Bone Cruncher is a puzzle video game for the Acorn Electron, BBC Micro, and Commodore 64 first published by Superior Software in 1987.
An Amiga version was released in 1988. We now bring you a port for 8-bit Atari.
The Atari conversion (from BBC Micro) was made in 2020 by:
The player controls a dragon called Bono, who operates a soap business. He collects bones from around the chambers of his castle and uses them to make soap in a cauldron. He then delivers the soap to sea-monsters, situated at various exits from the castle.
The game uses the gameplay mechanics popularised in Boulder Dash. The player can dig through earth and push boulders but where boulders will fall from above if area below them is cleared.
The 'boulders' are living creatures known as Glooks and rather than just heading down the screen, they will head in the direction of a bathing sea-monster (i.e. the direction of stairs to the last visited monster).
As such, they change direction during play which changes the layout of the maze. This means the player must decide the order that the soap is delivered. Glooks are generally harmless but can crush the player when they move.
There are two other deadly creatures in the castle: monsters and spiders. Monsters can be trapped by pushing Glooks onto them. If they can't move, they turn to skeletons which Bono can collect to make soap.
They can also be lured into trapdoors but then their bones are lost. Spiders, as well as being deadly to Bono, eat skeletons.
Another character in the game is Bono's assistant Fozzy who can be used to hold back monsters or spiders but can become trapped. There are also keys and doors and on each level a hidden 'volcano' that will spew out Glooks if walked over.
It takes five skeletons to make a bar of soap and five bars of soap must be created, and delivered to the sea-monsters, in each chamber. There are 22 chambers in the castle.