Bonecruncher is a computer game published by Superior Software

Superior Software

Superior Software is a video game publisher. It was established in 1982 by Richard Hanson and John Dyson, two graduates of the University of Leeds, England...

 in 1987 for the BBC Micro

BBC Micro

The BBC Microcomputer System, or BBC Micro, was a series of microcomputers and associated peripherals designed and built by Acorn Computers for the BBC Computer Literacy Project, operated by the British Broadcasting Corporation...

, Commodore 64

Commodore 64

The Commodore 64 is an 8-bit home computer introduced by Commodore International in January 1982.Volume production started in the spring of 1982, with machines being released on to the market in August at a price of US$595...

, Commodore Amiga and Acorn Electron

Acorn Electron

The Acorn Electron is a budget version of the BBC Micro educational/home computer made by Acorn Computers Ltd. It has 32 kilobytes of RAM, and its ROM includes BBC BASIC along with its operating system....

.

Summary

The game is similar to the well-known game Boulder Dash

Boulder Dash

Boulder Dash, originally released in 1984 for Atari 8-bit computers, is a series of computer games released for the Apple II, MSX, ZX Spectrum, Commodore 64, and ColecoVision home computers, and later ported to the NES, BBC Micro and Acorn Electron, PC, Amstrad CPC, Amiga and many other platforms...

and to Superior's own Repton

Repton (computer game)

Repton is a computer game originally developed by 15-year-old Briton Tim Tyler for the BBC Micro and Acorn Electron and released by Superior Software in 1985. The game spawned a series of follow up games which were released throughout the 1980s. The series sold around 125,000 copies between 1985...

series in that it mostly involves digging through a cave

Cave

A cave or cavern is a natural underground space large enough for a human to enter. The term applies to natural cavities some part of which is in total darkness. The word cave also includes smaller spaces like rock shelters, sea caves, and grottos.Speleology is the science of exploration and study...

 displayed as a rectangular grid of squares. However the mechanism of the game play is slightly different.

The player controls a character called Bono, who operates a soap business for sea-monsters. He collects bones from goblin

Goblin

A goblin is a legendary evil or mischievous illiterate creature, a grotesquely evil or evil-like phantom.They are attributed with various abilities, temperaments and appearances depending on the story and country of origin. In some cases, goblins have been classified as constantly annoying little...

s wandering around the screen: normally goblins walk around the cave tunnels in a pre-set pattern, but if a goblin is trapped by earth, walls or rocks so that it can't move anywhere, it dies and becomes a skeleton

Skeleton

The skeleton is the body part that forms the supporting structure of an organism. There are two different skeletal types: the exoskeleton, which is the stable outer shell of an organism, and the endoskeleton, which forms the support structure inside the body.In a figurative sense, skeleton can...

. Bono can then collect this skeleton and take it to his home. Once he has collected enough skeletons, he can make soap from them and take it to a monster awaiting a bath.

At this point Bono returns to the cave to collect more skeletons, but with an important difference: the heavy but inoffensive soap-loving Glooks, which live in the cave and perform a similar role to the boulders in Boulder Dash, will start to head in the direction of the most recent bath: up the screen, down, left or right according to which staircase Bono delivered the soap to.

After a predetermined number of successful soap deliveries Bono advances to another cave.