Amass an army of deamonic undead to fight endless waves of heroes intent to end your boneraising ways! In this gothic-horror auto-battle roguelite, use the bones of slain heroes to raise your minions, collect powerful relics and spells, and unlock meta upgrades, all to survive King Gigald's crusade!
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Now we're cooking with (swamp) gas. Who'd've thunk that a game with more innuendo per minute than a Dorian Electra music video(†) would be the strongest challenger for the Vampire Survivors crown?
The amount of mechanics and upgrades this game vomits up at you from minute one is ghastly, but once you learn to navigate the madness, you'll quickly see that this game's got the juice, like a rancid potato. The main appeal here is that Boneraiser Minions has you play as a paltry, defenseless necromancer, and you achieve bullet heaven ascendance by raising up undead minions to fend off the onslaught of full, flesh-having villagers who want you dead. Well, dead again. More dead than your current amount of dead, I guess.
This means that each round sees you running around dodging enemies and hoovering up bones to conjure up more ghouls and ghosts to stoke the fires of chaos. And boy howdy, there are a lot of different freaks and geeks to add to the horde. You've also got your passive upgrades and single use attack drops to keep the damage comin', which can snowball to the point where you're picking a new perk of some kind every 15 seconds or so once you've sustained some momentum.
The other twist on the formula is that you get to modify the map with contraptions reminiscent of tower defense games to give yourself a customized edge against the "meanies" that want you smote. When combined with the different classes of minions you can choose from, this leads to a deceptive amount of variety from run to run, especially once you unlock the different characters, New Game Plus for your runs, and the ability to upgrade passives. It all comes together to be a very satisfying gameplay experience despite the rotting corpses on the surface.
My only major criticism is that the synergies are sort of hard to intuitively feel since they're so divorced from your character. Similarly, leveling minions from level 1 -> 2 -> 3 has the same lack of impact for the very same reason! A lot of the game's best features are also locked behind meta upgrades - gives you a good reason to say "just one more run", but also runs the risk of not hooking you with the default offerings. Oh, and making use of the game's built in visibility settings to make your minions like 50% transparent is absolutely mandatory or else you just will not be able to see the map during the back half of a good run.
All that being said, I'm willing to overlook some of these gripes because of of the delightful Pokemon Gold & Silver ass soundfont that Boneraiser Minions is rockin. Looks good, sounds good, feels good - call that a three course meal babey.
I haven't even touched the entire other Conquest game mode, either. Lots to chew on here, like a dog to a bone. I'll be back at this like a bad rash til it bores me to death.
†: I'm specifically thinkin of "Freak Mode" here but I ain't linking it, that's for you to seek out on your own time.
The amount of mechanics and upgrades this game vomits up at you from minute one is ghastly, but once you learn to navigate the madness, you'll quickly see that this game's got the juice, like a rancid potato. The main appeal here is that Boneraiser Minions has you play as a paltry, defenseless necromancer, and you achieve bullet heaven ascendance by raising up undead minions to fend off the onslaught of full, flesh-having villagers who want you dead. Well, dead again. More dead than your current amount of dead, I guess.
This means that each round sees you running around dodging enemies and hoovering up bones to conjure up more ghouls and ghosts to stoke the fires of chaos. And boy howdy, there are a lot of different freaks and geeks to add to the horde. You've also got your passive upgrades and single use attack drops to keep the damage comin', which can snowball to the point where you're picking a new perk of some kind every 15 seconds or so once you've sustained some momentum.
The other twist on the formula is that you get to modify the map with contraptions reminiscent of tower defense games to give yourself a customized edge against the "meanies" that want you smote. When combined with the different classes of minions you can choose from, this leads to a deceptive amount of variety from run to run, especially once you unlock the different characters, New Game Plus for your runs, and the ability to upgrade passives. It all comes together to be a very satisfying gameplay experience despite the rotting corpses on the surface.
My only major criticism is that the synergies are sort of hard to intuitively feel since they're so divorced from your character. Similarly, leveling minions from level 1 -> 2 -> 3 has the same lack of impact for the very same reason! A lot of the game's best features are also locked behind meta upgrades - gives you a good reason to say "just one more run", but also runs the risk of not hooking you with the default offerings. Oh, and making use of the game's built in visibility settings to make your minions like 50% transparent is absolutely mandatory or else you just will not be able to see the map during the back half of a good run.
All that being said, I'm willing to overlook some of these gripes because of of the delightful Pokemon Gold & Silver ass soundfont that Boneraiser Minions is rockin. Looks good, sounds good, feels good - call that a three course meal babey.
I haven't even touched the entire other Conquest game mode, either. Lots to chew on here, like a dog to a bone. I'll be back at this like a bad rash til it bores me to death.
†: I'm specifically thinkin of "Freak Mode" here but I ain't linking it, that's for you to seek out on your own time.
MUST PLAY
Levantar muertos nunca fue tan divertido. Un roguelite simple de no atacar, solo esquivar y que tus seguidores hagan todo el trabajo duro. Tanta diversión por un precio tan económico es un REGALO.
Recomendado. ✔
Recomendado. ✔
It's fitting that a game with jokes about boners goes so hard
I think this is the most successful spin on the Vampire Survivors formula! It takes the core concepts of auto attacking and surviving until set time limits and introduces some really cool wrinkles by giving the player more to do on the levels, relegating weapons to AI-controlled minions, and making it that, often, your own character is extremely fragile.
This combination of choices means that, rather than upgrading to a point where you're just sitting in place waiting for everything to die, you're constantly maneuvering around to collect bones, interacting with the level, and avoiding taking damage while ensuring that your minions are clashing with the enemies chasing you.
Despite its goofy sense of humor, this game is incredibly clever in its design and there's a ton of depth and build flexibility due to the wealth of upgrade choices and characters. I also appreciate that it rarely has straight stat boosts as upgrades. Every upgrade that's hard-earned feels substantial to some extent.
The game's presentation is fun and colorful with hilarious lines and jokes and the overall aesthetic is fantastic. If I had any complaints, it would simply be that the game can become somewhat of a clusterfuck as things progress between the number of particles, enemies, and minions on screen. For a game like VS, this isn't a problem because you're often the source of the visual noise and it means you're winning. But here, that noise can make you lose track of things and end up dying when getting mauled by something you didn't realize was on top of you.
Despite that, I think this game is fantastic. It's fun, funny, bursting with stuff to do, and consistently demonstrates a strong understanding of design! I implore you all to go forth and raise thy boners!
Boneraiser Minions is one of the only survivor-likes to date that has brought an actual unique twist to an oversaturated subgenre. It doesn't just try to recapture another game's success and instead uses a strong core concept to build a wholly refreshing experience.
Highest recommend FFO: Vampire Survivors, tower defense games, and art with anarchic and punk sensibilities
I think this is the most successful spin on the Vampire Survivors formula! It takes the core concepts of auto attacking and surviving until set time limits and introduces some really cool wrinkles by giving the player more to do on the levels, relegating weapons to AI-controlled minions, and making it that, often, your own character is extremely fragile.
This combination of choices means that, rather than upgrading to a point where you're just sitting in place waiting for everything to die, you're constantly maneuvering around to collect bones, interacting with the level, and avoiding taking damage while ensuring that your minions are clashing with the enemies chasing you.
Despite its goofy sense of humor, this game is incredibly clever in its design and there's a ton of depth and build flexibility due to the wealth of upgrade choices and characters. I also appreciate that it rarely has straight stat boosts as upgrades. Every upgrade that's hard-earned feels substantial to some extent.
The game's presentation is fun and colorful with hilarious lines and jokes and the overall aesthetic is fantastic. If I had any complaints, it would simply be that the game can become somewhat of a clusterfuck as things progress between the number of particles, enemies, and minions on screen. For a game like VS, this isn't a problem because you're often the source of the visual noise and it means you're winning. But here, that noise can make you lose track of things and end up dying when getting mauled by something you didn't realize was on top of you.
Despite that, I think this game is fantastic. It's fun, funny, bursting with stuff to do, and consistently demonstrates a strong understanding of design! I implore you all to go forth and raise thy boners!
Boneraiser Minions is one of the only survivor-likes to date that has brought an actual unique twist to an oversaturated subgenre. It doesn't just try to recapture another game's success and instead uses a strong core concept to build a wholly refreshing experience.
Highest recommend FFO: Vampire Survivors, tower defense games, and art with anarchic and punk sensibilities
A pretty standard Vampire Survivors adjacent game, however it has some nice style and the variety of challenges kept me coming back. Finished the game but more achievements got added so I’ll probably be back when updates stop
They really made a roguelike for minion type gamers like me
Really good gameplay loop, its basically vampire survivors except you have upgradable minions autofight for you instead, which is fun! You can also edit the map to help you out a little. There's a really good base idea here and it could be pushed a lot further, i know the dev is only one guy but moving this game from 2D to 3D somehow could be really good.
Really good gameplay loop, its basically vampire survivors except you have upgradable minions autofight for you instead, which is fun! You can also edit the map to help you out a little. There's a really good base idea here and it could be pushed a lot further, i know the dev is only one guy but moving this game from 2D to 3D somehow could be really good.