KickStarter STASIS 2: BONE TOTEM - new isometric adventure in Stasis universe set in deep sea installation

[lightbane]

Ooh, I get it now! Once again, it's not immediately obvious that you can interact with the bloody elevator. The switch next to it is also shining red, so it's quite easy to accidentally miss it.
Definitively the game needs a highlight objects key.

If you find a bug - press B. It will being up our internal bug submission system - you can write what it is and hit enter, and itll send it to us! Even if you just have some suggestions - use the system.

I tried pressing B and nothing happened, not sure if it's a bug or a faulty start-up of the game. I'll try again later.

 

[lightbane]

Finally finished the demo. It really needs some polishing. Awesome how characters have different reactions to same situation, like the "bone room". It's a bit convenient though that the woman is far more courageous than the gruff guy with cybernetics mentioned to be a pirate, and the cyber-bear together.
Still, judging from your company's track record, I'm certain no-one will have a happy ending anyway.
Speaking of: Will there be multiple endings? Multiple solutions to the same puzzle? Dialogue trees with other NPCs? Combat similar to BD?
It will be a long wait, but if Europe or myself are still around by 2022, I'll play this one for sure. It's Bioshock meets STASIS, now with extra horrible Lovecraftian places.
Talking about horrible places: Is your situation at South Africa better?

Lastly, OAG featured your demo! It also doubles as a walk-through.

Spoiler

 

[Pyke]

Finally finished the demo. It really needs some polishing. Awesome how characters have different reactions to same situation, like the "bone room". It's a bit convenient though that the woman is far more courageous than the gruff guy with cybernetics mentioned to be a pirate, and the cyber-bear together.
Still, judging from your company's track record, I'm certain no-one will have a happy ending anyway.
Speaking of: Will there be multiple endings? Multiple solutions to the same puzzle? Dialogue trees with other NPCs? Combat similar to BD?
It will be a long wait, but if Europe or myself are still around by 2022, I'll play this one for sure. It's Bioshock meets STASIS, now with extra horrible Lovecraftian places.
Talking about horrible places: Is your situation at South Africa better?

Lastly, OAG featured your demo! It also doubles as a walk-through.

Spoiler

We are taking lots of notes about accesibility and watching how people play the game. Lots of stuff we want to add to make it a smoother experience!

As for the characters reactions to things.... there are reasons that will be explored. :D

No multiple endings - its a much more straight forward narrative this time around. We are very much going back to the Stasis model. There will be more 'events' in the game, like the surgery sequence, but thats about as close as we are gonna get to any action!

Eh - SA is settling a little. Covid took us for a bit of a beating out back - but not a whole lot has changed. Power issues seem to have leveled out, and as far as I know our drought is over. So - holding thumbs!

 

[lightbane]

As for the characters reactions to things.... there are reasons that will be explored.

You mean their behaviours? There are some hints that the somewhat cowardly "Captain" participated in a war. Is he inspired by Jet Black from Cowbow Bebop?
Also, it seems I was mistaken. Charlie, the woman, has a rig with a red coloration, but also some pink shades, so I guess the primary color combination is fulfilled.

No multiple endings - its a much more straight forward narrative this time around. We are very much going back to the Stasis model. There will be more 'events' in the game, like the surgery sequence, but thats about as close as we are gonna get to any action!

Shame. That pretty much confirms there won't be much dialogue outside of cutscenes, as NPCs will be too busy being crazy, crazy-evil, or dead.
That does mean something: Chances of Charlie getting a fate worse than death? They have increased by 120%.

Eh - SA is settling a little. Covid took us for a bit of a beating out back - but not a whole lot has changed. Power issues seem to have leveled out, and as far as I know our drought is over. So - holding thumbs!

I thought you wanted to leave. It's your choice anyway.

 

[WallaceChambers]

Played through the demo and really enjoyed it. I liked the first STASIS, loved Beautiful Desolation and I appreciate that the setting feels more unique this time around since that's a big part of what I loved about BD. I find the derelict sea lab more interesting than a space station, especially with the inclusion of (possibly) ancient structures. The body horror/gore is compelling too, I feel like there's an elegance to it compared to the very visceral shocking stuff from OG STASIS. Which is a weird thing to say about gore but something about the lighting and presentation of stuff like the angel wing dude gave me that impression.

I enjoyed the puzzles and have high hopes for how they'll play out in the full game with the DoTT style character switching/shared inventory. I did get stuck on one, the substation puzzle, it was mostly my own fault though. I didn't read the clue about 1st and 4th switch short circuiting closely enough. I thought he was referring to entirely different substations. That circled "JJ" really threw me off, too. But minor issues aside the quality of the puzzles was good enough for me to feel confident that I'll enjoy them for the full game.

My only big issues come from the polish and playability of the game. I don't like that you have to be within proximity of certain hotspots to interact with them. It made more sense in BD's bigger environments but in Bone Totem it was tedious. It also feels inconsistent that I can mouse over certain hotspots at a distance to observe them, but need to be within range to interact with others. At the very least I think the area around my character in which hotspots are selectable should be much bigger. If im at the desk, looking at their overdue bills, I shouldn't have to awkwardly click closer to the photo to select it. It's right there and the hotspot is already showing.

The pathing and responsiveness was also pretty bad. The characters walk too slowly, it feels like it takes multiple clicks for them to respond at times and often I click to areas it feels like they should be able to move to, but they just stand still. I assume this all the kinda stuff that will get ironed out eventually, though.

Other than that I mostly have no complaints. I love the atmosphere and setting, I enjoyed the puzzles and the characters are likable right from the start. I will say that some of Mac's rationale for wanting to keep exploring despite all the fucked up shit they encounter could be more convincing. In particular the last scene right before they submerge. I really didn't find her whole "pop down then back up and we stake our claim" to be a very believable motivation. It is hard to judge these things before they fully play out, though.

But anyway, cheers on the game. I'm looking forward to it and I hope its a success.

 

[good fucking shit happen]

Wanted to post this, don't hide it behind a spoiler.

 

[V_K]

I enjoyed the puzzles and have high hopes for how they'll play out in the full game with the DoTT style character switching/shared inventory. [...]

My only big issues come from the polish and playability of the game. I don't like that you have to be within proximity of certain hotspots to interact with them. It made more sense in BD's bigger environments but in Bone Totem it was tedious. It also feels inconsistent that I can mouse over certain hotspots at a distance to observe them, but need to be within range to interact with others. At the very least I think the area around my character in which hotspots are selectable should be much bigger. If im at the desk, looking at their overdue bills, I shouldn't have to awkwardly click closer to the photo to select it. It's right there and the hotspot is already showing.

The pathing and responsiveness was also pretty bad. The characters walk too slowly, it feels like it takes multiple clicks for them to respond at times and often I click to areas it feels like they should be able to move to, but they just stand still. I assume this all the kinda stuff that will get ironed out eventually, though.

Other than that I mostly have no complaints. I love the atmosphere and setting, I enjoyed the puzzles and the characters are likable right from the start.

Just finished the demo and I agree with everything above - great atmosphere, setting and characters, and some clever puzzles, but QoL features needs work.
One thing I didn't like that haven't been mentioned - but this is also a matter of design philosophy - are hotspots that only activate after certain triggers. They just exacerbate pixel-hunting, since it means that each time after accomplishing something you have to lawnmow the location again to see what activated. To me, it's infinitely better to allow the player to try an action he's not supposed to do yet, but then have the character comment on why it must be left for later.

Spoiler

E.g. I spent a long time looking where to put the chimera sample but since I haven't unlocked the terminal yet, the barricade was non-interactive, so I assumed I'm not supposed to activate the sentry gun at all and the sample is for some other puzzle. Which made me stumble a bit later, after I did unlock the terminal.

I will say that some of Mac's rationale for wanting to keep exploring despite all the fucked up shit they encounter could be more convincing. In particular the last scene right before they submerge. I really didn't find her whole "pop down then back up and we stake our claim" to be a very believable motivation. It is hard to judge these things before they fully play out, though.

Yeah, all this made me very suspicious of Charlie. I think she has some ulterior motive there, like maybe she herself worked for Cayne in the past or is connected to them in some other way (probably something to do with the kid also). Those programming skills didn't come out of nowhere too.

 

[Pyke]

That's a good point, V_K. We have an idea for a system of 'negatives' when it comes to the player experimenting with the objects in the inventory. I really wanna have some more rewards for players for just trying shit out.

The body horror/gore is compelling too, I feel like there's an elegance to it compared to the very visceral shocking stuff from OG STASIS. Which is a weird thing to say about gore but something about the lighting and presentation of stuff like the angel wing dude gave me that impression.

This is very purposeful. I'm glad that someone picked up on it!

Thanks for all the feedback - it really is super helpful. I've got a document where I'm pasting all of this into it so we can go through each point that people have brought up and work with it in the game engine, and throughout the game!

 

[lightbane]

Wanted to post this, don't hide it behind a spoiler.

I did mention posting that video in the same post before the spoiler.

I think she has some ulterior motive there, like maybe she herself worked for Cayne in the past or is connected to them in some other way (probably something to do with the kid also). Those programming skills didn't come out of nowhere too.

No sane woman would work for Cayne, considering they use them as organ donors, in more ways than one. The few women working for that company shown so far were invariably crazy, evil, ugly, or all three at once.
Perhaps she's looking for something for a rival corporation, perhaps she is working for Cayne for a shot at getting her child back, perhaps she's desperate to do anything to avoid losing her husband and her's home, perhaps she has the self-preservation instinct of a lemming.

It's too early to tell... Literally.

 

[V_K]

No sane woman would work for Cayne

Who said anything about sane? The jury's still out.

 

[Daedalos]

Fired this up, enjoyed it. Great visuals as expected, decent writing, cool vibes and story in terms of the CAYNE narrative and that from STASIS

Some things I noted

It resembles Beautiful Desolation alot more than the orginal STASIS and CAYNE, moreso in style, UI, artstyle and such. It's not outright a bad thing, but I prefer the STASIS UI, and just general feel of the control and screen, text etc.
Perhaps it's just me.

Also, is the game zoomed too far fucking in, or am I retarded? It seemed to be zoomed in just a TAD too much. I get more detail and more closed in horror, but it would be nice with abit more zoom functionality.

But yea, playability, useability and general reponsiveness needs to improve alot. It feels abit clunky and janky, still. It's fine.

 

[Pyke]

We're constantly refining the movement systems and accessibility - so any feedback we get is really appreciated!

The framework here is the same one we built for Desolation, so that's probably why it feels so different to Stasis or Cayne. We built the demo - from initial discussion to the release - in 5 months, including design for the rest of the game. Without the BD base to work from, I think it would have taken us about a year or more to get to this point. There are certainly some things we are going to adapt and change as the game continues in production!

 

[Pyke]

Pretty cool entry on TVTropes about the game.

https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/VideoGame/StasisBoneTotem

 

[lightbane]

TVTropes? Avoid these sellout hacks.
Still, a page for a demo that won't finalize in years is fast, even for them.

 

[Nifft Batuff]

Very nice.

 

[Pyke]

We've updated the demo with some of the feedback regarding the control schemes and some general house keeping. If you haven't played it yet - now is a good time. :D

 

[good fucking shit happen]

Any time is a good time to play a Stasis game, but with headphones and in dimly lit room is the best time.

 

[fabrulana]

Loved the demo, I actually like the camera - it feels more intense closer to the action.

 

[StaticSpine]

 

[Infinitron]

I like how he gave $1 more just to one-up Cohh Carnage.

 

[Pyke]

Honestly I owe so much of my confidence as an artist to Brian. Not sure if anyone here has ever met him in person - but that's a man who just loves making games. He EXUDES it.

And Cohh is just a BRO.

 

[MRY]

Honestly I owe so much of my confidence as an artist to Brian. Not sure if anyone here has ever met him in person - but that's a man who just loves making games. He EXUDES it.

I was very impressed by him from the limited interactions I had on TTON.

 

[Daedalos]

Brian honestly seems to get too much flack here, and anywhere really. He seems genuinely into making good rpgs, but sometimes things just doesn't work out. But he sure does bring the motivation and passion, that's what I love about em.

 

[Pyke]

He puts a huge amount of trust in the people around him. Honestly its a rare thing for a creative person to actually do that - to not need to be *hands on* with EVERYTHING. I don't know if I could do that!

 

[good fucking shit happen]

He puts a huge amount of trust in the people around him. Honestly its a rare thing for a creative person to actually do that - to not need to be *hands on* with EVERYTHING. I don't know if I could do that!

There are pros to cons to that. He's been in the gaming business since 80s so he must be passionate about making games but I don't think he has ever been an auteur so there is no particular flavor to a Fargo game. The producer role can come with a huge amount of influence or it can be more about general management and in his case it's the later most of the time. Working for Microsoft that must be a good thing since creative freedom is the first thing that dies when going big and just being happy making games is a huge benefit in the environment. Even so I wish there were glorious shitheads like Tomonobu Itagaki in the RPG scene. Without crazy assholes like that games tend to feel bland and that has been my problem with the inXile games I've played. Their 2004 The Bard's Tale being the game with most character, that was just a massive shitpost in video game format and Fargo wrote some parts of that.