$19.99STASIS: BONE TOTEM Horror at the bottom of the Pacific
Their latest find, an abandoned rig in the Pacific, hides a secret the Cayne Corporation would kill to keep buried. A dark point-and-click horror adventure where you switch between a husband, a wife and a hacking teddy bear, piecing together what happened at the bottom of the ocean.
Is STASIS: BONE TOTEM worth it?
STASIS: BONE TOTEM is worth it if…
- you like slow, atmospheric horror that builds through documents and environment rather than chases
- you enjoy point-and-click adventures with real puzzles and a cast you switch between
- you want a dark sci-fi story about a couple, a corporation and something very old under the sea
- you have a soft spot for sarcastic teddy bears with elite hacking skills
Screenshots
Three heads are better than one
You play three characters at once, and each has a job. Charlie is the engineer: she combines and repairs. Moses, their Super-Toy, looks like a plush bear and hacks like a professional.
Switching between them becomes the rhythm of the game, and the banter between a married couple and their sarcastic bear is a big part of why it works.
A descent that keeps getting worse
It starts as a job. Then they find the reinforced doors, the hastily abandoned equipment, the bodies arranged in ways bodies should not be arranged. An accident seals them in, and the only way out is down, through a massive underwater facility where something went very wrong.
The horror builds slowly. Logs, terminals and drawings left behind tell you what happened here, and the answer involves biomedical experiments, a corporation that treats its workers as material, and something ancient at the bottom of it all. The body horror is graphic and the tone is bleak, but the story at its core is about a marriage holding together under pressure, and it lands harder than you expect.
Reading your way to the truth
Nobody hands you the plot here. The rig and the labs below are a crime scene, and you investigate it the slow way: reading crew logs, checking terminals, studying the illustrations on the walls, matching what one note says against what another contradicts. The story comes out in pieces, and the pieces only fit if you pay attention.
The puzzles work the same way. Clues hide in documents and in the rooms themselves, and a few solutions ask you to look closely at what the environment is telling you rather than trying items at random. If you like the part of a mystery where the picture assembles itself in your head, this is the game's core loop. Skim the logs and you will still finish it; read them and you will understand what you are walking through.
What should you know before playing?
Do you need to play the earlier STASIS games first?
No. BONE TOTEM tells a new story with a new cast, and it stands on its own. It shares a universe with the earlier STASIS games, so returning players will catch a few extra references, but nothing essential. If the setting hooks you, the earlier games are there when you finish.
How scary is it, really?
It is dark and disturbing rather than constantly frightening. The body horror is graphic, the tone is oppressive, and the story goes to genuinely unpleasant places. But there is little in the way of action or pursuit: the dread comes from what you read and what you see, not from something chasing you. If gore and cruelty on screen put you off, know that the game does not hold back.
What happens if your character dies?
It will happen, often on purpose. The game stages elaborate death scenes for all three characters, then simply rewinds a few seconds and lets you try again, with no penalty. Some players make a hobby of finding every ridiculous way to die. The game does not judge.
