BONESAW!

By: Derek Yu

On: February 14th, 2008

Yo, guys and gals… Bonesaw is here! This eagerly-anticipated platform game saw some delays this week as a few Multimedia Fusion-related bugbears creeped into the works last minute. Thankfully, these issues have been addressed. Otherwise we wouldn’t be here, would we!

The game, inspired in part by Nintendo’s Kirby series, combines fast-paced platform action with frantic beatings (and some occasional puzzle-solving). If you saw the trailer Shabadage posted earlier, you pretty much know what to expect: bombs ‘sploding, springs bouncin’, balls flyin’… monsters big and small getting pounded with fists as well as the mighty BONESAW. The fact that it stars a hockey player who’s going after an evil referee just makes it that much better.

This thing is fresh out of the oven right now, so get it while it’s hot!

And head over to the creator’s blog for some insight into the ideas behind the game.

EDIT: The soundtrack, by Josh Whelchel, is available from Josh’s site here.

Posted in Freeware, Highly Recommended, Platformers, Windows | Tags: KylePulver

Ok

I guess I have something to do at work tomorrow.
Stij

WOOO!

That is all. I’ll try this tomorrow, it’s getting late here.
xerus

Hey Derek! Thanks for the post. Would you mind pointing that link back to perhaps this site instead: http://www.kylepulver.com/view.php?id=12

I plan for that one to be the main bonesaw page of information.

Thanks ;p
I should settle on a name

I think I like this. For an action game it does get a little boring.
Love the colors.
Julius

Fuckin’ rad… been waiting for this for a while now.
dan

Why is it ok to copy Kirby but not Cave Story?
Kenzya

He’s not copying Kirby. There’s a lot of nods to a lot of different games. There’s a difference between this and The Underside :*

The combat pisses me off in this game. If the uppercut doesn’t connect, then I get hit on the way down. If the uppercut hits then my sprite lines up with the enemy’s sprite and then I have to move back in order to hit again.
tim

this game won’t start from the launcher.
http://doomlaser.com Golds

I’m through the first boss. fun so far.

<3 Bonesaw guy.
xerus

Thanks for the post :O

If you guys have any feedback, good and bad, I’d love to hear it. I know people have issues with the combat at times, and I tried to go for an overlapping hitbox method but it ended up being very … wonky. Usually a combination of the running kick and quick combos can take care of most enemies.

Oh well, I guess I cant please them all! But I really do value any feedback I get. ;D
gameboy

Wasn’t expecting 60 megs, but that won’t crush my excitement!

Don’t worry, when I come down from my high I’ll drop feedback like a cow dropping patties.
chutup

Absolutely brilliant game on most levels. The only problem is in the combat with all sorts of wonky hitboxes. The fire breathing dudes will hit you when it looks like they didn’t and your attacks need to be lined up too finely.
But the combat looks and feels awesome once you connect, so if you fix these minor problems it will be just perfect!
bumsplikity

Wonderful game. Love the nods to Kirby.
And the BONESAW man(randy savage maybe?) should be in super smash brothers brawl. He is that epic.
Zeno

BONESAW! BONESAW! BONESAW!
DrMelon

YES! YES! YES! TIS THE BONESAW! YEEEYAAAH!
TakaM

kickass, this is a really fun game.
Only thing I would prefer is if the variable jumping was easier to control, took me a few minutes to realize you have to really quickly tap the jump button to do a small jump, he should just stop ascending when you release the jump button.
http://doomlaser.com Golds

As Adam brought to the attention #tigIRC, this video seems apropos: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rPa29sxMM6E
haowan

holy shit. this game is awesome
ZeppMan217

to be honest, i expected more…
Hyudra

On Vista Home Premium, and can’t get this to run. (Launcher starts with setup options, then after I hit Play, nada).
http://www.merseyremakes.co.uk Oddbob

I had the same problem here, stick it in Program Files and it works fine though.
http://www.merseyremakes.co.uk Oddbob

Oh, and it’s ace!
Mr E

I think this is OK, but I agree that the combat is a little shaky. I hate the fact that the actual area of the attack, punching for example only hits the space immediately in front of the player, and while enemies can freely damage you when you are standing on them, the reverse is not true. Add this to the fact that your combos tend to move you around, and it gets frustrating when half your attacks miss. This is a game that begs to have button mashing and fast combat, and this much effort being used to aim attacks just makes the whole experience annoying instead of fun.

On the Underside vs Cavestory vs Kirby vs bonesaw:

It is ok to borrow things from Kirby because Kirby is a big mean commercial game by an evil status quo mainstream developer, so plagiarism is encouraged by the independent community. Cavestory is indie, so when someone borrows elements from it, this is wrong and evil. never mind that Cavestory, while good, is hardly an example of cutting edge gameplay or even innovation meaning that it itself is derivative on virtually every level, but it is immune to such criticism because it was made by an indie dev celebrity.
Melly

Personally I found the combat frustrating. It’s the same problem everybody else is having, it’s too precise. I just don’t see why the hitboxes can’t be bigger, shouldn’t be too hard to make that work.

And I had the same issues with the fire breathing enemies combined with the overly precise combat. If you miss them because of the damn combo moving your character around they blast you in the face, nothing you can do about it.

Other than that, though, the game’s good. I agree that variable jumping should be more controllable but that’s an issue that only pops up in rare occasions (plus pressing down and jump was a bit unnintuitive for me, but that could be just me). The level design is quite excellent with all the secrets and tricks to get those hidden items, though it can be confusing and unnintuitive in some instances (sometimes the game tells you that you can go down, but if you keep on going down you’ll usually fall into a pit), and the overall aesthetic is also very charming, not to mention the music.

Oh, and the game ran slow very often in my computer, especially in the bigger levels.
Stij

Ugh, let’s not turn this into another Underside Vs. Cave Story debate. Honestly, I’m not gonna judge anything as a “ripoff” until we have a full playable version of it.

On a more Bonesaw-related subject, I’m downloading the game right now. Looks pretty sweet.
Josh

I found the combat VERY annoying at first, but once you get used to it it feels great. You’ll be thankful for the fact that you move with the combos later on.
GirlFlash

This game is awesome, though I am totally clueless how to get past the 2nd boss >.< as for the underside, I cant wait to play it, wether its a copy or not it looks to be a great game. and besides, who here can honestly say they havent ever had fun playing a clone?
Julius

@Mr E about his Cave Story and Bonesaw argument

your an idiot
Nillo

@Julius

His what?
lecarl

@Nillo

His an idiot.
ultim8p00

No good can sentence describe awesomeness. Like much game with action and combo. Need Ninjas though, i are like ninjas. But awesome game it are, yes!
ultim8p00

In case that wasn’t very clear:

This game is full of win and gingerbread.
Trotim

This is nice. Where’s the level editor?
WOW

WHY THE FUCK DON’T GAME DEVELOPERS INCLUDE A VOLUME GOD DAMN CONTROL OPTION?!
Who?

Who copied Cave Story?
Ooops

My god, this is a game that delivers. I just love it. This deserves a “freeware of the month” award for sure. And what a soundtrack! I planned to play audio-surf the whole week-end, but I’ll play bonesaw instead ! (Also because audio-surf is awful right now: the beta was nice, but the full game does have punishing framerate issues)
http://www.lapausedugamer.fr Gressmon

I like the music and the game overall, except combats, witch I found is pretty limited.

If i’m correct, there’s 3 sort of attack : while standing, while running and while jumping, am I right ?

I would have expect more moves while standing, to bring more variety.

Currently, I’m avoiding most of enemies because of this …
Eclipse

BONESAAAAWWWWW!!!!!!!!
MindSnap

I like the game in general, but it would only run if it was in a folder on my desktop. I also found the hit range too short and not being able to hurt enemies while on top of them is a big negative.
Trotim

Oh, the soundtrack? I’ve heard some of it before. I believe it might be from… Modarchive or something, so it’s definately ones that were free… I think.
Nillo

When the ref pops up and dispatches everyone in the intro cutscene, it’s to the same tune that plays in the trailer to TSE2.
Geoff

Best free game I’ve played in a awile, it bleeds style.
willy

its a kirby rippoff!!LOL!
snake

The game (320×240!) slows down unaccettably on my 1.40GHz + 512Mb Ram.

And didn’t find any way to exit the game: no ESC, no alt+F4, no F2.. and it was quite irritating trying lose all the energy around in slow motion.
difficultman

“BONESAW IS READY!!!”
Josh

The soundtrack is by me, available here: http://www.syntesis.org/bonesawost

The TSE2 trailer has a place-holder track that I sent Mark which is from Bonesaw, true. (good catch!) The TSE2 soundtrack isn’t modules, either, so that’s not in the game. Sorry for any confusion (:
Lim-Dul

I found the collision detection (in combat, of course) frustrating as well and the screen flickers during dialogs and at other times as well…

I was really looking forward to playing this game but now I’m somewhat disappointed.
turn_self_off

the combat system drove me from the game, pure and simple.

either the enemies hit you while you have to take a step back to be able to make contact, or that uppercut totally miss the target because your now on top of the enemy and it does not register.

and i swear those star/fire breathers can hit you while your more or less behind them?!
DrRetard

if I run this then lock windows during game or anytime after, it shuts down my laptops screen when I unlock…

so basically this game is unplayable unless your prepared to restart every time you play.
Nillo

Thanks Josh! I had problems with getting the .it music files to run, but these mp3s will surely work. Catchy stuff :)