My positive Steam review of Bonelab

As a big Boneworks fan it’s great to jump right in and feel at home with Bonelab. Ever since I heard Stress Level Zero speak at VidCon in 2018, it’s been cool to see their team pushing VR forward. But is Bonelab a step in the right direction? I waited 1.5 years to play through it, so let’s find out.

PROS

• Amazing physics system lets you interact with all sorts of objects and climb / jump through levels in multiple ways
• Level 1 through the first part of Level 4 (Mine Dive) are amazing and classic SLZ adventure. Level 3 a.k.a. Long Run is super cool – loved riding the train to the end of the tunnel, finding the exit closed and then realizing I would need to solve the puzzles in the catwalks above me to progress back. The rolling ball puzzles are really cool too.
• Level 13 (Ascent) through Level 15 (Ending) conclude the game with a bang and bring the story full circle. Payoff with the “wishing well lift” and seeing the Fantasyland village
• Fun to finally see Jimmy as a friendly NPC
• Music is awesome, Michael Wyckoff knocks it out of the park again. Favorites include Bonelight Sonata, Stargrid, Would You Even Know, Hub Stations, Fistfight Fugue, On Da Moon, Turn Around, Funky Park, It Do Be Groovin, Sunday in the Park, Back To The Lab, Put It Down, Welcome Home, and that one that plays in the rocket kiddie ride
• Being able to pop open the Gacha capsules and have those items added to your collection right away is a huge improvement over Bonework’s bin disposal system
• Climbing up onto platforms is so much easier
• Narrative is fun and intriguing

CONS

• Interactivity on Level 4 could be adjusted. I loved the queue and the loading station and the little dashboard cage that helped you with which way was up, but it just didn’t feel like I had very much input after the ride got going. Maybe the mine cart could hit a roadblock switch and not progress until you’ve shot all the nearby targets. Or there could be an enemy in the neighboring mine cart that you have to take out before they get you. If not, the laser on the attached gun could just turn off so you could sit back and enjoy the ride.
• Level 5 through Level 12 feel like forced tutorials, they drop you into mini scenarios without context and don’t let you approach the level how you want to.
• Pop culture shoutouts are hit-and-miss, sometimes they work (Indiana Jones ride boarding station made me laugh, synthwave room was a bop, Portal hydraulic lifts are fun to ride) but other times feel forced and out-of-place (Half Life 2 bridge with gunship, John Williams soundalike music for mine ride, Matrix hallway battle). The direct inspiration is more distracting when the scenes are less connected to the game’s own narrative, or just go on for a little too long, or aren’t different enough from the original material.
• Sometimes music overlaps, like with the radios, or when you’re at the Body Mart in the Lab with both the hub themes and mart music playing instead of one taking precedence. Music also sometime ends abruptly when going through a doorway instead of gradually transitioning / fading. Also felt like “My Control” shouldn’t have looped as many times as it did, it’s an awesome song, but I guess I just took a long time on that section and maybe adding another ambient track in between each loop would’ve helped me feel less dumb haha
• Fighting the more humanoid NPCs still feels wrong. I wish the speaking characters wouldn’t attack me unless provoked. It’s possible to run away from the villagers at the end but you have to fight the corporate cops in Level 6 to advance at all, which I think is a bummer. I loved the friendly Ford NPCs from Boneworks and thought it would’ve been cool if you could’ve rounded up some more peeps to take with you to the Void.
• My VR setup might just be getting old at 5 years now, but the Vive wand controllers had a hard time with grabbing things as Tall Guy. Had to go into the settings and fiddle with my locomotion setup and height. Maybe they could have another way to break the Gacha capsules if you can only get one arm working – like there could be a suction cup near the stand that you pull the capsule apart from? Or you could throw it on the ground three times, or smash it with a hammer. Also took me a sec to figure out I had to tap, not click, the trackpad to accelerate in the go-kart. I kept ejecting myself from the vehicle but I guess that one’s on me, haha.
• Was hard to tell when I was crouching, as that would prevent me from jumping properly. Maybe briefly clicking the movement stick could make you jump and stand back up, no matter what height you were at

IDEAS

• Tie together the mid-game individual levels. I loved ending Level 3 and seeing a preview of Level 4 ahead in the tunnel before the loading screen hits. Gives you something to think about and look forward to while the game loads. More continuity as if you’re moving through one digital zone to the next adjacent one would be great. The “fade out” after opening the avatar Gacha just feels forced, like the game is taking you somewhere else without your input. Would be great if each level had an entrance and an exit, preferably in different spots from each other. Even just extending the elevator shaft to the ceiling would make it feel like I was going from one level to the next instead of teleporting. If you removed all the loading screens, would players be able to map out the journey the character goes on through the spaces?
• Make it easier to turn the go-kart over when you’ve flipped it, like maybe there’s a button on the bottom that auto-rights it. Being able to play as a stronger character on this level would help
• Let players choose which avatar they want to play as for the whole experience, adding possible options to switch between as they go. Feels jarring when the game is telling you “play how you want to” while also forcing you to play as certain avatars. It’s like “think outside the box, the way we want you to” for a bit. Should be adding options as you go, not taking them away. It’s really fun to switch between the different avatars for different sections (like using the tall guy for monkey bars across poison, short alien for sewer tunnels) but that switching ability isn’t really available till the last 3 levels. I also don’t think the mirrors are a great idea, it makes me feel less connected to the avatar. I appreciate that you can tell the avatar apart just by their arms or your height. Also, adding color to the avatar-switching watch holograms would be a great way to tell them apart quickly too!

As far as VR games with Lab in the title go, we’ve come a long way since Valve’s The Lab. I believe Bonelab is a step in the right direction, it’s just so big of a step that some of the little details that would’ve tied it all together slip through the cracks. Still, the game had so many awesome moments, like unplugging a giant bathtub drain with a remote crane, climbing through digital treetop platforms, and pushing boulders down ramps. I recommend it to any VR gamer.