I just killed the duchess boss, screen flashes white, the fight is over. Then I get hit a split second afterwards and die, losing 100% of my bones in the process, including the boss reward. For some reason I cannot find a specific number anywhere on the internet, so: HOW many bones was I just cheated out of? Also, is there REALLY no way to get those bones back except to delete my entire save file and start the game from the beginning? If the answer to the first question is anything more than a couple hundred, and the answer to the second question is yes, then I think I'll be giving up on this game; it's clearly not the experience for me.

Hey, that sucks that you experienced that bug. The Duchess drops a heart, a few hundred bones (I do not remember how much), and if you escorted the husband guy and seal him up, you get a pretty decent trinket - its called the Proto Spark trinket and it essentially resurrects you the first time you die at I think half life.

You can get a few hundred bones pretty easily just by killing a few enemies in under a few minutes, so the bone loss is not too bad in my opinion. Have you returned to the room to see if you can still collect the heart? I know a few days ago, I purchased some upgrade at a store and forgot about it. Last night when I was playing the game, I walked into the store and my upgrade was still sitting there. It is possible that the heart upgrade is still there. And if you did the Duke (husband escort) mission, he should still be outside the room you fought the Duchess in.

I encourage you to not give up on this game. The bug you faced would have annoyed me too - but this game is so well made that it would be a shame to miss out on what the rest of this game has to offer over a substantial but hopefully once in a lifetime bug.