nodes (and log entries, items) is very good. Some have criticized the writer(s) for being too “literarily tryhard” for lack of a better term, and perhaps that's true to some extent, but I've seen a whole lot worse—and I'm VERY sensitive to tryhard writing.

I'll come right out and say that the puzzles are middling at best in terms of difficulty. Put another way, they aren't insultingly easy, but they aren't mind-bendingly difficult on the level of, say, Hadean Lands, which features the most difficult puzzles I've ever personally encountered in an adventure game. A certain musical puzzle in Underrail is another example that springs to mind of a truly difficult puzzle. On a definitively positive note, most if not all of Bone Totem's puzzles are fair and logical, and not too absurd (example of absurd: smearing honey on the back of a cat so that it snags a tuft of bird down from a nest, which you then use as tinder to light a fire to thermally crack a rock in half, so that you can use one half of the rock as a weight to fool a pressure sensor plate, et cetera and so on).

Unlike Alienman I found that minimal trial-and-error with inventory items was necessary to solve the game's various puzzles. If you are good at puzzles and have played many adventure games, chances are you'll have a general idea of what the game wants you to do well before you actually fiddle around with puzzle elements. Bone Totem isn't 100% waterproof (heh) in this department, and there will likely be some head-scratching and trial-and-error at points, but compared to the worst offenders in the adventure game pantheon, Bone Totem is absolutely stainless.

The story and writing are well done, but predictable. That's okay. The game's setting is a megacorporate sea base staffed by emotionally unstable scientists unearthing and studying Cyclopean horrors. We all know exactly what's up here; the real point is to be immersed in the setting. it just needs someone talented to help it along, and the talent was there, so it works. I genuinely enjoy the protagonists' interactions: They actually have chemistry with each other and are in various aspects flawed, vulnerable, desperate, and tragic, but come across as very... human. I find it challenging to describe adequately, but suffice it to say it's well done.

As for the game's horror aspect, well, it didn't scare me at all, but then visceral/body horror and even lurking terrors don't faze me much all these days. After all, I'm a 43-year-old man. Existential/philosophical dread and taxes are my banes. Monstrous creatures and exposed ribcages are just another day at the office. For me, it's all about immersion in the atmosphere. The last game I can recall giving me a slight case of the creeps was Arkane's Prey, and that was years ago (and can be attributed in large part to jump scares, I think).

It's worth noting too that there are minimal jump scares in Bone Totem, and that when emergencies happen (environmental disaster, sudden appearance of monstrous creature, etc.), this being an adventure game, you generally have plenty of time to react. In fact, you probably have infinite time to react in many of the cases I'm thinking of, although the game does its best to fool you into thinking otherwise.

To sum up:

• Atmosphere, visual design, overall production values are top-notch
• Protagonist characterization and dialogue are surprisingly good
• Story and writing are very competently executed, though predictable
• Puzzles are middling in difficulty, but fair and logical
• The point-of-interest pings are questionable at best, but stem from the genre-spanning quandary of the pixel hunt and the endless quest for an ideal solution thereof

I really like it! That's more than I can say for the vast majority of games these days.

 

[Pyke]

Thanks for that awesome write up!

 

[ERYFKRAD]

As for the game's horror aspect, well, it didn't scare me at all, but then visceral/body horror and even lurking terrors don't faze me much all these days. After all, I'm a 43-year-old man.

That could also be due to your time on goregrish.

 

[Blaine]

As for the game's horror aspect, well, it didn't scare me at all, but then visceral/body horror and even lurking terrors don't faze me much all these days. After all, I'm a 43-year-old man.

That could also be due to your time on goregrish.

I didn't want to mention that in the write-up so as not to confuse matters, but being an Ogrish forumite since 2003 and later founder and admin of Goregrish (and by extension, having seen thousands of images and videos of gore ranging from clinical photos to accident aftermaths to Taliban executions), I'm totally immune to to being shocked in that way. I've literally seen it all.

Of course, in order to create the concepts and visuals for a game like Bone Totem, one or more of The Brotherhood team must have more than the usual share of morbid curiosity.

 

[Durq]

My one complaint about the game is that there is too much filler, as in too much text (PDAs, descriptive nodes) and too many images (in the terminals) that aren't necessary for progression and that I didn't find all that interesting. The problem is that I didn't know what was necessary to progress and what wasn't, so I ended up slogging through most of it anyway.

 

[Blaine]

My one complaint about the game is that there is too much filler, as in too much text (PDAs, descriptive nodes) and too many images (in the terminals) that aren't necessary for progression and that I didn't find all that interesting. The problem is that I didn't know what was necessary to progress and what wasn't, so I ended up slogging through most of it anyway.

You are referring to perhaps 30ish paperback-sized pages of text (15 minutes of reading for faster readers, 45+ minutes for American public school graduates, probably around 30 for the average Codexer) and at most a few dozen images. 1-800-CMON-NOW.

I can see where you're coming from, because every dead scientist or technician of note is essentially accompanied by a PDA with a few dozen paragraphs of backstory, and that's pretty much the entire backstory; but in an adventure game with virtually no living NPCs, what in tarnation were you expecting? Every horror adventure game with a desolated setting has to dump its lore somehow, usually in similar fashion. Given what it is (about a dozen lore dumps), it's fairly well done.

Actually, very few (if any) clues to solving puzzles were hidden in the text, be they PDA lore dumps, terminal images, or descriptive text nodes. The descriptive nodes almost exclusively describe what you can see with your eyes anyway.

From a certain point of view, including mine, "irrelevant noise" is a good thing. Not every single word or image should be directly related to solving puzzles to move into the next room. Images that aren't clues, mission logs that don't contain access codes, and (be thankful the game doesn't have these) objects that aren't actually used to solve puzzles spike the realism a bit and add to the difficulty. Imagine you need to solve a problem right now, in the real-world room you're currently occupying. How much of the junk in your drawers, on your shelves, how many of your Post-It notes, etc. will be relevant to solving your problem? Very little of it.

 

[Durq]

My one complaint about the game is that there is too much filler, as in too much text (PDAs, descriptive nodes) and too many images (in the terminals) that aren't necessary for progression and that I didn't find all that interesting. The problem is that I didn't know what was necessary to progress and what wasn't, so I ended up slogging through most of it anyway.

You are referring to perhaps 30ish paperback-sized pages of text

Was that really all? I must have really not enjoyed reading those because they felt much longer than that. I would have skipped the PDAs entirely and consequently enjoyed the game more, but I was never sure if there would be a puzzle clue in them or not.

 

[Pyke]

Its really interesting cos these conversations are ones that Nic and I have had a lot together - so its validating to know that people have the same views as we have. :D
I personally think that if there is info thats *just* for puzzle solving, that removes a lot of what makes our games fun. Even when chatting to the writers - I often tell them that I want the players at the end of the game to feel like they have read an epic scifi novel. I read a lot (not as much as I used to!), and perhaps its that feeling that I'm always chasing, and trying to put in our games!

If there are clues in the PDA's, we try to make them quite obvious - rr make them numbers, which are easy to scan for. The idea is to have the player know there is a problem - and then as they read the PDA's (if there is a solution, or hint, in there) to have that 'Oh! I can use that!' moment.
The thing that made Bone Totem a more difficult adventure game to design was that you can play any character at any time, so knowing just how to spread the info to get that 'moment' was a challenge. Often it did lead to the issue of finding a solution BEFORE knowing about the problem - which I think leads to the fatigue of feeling that you have to read EVERYTHING to know what to do. So yeah - in short, thats a very valid concern and complaint about the writing.

The solution was 'less writing' - but man... I dunno. I think that then our games would just feel... different. This is something we're working on with Animal Use Protocol. Infact at one point we had the idea that the character was completely illiterate - so there would be NO writing. But it lost the 'feel' that we like to capture in our games, so we reworked the story to fit in the writing. The writing in AUP is much shorter and more pointed than our other games - because we can use a LOT more environmental storytelling.

I *DO* think that Bone Totem is too long. There is a section that I fell in love with that, in all honesty, should have been cut, and the game story streamlined. Maybe about 20% or so could have been trimmed without losing the essence of the game.

Of course, in order to create the concepts and visuals for a game like Bone Totem, one or more of The Brotherhood team must have more than the usual share of morbid curiosity.

I'm actually super sensitive to gore and violence. I think thats why I love my 80's and 90's horror - the gore is so over the top, that is almost comical. I found the switch to like... cadaver anatomy gore in the 2000's and onwards to be very disturbing, and not in a fun way. Could be from living in South Africa - we're surrounded by so much real life horror, that if Im gonna put it into our games, it should be more escapist. More 'over the top'.

 

[Blaine]

I'm actually super sensitive to gore and violence. I think thats why I love my 80's and 90's horror - the gore is so over the top, that is almost comical. I found the switch to like... cadaver anatomy gore in the 2000's and onwards to be very disturbing, and not in a fun way. Could be from living in South Africa - we're surrounded by so much real life horror, that if Im gonna put it into our games, it should be more escapist. More 'over the top'.

An interesting perspective coming from a man who has helmed some very gory games.

Everyone is different. For example, my girlfriend is a doctor and has performed surgeries and emergency medicine, but has very little tolerance for violence in media, let alone horror or gore. Her reasoning is essentially that she doesn't like to consume negativity.

I suppose that's perfectly natural, but I do find it slightly odd given that she would crack open someone's ribcage if necessary for a medical procedure. Of course, the intent there is healing.

It's not even because she's a woman. One of the insights I know from my decades in the "gore community" is that the majority of gore hounds are in fact women. Women also tend to enjoy horror etc. at least as much as men, follow and write letters to serial killers, etc.

 

[Pyke]

I have an acquaintance who's wife works as a costume designer almost exclusively for lower budget slasher/gore movies - her husband is an ex cop who can't watch anything more intense than a Pixar movie. I think that our 'real world' experiences tend to limit our tolerance for the fantasy side of violence.


And yeah - my ex was super in the old Something Awful forums, and various gore communities of the early internet. My wife is a HUGE horror nerd as well.

I do think that my aversion to horror and gore is probably what makes our chunky bits a bit more visceral. I'll always try to make the gore mean something - or have a weird angle, instead of just being gore for gores sake. I love horror games - but sometimes it does feel a little like they go "ADD IN MORE BONES AND BLOOD - THROW IN SOME CHAINS! AND MAGGOTS!".

 

[agris]

There is a section that I fell in love with that, in all honesty, should have been cut

which section is that? i can't think of a section that overstayed it's welcome, it was a great ride - especially the last 20%

 

[Pyke]

Spoiler

I would have reworked the Spanish galleon part. I don't think that those scenes really added much - apart from the 'this is cool' aspect. I mean, I love them - they were some of the my favourite areas of the game to actually make - but I'd rejigger that whole loop into something a little tighter. We also already had the LIMA - I don't know if 2 sunken ships was necessary. :D

On the other side tho (adding more content!) - I'd also love to have extended Macs time in the temple part at the end. We had this cool puzzle designed where he had to time using an explosive with the sound of drum beats to get through a door.
You would gather pieces that the 'survivors' were trying to build a bomb from to escape into the sewers - and complete their work - but it became another 'use an explosive' puzzle, so we nixed it. Ironically the thing that replaced it was the overloading android - so it still ended with an explosion. :D

 

[Sordid MCA/Prosper Hybryd]

Spoiler

I would have reworked the Spanish galleon part. I don't think that those scenes really added much - apart from the 'this is cool' aspect. I mean, I love them - they were some of the my favourite areas of the game to actually make - but I'd rejigger that whole loop into something a little tighter. We also already had the LIMA - I don't know if 2 sunken ships was necessary. :D

On the other side tho (adding more content!) - I'd also love to have extended Macs time in the temple part at the end. We had this cool puzzle designed where he had to time using an explosive with the sound of drum beats to get through a door.
You would gather pieces that the 'survivors' were trying to build a bomb from to escape into the sewers - and complete their work - but it became another 'use an explosive' puzzle, so we nixed it. Ironically the thing that replaced it was the overloading android - so it still ended with an explosion. :D

BTW, are you still considering remaking STASIS 1 with the new technologies?