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Short but sweet adventure about Ghosts and Detectives!
TheRpgmakerAddict- 11/13/2023 02:40 PM
- 377 views
Hello detectives!
City of Bones is a very short game made by Veynn (author of other visually interesting games that I still have to play, such as Spotlight!!! and
Träumerei) with RPG Maker VX Ace in 2018... for the for IGMC 2018! City of Bones is a VERY SHORT horror (ever if horror elements are rather mild, nothing visual) with various endings... and you can see them all in less than 30 minutes, so yes, it's pretty short! Oh and it was also translated in russian!
In City of Bones we follow the adventure of a paranormal detective by the name of Santiago who has the ability to converse with the dead. Santiago de la Cruz is in fact a 24th years old tired (and annoyed, thanks to his colleagues Ten and Austere) man and in this adventure he's dealing with something (or someone) that is more than just a voice in the back of his head.
Ohhhh seems all so interesting! What should I check???
The game is pretty simple: go around, talk with people and made decisions... the endings are four, and the true epilogue (The Crossroads) requires some more effort than the others. Anyway there isn't much to say about the gameplay: we control the detective Santiago as he walks around the city where ghosts, conspiracies and urban legends are simply the truth: go around and interact with things and people, like every good investigator should do. EASY! Well, yes that's little more than a walking simulator. But uhm ok you can also run, anyway you do not need to do much else, forgive using an inventory or solving challenging puzzles, the only thing you can do except for going around and interacting with things is saving your game.
Let's talk about the visuals, that are the most interesting aspect of this game: City of Bones looks like a manga with its stylish visuals and cute chibi characters. Despite the use of few colors (shades of red, shades of grey, black and white) and the simple style with paper-style (or mono-dimensional) characters the final result is an evocative and charming setting that oozes occult and oriental aspects.
Music is also minimalist but good: there are ambient sounds like the wind blowing and very spare music like the melody of some chimes... overall for such a short game it's not a lot but enough! And also very appropriate!
Well, this seems to be a a bit too much for me, sorry!
Final Verdict
City of Bones is a game that's pretty difficult to rate: on one hand it's extremely short and simple, on the other it looks very good and charming (look at these pics and its awesome art and style!). But... to tell the truth it looks like the story of the detective Santiago could have been better if it was longer or expanded: the game start "in media res" with our hero talking about his colleagues, etc... and another issue is that I didn't really feel the weight of my actions, and it was a bit of random. Still not bad, anyway I find impossible to give a proper rating to this game since it's one of these... experiences I can recommend if you're looking for a short story and not challenging battles and puzzles. That's it!
City of Bones is a very short game made by Veynn (author of other visually interesting games that I still have to play, such as Spotlight!!! and
Träumerei) with RPG Maker VX Ace in 2018... for the for IGMC 2018! City of Bones is a VERY SHORT horror (ever if horror elements are rather mild, nothing visual) with various endings... and you can see them all in less than 30 minutes, so yes, it's pretty short! Oh and it was also translated in russian!
In City of Bones we follow the adventure of a paranormal detective by the name of Santiago who has the ability to converse with the dead. Santiago de la Cruz is in fact a 24th years old tired (and annoyed, thanks to his colleagues Ten and Austere) man and in this adventure he's dealing with something (or someone) that is more than just a voice in the back of his head.
Ohhhh seems all so interesting! What should I check???
The game is pretty simple: go around, talk with people and made decisions... the endings are four, and the true epilogue (The Crossroads) requires some more effort than the others. Anyway there isn't much to say about the gameplay: we control the detective Santiago as he walks around the city where ghosts, conspiracies and urban legends are simply the truth: go around and interact with things and people, like every good investigator should do. EASY! Well, yes that's little more than a walking simulator. But uhm ok you can also run, anyway you do not need to do much else, forgive using an inventory or solving challenging puzzles, the only thing you can do except for going around and interacting with things is saving your game.
Let's talk about the visuals, that are the most interesting aspect of this game: City of Bones looks like a manga with its stylish visuals and cute chibi characters. Despite the use of few colors (shades of red, shades of grey, black and white) and the simple style with paper-style (or mono-dimensional) characters the final result is an evocative and charming setting that oozes occult and oriental aspects.
Music is also minimalist but good: there are ambient sounds like the wind blowing and very spare music like the melody of some chimes... overall for such a short game it's not a lot but enough! And also very appropriate!
Well, this seems to be a a bit too much for me, sorry!
Final Verdict
City of Bones is a game that's pretty difficult to rate: on one hand it's extremely short and simple, on the other it looks very good and charming (look at these pics and its awesome art and style!). But... to tell the truth it looks like the story of the detective Santiago could have been better if it was longer or expanded: the game start "in media res" with our hero talking about his colleagues, etc... and another issue is that I didn't really feel the weight of my actions, and it was a bit of random. Still not bad, anyway I find impossible to give a proper rating to this game since it's one of these... experiences I can recommend if you're looking for a short story and not challenging battles and puzzles. That's it!
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CloseThank you so much for playing 'City of Bones!!' I'm still surprised people are still playing this game well after it released--let alone wrote a review on it! This was such a pleasant surprise! And ahhh, Spotlight!!! also really takes me back.
I remember going through a bit of a panic when making this game. Didn't find out there was a contest until a week after it was announced, & then I spent maybe two weeks trying to figure out what sort of game to do. It was a fun process, but I'm never going through that again. The original product was going to be much different. For one thing, it involved clowns because of that whole 'clown epidemic' in 2016, which I was highkey invested in at the time.
The four endings thing was just to set the atmosphere. Four = Death. Same thing with Santiago's design .
I'm admittedly not much of a game dev. My priorities at the time were to focus solely on the artwork, so I'm really glad you liked the style here! I was really trying to go for a 'manga, but the characters can move' sort of style. Due to the limited time frame, I opted for a red/monochromatic color scheme.
I've been really busy with work & wrapping up the final half of Träumerei, but I've also been working on 'City of Bones' on the side. The plot hasn't really changed per-say, but it's been expanded upon a great deal. However, title & such has changed. It's a BL horror-comedy detective type story, with a lot of inspiration from Chinese-Filipino culture & urban legends. Essentially, a lot of creatures/mythology I heard about back in the day. Character designs changed a bit as well:
It's not going to be a game, unfortunately. Not out of a lack of interest, because I absolutely love RPGM. But I'm probably going to make it a Webtoon or novel series. Once my schedule clears up a little, I'm definitely going to bring this back in some form.
I'll bring back the killer clowns, even though I'm probably the only one who thinks they're funny, ahaha.
And thank you again for taking the time to write such an informative review, TheRPGMakerAddict!! I'm really honored you reviewed my short little project from way back when.
I remember going through a bit of a panic when making this game. Didn't find out there was a contest until a week after it was announced, & then I spent maybe two weeks trying to figure out what sort of game to do. It was a fun process, but I'm never going through that again. The original product was going to be much different. For one thing, it involved clowns because of that whole 'clown epidemic' in 2016, which I was highkey invested in at the time.
The four endings thing was just to set the atmosphere. Four = Death. Same thing with Santiago's design .
I'm admittedly not much of a game dev. My priorities at the time were to focus solely on the artwork, so I'm really glad you liked the style here! I was really trying to go for a 'manga, but the characters can move' sort of style. Due to the limited time frame, I opted for a red/monochromatic color scheme.
I've been really busy with work & wrapping up the final half of Träumerei, but I've also been working on 'City of Bones' on the side. The plot hasn't really changed per-say, but it's been expanded upon a great deal. However, title & such has changed. It's a BL horror-comedy detective type story, with a lot of inspiration from Chinese-Filipino culture & urban legends. Essentially, a lot of creatures/mythology I heard about back in the day. Character designs changed a bit as well:
It's not going to be a game, unfortunately. Not out of a lack of interest, because I absolutely love RPGM. But I'm probably going to make it a Webtoon or novel series. Once my schedule clears up a little, I'm definitely going to bring this back in some form.
I'll bring back the killer clowns, even though I'm probably the only one who thinks they're funny, ahaha.
And thank you again for taking the time to write such an informative review, TheRPGMakerAddict!! I'm really honored you reviewed my short little project from way back when.
TheRpgmakerAddict
60377
Nice, awesome art, I am really curious about next projects (no matter if they're not games!). Really nice art, but hey... clowns were never funny, more like creepy lol! :P
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