Boneraiser Minions - A Master Class in ASS
Boneraiser Minions is the best game in the ASS genre (Auto Shooter Survival - shout out to Jeff Gerstman for coining that acronym!) I have played in a long time. Rather than your character being the focus of your attacks you are a necromancer that is summoning a variety of minions and combining those summons to create even stronger boners. Unlocking new minions is a hilarious experience, the names and designs are chef’s kiss PERFECT, look no further than the Giant Potussy Bro. Yes, I am a child.
On top of all the boners you can raise, a massive library of spells and relics are at your disposal that define your run. You plow through a vast variety of guards, villagers, beasts, and bosses all hurling themselves at you, creating a fucked up bullet hell. Collect these peasants' bones and loot their corpses to grow your necromancer army into a beautiful monstrosity. Eventually, you will fall, and as you fail runs you return to your hub to level up your powers, unlock new classes, and more. If you are a seasoned ASS game enjoyer all of this seems pretty bog standard. You run around, collect a resource to level up your duder, die, rinse, and repeat and that is true of this game! But! Boneraisers Minions by Caiys has something special to offer.
From the jump, the game feels small and maybe a bit slow, but as systems unfold you start to see it blossom into an engaging game. Starting with the tech trees, you can beef up your classes with souls that you spend to unlock upgrades that provide unique features. There are also a variety of classes that play differently and require you to completely change your play style. For example, the shamelessly named “Vampire Survivor” class has you running head first into enemies rather than only letting your minions fight for you. I won’t spoil what every class does, exploring them and figuring out the best strategies along with the sheer variety is one of the main reasons I am returning to Boneraisers to this day.
As you level up, you will naturally want more of a challenge. To crank things up you unlock new waves of haters from the surrounding villages to swarm your graveyard. Adding these new enemies will pick up the pace, allowing you to ramp up in power much faster. You can also change your playing field to increase the difficulty and get more rewards. Spells and relics you can pick up will also throw more enemies your way. It's a hell of a feeling to build up momentum by finding a Wanted Poster or a Summoning Totem to summon more enemies, slaughtering whatever comes your way, and getting even more ahead of the difficulty curve. I can appreciate the amount of control the developer gives you when it comes to the difficulty.
Another way the developer puts matters into your hands is by customizing your playing field with Architect Mode. There are a plethora of different types of tombstones, traps, and totems all affecting different aspects of your game. Dying too quickly? Throw down some boulders to reduce incoming damage. Wanting to do a Flam Bro-focused build? Throw down some Possed Lamp Posts and a Possessed Royal Lampelier to increase your minion cap and increase the chances of getting a Flam Bro minion. I have come to love setting up traps next to wells that return HP to me when humans die near them allowing me to have auto-generated hearts. It feels rewarding to come up with a graveyard configuration that works best for you and what style you are shooting for.
As you master the default game mode you unlock New Game + which starts you over from the beginning with all of the items you have collected. This is where things get insane and the difficulty kicks in, forcing you to consider builds and make smarter decisions. If that is not enough content for you though Boneraisers throws even more variety your way with different modes, Castle Conquest being my favorite of the bunch. In Castel Conquest, you pick varying paths on your way to fight “Queen Gigalicious”. These paths make you balance between choosing harder stages for more rewards or easier stages to survive. This is a completely different way to approach the game and I love it. Let's say you want a real change of pace try playing Clashful Cards.. a fucking CARD GAME! Want an endless mode? We got that. Player-made custom modes? SURE! The variety and depth that is packed into this five-dollar game is beyond impressive. It is truly a full experience. Something that other ASS games feel like they are lacking a lot of the time.
Boneraisers Minions has a lot of soul. It is clear that Caiys put a ton of love into this project with its creator’s charm shining through in its incredible pixel artwork and hilarious shit-post writing style. There is not much more that I can ask out of it. In a stacked 2023 I find myself returning to this game, and for good reason. Do yourself a favor and pick up this damn game.
ヽ༼ຈل͜ຈ༽ﾉ Raise those BONERSヽ༼ຈل͜ຈ༽ﾉ
Support developers and thank you for reading.
I would love to raise those boners ヽ༼ຈل͜ຈ༽ﾉ