Whatever is going on here, it ain't good!
Stasis: Bone Totem is a Sci-Fi Horror Adventure Game developed by The Brotherhood and released on May 31st, 2023 on GOG.com and Steam. The game is a sequel to their previous games, Stasis and Cayne.
20 Minutes into the Future, husband-and-wife team Mac and Charlie are oceanic salvagers, scouring the seas of earth for abandoned ships and other resources they can bring in for profit in the salvage barge Kilo Delta Kilo One Two. Their luck seems to have swung into the bountiful when they come across a massive, seemingly abandoned Cayne Corporation rig — DEEPSEA 15 — in the South Pacific Ocean, 160 kilometres off the coast of Chile. As they explore their find, looking to see if they can claim salvager's rights, they discover the dark history of the rig. Will they and their "super-toy" Moses be able to make it to the bottom of the mystery? And if they do... will they make it out alive?
Gameplay consists of isometric point-and-click exploration and puzzle solving, with players alternating between controlling Mac, Charlie and Moses as needed. Items can be freely shifted between the trio through the use of a quantum device, and each character has a unique skill that they can apply to items in their inventory. Mac can apply his brute strength to physically restructure items, Charlie can use her skills as an engineer to repair mechanical devices, and Moses the robot can hack electronics.
A gameplay demo, covering the initial arrival on the DEEPSEA 15 rig until the player descends to the M.U.L.E is currently available on Steam as a free download, and can be found here
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This game provides examples of:
- 20 Minutes into the Future: In a conversation with Captain Boynya, Mac mentions that it has been centuries since the collapse of the Soviet Union.
- Absent-Minded Professor: Downplayed, but an early log you can find is from a systems administrator complaining that one "Dr. Barnel" constantly needs assistance due to locking himself out... despite always using his birthday as the password.
- Abusive Precursors: The Xiib'hanal, who combined mastery of the Veles superorganism for Bio Punk tech and a complete lack of ethics or respect for anyone else. A big issue in the wake of discovering Calaban is preventing their final "fuck you" to the world escaping, as they believe that the gods sank their civilization.
- A.I. Is a Crapshoot: Calaban, one of Cayne Corp's revered Numen (Latin for "divine presence") A.I.s, is incensed at being abandoned in a dying facility. It assists the group with its Super-Intelligence as they are its best chance at escape, but does not bother to inform them that its plan involves calculated exposure to high-risk. Downplayed, as its motivation and goals are ultimately aligning with the protagonists', and it doesn't hate humanity, just Cayne Corp.
- Ambiguous Innocence: Moses is an example of innocence being played for creepiness; because his programmed mind is on the level of a small child, he doesn't comprehend the true meaning of the carnage he sees around him, resulting in him making very offputting observations or descriptions of what he sees. Like talking to the corpse of a man in the Control Room as if they were asleep.
- Anachronism Stew: Justified. The Xiib'hanal have a very strange culture that is a mix of various others throughout history due to how Veles infection forms a Hive Mind; they're trying very intentionally to recreate the surface world in their sunken caverns from a half-baked mix of memories.
- Anti-Frustration Features: As a result of criticism for the previous game, this game gives a bit of a scanning feature that shows what is interactable currently on screen and even has different icons depending on whether it is just a mouseover object to look at or if the player character can physically interact with it. Very helpful considering how detailed and full of visual information the game's locations can be.
- Apocalyptic Log: In the best horror Adventure Game tradition, there are plenty of journals, diaries, logs, reports and other memos scattered around the DEEPSEA 15 that provide a glimpse into life before the catastrophe. Some provide vital clues for progressing further through the game.
- Artificial Afterlife: The Nexus is stated to be an afterlife for those with a Transcendance implant, presumably created by the Church of Cayne. Calaban states that it is not what the church claims it to be, though Mac refuses to hear any further details leaving the truth unrevealed.
- Artificial Limbs:
- Mac has a cybernetic prosthetic for his right arm.
- A disembodied cybernetic arm is found within the facility. It ends up being used to solve multiple puzzles.
- Artificial Limbs Are Stronger:
- Mac's cybernetic arm gives him the brute strength needed to physically restructure bent or twisted metal, serving as the basis for his unique skill.
- The skin of a detached cybernetic arm proves to be extremely durable, which makes it come in handy in a few situations.
- Authority Sounds Deep: Calaban, the intellectual authority of the group, has a commanding voice to match.
- Auto Doc: A surgery ward robot can be found down in the MULE, but has malfunctioned and largely taken apart everything the patient had in and below the ribcage.
- Awesome Mc Cool Name: The titular DEEPSEA 15. Lampshaded and parodied early in the exploration of the demo version. When Charlie notes that she's never heard of an oceanic rig with the "Deepsea" designation before, Mac sarcastically notes that there must be at least 14 others out there.
- Bad Boss: When Charlie finds their first mutilated corpse, a note nearby from Harry Morgan reveals that when the Cayne Corporation received the SOS signal from DEEPSEA 15, they responded by remotely downloading all research data, scrubbing the computers, and leaving the crew to die.
- They also send in a Cleanup Crew to execute the undersea staff, cut rig access to the Net, and mark DEEPSEA 15 as 'LOST'.
- Bag of Holding: Like in its predecessor, the "Quantum Storage Unit" serves as justified example of this trope, also doubling as a ...
- Bag of Sharing: Justified with the Applied Phlebotinum of a "Quantum Storage Unit" that can be synchronized across multiple people.
- Bald Head of Toughness: When Mac was a newly promoted salvage operator and Hope was alive, he was previously bald. Since then, he's let his hair grow out.
- Beary Friendly: Moses, an artificial intelligence with the personality of a friendly child built into a chassis that resembles a Teddy Bear with a head-mounted flashlight. He was built as a playmate for somebody named "Hope", and refers to Mac and Charlie as his parents, but also has a practical purpose as a scouting unit for the company.
- The Big Guy: Mac is the biggest and strongest member of the three player characters, and his unique skill is even based on his considerable physical strength.
- Bittersweet Ending: Unlike John from Stasis, Mac successfully manages to save his wife, returning her to the surface uninfected (at least according to the A.I.) The Calaban A.I. she carries also represents the best chance at overthrowing the Cayne Corporation and their depraved evil. However, Mac, Moses, and Faran had to sacrifice their own lives to make this happen (though Moses' fate is ambigious given that his remains appear to have also made it to the surface and still appear semi-active), and given what happened with Ta'an in Stasis and how ultra-grim the setting is, it's pretty much a coin flip as to whether or not the Yellow Leaf La Résistance will honor their deal with her and if the Cayne Corporation will come after her for integrating with their A.I.
- Body of Bodies: A pillar of these is encountered, with limbs extended and flailing distrubingly, in the facility — accompanied by a cacophony of screams that implies that those who make it up are still conscious.
- Body Horror: Many of those who "survive" Veles infection end up becoming this, with varying but always very disturbing results.
- Brain in a Jar: Besides the giant vat-grown brains used as Wetware CPUs, there's also Faran, who was infected by the contagion a long time ago and is now nothing more than a brain and central nervous system with all the flesh and muscle stripped from him, kept alive inside a room-sized cleanroom chamber and unable to experience anything except conversations over the radio. He's unaware of his current state (believing he's just being kept in a dark room), and understandably experiences great despair when the truth is revealed to him.
- Brain Uploading:
- While never directly experienced in-game, the Nexus is supposedly an Artificial Afterlife accessible for those with a special implant. Calaban implies that the Nexus is not really what is promised, but whether it is a straight-up subversion or just something different than the promised paradise is not revealed.
- A variant occurs with an AI based on Organic Technology, as it must be transferred from its current dying unit to a healthy one.
- Beauty Is Never Tarnished: Averted. Charlie ends up badly banged up over the course of the game, with nasty-looking bruises visible on her, followed by some unpleasant skin lacerations when the Veles parasites are shocked out of her.
- Cargo Cult: When Charlie lets Calaban integrate with her, Mac points out that members of the Church of Cayne willingly give up everything they have just for the opportunity to do the same.
- Catchphrase:
- Calaban will always mention the probability of accuracy when it speculates.
- Moses has quite a lot, including "I am a very smart bear." and "My Mac" or "My Charlie".
- Conditioned to Accept Horror: Being people who grew up in the setting, the protagonists pay little to no mind about the sheer amounts of Body Horror bio-tech that the Cayne Corporation uses, more worried about if there is still an active killer around. It is only when they discover bio-tech that is clearly not of the Cayne Corporation when they start to get genuinely disturbed.
- Crapsack World: A journal from a "Colin Frickk" mentions his parents previously planned on signing him up for a "suicide lottery" where he would've died in exchange for the amount it would cost the state to support his welfare.
- Deadly Euphemism: A PDA for a marine biologist in the facility includes a message from Cayne Corporation stating that the man's ex-wife (who is still considered a shareholder in their combined debts) has been "released" from what is essentially a debtor's prison. It then immediately states that she will be waiting for him in the Nexus.
- Death Is a Slap on the Wrist: Death is only possible in specific defined scenarios, and experiencing it just resets the game back to just before the action that resulted in death, with that action no longer available (along with awarding an achievement for seeing that particular death).
- Driven to Suicide: A journal mentions that Cayne employees who experience the same dream end up killing themselves with one bashing their head on rocks while another threw themselves off a cliff while singing.
- Face Death with Dignity:
- A few of the Apocalyptic Log entries end with the author recognizing their impending demise calmly.
- Mac does this at the very end, knowing that he will be saving his wife.
- Feathered Fiend: When Charlie makes a jab at Mac for losing their crowbar, Mac explains he threw it at a seagull for eating his sandwich.
- Flashback: Charlie, Mac, and Moses each have one in the apartment they were living in when Hope was alive. Charlie's segment is when they first moved in and Mac got a promotion, Mac's segment is when Hope was starting the fifth grade, and Moses' segment is right after Hope's death with Charlie and Mac at her funeral.
- Foil: Calaban is this compared to Moses. Both are artificial intelligences that were built to serve humanity. The difference comes in that Calaban is a Super-Intelligence that was designed to help create the Nexus and because of such it knows much more about the setting than any other character. In contrast Moses being designed as a children's toy struggles with understanding basic uncomfortable concepts like death. Another contrast is that Calaban is very cold and calculating, willing to risk the safety of the protagonists if it is a means to an end and is unwilling to see its own faults. Moses meanwhile is very compassionate and empathetic to those around him and introspective to his own guilt.
- Foreshadowing: Charlie makes mention of the Alpha Base by name, prompting a question of how they know what it is called. She claims that she read it on a previous terminal, which mollifies Mac, but the truth is that she knew all along where she was going.
- In the endgame when Captain Boynya convinces Mac to give him the nuclear warhead, Mac states that he is "a braver man than I". Not long later Mac has to make a similar sacrifice with a grenade to allow Charlie to escape.
- Fun with Acronyms: The Mobile Undersea Living Environment, or "M.U.L.E."
- A Form You Are Comfortable With: When Mac meets Captain Boynya, he takes on the appearance of a crucified Jesus. His actual form is much more grotesque.
- Glasses of Aging: A subtle example. Charlie in the present day has Nerd Glasses while a photo and flashback to when Hope was alive shows she didn't wear any.
- Half the Man He Used to Be: Charlie comes across a diver that was cut in half at the waist. The game notes the person was trying to climb up a diving portal when it closed.
- Moses has to tear itself free of its lower half when it becomes pinned and damaged by falling items. In The Stinger, the top half of Moses washes up on a beach.
- Heel–Face Turn: As revenge for being abandoned at DEEPSEA 15, Calaban is willing to work with the Yellow Leaf to take down Cayne Corp.
- In fact, it seems to have been Calaban that took the first step - making contact with Yellow Leaf through a rogue frequency of theirs.
- Heroic Sacrifice: Captain Boynya has Mac give him the nuclear warhead so that its detonation will stop the Xiib'hanal from reaching the surface and wiping out humanity. The warhead is detonated right after Mac sacrifices himself in a grenade detonation for Charlie to escape.
- Insistent Terminology: In the demo version, Mac is adamant that Moses refer to him as "Mac" or "Captain", never "Dad".
- Insufferable Genius: Calaban is clearly aware that it is a Super-Intelligence and makes that fact known, believing that it knows more than any human can. This has the effect of it sometimes outright denying evidence that conflicts with its knowledge or that it simply doesn't have enough information about, something the other protagonists have to play along with in order to keep it amicable.
- Ironic Nursery Tune: A variant in which a traditional children's prayer is used to creep players out in the demo version. When the trio descend from the surface rig to the undersea lab, Moses recites the prayer "Now I lay me down to sleep; I pray the Lord my soul to keep, and if I should die before I wake; I pray the lord my soul to take". For added creepiness, the second half of the prayer switches from Moses' voice to that of a little girl.
- Irony: Mac is a Cayne employee, so the mere idea of interacting with a Numan AI like Calaban is effectively sacrilege to the entirety of the cult-like religion of the company, and Calaban is not hesitant to put out its authority over the group. Not long into interactions with Calaban overall, Mac realizes it's far from infallible, and eventually that it was collaborating with terrorists that oppose the company, and ultimately ends up pretty nonchalant and even dismissive of what might as well be one of the "gods" of the Cayne Corporation's Nexus afterlife system.
- Jerkass Has a Point: Calaban deliberately avoids warning Mac and Charlie about the risks of its plan to escape, frequently putting them in life-threatening situations in order to proceed. When Charlie finally confronts Calaban about it, Calaban retorts that she is in this situation to begin with because she lied to Mac and Moses in order to convince them to go to DEEPSEA 15, putting both of their lives in danger in the process, for the sake of getting her daughter back. Mac bitterly responds that Calaban has a point.
- Killed Mid-Sentence: When Mac forgives Charlie for bringing them to DEEPSEA 15 and gives his blessing at having Hope back, the grenade he uses to blow open the lighthouse goes off.Mac: I love you both so—
- Late to the Tragedy: Mac and Charlie arrive on DEEPSEA 15 long after the initial slaughter that left everybody dead. If the DocMate in the M.U.L.E is any indication, it has been roughly 4329 hours (180 days or 6 months) since the incident.
- Lighter and Softer: Downplayed since there is plenty of darkness and horror but the focus on a group of three protagonists later six trying to work together to survive brings more hope to the situation. Plus unlike the previous game which was an unquestionable Downer Ending, this game is more of a Bittersweet Ending where Charlie and Calaban survive, and possibly even Moses too.
- Living MacGuffin: When Moses is activated, he mentions the existence of somebody called "Hope", a topic that makes Mac angry and Charlie sad, with Charlie specifically noting that Hope is no longer with them. It's inferred that Hope was their daughter, until... something happened to her.
- Machine Blood: The death animations always end with a messy blood splatter on the screen. In Moses's case, the "blood" splatter is milky white.
- The Many Deaths of You: Each way to die is accompanied by a unique and typically very graphic scene.
- Meaningful Name: The daughter of the family, Hope, has an apt name. By losing her the family has literally lost their main hope to continue on and have to learn how to live on together. Charlie revealing that Yellow Leaf has cloned Hope in itself gave her hope to keep going with their mission.
- Messianic Archetype: Mac refers to Cayne and "The Nexus" as if it were a god and an afterlife respectively. During a boat ride into the Xiib'hanal's temple, Mac recites a prayer to Cayne and in a conversation with Captain Boynya, mentions that God has been disproven.
- Miles to Go Before I Sleep: After hearing Faran despair about being reduced to mostly his nervous system, Moses relates a story about how when Hope was around, they'd never consider a story complete until they actually reached the end. Faran makes the decision to keep going, for as long as his life support can.
- Mistreatment-Induced Betrayal: Calaban, an AI has turned against Cayne after being abandoned.
- Mythology Gag: The rig DEEPSEA 15 is stated to belong to the Cayne Corporation... the same evil mega-corp who were behind the events of the original Stasis.
- Nice Job Breaking It, Hero: While underwater, the group manages to restore the M.U.L.E's connection to the rig. The rig resumes a self-destruct sequence that the original crew stopped by cutting the link in the first place.
- The submarine's distress signal. If it weren't for it, the Cayne Corp wouldn't have discovered the existence of the Xiib'hanal race.
- Organic Technology: In addition to the giant Wetware CPU brains, engineered organisms called Scrubbers are used to clean the outside of underwater facilities. The STEM containers that can house Calaban are likewise engineered biotech.
- Our Angels Are Different: Considering how Cayne Corporation is essentially a religion by Bone Totem, the Numen, the artificial Super Intelligences that help run the Nexus and also advise those living, are effectively Cayne's angels. Mac has similar reverence for them and is very offput by how Calaban wants revenge on the Cayne Corporation.
- People Jars: The medical bay is still holding a few people in suspended animation.
- The Password Is Always "Swordfish": It's noted in an early log that the player can find that Dr. Barnel always used his birthday (April 15) as his personal password.
- The Remnant: While most of the Xiib'hanal are extinct, a small group of survivors are still around and they still fully have intentions to return to the surface and use the Veles to wipe out life there, which forces the protagonists to figure out a way to stop them for good before they can escape.
- Rouge Angles of Satin: When the elevator Mac is riding in has to stop because of a flooded shaft and a brake malfunction, he has to examine the braking system, which the game labels as the breaking system and the elevator's interface has it as cable break failure.
- When Mac has to break a venom globule into two separate balls, the description for one of the balls mentions Charlie doing it even though he did it.
- Scary Amoral Religion: The Cayne Corporation has developed into one by the events of the game, cemented when Cayne essentially came Back from the Dead from being birthed again in the events of Cayne. One of the logs is from a worker who said that because of this Cayne Corporation don't even need to hide anymore the amoral stuff they do. Mac also mentions that Cayne Corporation essentially has disproven God.
- Schizo Tech: For a game set 20 Minutes into the Future, DEEPSEA 15 still uses cathode-ray tube monitors, as seen in the room with the sentry gun.
- Screw This, I'm Outta Here: Mac's rule when a potential salvage claim has unexpected bodies. He wants to drop DEEPSEA 15 but Charlie convinces him to stay.
- Shoot Out the Lock: To get from the control room to the lab requires Moses to place an alien tissue sample from the lab on the door after repowering the DNA-coded sentry gun, causing it to blast the door open in a barrage of armor-piercing bullets.
- Shout-Out:
- When Mac sees the bodybags piled up in the MULE shute, he wonders if maybe the crew were attacked by a shark, explicitly likening it to Jaws.
- The name of one of the base scientists, Faran Brygo, is an anagram of Bryan Fargo, one of the creators of Wasteland (a similar anagram-named character appears in both Wasteland and Wasteland 2).
- A terminal holding photos of strange deep sea life includes a picture of what is very obviously a facehugger.
- In another Aliens reference, Moses's "blood" (likely lubricant or hydraulic fluid) is milky white.
- The second STEM Calaban uses as a body have the exact same "face" of the brain bug.
- Single Tear: In the course of trying to get to an escape suit, the lower half of Moses becomes pinned and damaged by falling items. Faran gives Moses a few final words of encouragement before his life support appears to finally cut out. Moses tears itself free of its lower half, and successfully manages to get the suit into quantum storage before they stop moving. Mac, normally standoffish with Moses, sheds a single tear.
- Skeleton Motif: Artifacts being studied in the rig's labs show intricate craftsmanship centered around death, with a preference towards strong lines and edges. To drive the point home, the lights on the diving bell reveal the strange skull of a gigantic statue during its descent.
- Smart People Wear Glasses: As befits her skill of fixing items for the group, Charlie has a pair of glasses.
- Smarter Than They Look: The Xiib'hanal were remarkably advanced for the Bronze Age, but seem primitive by the standards of space age humans (being trapped in an underwater ruin with limited resources certainly didn't help). However, they've made some extremely advanced Bamboo Technology constructions including a functioning airlock/escape pod system for ejecting objects into the ocean, and understand human technology well enough to operate it, planning to use Cayne's vessel to bring the Veles to the surface and exterminate all life.
- Telepathy: Captain Boynya communicates with Mac in this way after he is exposed to a mild version of the Veles. Since Charlie and Calaban didn't get the same infection, they are unable to hear what Mac does. Calaban does eventually figure out the who and how of it.
- The Stinger: The view goes up to a beach with a familiar sight washed up onto it: the top half of Moses. Although unable to even move its mouth correctly when it tries to speak, Moses is nonetheless Not Quite Dead.
- That Thing Is Not My Child!: Mac has this reaction to a recording of a clone (complete with restored memories) of his deceased daughter. Just before his death he asks to see the recording again, having changed his opinion.
- Too Desperate to Be Picky: Mac and Charlie know that the smart thing to do upon discovering corpses everywhere and hints of sinister black ops science experiments... but they're in desperate financial strife, and so they have no choice but to continue investigating to see if there's a profit to be made. Charlie is revealed to have another reason for her perserverance.
- Too Dumb to Live: Zigzagged. Charlie is adamant that they should stay and see if they can salvage anything from the rig, despite Mac pleading that they should just scrub the mission and leave. But she has a valid reason: they're on the verge of bankruptcy, and if they can't turn a profit from this job, then they'll basically have to sell their entire business just to try and make ends meet. She has also been offered a chance to have her deceased daughter back, which she absolutely could not resist.
- Traveling at the Speed of Plot: One of the game's three playable characters is forced to use an automated transport in an attempt to find the others. Once in the transport, they will be essentially unplayable as they will be stuck in the transport as it moves. The transport will never actually reach its destination until the other two characters have advanced the plot sufficiently.
- Ultraterrestrials: Cayne's experiments seem to have revolved around the discovery of ancient alien remnants in the depths of the ocean, and subsequent attempts to clone them. They turn out to be the Xiib'hanal, an unusually advanced pre-Bronze Age civilization whose island sank beneath the waves over 4000 years ago. Surviving in air pockets in their ruined cities and due to the Veles mutated plants, they mutated over the millenia into a form resembling The Greys. They're also very big on human sacrifice, and want to bring the Veles up to the surface to wipe out all Earthly life as revenge for their sinking.
- Unexpectedly Abandoned: Even from just external observation, the rig still has large amounts of cargo onboard, and there are no obvious signs of damage - cluing the group in early that something likely went wrong here.
- The Un-Reveal: Late in the game the protagonists discover a Xiib'hanal device that was used to trick their populace into believing an afterlife to control them. Mac initially scoffs at this, saying how can an advanced civilization like them believe something based on faith and not concrete like the Nexus. Unprompted, Calaban calls out Mac on how he has no evidence for his claim and offers to tell Mac exactly what the Nexus is. Mac declines and this is never brought up again.
- Viral Transformation: Captain Boynya's exposure to the Veles has mutated him into a being that resembles a fetus with a disproportionately large head and no face.
- Virtual Sidekick: Each character gets one with Calaban for Charlie, Captain Boynya for Mac, and Faran for Moses.
- Well-Intentioned Extremist: Things were actually more or less stable until the Functional Addict Tijs tried to pitch his idea of the contaminant as a recreational product, and was told no. Undeterred, he decides to get more people to try it out locally first... by releasing it into the ventilation system.
- Wetware CPU: Brains engineered to enormous size can be found in use as living computers, installed in one of the research labs.
- Women Are Wiser: Zigzagged. While Mac is in denial on how dire their financial situation is, Charlie has fully accepted how bad things are and thusly is focused on making some kind of profit out of this chance to salvage DEEPSEA 15. However, Charlie continues to insist that they investigate the wreck even after the duo starts finding bodies on the rig, over Mac's insistence that the smartest thing to do would be to leave. It is later revealed that she had ulterior motives for wanting to stay as well.
- Wrench Wench: Charlie is the family's engineer, and much more adept with machinery than her husband. It's even her unique skill to be able to repair inoperable machinery as part of the puzzle-solving.
