City of Bones

Intro

"City of Bones" is a short horror adventure game developed by Veynn using RPG Maker VX Ace that was created for the 2018 Indie Game Maker Contest. As usual I'm not a big fan of the horror genre so my opinion on this project should probably be taken with a grain of salt or two. Though, I'll admit assigning a score to this game feels like an almost impossible ask in my opinion. This is because "City of Bones" feels highly incomplete in terms of it's narrative. In fact, I agree a lot with part of a comment left by Miryafa about this game.

Miryafa
I feel like I just read a few pages in the middle of a chapter.

As a result this work is both hard to get into and leaves the reader so confused on what is going on that it's hard to even care about anything that happens in this game. Admittedly the developer did have plans to expand upon this work in the past.

Veynn
I do intend to completely rehaul the artwork and add much more material after I complete another personal project.

But considering this project hasn't seen any apparent updates in over half a decade at this point. I'm left to conclude those plans were eventually scrapped in favor of focusing on other projects. Though, I suppose I'm get lost in the sauce with this tangent and should get back to discussing the narrative of "City of Bones".

Story
Summary

We play as Santiago de la Cruz, a 24 year old detective, who can converse with the dead. An ability that has led to him getting involved with a lot of supernatural cases as of late and being forced to solve them for peace of mind. Unfortunately it looks like this most recent case about the woman with two faces is going to open up an absolutely massive can of worms.

Greatest Strengths/Weaknesses

On the plus side the game definitely presents us with a bunch of mysteries. On the downside it really doesn't give us any answers to any of the mysteries presented to the player. As a result the game feels highly incomplete and the "true" ending really doesn't help with that. In fact, the "true" ending indicates this game simply represents the first chapter in a much larger work. A factoid that just leads to me wanting to quote Miryafa's comment again.

The True Ending

While the game does contain several different endings that can all be found within 30 minutes or so. Oddly enough the true ending can be found by complete accident on your first playthrough of this game. In fact, that's how I found the game's true ending. I simply stumbled into by complete accident. So I can't even say it takes effort to find the true ending. In fact, I'd argue it takes more effort to find the game's good and bad endings than the true ending. And I'm guessing one of the bad endings can be found by simply letting the ghost catch and probably eat you.


Though considering she can't keep pace with you when you run using the shift key. The odds of her catching you are pretty low.

Gameplay

You simply walk around and interact with people and objects for the most part. There are also chase sequences where you run away from a flesh eating ghost, but as far as the game is concerned that's all the stuff you get to do in it. There aren't any puzzles to solve or items you need to craft or use in order to advance the plot. You simply interact with characters and objects and hope something interesting will happen.

Graphics

If there is one things games by Veynn having go for them it's visual presentation and "City of Bones" isn't an exception to this rule. In fact, the custom graphics are the best thing about this project in my opinion. In fact, they are so good I wish they were being used for a game that actually feels complete.

Sound

Sound wise the game feels highly incomplete in my opinion with large portions of this game being devoid of background music. In fact, the most common sound you'll hear while playing this game is either dead silence or the sound of wind as it gusts around you. A factoid that makes the few areas where the game does have music like the title screen or during the chase sequences feel out of place. The sad part is I think appropriate music would have helped in providing additional context for the story and made it easier for the player to get invested in what is going on in this game.

Conclusion

"City of Bones" is a weird game to rate in my opinion since this project feels more like a demo than a completed project due to the nature of the narrative. As such I'm going to hold off on assigning "City of Bones" an overall score. On the plus side if you want to check this project out it definitely presents well on the visual side of things. Unfortunately this presentation is somewhat marred by the lack of appropriate background music. Though overall I'd say this project is pretty skippable in it's current state.