Un acercamiento más directo al género survivor pero sin más, la verdad.
This is my first bullet heaven game and I now see why the genre is so popular. For a price the amount of content is crazy. It definitely can be difficult to see your character due to the amount of clutter but that never really bothered me. This game is very fun and has different game modes and classes to mix things up. You'll know if you like the game by the Steam return window so given the low cost of entry I would give it a try.
GIGA FUN but the visual clutter my gawd i felt blind
I respect the sheer amount of content pumped into this but the visual clutter makes it hard to appreciate what is going on, and that can make consecutive runs kind of boring after a while. When everything starts to blend together minions and enemies start to lose their identity in a way weapons in Vampire Survivor or other contemporaries in the genre never did.
It's like, it's kind of hard to see what's happening.
Excellent Survivors-Like with unique minion mechanics and interesting level designs. All topped with a lovely artstyle. Must-play for fans of the genre.
A great auto-battler that keeps giving you so much just for playing the game and experimenting with new builds. Just once when you think you’ve seen it all; it just gives more. With runs that can vary greatly depending on class, mob choices, and relics; it’s an amazing game to lose time in.
Boneraiser Minions is an appropriately priced vampire survivors type experience (if there is a genre name decided I would like to know!) that tries to mix things up by adding in some tower defense mechanics on the maps you survive on and making the character summon/level up minions when they "level up".
What did make things slightly frustrating for me was how easy it was to lose yourself in the chaos. This isn't a consistent problem, but it can pop up when certain enemies just happen to blend in easier with the map and items littered about.
This was a nice "play daily for a few sessions" style of game, but this didn't hook me enough to see everything through here.
What did make things slightly frustrating for me was how easy it was to lose yourself in the chaos. This isn't a consistent problem, but it can pop up when certain enemies just happen to blend in easier with the map and items littered about.
This was a nice "play daily for a few sessions" style of game, but this didn't hook me enough to see everything through here.
Boneraiser's schtick is that you summon undead minions at intervals selecting from a randomised list of undead. Minions of different types can be fused together to make more powerful minions, and you have to balance between quality and quantity.
This sounds pretty straightforward but the game has real issues conveying information. The only way to see what undead you have is in an out of the way menu option and you can't be sure how your decision to fuse or add undead impacts the game. The evolution tree is only visible in the lobby so it's tough to remember which undead you're missing or how to create specific ones. Also the game insists on this old timey way of phrasing everything that makes everything take longer to read and it does it for every single piece of text in the game.
The classes largely play the same (bar one), and while there's lots of features to unlock the game expects you to tactically turn some features off to optimise your run, but who wants to turn off their power ups? The UX is also annoying as everything is laid out in grids rather than a clear list with the descriptions visible to compare and make decisions.
The customisation of the maps is a cool idea in principle but just ends up feeling like padding as do the mini games. Plus the dedication to the 8 bit art-style is at the expense of clarity, this game has a real issue with contrast that is necessary in a game where a pixel of overlap kills you in a second. You can customise some of the visuals but it makes little difference, especially when enemies spawn under you.
If the game was willing to put substance before style then I could probably dig into this more but as is, it feels messy and rough.
This sounds pretty straightforward but the game has real issues conveying information. The only way to see what undead you have is in an out of the way menu option and you can't be sure how your decision to fuse or add undead impacts the game. The evolution tree is only visible in the lobby so it's tough to remember which undead you're missing or how to create specific ones. Also the game insists on this old timey way of phrasing everything that makes everything take longer to read and it does it for every single piece of text in the game.
The classes largely play the same (bar one), and while there's lots of features to unlock the game expects you to tactically turn some features off to optimise your run, but who wants to turn off their power ups? The UX is also annoying as everything is laid out in grids rather than a clear list with the descriptions visible to compare and make decisions.
The customisation of the maps is a cool idea in principle but just ends up feeling like padding as do the mini games. Plus the dedication to the 8 bit art-style is at the expense of clarity, this game has a real issue with contrast that is necessary in a game where a pixel of overlap kills you in a second. You can customise some of the visuals but it makes little difference, especially when enemies spawn under you.
If the game was willing to put substance before style then I could probably dig into this more but as is, it feels messy and rough.
It's raising time!
I really enjoy this rising genre of "bullet heavens", and while I don't think Boneraiser Minions quite lives up to the most famous of the genre, Vampire Survivors, it does do a lot to continue to evolve this new gameplay style and change the mechanics a bit.
There are a lot more items to use and tons of characters to play as that create vastly different playstyles, but my opinion is that the variety is a double-edged sword. It does mean that I can completely change up my playstyle, but it also means it's easy to end up with a run where RNG just isn't going my way, a problem many roguelike/lites have. Overall, it's a lot of fun and I'm definitely going to do more runs to see what the other characters are like.
There are a lot more items to use and tons of characters to play as that create vastly different playstyles, but my opinion is that the variety is a double-edged sword. It does mean that I can completely change up my playstyle, but it also means it's easy to end up with a run where RNG just isn't going my way, a problem many roguelike/lites have. Overall, it's a lot of fun and I'm definitely going to do more runs to see what the other characters are like.
Untill we have a name for this type of genre I'll just call this Bullet Heaven Survivor (just roll with it)
Yes, it is inspired by the same mechanics and loop of vampire survivors but with several twists, mainly instead of weapons you summon minions that can be both lvled up during a game or melded / grafted into better versions.
So for example 1 archer minion can be max leveled into a demon that shoots lasers, grafted with another minion into a big skelleton that shoots piercing arrows. or melded with another minion that turns it into a revolver-weilding minion.
This goes for a lot of other minions so there's a lot of variety in what you can build. Also the game is pretty charming with its writing, art style and specially music. I Highly recommend it!
Yes, it is inspired by the same mechanics and loop of vampire survivors but with several twists, mainly instead of weapons you summon minions that can be both lvled up during a game or melded / grafted into better versions.
So for example 1 archer minion can be max leveled into a demon that shoots lasers, grafted with another minion into a big skelleton that shoots piercing arrows. or melded with another minion that turns it into a revolver-weilding minion.
This goes for a lot of other minions so there's a lot of variety in what you can build. Also the game is pretty charming with its writing, art style and specially music. I Highly recommend it!
An okay buy for the price, but lacks content. There are a lot of systems at play that initially seem really cool and like they might become something interesting until you realize that what you see when you unlock them is all that there is. You can build traps in your mausoleum - Cool! Until you realize that maybe two of them do anything useful. There are a bunch of minion archetypes - Neat! Except that almost every archetype is about combining your guys to get bigger guys, and there will only be one type of biggest guy that you'll be aiming for every run. Runs become repetitive very quickly as a result, because you always end up with 2-3 copies of the one biggest possible guy, one or two small guys to buff your big guys, and then a miscellaneous mash of trash minions that barely matter.
Meta progression is bizarrely paced and honestly just feels completely out of place in a lot of aspects. Classes all have a grid of 10-12 passives that can be unlocked with a unique meta-currency and I have no idea why this is even in the game. One class can dump meta currency into its passives to upgrade them and it feels like every class should have this as an option. In practice it takes 1-2 runs to earn enough meta currency to unlock all of a new class's skills, and you will never play a class before unlocking all of its skills. The other meta-progression currency, gold, is given to you at an insane rate that makes it nearly impossible to keep track of what you're actually unlocking. You're showered with enough gold per run to buy 10-20 upgrades across four different progression paths. Some early upgrades are game changers, but by the end of the game you're just buying tons of obvious filler upgrades after every run that add 10 more seconds of trash mobs to a wave of enemies that you won't even be looking at, or you'll be buying your fifth upgrade that raises the amount of one kind of minion you can summon.
The constant onslaught of boner humor is also just a pain. I'd be inclined to give the game more of a pass if it wasn't so in-your-face obnoxious. The game's cheap, so it has that going for it, but even at 4 bucks it's hard to recommend.
Meta progression is bizarrely paced and honestly just feels completely out of place in a lot of aspects. Classes all have a grid of 10-12 passives that can be unlocked with a unique meta-currency and I have no idea why this is even in the game. One class can dump meta currency into its passives to upgrade them and it feels like every class should have this as an option. In practice it takes 1-2 runs to earn enough meta currency to unlock all of a new class's skills, and you will never play a class before unlocking all of its skills. The other meta-progression currency, gold, is given to you at an insane rate that makes it nearly impossible to keep track of what you're actually unlocking. You're showered with enough gold per run to buy 10-20 upgrades across four different progression paths. Some early upgrades are game changers, but by the end of the game you're just buying tons of obvious filler upgrades after every run that add 10 more seconds of trash mobs to a wave of enemies that you won't even be looking at, or you'll be buying your fifth upgrade that raises the amount of one kind of minion you can summon.
The constant onslaught of boner humor is also just a pain. I'd be inclined to give the game more of a pass if it wasn't so in-your-face obnoxious. The game's cheap, so it has that going for it, but even at 4 bucks it's hard to recommend.
With the most recent update, the game has changed pretty significantly and for the better! It has vastly more content than before, and I'm finding myself wanting to try all the new characters and try different builds. Definitely becoming a new favorite of mine. You never know where the next innuendo will pop up.
Fairly certain this is my favorite game to come out of the wave inspired by vampire survivors.
I've always been a big fan of minion based gameplay, and, as the name suggests, that's the focus here. You'd expect a game about minions to be fairly passive to play, but you're dodging for you life and trying to get off spell casts regularly here, so it ends up being among the more engaging games in the genre. There's also a great variety of classes, spells, minions, relics, maps, tower defense type structures to build on the maps, etc. to keep things fresh for a good long time as well.
I'd be remiss if I didn't mention the strange mix of faux olde English and juvenile humor strewn throughout every bit of text in the game. For me, it's so dumb that it wraps back around to having its own charm, but I could see some being turned off by it.
I've always been a big fan of minion based gameplay, and, as the name suggests, that's the focus here. You'd expect a game about minions to be fairly passive to play, but you're dodging for you life and trying to get off spell casts regularly here, so it ends up being among the more engaging games in the genre. There's also a great variety of classes, spells, minions, relics, maps, tower defense type structures to build on the maps, etc. to keep things fresh for a good long time as well.
I'd be remiss if I didn't mention the strange mix of faux olde English and juvenile humor strewn throughout every bit of text in the game. For me, it's so dumb that it wraps back around to having its own charm, but I could see some being turned off by it.
Sights & Sounds
- For whatever reason, the black background 8-bit aesthetic with the chosen color palette really hits right for me. Somehow, each of the little minions looks distinct despite being so small. Just lots of impressive pixel art work everywhere in the game
- The soundtrack is also excellent. I like the jukebox feature in the hubworld that lets you choose your music
- The sound effects are great, and I enjoyed the little touches like the slap you hear whenever you dismiss a beggar or a merchant who isn't selling anything you want
Story & Vibes
- There's not much by way of story. You're an evil boneraiser who only wishes to raise bones and give King Gigald a good pounding
- The game is called Boneraiser Minions ffs. Of course the game is filled to the brim with penis jokes. If you find that kind of humor funny, you've come to the right place
Playability & Replayability
- The slick pixel art and enjoyable humor could carry the game a long way by themselves, but Boneraiser Minions is also a notably feature-rich "bullet heaven" with a surprising amount of build variety
- Your first runs will be pretty basic as you unlock items, minion evolutions, characters, levels, and game modes. The basic gameplay loop you'll experience is basically Vampire Survivors, but rather than dealing damage to enemies directly, you necromance yourself up a shambling army of the dead to do your dirty work for you. You power up your minions and raise new ones as you level up, helping you better fend off the waves of enemies filling the screen
- Unlike Vampire Survivors, however, there's always a boss fight to cap off each run. You fight King Gigald and, if you beat him, you can go back to your castle with your winnings or loop back to the beginning of the run with all of your minions in tow
- There's also survival challenges, a level-based adventure mode where you fight Queen Gigald, daily challenges, and a little card game reminiscent of Triple Triad (a la Final Fantasy VIII)
Overall Impressions & Performance
- I really enjoy how focused and "tight" of an experience this game was. Compared to Vampire Survivors, Boneraiser Minions may feel smaller owing to fewer characters and unlockables. But I actually appreciated that. I feel like I got to see most of what the game offers without having to jump through a bunch of convoluted hoops
- This is an excellent Steam Deck game. On top each run only lasting 30 minutes, I've played only a handful of games that were as gentle to the battery. You could probably play all day and finish with 40% charge
Final Verdict
- 8.5/10. Definitely worth a shot if you enjoy this specific subgenre. I actually enjoyed it a little more than Vampire Survivors. The visuals and addition of items just give each run a little more variety
- For whatever reason, the black background 8-bit aesthetic with the chosen color palette really hits right for me. Somehow, each of the little minions looks distinct despite being so small. Just lots of impressive pixel art work everywhere in the game
- The soundtrack is also excellent. I like the jukebox feature in the hubworld that lets you choose your music
- The sound effects are great, and I enjoyed the little touches like the slap you hear whenever you dismiss a beggar or a merchant who isn't selling anything you want
Story & Vibes
- There's not much by way of story. You're an evil boneraiser who only wishes to raise bones and give King Gigald a good pounding
- The game is called Boneraiser Minions ffs. Of course the game is filled to the brim with penis jokes. If you find that kind of humor funny, you've come to the right place
Playability & Replayability
- The slick pixel art and enjoyable humor could carry the game a long way by themselves, but Boneraiser Minions is also a notably feature-rich "bullet heaven" with a surprising amount of build variety
- Your first runs will be pretty basic as you unlock items, minion evolutions, characters, levels, and game modes. The basic gameplay loop you'll experience is basically Vampire Survivors, but rather than dealing damage to enemies directly, you necromance yourself up a shambling army of the dead to do your dirty work for you. You power up your minions and raise new ones as you level up, helping you better fend off the waves of enemies filling the screen
- Unlike Vampire Survivors, however, there's always a boss fight to cap off each run. You fight King Gigald and, if you beat him, you can go back to your castle with your winnings or loop back to the beginning of the run with all of your minions in tow
- There's also survival challenges, a level-based adventure mode where you fight Queen Gigald, daily challenges, and a little card game reminiscent of Triple Triad (a la Final Fantasy VIII)
Overall Impressions & Performance
- I really enjoy how focused and "tight" of an experience this game was. Compared to Vampire Survivors, Boneraiser Minions may feel smaller owing to fewer characters and unlockables. But I actually appreciated that. I feel like I got to see most of what the game offers without having to jump through a bunch of convoluted hoops
- This is an excellent Steam Deck game. On top each run only lasting 30 minutes, I've played only a handful of games that were as gentle to the battery. You could probably play all day and finish with 40% charge
Final Verdict
- 8.5/10. Definitely worth a shot if you enjoy this specific subgenre. I actually enjoyed it a little more than Vampire Survivors. The visuals and addition of items just give each run a little more variety
i like it
Probably the most fun I've had with a bullet heaven game.
Un survivor sympa.
One of the best survivor games I've played. The simplistic art hides a very complex game of minion summoning.
Wonderful survivor-like. Loved the art style, the sound design is really satisfying, the idea that you raise your damage dealers instead of doing it yourself is neat. One of the best survivor-likes you can play
Its aight.
stands above a lot of its trend hopping peers by virtue of its very cute and charming halloween world, and also because it requires a degree of active focus that leaves games like 20 minutes til dawn, brotato, halls of torment etc. feeling a touch lacking. i think most of these recent vampire-survivor-likes have already figured out that giving the player control of the attacking makes for more decision making makes for more engagement in simple roguelikes like this, but boneraiser flips it a little - your firepower doesn't even emanate from yourself, you're just a very fragile target floating around while your minions do all the work. as such you take a lot of damage, even minor grazes from enemies can nearly halve your health and larger waves can create a lot of instant game over scenarios.
this difficulty curve was initially a bit frustrating but i ended up putting like 30 hours into the game, which is way more than i can say for most of those aforementioned peers so clearly its good at making me invested. boneraiser minions is the first caiysware game i've actually sat down and played, but i've been familiar with the guys style for awhile and i really appreciate his taste in little pixel art ghouls & ghosts and in garish neon color palettes. at this point i'm pretty sick of the 8-16 bit era throwback style when its used solely as a callback (shovel knight and its consequences on the human race) but caiysware has a good spin on it. much recommended
this difficulty curve was initially a bit frustrating but i ended up putting like 30 hours into the game, which is way more than i can say for most of those aforementioned peers so clearly its good at making me invested. boneraiser minions is the first caiysware game i've actually sat down and played, but i've been familiar with the guys style for awhile and i really appreciate his taste in little pixel art ghouls & ghosts and in garish neon color palettes. at this point i'm pretty sick of the 8-16 bit era throwback style when its used solely as a callback (shovel knight and its consequences on the human race) but caiysware has a good spin on it. much recommended
very strange obtuse game which can be fun but sometimes overwhelming and just not worth engaging with fully
boner jokes never get old. the graphics of this game are kinda messy though, hard to tell what's happening on screen
as far as vampire survivors type games go this is one of the best to come out. if you like this genre this is a must-play
Taketh thy art, raiseth thy bon'r, sweaty haste headlong and plunge deep into thy enemies!
Square on the ov'rwhelming hoards. F'r thee shall doth m're than butting heads and raising the dead!
Art thee eft to crosseth swords?
Vampire Survivors push forward the roguelite auto-battler genre, that's starting to over saturate with copy cats, but out of those copy cats. There's of the few enjoyable and unique games that stand out from the rest, Boneraiser Minions is one of them. Personally I like this more than Vampire Survivors. Wonderful retro OST, charming 8-bit artstyle, in-dept/engaging mechanics and more importantly. It's skilled based that doesn't just require directional movement.
Good variety of classes to pick from, nice "outfits to choose from, different game modes, with alot of content for a cheap price tag and it still gets frequent updates!
For a game that was created by a solo dev that stays in touch with their community.
I highly recommend trying out this game.
Boner.
This sure is "one of those" and yeah, it's fine. Not offensively bad, does what these games do but doesn't do any of it in a particularly interesting or banner way. Played 2 and a half hours of it and think I'm done. Thought I could play the bullethell-arena-roguelike genre or whatever the hell you want to call it forever but this squashed that thought. Best thing I can say about it is that I really liked the music. I don't think it fits the vibe of the game but it did make me very nostalgic for gameboy music in a way that most other chiptune stuff doesn't.
Every time this game uses the word "boner" it has me like this.