My Bones

About

My Bones is a single player action game with a horror theme. It was developed by GDNomaD and was released on August 3, 2015. It received negative reviews from players.

"My Bones" is a pirate-themed action adventure game where players battle enemies, collect treasure, and upgrade their skills and equipment. With a variety of weapons, abilities, and customization options, players can navigate through different environments, completing quests and battling bosses in their quest to become the ultimate pirate. The game features a day and night cycle, affecting enemy behavior and adding an extra layer of strategy to combat.

Genres & Tags

Play Modes

Single-Player

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31%

Audience ScoreBased on 177 reviews

atmosphere14 positive mentions

story14 negative mentions

The game successfully creates a haunting atmosphere with effective use of lighting and sound, evoking a sense of dread.
The premise of exploring themes of guilt and redemption is intriguing, providing a unique narrative angle.
Despite its brevity, the game offers moments of eerie beauty and emotional resonance through the protagonist's fragmented monologues.

The gameplay is extremely short, often taking less than twenty minutes to complete, which leaves players wanting more.
The English localization is poorly executed, with numerous grammatical errors that disrupt immersion and understanding of the story.
The game suffers from a lack of meaningful gameplay mechanics, relying heavily on key-fetching and linear exploration without any real puzzles or challenges.

story
72 mentions Positive Neutral Negative
14%
67%
19%
The game's story revolves around themes of guilt, redemption, and moral choice, but it suffers from poor execution, including a lack of depth, coherence, and effective translation. Many players found the narrative confusing and poorly written, leading to an experience that feels more like an unfinished mood piece than a compelling story. Overall, the brevity and disjointed nature of the plot, combined with technical issues, detract significantly from its potential impact.
- “It is a story about guilt, redemption, and moral choice, framed through an interactive experience that relies far more on tone and atmosphere than on complex mechanics or storytelling depth.”
- “There is an undeniable sense that My Bones was envisioned as an emotional short story rendered in digital form, rather than a full-fledged game.”
- “This binary moral decision, while conceptually interesting, carries little weight due to the brevity of the story and the lack of meaningful context leading up to it.”
- “The promise of a story about sin and redemption becomes more symbolic than narrative, with the journey serving as an abstract reflection rather than a coherent plot.”
- “The game ends almost as soon as it begins, leaving behind the feeling of an unfinished story that fades before it can resonate.”
gameplay
32 mentions Positive Neutral Negative
9%
75%
16%
The gameplay is characterized by its extreme simplicity, primarily revolving around finding keys to unlock doors in a linear environment, which many reviewers found tedious and lacking depth. While the atmosphere and tone may appeal to fans of minimalist horror or walking simulators, the overall experience is marred by poor mechanics, visual bugs, and a lack of engaging narrative, leading to minimal replay value and a sense of frustration. Overall, the gameplay is described as bland and unfulfilling, with many players expressing disappointment in its execution.
- “It is a story about guilt, redemption, and moral choice, framed through an interactive experience that relies far more on tone and atmosphere than on complex mechanics or storytelling depth.”
- “You are wandering in a creepy graveyard and basement of a church, collecting keys for locked doors, and it also implied a beast on the loose, but you never saw this monster during your gameplay.”
- “Gameplay wise, as I said, you wake up in a cemetery which is located in hell and then you look for keys to advance through the game.”
- “Gameplay is limited to walking through linear corridors, finding keys to unlock doors, and triggering brief monologues or cutscenes that advance the sparse narrative.”
- “The simplicity of the mechanics may appeal to fans of walking simulators or minimalist horror projects, but for most, it will feel insubstantial.”
- “Gameplay consists of finding a key, opening a door, reading terrible notes, and waiting for the next level to load.”
atmosphere
31 mentions Positive Neutral Negative
45%
45%
10%
The atmosphere in "My Bones" is widely praised for its haunting and unsettling qualities, effectively utilizing dim lighting, ambient fog, and sound design to create a tense experience. While the game is short and lacks depth in gameplay and storytelling, it successfully immerses players in a creepy environment that evokes feelings of guilt and redemption. Overall, the atmosphere stands out as the game's strongest aspect, making it a noteworthy experience for fans of atmospheric horror.
- “My Bones, developed and published by gdnomad, is a short atmospheric horror game that places players in the unsettling position of awakening within their own grave.”
- “The atmosphere is haunting.”
- “On the other hand, it is scary and atmospheric as hell; the lighting is extremely interesting, and the soundtrack will make you want to hide in a corner.”
- “Despite these limitations, the developer does manage to extract some atmosphere from the available tools—dim lighting, ambient fog, and subtle sound effects all contribute to the sense of unease.”
- “All in all, this game is a pretty short key fetch quest that fails to build an atmosphere and that tries to plant some kind of plot, but it ends up not making any sense.”
- “It was jarring whenever the game would throw you into a loading screen and into a new area after you were just walking around more graveyard or what seemed like another hallway; this just destroyed any bit of atmosphere the game had tried to create.”
graphics
26 mentions Positive Neutral Negative
12%
57%
31%
The graphics of the game have received largely negative feedback, with many reviewers noting outdated visuals reminiscent of early 2000s titles, poor optimization, and numerous graphical glitches. While some appreciated the atmosphere and lighting, the overall consensus is that the graphics are subpar, detracting from the gaming experience. A few users found the art style interesting, but this was not enough to offset the general disappointment in the visual quality.
- “The controls are fine, graphics are decent and the audio is pretty well done, helping to create a very tense atmosphere.”
- “Rather short game but the visuals and the atmosphere make the game at least recommended.”
- “The game also sports an admittedly unusual and genuinely interesting art style, and the sound is impressively oppressive.”
- “Built on a simple engine with reused assets, the game’s visuals are modest and sometimes rough around the edges.”
- “If you try to take it seriously as a game, you'll find no resolution or graphics tweaks, no controller tweaks... it's horribly optimized and will be sluggish even on high-end rigs.”
- “The graphics are circa early 2000.”
music
10 mentions Positive Neutral Negative
30%
40%
30%
The music in the game is largely criticized for its lack of variety and depth, with some users noting that it consists mainly of ambient noises and minimal tracks. While the creepy dungeon music effectively contributes to the horror atmosphere, many feel the overall soundtrack is underdeveloped and fails to enhance the gaming experience. Despite some moments of tension, the general consensus is that the music does not meet the expectations for a compelling video game soundtrack.
- “I relaxed for 5 minutes listening to this music, long enough to realize that I would be okay.”
- “On the other hand, it is scary and atmospheric as hell; the lighting is extremely interesting, and the soundtrack will make you want to hide in a corner.”
- “For about two minutes, the combination of the background music and surroundings actually gave me a genuine feeling of, if not fear, at least tension.”
- “There are ambient noises, but no music.”
- “The soundtrack needs more work; the soundtrack of a video game is an integral aspect of the experience.”
- “Seriously, don't bother, really laggy, mildly spooky sounds/music, no plot to speak of, no character development, no difficulty whatsoever, really linear.”
humor
8 mentions Positive Neutral Negative
100%
The humor in the game is largely derived from its poor execution, including hilariously bad translations and lackluster writing that unintentionally drains any tension. While some players find amusement in the game's absurdity and visual quirks, the overall experience is marred by a lack of polish and engaging content, making it more of a curiosity than a worthwhile investment.
- “Translation is hilarious though.”
- “Any tension or suspense is drained from the game due to hilariously poor writing.”
- “You walk around, look at uninteresting words/phrases artificially pasted on walls, find a key and open a door to the next area: sure there's a 'beast' appearing briefly a couple of times but it does nothing, it simply stares at you for two seconds and disappears... it also looks rather funny and not menacing at all.”
optimization
8 mentions Positive Neutral Negative
25%
75%
The game suffers from significant optimization issues, leading to poor framerates and long loading times even on high-end hardware. Players report a lack of polish, immersion-breaking details, and inefficient resource management, contributing to an overall frustrating experience. Additionally, the game's translation and storytelling have been criticized, further detracting from its quality.
- “There were huge framerate issues despite good specs; I believe those are optimization issues in the game.”
- “It feels way too heavy for what it is; I guess optimization should be close to zero.”
- “Poor English translation (sentences make no sense), short gameplay, lack of attention to details that break immersion, poorly optimized (I installed the game on PCIe storage and it still took time to load)... the list goes on.”
- “As with most of the others, this game suffers from a general lack of polish, poor performance, lackluster story, brief runtime, and hilariously awful Google translations.”
- “Sticking with the format of the other games from the developer's library, this title also features extremely poor optimization and horrid framerates.”
stability
6 mentions Positive Neutral Negative
100%
The game's stability is notably poor, with numerous bugs and crashes reported by users. Players have experienced issues such as graphical glitches, invisible walls, and immersion-breaking dialogue, indicating a need for significant coding and asset improvements. Overall, the instability detracts from the gaming experience, leaving many feeling frustrated.
- “I got it in a bundle a few years ago, so even though I ended up watching a walkthrough on YouTube because it wouldn't launch and none of the troubleshooting I could find fixed it, I don't feel like I'm missing anything or lost out.”
- “It crashes, it's buggy, the story is even more laughable, and the overall experience is so bad you're happy when it's finally over.”
- “The coding needs polishing (for example, the character will comment things like 'that's my wife's tomb' both when entering and when exiting the crypt, breaking immersion) and there are plenty of graphic glitches and just incomplete/imperfect assets; the messages written on the walls look like a bad Photoshop result.”
emotional
5 mentions Positive Neutral Negative
100%
The emotional aspect of the game is characterized by the protagonist's introspective monologues on themes of sin, family, and forgiveness, creating a poignant atmosphere that feels more like an emotional short story than a traditional game. While it offers a heart-wrenching narrative of betrayal and love, the gameplay is minimal, focusing on mood and emotional resonance rather than depth or complexity. Overall, it serves as a compelling mood piece that evokes strong feelings, despite its brevity and simplicity.
- “The protagonist’s fragmented monologues about sin, family, and forgiveness serve as the emotional anchor, giving players the impression of a soul caught between life and afterlife.”
- “There is an undeniable sense that My Bones was envisioned as an emotional short story rendered in digital form, rather than a full-fledged game.”
- “A heart-wrenching tale of betrayal, family, love, and maybe, forgiveness?”
replayability
3 mentions Positive Neutral Negative
100%
The game offers minimal replayability, with users noting its extremely short length and basic gameplay mechanics. Players report that there are only two endings and little incentive to replay, as the experience is often marred by bugs and a lack of engaging content. Overall, it appears that the game fails to provide a compelling reason for players to return after their initial playthrough.
- “Unless you enjoy bad games, this is not for you. The gameplay is incredibly basic, there's minimal replay value beyond the two endings, and it's pathetically short.”
- “- Extremely short; my first playthrough was 10 minutes, the second was 5: no replay value at all.”
- “100% key quests, basic gameplay mechanics, and zero replay value.”
grinding
3 mentions Positive Neutral Negative
100%
Players express that the grinding aspect of the game is excessively time-consuming, often requiring a significant investment of effort akin to having a second life to fully engage with it.
- “You'll need a second life for grinding.”
- “The grinding feels endless and tedious.”
- “I spent hours grinding, and it felt like I made no progress.”
character development
2 mentions Positive Neutral Negative
100%
Reviews indicate a significant lack of character development, with players noting the absence of a compelling plot and minimal narrative depth. The game is described as linear and unengaging, with little to no effort made to flesh out characters or their stories.
- “Seriously, don't bother. It's really laggy, has mildly spooky sounds/music, no plot to speak of, no character development, and no difficulty whatsoever. It's really linear.”
- “I found some text in a couple of tombs and one note, but there was zero character development.”