One of the little underrated things that make Boneworks even better (in a nutshell – praising Boneworks and complaining about Bonelab).

I gotta start this off with the fact that I was INSANELY INSANELY hyped and then INSANELY INSANELY INSANELY disappointed with Bonelab since I expected SLZ to build upon Boneworks, which is one of my favourite games of all time now. Instead, the PC players got a worse, fully downgraded version of Boneworks in almost every aspect, an incoherent, inconsistent, blurry and buggy mess (at least in my opinion/experience). The best parts of Boneworks besides the revolutionary for VR gameplay were the soundtrack and atmosphere. Labjams, even though not as coherent as Bonetones, still sounds phenomenal. Wyckoff went all out. The atmosphere on the other hand is pretty dogshit in Bonelab. In Boneworks you truly felt like you were in an abandoned virtual reality oasis/facility, it was beyond immersive. All of the buildings were absolutely towering over you. Weird texts on walls made you feel like something hostile was with you all the time. Boneworks elevated artificial loneliness to another level for me. I’ve never felt this uneasy and lonely in a game. Which brings me to the title of this post…

Because of my disappointment, I decided to finally give up on Bonelab and reinstall Boneworks. MY GOD does it feel so much better to play, it’s crazy. The physics, the visuals, the world, the atmosphere, the level design, it’s all heavenly.

I am right now replaying the Boneworks story and I noticed an amazing little underrated thing. The importance of the monomat and the radio.

Bonelab didn’t have monomats and the radio was much rarer than in Boneworks. And if the radio was there, I didn’t carry it with me, because of a simple reason. Bonelab had a terrible atmosphere, like I said before. It was a bloomy, colorful mix with no scary moments. I didn’t feel the need to carry the radio with me, I didn’t get attached to the radio song.

In Boneworks on the other hand, the atmosphere made me shit my pants sometimes, especially the sewer level. I got attached to the radio, because I carried it with me a lot of the time. Hearing “Pick it Up” from far away was just the biggest relief. For that reason, when I’m listening to “Put it Down” from the Labjams, I don’t… feel much. But when I’m listening to “Pick it Up” from Bonetones, I start remembering Boneworks. Both of these songs are great, but a simple little thing like this can ruin a song. Also, the monomats that were obsolete in Bonelab, but were present in Boneworks made me listen to “Monomat Jingle” really often since the monomats also felt like a huge relief, so much fighting, weirdness, creepiness and suddenly you see a monomat and you hear the little jingle while buying some new items. Even though I have played the game for the first time not long ago, I feel nostalgic when I’m listening to the jingle.

The entirety of Boneworks is indescribable like Portal, I just wanna praise the game more.

That’s all, I wanted to share a little detail that helps make Boneworks so awesome. Also, just wanted to complain more about Bonelab lol (but if you enjoyed Bonelab, I’d absolutely love to hear your opinion in the comments).