BONELAB

**MetaVR**

* Meta Quest 2
* Oculus Rift
* Oculus Rift S

> "*Everything here is about building. About creation. Anything's possible with Lava Gang.*"
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**BONELAB** (originally announced as **Project 4**) is an experimental, physics-based virtual reality game developed and published by Stress Level Zero. It was developed using the Unity engine as well as the in-house 1Marrow Interaction Engine, and supports SteamVR, Oculus Desktop VR, and Meta Quest 2. It serves as a successor to *BONEWORKS*. A notable feature is mod support, which allows players to add custom items, levels and avatars into the game. *BONELAB* was released on September 29th, 2022, at a price of $39.99 USD.

## Store Description

*Sentenced to death, you embody an outcast escaping fate. Discovering a pathway to a hidden underground research facility. A series of challenging experiments and discoveries await. A road to the truth calls from the void.*

* *Physics to the core. BONEWORKS' realistic physics systems fully improved and polished. Interact with the game world with consistent confidence.*
* *Visceral VR combat. Using a variety of ranged, melee, and exotic physics weapons, engage enemy encounters with an entire armory at your disposal.*
* *Be anyone you want. Custom avatar importing enables you to play through the game looking however you want, with physical stats to match.*
* *Layered Narrative. After discovering an underground lab in MythOS City, you will have access to a variety of game locations including arenas, obstacle courses, tactical trials, sandboxes, experimental modes, and user generated levels. Collecting items, avatars, and clues from these locations enable you to progress through the mysterious story.*

## Plot

> "*Sentenced to death, you embody an outcast escaping fate. Discovering a pathway to a hidden underground research facility. A series of challenging experiments and discoveries await. A road to the truth calls from the void.*"
> ― Steam page
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The game begins in the Voidway. The player, as PolyBlank, customizes their physical proportions in a void mirror, then uses the Avatar Dice to choose their Peasant avatar. Once selected, the Void fades to black, and a noose appears. The Avatar tightens the noose around their neck as the world fades into Heaven's Reach, a medieval village in Fantasy Land. An angry mob of villagers and cultists surrounds the gallows, where the Avatar is to be hung. As the metal floor is levered away, revealing a large chasm beneath, the Avatar begins choking. In a flash of lightning, a dagger appears within reach, and the voice of Jimmy can be heard advertising the knife's power. The Avatar cuts the noose with the knife and plummets into the chasm below.

They awake in a cavern full of bones and rubble. Collecting a lantern, they progress through abandoned caverns and catacombs. They begin reached unfinished areas, and discover monochats left behind by the developers of Fantasy Land. Eventually, they escape into MythOS. Along the way, Jimmy leaves messages via radios tuned to his station, 98.6 DeadFM, talking about his own experiences breaking the bounds of . The Avatar enters an elevator which fails and takes them to the Bonelab. Here, they explore the six modules and their respective gamemodes before continuing through a massive airlock to MythOS City.

After battling their way through omniprojectors and turrets, the Avatar discovers Jimmy's recording studio and meets him in person. Jimmy expresses admiration and extends an invitation to join Lava Gang, a group of anarchists and modders who want creativity without bounds. He states that the Avatar still thinks like a player, and as such must complete a test. He grants the Avatar an empty Bodylog and requests he fill it with bodies. Jimmy teleports the player to six simulations, where six avatars are garnered. After which, Jimmy sends the player to ascend back into Heaven's Reach, and they take revenge on the people who once tried to hang them. After, The Avatar grabs onto Jimmy's hands as he sends them into the void. The Avatar then gets in Jimmy's cab, and is initiated into Lava Gang. They are then driven to Void G114, where they reach the Main Menu. Jimmy apologetically leaves them, stating that he has another caller. Telling them to "start building!", he drives off into the void, leaving the player to replay *BONELAB.*

## Gameplay

*BONELAB* is the successor to *BONEWORKS*, with updated physics and improved functionality and optimization. It also boasts official mod support, from items to levels to avatars. The player character is also more complex, with full upper-body collision and more a complex IK skeleton. An avatar's physical stats are determined with advanced calculations including their physical proportions, circumference, and scale of wingspan, inseam, and more (see 1Marrow Interaction Engine).

### Avatars

In *BONELAB,* there is no singular main skin for the protagonist. Instead, players can swap between avatars on the fly, either with the default selection of avatars or through their own, modded avatars. Avatars have a range of physical characteristics that are based solely off of the 3D model's proportions - stats such as speed, height, body-strength and vitality are calculated by 1Marrow. Seven base avatars exist in the game (not including easter eggs or DLC). Official Avatar mods (ones approved by SLZ) are canon to the universe, whereas nonapproved ones are canonically illegal in MythOS.

Avatar switching is a new mechanic introduced in *BONELAB*. Changing your avatar not only changes your appearance, but also your size, speed, power, etc. For example, if your character's body has short legs, but a heavy body, they will move slower. In turn, you get more power from your weight distribution. This can be done in realtime due to body remapping.

The inventory and slo-mo systems are the same as in *BONEWORKS*, although the slow-motion button behaves differently, as it toggles until you stop moving in a direction. A new feature is a dedicated magazine-eject button. Loading times are significantly shorter in *BONELAB,* due to better optimization of assets and less memory usage. For instance, the nullbody (rendered as two meshes with partial opacities in *BONEWORKS*) now is a singular, solid model, which significantly reduces required rendering power. This allows for more complex lighting techniques, such as volumetric lighting for PCVR (Quest 2 cannot handle volumetrics and instead uses baked fog).

Vehicles are a new feature, with go-karts being displayed on the Steam page. Taxis and Minecarts also appear, but are not drivable.

### Mods

Modding for *BONELAB* can only be done through Unity 2021.3.5f1, using an in-house SDK (Software Development Kit). Code cannot be modified, but anything else can, like avatars, items, enemies, or levels. At least one SDK Pack will be released which presumably contain starter content and features for modding convenience. Mods are available in all versions of the game, including the standalone Quest 2.

## Development

The game was announced as "Project 4" on September 25th, 2019 at Oculus Connect 6.

On April 18th, 2022, it was announced by Brandon Laatsch that Project 4 was to be featured at the upcoming Meta Gaming Showcase. It took place on April 20th, and a teaser was released, revealing the title to be *BONELAB*.

The soundtrack is produced by Michael Wyckoff, who posted a series of TikToks revealing snippets of music for the game. Parts of the soundtrack were also included with the Release Day trailer and Node commentary, which featured the Boneworks theme.

On July 24th, Brandon Laatsch announced that *BONELAB* was playable from start to finish, and that stuff like polish and feature creep were the only factors remaining.

On September 23rd, Brandon Laatsch released the release date trailer for BONELAB. Unexpectedly, he released a video on his Twitter page for the release date, followed by the Node gameplay video. The release date trailer states the release date is Thursday, being September 29, 2022 compared to the release date of the video.

Over the course of the pandemic, Laatsch made it his goal to work on making *BONELAB* functional on the Meta Quest 2.

## Achievements

Official promotional art for BONELAB.Screenshot from Steam page.Avatar combats a Skeleton. Screenshot from Steam page.Avatar approaches a group of  nullbodies with a crowbar. Screenshot from Steam page.Avatar engaging in fisticuffs with a nullbody. Screenshot from Steam page.Avatar in a firing range. Screenshot from Steam page.Early concept art for Project 4, aka BONELAB.Early concept art for Project 4, aka BONELAB.
## Gallery

Official promotional art for BONELAB.Screenshot from Steam page.Avatar combats a Skeleton. Screenshot from Steam page.Avatar approaches a group of  nullbodies with a crowbar. Screenshot from Steam page.Avatar engaging in fisticuffs with a nullbody. Screenshot from Steam page.Avatar in a firing range. Screenshot from Steam page.Early concept art for Project 4, aka BONELAB.Early concept art for Project 4, aka BONELAB.
## Trivia

* Arthur Ford, although not the protagonist, makes an appearance in *BONELAB,* as both an NPC, and a hidden Avatar.
* In an interview for *BONEWORKS*' Zombie Warehouse update, Cameron stated that vehicles and gliding were two interests of his that he wanted to implement in future updates, which *BONELAB* has demonstrated.
* The game has crossbuy between the Quest store and Oculus store, but not Steam.

## References

1. ↑ From pastebin:

	1. Q: So is it confirmed only on quest 2?
	2. A: Quest 2, Oculus Home, Steam store
2. ↑ https://steamcommunity.com/app/823500/discussions/0/1743386132102008319/
3. ↑ https://rentry.co/slzproofs
4. ↑ From pastebin:

	1. A: there is no new main character, its just mods
5. ↑ From pastebin:

	1. Q: Is the protagonist still arthur ford?
	2. A: its anyone you want, mod it
6. ↑ From pastebin:

	1. Q: Can you reroll this die in case you want someone different?
	2. A: sure
	3. Q: In the same game?
	4. A: yeah you can swap avatars on the fly
7. ↑ From pastebin:

	1. Q: so if i mod in super mario as a character he will be canon in mythos???
	2. A: Canonical mods = we need to curate and approve them. All other mods are blackmarket/illegal
8. ↑ From pastebin:

	1. Q: wait so all mods not approved by a member of SLZ are illeagal??
	2. A: canonically illegal.
9. ↑ 9.0 9.1 Node Gameplay reveal video
10. ↑ From pastebin:

	1. Q: is the inventory system going to be the same as boneworks?
	2. A: yes
11. ↑ From pastebin:

	1. Q: Is there a propper mag eject button?
	2. A: yes
12. ↑ From pastebin:

	1. Q: Another slightly hard to answer question: What are the loading times like? On boneworks, even with SSD, they were a little slow. Are they about the same?
	2. A: faster, less memory usage from optimizations + streaming assets
13. ↑ From pastebin:

	1. Q: does anyone know if that's a null body reskin or a new enemy in the trailer
	2. A: old nullman was 100% skinned transparencies, too much to render
14. ↑ From pastebin:

	1. Q: is there volumetric lighting? kinda looks like there is in the teaser
	2. A: yes
15. ↑ From pastebin:

	1. Q: Are those volumetric lights on quest as well? I know kevin is a VFX wizard
	2. A: baked fog
16. ↑ From pastebin:

	1. Q: i saw a car above the bonelab logo, are there vehicles like actual cars?
	2. A: yes
17. ↑ From pastebin:

	1. Q: go karts
	2. A: there could... be a car... maybe
18. ↑ From pastebin:

	1. Q: Will mod creation have an interface ingame or?
	2. A: yes, its called Unity
19. ↑ From pastebin:

	1. Q: So how will moding work in bonelab
	2. A: use unity
20. ↑ From pastebin:

	1. Q: which unity version?
	2. A: 2021, but don't have a specific version yet
21. ↑ From pastebin:

	1. Q: Will there be like a sdk for modding
	2. A: yea
22. ↑ From pastebin:

	1. Q: (deleted) (what cannot be currently modded)
	2. A: code, for now
	3. Q: so maps, characters, items and avatars are all available for people to make?
	4. A: yes
23. ↑ https://twitter.com/BrandonJLa/status/1516111431610953732
24. ↑ https://www.oculus.com/blog/save-the-date-for-the-second-annual-meta-quest-gaming-showcase-april-20/
25. ↑ From pastebin:

	1. Q: Will the soundtrack make me cry because of the absolute stunning artistry of it
	2. A: I will confidently answer that with a YES, @R!OT
26. ↑ https://twitter.com/BrandonJLa/status/1550995826830258177
27. ↑ https://twitter.com/BrandonJLa/status/1573359480405839872#m
28. ↑ From pastebin:

	1. Q: will it be cross buy?
	2. A: Quest2/Home yes. SteamVR no