Demo unholstered for Dancing Bones

• Announcements by Sam Amiotte-Beaulieu
• Published:

Wild West meets ancient magic in semi-open-world adventure saddling up soon on Steam

Fantastical spells and rip-roaring shootouts sound like a curious combination to tackle, but the upcoming Dancing Bones by indie developer Lotter takes aims to take cowpokes on a journey where “dusty Wild West towns intertwine with the ancient mysteries of Mesoamerican magic.”

Hoping to live a quiet life in the frontier town of Moonfish, Tony, an “oddball cowboy with a dark past,” is making ends meet while trying to take care of his sister Abby, who unknowingly has been “cursed by a powerful magician.” When Mackenzie, a “spoiled but powerful sorceress” barges into Tony’s house after detecting a sinister magical aura, she offers to help him search for a cure to save his sister. To succeed they must go up against powerful anti-magic groups and ruthless outlaws while unearthing lost knowledge from ancient civilizations on a “dangerous journey full of mystical secrets and deadly trials.” 

Dancing Bones drops players into a cel-shaded, semi-open 3D world populated by 2D cartoon characters, in an alternate nineteenth-century western where magic and the supernatural are real. Stepping directly into the first-person boots of Tony, you’ll travel from boundless deserts and canyons to ramshackle towns and villages dotted across the Wild West environment via keyboard and mouse. There you’ll perform a wide variety of tasks, from cleaning up cobwebs to picking flies off a cheese wedge while digging up leads to help break Abby’s curse.

In each location you will interact and build relationships with all sorts of characters, be they sorcerers, ghouls, or regular old house cats. In this game, “every choice you make changes the story,” and the path you take is up to you. Adding a degree of lite roleplaying to the adventure, selections made in dialogue will affect Tony’s character stats that shape your personal play style. For example, the “Secret Listener” skill allows Tony to “masterfully blend into any town gossip” and use that knowledge to his advantage. Some choices in non-linear scenarios have much more serious consequences, however, as throughout the journey you will need to pick sides at times, with your decisions leading to one of twelve unique endings.

No date has been set quite yet for the saloon doors of Dancing Bones to fully open, but a sizable Windows PC demo is available now on Steam for any gunslingers and/or spellcasters eager to take a first look.

• Advertisement
• Help support AGH by advertising with us