Looking for something spooky, fun, and spookily fun? Look no further than The Bonerooms.
The Bonerooms is a multiplayer survival game where you traverse a maze that changes every minute. While you are navigating the maze, skeletons are also on the prowl, ready to end your game early. Hence the bone in bonerooms.
Not Boner Oom
This game is easy to learn, but hard to play. And what I mean by that, is that its literally hard to find matches to play. I’ll talk more on that later though.
The controls themselves are very simple. You walk around using joysticks, buy items with ‘X’ and use items with the right trigger. Oh and you can sprint by pushing in the left joystick. That’s really all there is to it, and all you need to have a good time. While you walk around the maze you collect little white orbs that you can use to purchase items.
There are a wide variety of items you can use, to either thwart the skeletons, or other players. The gun, classic, has one shot and makes for a quick getaway. The flash bang, when used correctly, can blind the skeletons, or other players, allowing you to get away. And one of my favorites is the Uno Reverse card, allowing you to trade places with a player or skeleton. And that’s just a small sample of items you can use. There are also quite a few different noisemakers and other helpful tools.
Where Is Everybody?
So you’re making your way through this maze, and you hear the tell tale sign of a nearby skeleton. The clinking of bones, obviously. If you don’t have any items, turn tail and run the other way. As the game progresses though, the number of skeletons starts to go up. Then you see something truly terrifying. Another character player. But you’re in a solo game. And this person has your name. Well, kind of. It’s just one letter off and meant to confuse you, which would definitely work a lot better if you were playing with other people.
My first playthrough was completely solo. And while it was fun to run around and see how long I could survive, it didn’t really have a lot of longevity. I got bored, fast. So seeing as it’s on sale until November 6, 2024 for $1.49 (normally $1.99, so also not bad), I bought a copy for a good friend of mine and had him hop on with me. And as luck would have it, when he got it downloaded and signed in, we stumbled upon another server being hosted, appropriately named ‘I am so alone.’
So we hopped on with this stranger, and here’s where things got a little more spooky. A very fun feature of The Bonerooms is proximity chat. Meaning whenever you are near another player you can talk to them. Or do your best to imitate the bone clinking sound but that probably won’t work.
Another feature that I was absolutely not expecting, is for the game to hold on to sound bites of things I have said and repeat them to the other players. After our match, by buddy asked me why I kept screaming run at him. But I only said that the one time, because we legitimately needed to run. Apparently throughout the entire match he kept hearing it. Which explains why I kept hearing him laugh every once in a while, even when we weren’t near each other.
Ain’t No Lie Baby Buy Buy Buy
The Bonerooms is going to be an entirely different game than the one I played in a month or so, hopefully. As soon as this game gains some traction and there are people playing it regularly, it’s going to be a very fun time. It’s quick and easy to hop in and play a few matches while you figure out something else to do. Or make a night of it and see how long you can outlast each other.
I highly recommend trying it out yourself, and then buying it for a friend. And then continuing that chain. I’m not sure how many players are allowed in a lobby, but I’m imagining the chaos of 8 or more people being an absolute blast. Having to watch out for skeletons and also another players is a whole different game than what I experienced.
That being said, there is no video again this week, because who wants to watch me run around a maze by myself, trying to make small talk with myself? No one. Especially not me when I have to watch it back before uploading. That’s the real spookiness. I’ll continue checking in to see if more people are playing, or just buy more copies for some friends and then record something that is a little more worth everyone’s time.