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Out From Boneville could’ve had something! It could’ve been a contender! But several major flaws make this game fall flat on its face.

To be honest, I have never read any of Jeff Smith’s “Bone” comics. However, I know several people who have and, before playing this game, I inquired with these people to get some information regarding the story and its characters. From what I have gathered, “Bone” is an epic tale that displays influences ranging from J.R.R. Tolkien to the Marx Brothers, it both wacky and adventurous.



“Bone” follows the tale of the Bone cousins. There is the reserved yet adventurous Fone Bone, the scheming and obnoxious Phoney Bone and the easygoing, banjo-plucking Smiley Bone. Due to one of Phoney’s dastardly schemes, the three have been exiled from their hometown of Boneville. After crossing the desert, the trio makes plans to get back home. They are attacked by a swarm of locusts, they run away, they get separated and this is where the adventure game, Out From Boneville from Tell Tale Games begins!



Several members of Tell Tale Games are actually LucasArts alumni with classics like Curse of Monkey Island and Sam and Max Hit The Road to their credits. With that, this is a straight-up adventure game that is in the tradition of these games and other games such as the Sierra On-Line epics. You start the game as Fone Bone but eventually get to play as Phoney Bone and a short stint as Ted, a leaf insect you will encounter later in the game.



The control scheme is rather simple, just point and click where you want your Bone character to move. Want to interact with an item? No problem, move the cursor over the desired object, if the object can be interacted with, the cursor will change into a finger and you can click away! Its easy! In fact, its way too easy! Just like the rest of the game! I’ll get to that later though.



The best things about Out From Boneville are the excellent comic-style graphics and general tone. The characters are smoothly animated and the well-synched voiceovers allow their personalities to truly shine through. To put it bluntly, you can tell that Phoney is the cranky one of the bunch and Smiley is happy-go-lucky. All in all, it’s a bright and colorful game with a very upward atmosphere. Now, on to the mean-spirited bashing of this game.



Out From Boneville fails due to its simplicity. The “just point and click” interface and the built-in hint option allow very little in the way of challenge. The mini-games that include two chase sequences and a game of hide and seek (which can get excruciatingly annoying if you are not familiar with how the commands play out) are probably the most demanding part of the game and that is not saying much at all.



However, the biggest flaw in this game is that it is short. Very short! I had this completed in a little over an hour. From what I understand, there is a second installment set for a Spring 2006 release.

Hopefully, the developers will make a note of this major flaw. Before you even get a feel for the game, before you even begin to truly care for Fone Bone and his cousins, the credits start rolling. Honestly, I think the demo for Final Fantasy VII was much longer.



Out From Boneville has all the ingredients needed for an adventure game that will awaken this once-great genre. Its beautiful scenery and personable characters will definitely grab the player. However, its immediate lack of challenge and extremely short amount of playtime are definitely hurtful to the overall quality of the game.

Review by Walt Ball.