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Bone To Pick's itch.io pageResults
| Criteria | Rank | Score* | Raw Score |
| Overall | #1 | 4.778 | 4.778 |
| Did it build on the Havoc Engine and add interesting stuff? | #1 | 4.778 | 4.778 |
| Did it make good use of the Havoc Engine? | #1 | 4.667 | 4.667 |
| Does the game seem fun to play? | #2 | 4.889 | 4.889 |
Ranked from 9 ratings. Score is adjusted from raw score by the median number of ratings per game in the jam.
Judge feedback
Judge feedback is anonymous.
- If I could give this 6/5s I would. Your writing's so crisp and clean, and you pack so much into a very compact game. Genuinely wonderful work.
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Comments
This game makes me want to raise from the dead and enact vengeance against my enemies. I think this game is very charming, has lots of potential for funny moments. The dice mechanics are very simple to understand and the added bones are a plus. I find it hilarious that the most inconvenient option when determining tie breakers determines the tie. I also like how the skeleton with the personal vendetta is the one to destroy their enemy and not the other skeletons. I think this makes it fair for them. I think the fact that each skeleton can use 32 teeth to reroll any roll to be both overpowered but extremely hilarious. The fracture mechanic is also very interesting to me, it seems very easy to get a fracture but at the same time, we are but bony creatures. Overall, I would love to play this with my friends next time!
Thanks a bunch for the comment! That means a lot to me :D
I hope you get a chance to try it out with your friends, let me know how it goes if you do!
This just looks like a romp. Love it, want to play.
I love that the game is competitive, but in a kind of parallel-competitive fashion. You're not battling each other, but everyone is trying to win (though the note of "whatever that means" is incredible).
The aesthetic and the ideas behind the game are great and everything is well thought out and hangs together really well.
If I need to suggest any room for improvement, it feels like it's edging away from an RPG into a something of a board game with RPG elements. That's not all of it a bad thing, but I think there are areas where maybe you can pull back on the "gameness" of it a little and lean into more robust storytelling elements. A lot of that will come down to how the game is played in the wild, but it is a sense that I have looking at the system as presented.
Thanks for the kinds words! So happy to hear you enjoyed reading and even want to play it!
I kinda leaned into the board-gamey elements intentionally on this, because I want it to be very approachable as a party game that anyone could play. A board game with roleplaying elements is much easier to pitch to a group of friends on a random evening I'd say than a roleplaying session ;)
Man, there is so much lateral thinking going on here. If I talked about every mechanic I thought was cool, I'd write like a page-long comment, lol. The idea of Havoc as a competitive rather than a cooperative game is fascinating. I found voting on turn order really interesting as well. The skeletons are so mechanically distinct, every one of them has an amazing amount of creative ideas and hacks crammed in there. The basic rules are concise and straightforward, with really great retheming of the Havoc mechanics, but I did have a couple of confusions; first, are the skeletons rolling a vendetta for every NPC they meet, or just the ones they roll for when entering new locations? And second, how is it determined which NPC is rolled? They're not numbered.
Awesome derivative work with the public domain art. I love memento mori/danse macabre pictures.
Thanks a bunch :D Your compliments mean a lot!
The skeletons roll a vendetta for each person they meet, regardless if they or someone else rolled up the NPC. So lots of shared NPCs that have interwoven stories with the skeletons.
And just go with your gut when you roll for the NPC! I do top to bottom, left to right but whatever makes sense. You could also just pick one that sounds cool, I can't stop you XD
This was one of my favorite games to watch evolve in Discord. The theme and humor is just delightful and instantly pulled me in. Then you've added layout and artwork that fit perfectly, mechanics that are simple and fit the theme perfectly, characters that are distinct, delightful, and have their own freaking win conditions, and a set of NPCs/locations that are far more evocative than the word count would imply.
It's annoyingly good. Really well done, but jeez, stop making the rest of us look bad!
Thanks a bunch that means a lot!
I'm super happy that the humour lands, as I kinda just write what i think is funny, so was scared it would fall flat lol.
Again thank you so much! This made my morning :D
Followed along with the development of this one and have been hyped for it! As others said this one has so many cool mechanics and feels like it would be my favorite kind of silly fun to play. Only thing I wasn’t a hundred percent sure about is the teeth mechanic. Am I understanding correctly that you can spend a success to gain a tooth EtR style, and you can use a tooth to reroll everything except for 6s and 1s? That seems like it would spiral into a lot of re-rolling unless I’m missing something.
Over all this looks like a blast to play
Yep you can get a tooth same way as blood in EtR, but players have so many more things they need to work on, that in practice, teeth are pretty rare to get from spending successes. Also because of the number of abilities that take teeth, rerolling is a second option that players will fall back on in struggles. (its much more efficient to use Curse for example than using teeth to reroll)
Happy you like it though! I appreciate the kind words :D
Such a great use of the Havoc system and so well written. Enjoyed each of the characters flavour text and unique game wining specialties. 32 teeth as a limit, nice.
I was not completely sure I understood how the skeleton voting bit would work but happy to find out when playing. Also would love a little more inter conflict in vendettas/rewards between skeletons. I like that everyone is racing towards their goal, but keep thinking about how skeletons interact with each other, entering locations where each other are. Feels like it could be fun but perhaps a different game.
This jumped to the top of games I'll take to my next play session. I know it's going to be so much fun, thank you for making this and sharing it!
Yay thank you! I 'm happy to hear you enjoyed reading and want to play it! Let me know how it goes if you end up trying it out in play :D
This is so good it's annoying me. The text is so well written. The art is perfect. The mechanics are great.
Here's some stream of consciousness notes I took:
The one thing that I see that I think may be tough to handle at the table is that there isn't really a reason for skeletons to play as a group. Seems more like a game where every character is an island and doing their own things. I think I'd like to see some kind of challenge that encourages characters to work together to accomplish something.
But all told, this was a delightful game and I can't wait to give it a shot.
WOW! Thanks a bunch!
This whole review means a lot to me I'm so happy to see someone really enjoying it!
During development me and my girlfriend also couldn't stop laughing at the sword of thirteen, but we have no idea why it's so funny. XD
Everything you complimented is stuff i worked quite hard on making fun and enjoyable so i'm super glad to hear that it presents that way!
The game is meant to be a bit of a competition so everyone being off on their own is part of it.
During play, we found that with the mix of voting + everyone having the same NPCs, players were VERY invested in other people's turns, as they found out what weird web of vendettas was created. It does look odd from the outside, i had the same worries, but when we played it, wow it gets funny.
Thank you again SO MUCH for the kind review, you made my day :D