Skeler Boy review

• Reviews by Drew Onia
• Published:

What it lacks in originality, this pixel art thriller makes up in creepy homage to its horror cinema forebears

Skeler Boy proudly wears its inspirations on its sleeve. Charming as these odes can be, however, this retro-styled pixel art action-adventure doesn’t wear much else. The game is very clearly a love letter to developer Maniac Boy’s experience as a gamer, straddling the line between homage and original work. As a result, it never fully finds a voice of its own, and its original content is notably underdeveloped. And yet, though the game is more or less a series of disjointed pieces frankensteined together, Skeler Boy nevertheless makes for an enjoyable, albeit slightly unfulfilling, thriller.

The game opens with the titular Skeler driving to visit his girlfriend, Megan, after receiving a troubling message from her. He runs out of gas, ironically right next to a gas station, but opts to walk the remaining few blocks on foot. Upon arriving, he finds his girlfriend’s house is empty. Signs of foul play inside quickly prompt Skeler to begin scouring the town for where she may have gone.

Megan’s neighbor Sven offers to help Skeler in his search, giving him a radio so that they can stay in touch, and Sven’s calls act as the main direction in the game guiding Skeler to his next clue. Sven’s eagerness sets an immediate tone of suspicion, of course, and players will likely question whether this quest is manufactured or authentic. The trail of clues, like letters Megan has left behind, paint a picture of a deeply troubled and dramatic young love between her and Skeler, and it’s an intriguing enough plot to push you through to the conclusion, even if that conclusion is ultimately underwhelming, prompting comparisons to Jacob’s Ladder.

Skeler must navigate the town at night, circumventing blocked paths, finding keys to locked doors, and getting help from newfound friends in order to track down Megan. Though the streets are inconspicuous at first, there is an underlying eeriness to everything, and seemingly supernatural elements begin creeping in once you venture beyond, and below, the town. Campgrounds, farmland, swamps, service tunnels, and a deserted mansion all bring more questions into play, although things do jump around quite a bit thematically. A witch’s domain in the woods, for example, presents a set of several challenges, but her role in the overarching plot is more or less inconsequential. This holds true for several other secondary characters as well, whose roles rarely serve as more than signpost or quest giver.

There’s some action and a few short-lived stealth sequences to contend with to survive this adventure, though for the most part the gameplay is fairly traditional adventure game fare. Most goals involve obtaining keys, though the challenges associated with obtaining them are varied, and completing a simple lock-picking mini-game will open some doors. One of Skeler Boy’s first quests has you finding the road blocked by police attending a car crash. Nearby you find the man responsible for the crash, who is hiding because he has no license. He needs first aid, however, so you agree to visit an abandoned hospital for supplies in exchange for him providing an alternate route to pass the road blockade. Many such fetch quests make sense, though some, like retrieving firewood for a camper that is literally ten feet away from where he is standing, are a little ridiculous.

There are monsters you’ll need to evade by hiding in closets, but while the few sequences that use it are quite suspenseful, the hiding mechanic rarely comes into play, and seems like a wasted opportunity. Jumping is completely circumstantial and often easy enough to discern, like a set of posts to hop between in order to cross a body of water. Other times you’ll engage in clever challenges, like controlling Skeler’s rat friend a few times to explore places he can’t reach, or a single instance where the protagonist will conceal himself in a box to avoid security cameras, Metal Gear style, playing a game of red-light-green-light between CCTV cameras.

Speaking of Metal Gear, the radio interface with Sven is clearly inspired by Konami’s stealth series, and some puzzles have you tuning Skeler’s radio to specific frequencies upon being prompted to by a document or clue found elsewhere. There are other mini-games that console gamers of the late 90s and early 00s will recognize as well. These are all quite charming, if abruptly introduced. A man blocking a bridge asking you to play a song on a flute à la Ocarina of Time is a weird obstacle thematically, for example, but is nevertheless fun to complete.

Skeler Boy

Genre:	Mystery, Thriller
Presentation:	2D or 2.5D, Overhead
Theme:	Psychological, Missing persons
Perspective:	Third-Person
Graphic Style:	Pixel art
Gameplay:	Quest
Control:	Direct Control
Game Length:	Short (1-5 hours)
Action:	Stealth, Chase
Difficulty:	Low

Environmental clues are sometimes found by turning on or off lights in a room, or by searching through boxes and other things to find items. There are no inventory-related puzzles, however, with Skeler using the appropriate item at the required point of use. None of the challenges here are incredibly cerebral, but it does pay to keep a notepad nearby to write down where locked doors are, and which NPCs need what things, as there is no formal quest log.

There is limited flexibility in how you can explore the game world. You can do a select few tasks in different orders, but for the most part this is a linear experience that does a good job of corralling you down the correct path. Death and the Game Over screen can occur in Skeler Boy. Fortunately, manual save points via computers around the environments are commonplace. Furthermore, the game often prompts the save screen prior to having you engage in a dangerous activity, and with three distinct save slots, you can arrange these however you like. 

There are some strange curiosities in design that can cause frustration, though. The settings are segmented into numerous screens, often connected by way of road, door, or path. But you cannot just walk to the edge of a screen to pass between them, instead having to hit the action button to do so. It’s a small inconvenience, but persistent. Some screens require you to be on a specific section of the road or path in order to trigger the next screen. Other times a roadway may appear to keep going but you are artificially blocked from continuing down the road, without even a visual barrier or comment from Skeler explaining why you cannot do so.

Some activities work better than others. One sequence in a field, for example, is so poorly explained that it took me nearly ten attempts to complete. Skeler finds himself stuck in a corn field lined with traps. Sven explains that the radio has a metal detector in it, and if Skeler hears a low ping, he can continue forward, but if he hears a high ping there is a trap and he needs to back away. I only found two spots in the field that prompted the detector to audibly ping. Instead, I was mysteriously killed by an invisible force for simply walking on the wrong square, with no clue as to what I had done wrong. Eventually I found a route out of the maze by trial and error, but what the developer was trying to get at here is a mystery.

The translation to English from its native Spanish is also quite rough. Though most of the dialogue is easy enough to discern, it is a constant issue, and there are a considerable number of grammatical errors throughout.

On the plus side, Skeler Boy does look nice, utilizing large, well-animated sprites. Aside from the aforementioned pathfinding issues, the scrolling pixel art environments are easy to read and overflowing with detail and character. Lighting effects, reflections, and other custom artwork make the game ever-engaging and immersive to explore. The menu screens contain depictions of Skeler in hand-drawn form, and there is even a manga-style comic story to collect along the way. This references events that occurred prior to the game’s start, and serves as a nice reward for being observant. In an unusual twist, the game has been built with optional anaglyph 3D graphics if you happen to have a compatible pair of glasses handy. While this might be a novel way to experience the game world, I wasn’t able to utilize this feature, but the game looks and plays fine without it.

Skeler, as a silent protagonist, is not voiced, but Sven is, as is Megan, and the actors do a fine job in both roles. The music and sound effects are great, with creaking doors making up for the lack of animation in passing between areas, and the ambient sounds of the woods or the low hum of machinery lending the quieter scenes a sense of foreboding. There are also several effective scares that, while visually understated (often just involving a new sprite appearing on-screen), managed to get me because of the superb audio mixing. The music is a nice selection of piano, synth, and stringed instruments, creating a dark and depressing score, but one that fits the grim scenery and dramatic reveals during dialogue sequences.

Final Verdict

Skeler Boy is a fun little thriller that is often charming and intriguing in its urban horror setting, if more than a little predictable if you’ve watched any of the popular horror films and movies of the 70s and 80s. There are problems, like an error-filled translation and poorly explained objectives to some challenges, but most of the game’s mechanics work as they should, and the pacing is such that you’ll remain interested to see what challenge or scare the game has in store next. It’s a short commitment, only running about two hours long, and aside from collecting the optional manga comic pages, there isn’t much to justify a second playthrough. Nevertheless, it is a varied and entertaining enough adventure while it lasts, and should make for a decent late-night horror snack.

Drew played Skeler Boy on PlayStation 5 using a review code provided by the game's publisher.