Sticks And Bones

It's a mild-amusing but not great 35-minute animated slapstick short film with some interactive sequences that primarily involves quick-time-events and mashing the mouse button. It's not bad, but paying anything more than a dollar for it would be a rip-off.

watch this review on video here; https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F8hJJtmxX-U&ab_channel=ScurvyBanana Sticks And Bones describes itself as an introductory short story with gameplay based around situational quick time events and puzzles. I played through this game multiple times and collected all of its steam achievements to answer the question, is it worth picking up this self-described "Episode 0" even if it claims "no monkeys?" Sticks and Bones is a sort of cinematic gaming experience created by a one man dev team, Mohammad Arkobi as 'Bold Statement Games.' It released in 2019. The game features a pirate skeleton as its main protagonist and follows his humourous adventure. Our bone hero starts out escaping a prison before getting in a slap fight with a navy crew and then having a length sort of tug-of-war over a map with a pirate. There's also this rabbit riding a seagull with a flinklock - don't as me why. A large chunk of the game is presented through dialogue-less cinematics that remind me of 'Mr. Bean' style visual comedy. I'll go ahead and note here that in its description it mentions that this is an introductory story, specifically Episode 0; "the story before the story" to what was planned to be a series. A few other releases by the same dev have released since this so I am unsure if 'Sticks And Bones' as an IP has been cast off to the side BUT I will say that as it stands now this does tell a full tale. Now onto the gameplay. Besides the cinematic story the main gameplay is a various amount of small puzzles and quicktime events. Some of these are recycled throughout the games 50 chapters. Click repeatedly to run faster or open a door, balance on a barrel, dodge the slap... these are all very short, quick and straightforward. Despite having a good time with them I wished several of them had lasted longer and had a bit more nuance. I think the longest section is a third person stealth segment near the end of the game, but even then you directly follow an NPC. I should mention there are two standard melee combat sequences, one as a sidescroller and one in third person however you'll quickly learn to cheese these fights with a certain combo. While I am personally a bit disappointed with the lack of depth in these short minigames given its nature as a silly cinematic experience I want to mention that simplicity can have its merit. Perhaps this design is intentional as I could see this making a fantastic experience for younger kids. Now that I've played through a couple times, one thing I wish was part of the experience was a couple forks in the road. I think the overall experience could of been extended via replayability if a few of the puzzles had alternative solutions with differing outcomes. The music and soundtrack I felt worked perfectly, it truly sounds like a handcrafted experience. In terms of art graphics its easy to overlook this as being an "asset flip" of the overused Polygon Unity store packs by Synty Studios but once you play it you'll start to notice how much work and passion seemed to go into it despite its common graphics. On the topic of "asset flip" I'll divert a bit of attention toward the developer post on steam regarding a price drop. Initially this game was released at a $9.99 price but was dropped to $5.99 due to consumer complaints. Within this post the dev defends their work via explanation of how much effort was put into this product, making and adding their own "polygon" style models, handcrafting soundtrack and environments, as well as extensive animation and motion capture work. At the very least it's interesting to see if not potentially eye opening to the amount of work even a "short and simple" game can be. I bought this on sale for less than a dollar and at the very least I can recommend picking it up while it is priced that low. It offers a very short (sub 1 hour playtime) albeit entertaining experience. I hope someday in the future Bold Statement Games is able to return to this idea to make a more grand experience - however as it stands now I still quite enjoyed Sticks And Bones for its goofy and cartoony adventure with its biggest downside being that there isn't more of it.