SKELER BOY Review: A Journey Into ’80s Horror…

Imagine the scene… your perfect ’80s teen life is destroyed by your girl going missing, her house covered in blood, and the TV smashed. With only her disembodied voice, a strange VHS tape and a radio provided by a random stranger to help find her, you might be forgiven for thinking you’re part of a period horror movie or the latest season of Stranger Things. 

All of these things combine to create Maniac Boy Studio’s latest release, SKELER BOY. The Spanish creators have built a 2D pixel aesthetic and world that borrows from obvious ’80s horror tropes but also European influences like Polanski’s Possession and Dario Argento’s early giallos as Skeler searches increasingly deadly towns, cabins and underground areas. This is a SNES Zelda meets Evil Dead meets Argento from the first moments; indeed, the game makes smart use of a cold open, something few do in 2024.

This was a successful Kickstarter, and very quickly, it became apparent that, at heart, it is a find-and-deliver puzzle solver; people won’t help you until you bring them what they need. Areas won’t unlock until you find the right object, and frustratingly, at times, the puzzle to leave an area won’t kick in until you make the most illogical decision possible.

The game does work on Controller or Keyboard/Mouse, although movement is only WASD either way, which is a pain when you are being chased or want to move quickly. There are a number of mini-game style mechanics for things such as entering door codes, lock-picking and various puzzles. It shows creativity, but clearer instructions are needed. The Steam discussions had players thinking the game was bugged at certain points when it seemed they did not understand the inputs required.

This may stem from Spanish being the developer’s first language. The speech is in Spanish, and the text is in English, although at times, this shows as not being 100% optimally translated. While the Spanish may add to the Giallo vibe, it perhaps needs to be made clear where the game is set or some English voice acting added. 

One thing that is excellent is the comics that can be collected that fill in extra parts of the Skeler Boy story and mythos. It’s clear this character and story have been thought about in depth, and on that basis alone, along with the work put into the aesthetics, I would like to see it do well. 

Overall, some things do need patching. The controls could do with some tightening up, as could the instructions/tutorials. 

I’m all for letting players find things out, but when death means sitting through a long credits sequence before you can restart, if you push the button, it freezes completely (which needs to change), then you need to make sure they get all the info they need, and the controls work. 

There is 3D content advertised for use with OG Red/Blue style 3D glasses; although some, like myself, wouldn’t be able to view this due to migraine and seizure issues, it would be useful to see a disclaimer and a toggle to remove this so those who can’t view don’t miss out on content.

I’d also like to see them add a little more action over exploration. It’s great to walk around the map and solve puzzles, but I want more action in the early going. I personally hate mazes and hide and seek, and these elements are the only real action for a while. 

On console formats, I guess this isn’t possible, but on Steam, updates can still be made, and I hope some feedback is taken on board, as I’d like this game to succeed. 

Overall, Skeler Boy has one of the best premises and soundtracks I’ve come across in recent years, and that’s why it’s so frustrating that it’s let down by mechanic and control problems in the early game that will make many players simply not stick with it or refund it after an hour or so. That would be a shame as there is a lot to like.

Rob played Skeler Boy on PC via Steam.