Bone: Out From Boneville

Loved this game! Was so much fun!

A short but fun adventure game.

A fairly short adventure game, so no point in writing too much in-depth review, I believe.

Basically this is one of the first Telltale adventure (maybe even the first one?), so if you're curious (as I was) to know how it all began, this is the place.

It's a sweet game, seems to be aimed mainly at children, but I was capable of enjoying it as a grown up, mostly.
It's pretty short and easy going, and has a fairytale vibe to it, which is cool.
Gameplay is mostly classic, light, point n' click style with a few twists along the way, some good and some not as good..

The only real downside, I guess, is that the game didn't age very well, and looks very dated. The old graphics and low resolution may seem painful after playing a modern video game.
BUT, if you're into adventures, into Telltale's roots, and not scared of older games, that's worth a try.

It's pretty basic. The logic doesn't take too much thinking. I got this a long with episode 2, which cost about $9.99. The art is good and all. I just wish there was more to this game than just puzzles that a 5 year old could figure out. Then again, I'm 21 and it may not be targeted towards people of my age group. Maybe 10 and younger.

Jeff Smith's Bone series is a brilliant mix of fantasy world-building and timeless comedy... also, it's conspicuously absent from the description of this game. That seems a major oversight as Bone: Out From Boneville functions as a highlight reel of the first few issues, realized in 3D form. For fans of the series, there's nothing new here... which is fine, since the wit and wonder still works, even in Windows 10.

Despite the comments to the contrary, I never experienced any installation errors or gamebreaking bugs. In fact, my only complaints about Boneville are its relatively short runtime (2-3 hours) and the visual depiction of Rose. While Gran'ma Ben's exaggerated features translated well to cartoonish rendering, the more 'human' Rose looks more like the cgi monstrosities of a Dire Straits video (ask your parents), but her voicework saves the performance.

The puzzles are fairly light and simplistic (hide-n-seek as an integral plot point, for example), making the game appropriate for younger audiences. Admittedly, there are multiple references to smoking and gambling, but nothing more hardcore than the films of my childhood, the now-classic Goonies and Gremlins... again, ask your parents...

Beyond the seeming straightforwardness, Out From includes branching conversational paths and puzzles with multiple solutions, prompting different later dialogue, so you would need to replay sections to hear all of the voice acting. Therefore, while the game itself can be finished rather quickly, there is enough content to recommend the title at its non-sale price, currently set as half of a $10 bundle. As for me, I'm off to the Cow Races...

Bone: Out From Boneville was one of the first point and click adventure games released by Telltale Games. It was also one of their first licensed properties to help them get over a hurdle for their start in their gaming business. Based on the highly acclaimed comic series by Jeff Smith, Bone started off as a cult comic but years later it would become a household franchise recognized by various libraries and comic award committees. It was only logical that it should get it's own game. Anyways even if you never read the comic, this game is a direct adaption of the first volume under the same title. It's a cross between the Peanuts comics and the Lord of the Rings series which is the best way to describe it. The main protagnogists are white anthropomorphic creatures that don't resemble anything else seen in the series. Which is part of the appeal of the series is that they are easy to recognize and to isolate them from the other more realisticly drawn characters. Now for the plot: the game starts off with our main hero Fone Bone who is out in the middle of a wasteland with his cousins Smiley & Phoney Bone. They were ran out of Boneville due to Phoeny Bone's election for town mayor went sour. With food and water becoming scarce, they need to find civilazation if they want to survive. When Fone Bone finds a map, they spouted a upcoming swarm of locusts and have to run for their own lives. Upon the encounter of the swarm, Fone Bone got seperated from his cousins and is now alone. Not willing to give up Fone uses his best outdoor skills to track his cousins and soon finds himself in a forest region that is more lively than the barren wasteland. A stranger in this unknown land to Fone, he soon makes new friends with the locals and with enough luck will soon find out what became of his cousins. The mechanics of the point and click system are at times a little off but since this was Telltale Games' first attempt in the genre, I will forgive them on that small error. Otherwise this game is easy to play, and while it's not a lengthy game keep in mind it's only covering one volume of a nine volume comic series so it was intended to pile each installment upon the other. Anyone who loves the comics will enjoy this game for certain.

Played March 2016, Gametime, less than 2 hours. Note: I had problems with a glitch preventing gameplay, but the community board helped me fix it. (Delete a settings file, then play the game in windowed mode. Set the resolution as good as you can, you can set it back to full screen, restart the game).

Recommend, with reservations

It's a Telltale Games point and click adventure through the first Bone graphic novel. Bone is one of my favorite comics from my youth, but I'm not a fan of Telltale Games.

It is sort of faithful to source material, with most of the dialogue coming straight form the book.

BUT, it cuts out a lot, and in my opinion cuts out too much. I think some of the cuts were made to make the game shorter/cheaper to make, and some of the cuts were because I think they were trying to get some "ultra G" rating, rather than the "normal G" rating that the original material has. Given Bone's history with appearing on banned book lists (possibly the silliest book to ever appear on such lists), I understand, but it is still disappointing.
For example,

• When Fone meets Thorn, she is just sitting by a hot spring, not soaking her legs in it. And she is always fully clothed, vs the graphic novels, where she is always clothed, but sometimes she is dressed hastily.
  
• It cuts out the entire winter section, leaving everyone running from the farm during their first night in the valley. Sadly, this cuts out one of my favorite jokes in the series.
  
• When they flee the farm, it removes all of Gran'ma's fighting.
  
• It cuts out almost everything from Barrelhaven, including all of the bar scenes, but that also deletes a big chunk of the book.
  

But they also dumbed it down to make it easier for even really young kids. For example, there are two chase scenes. If you fail them, it will ask if you want to skip them. There is a help button that will start out with a task reminder, progress through hints, and eventually tell you exactly what you need to do.

If you are considering it:

• It isn't as good as the book.
  
• It is a Telltale game, so if you hate Telltale games...
  
• It is less than 2 hours of gameplay
  
• It is definitely made more for kids than for adult fans of the game.
  
[*] The voice acting... isn't bad by 2005 video game standards, but it's not the best.

I love the comic this game is based on, and had to buy this game as soon as I found out it existed. The voice acting is good and the dialogue is funny, but anyone interested in Bone would be much better off reading the comic. The graphics aren't very good at all. The mini-games are absolutely awful.

the story is quite faithful to the comic book, but that's it. The puzzles are boring and the few funny scenes are not enough to overcome the bad gameplay and a lot of glitches.

It gives me great dipleasure to say, this is a game that should never had been revived from the early 2K's and allowed back into this world.
I love the Bone Universe and here be the p & c of it.
Pro's;
Excellent character's rendered in 3-D
smooth animation

Con's:
Horrendous voicework
Aggravating Point and Click detection.
Annoying "Mini-games" that are frustratingly un-skipable whilst others are allowed.

As far as a Jeff Smith Graphic Novel being translated to a game. I truly expected more from TTG.
Especially considering how Character's are what make his comics and thusly the story, worth telling, reading or in this case playing.
Bumping this from my library and headed back to the valley via my book.

Well, the game is extremely short. It's like they shrinked the comic book into a few pages and then they took the synopsis out of it. The missions are extremely boring. I really liked the voice acting though and, because I love the comic book, I'm going to give this game a positive review.

Bone: Out of Boneville

This is the first part of a two part game series!

I played through the entire game and I had a lot of fun with it. I am a big fan of the Graphic Novels, and it felt like i was part of the books. Unfortunatly the game is very short, I beat the whole game in two hours! NOTE: This is a children's game, and the puzzles are pretty.

The voice acting is pretty good, some of the voices sound a little odd, but overall really good and book acurate. The gameplay is very similar to other TellTale Games. the Graphics aren't great, but you get used to it. and this game is really worth buying if your a fan of the Bone Books, or of TellTale Games.

8/10

if you read the comic books as i did as a child you will find this game sorely dissappointing
the platform is very frustrating to use, so i would not reccomend for a child. it was hard enough figuring out what to do as a 20 year old. As for the story, seems to follow according to the comics with minor changes to add more "gameplay" or just a crappy excuse for you to waste more time in a 10 minute conversation with a character or minigame. voice acting was far less than par, with choppy dialog that sounds that is recorded from a skype microphone makes this game very dissapointing.
all in all not worth your time let alone $10, or $20 if you bought the sequel as i did.

This is the first part of the Bone series (you need the other game to see the end of the story), and it's the first game published by Telltale. It's got great humor for people of all ages, puzzles are fair (only had to use the in-game help once to figure what I was doing wrong), the dialogues and story are very fun and the characters are remarkable and professionally voiced. Only con would be only having a 1024x764 resolution, that you have to choose (the default is 800x600). Two thumbs up, 10/10!

Telltale's first adventure game is a fairly short, graphically charming game which is clearly aimed at children. The humour would appeal to young kids and the puzzles are pretty easy. The minigames can be skipped if anyone finds them too difficult. It's not a great game, but it's not terrible either. Others have mentioned bugs, but apart from two moments of silence when characters should have been speaking, I didn't encounter any.

The pace of the game is quite slow, characters move ponderously and dialogue can't be skipped. For a point and click adventure there aren't that many things to click on. There are very few objects to find and even fewer puzzles that require using those objects. The game is mainly dialogue driven with lots of talking and is very linear, interspersed with set piece games and puzzles. These are quite simplistic and frankly I found them rather tedious, although kids would probably enjoy them.

I would not recommend this game for adults, but I would recommend it for the audience it was clearly intended for, young children.

EDIT: It's not obvious from the title, but this game is Act 1 of a two part series. The Great Cow Race is Act 2, so they should be played in order. Unfortunately the story is not complete, they should have made more episodes but didn't.

This is a short game, and probably one of the first games that came out of Telltale Games. It's simple, short and a good adventure game for kids. The story is good, but not great and even the dialogue isn't something that will be very memorable. My kids enjoyed it and I enjoyed playing it with my kids.

As a fan of the books, it's interesting and sometimes entertaining to see Jeff Smith's characters running around on your computer. Unfortunately, Smith's artistic style didn't make the transition to the screen (Telltale's 'The Walking Dead' series is a great example of retaining the artist's style and tone). The characters and locations are here, but they don't feel genuine.

I'd recommend this only to die-hard Bone fans, or maybe children who have somehow discovered Bone but aren't old enough for the books yet.

[There's also an inventory glitch that prevents you from progressing past Gran'ma Ben's farm. I don't know how frequent it is, but Telltale doesn't have a solution. This hasn't impacted my review other than expediting it.]

With only a few dollars balance left on my account, I remembered back to my childhood when "Bone" was the most relevant and popular graphic novel out there. It had great characters, an interesting plot, and an expansive world and mythology. Now all these factors should translate well into a game, right? Sadly, Telltale did not live up to the comic with this game.

Firstly, it is a point-and-click game. While in theory this would work in favour, there is just not enough to observe in the enviorments. It's a rather empty game, lacking in atmosphere and inspiration. The dull voice-acting doesn't help at all. There are several moments where the game transitions to a sort-of "mini-game" mode, and these segments do not work at all. They're unclear, dodgy in response, and attribute nothing to the experience.

All in all: Stick to the comic-book. F&@k this game.

From Jeff Smith's graphic novel to a telltale game chapter in the TTG bible. The story is three bone cousins Fone Bone, Phoney Bone, and Smiley Bone get seperated from each other and Fone discovers a vally full of crazy creatures. The game is amazing and the charaters in this game are memarable: Like Ted the Bug, The Great red dragon, and the Stupid, Stupid Rat creatures!! I give this game 9/10

Bone: Out From Boneville is a typical cartoonish Telltale game with no need for any prior knowledge of the Bone cartoon to appreciate. This game is no different from the other Telltale series (Sam n' Max, Strong Bad, etc.). The humor is abundant, and is appropriate for most age ranges (alcohol and tobacco use). The puzzles are intuitive, but not overly simple. The crisp graphics helps alleviate from tedious pixel hunting. The overall difficulty isn't too hard, and the game length is relatively short. I completed it in about two hours. There isn't any hidden bonuses like there are in Strong Bad. Very straight forward. A fun romp if you enjoy Telltale games.

Positives: It's short, like two hours or under. The characters look about like you'd expect.

Negatives: It's tedious and boring, making it feel much longer than the short runtime.

'Bone' is one of my favorite books (graphic or otherwise) ever. It's a wonderful fantasy adventure. I also enjoy TellTale's games (though they aren't perfect). So I should love this, right? I wish.

Every task you're asked to complete is clearly busy work. None of the "puzzles" is truly driven by the story. They're just hoops to jump through in order to get to the next screen. The worst offender is when you're asked to guide Ted the bug across the river. Without a walkthrough, I never would have gotten across as the logic dicated by the pattern of his jumps breaks down when you get close to the other side. It looks like I should be able to make the jumps necessary as the stones are spaced just like rest, and I tried multiple spots to lead from, but there is only one single way to get across, and if you don't follow it, it won't allow you to make the jumps.

An additional crime, less painful but still aggravating, is the inability to skip voiced dialogue. I can generally read the text much faster than the voice actor will deliver it, and when I'm in the middle of an extended Q&A, I want to get it over with as soon as possible. But perhaps that's my impatience with the overall game. I just wanted to be done and wished I could speed up any little bit of it. This lack of skipability carries over into the end credits. They're slowly scrolled and, for some heinous reason, quadruple spaced. And you... can't... skip them.

To be fair, the early sections of the book are relatively uneventful, but maybe that should have been a sign to TellTale. 'Bone' would make a phenomenal animated movie, but videogames are an interactive medium, and that interaction needs to feel meaningful. The source material here, as much as I love it, doesn't bear the weight of player interaction.

Unless you're the most die-hard fan of TellTale's games, skip this one. Fans of the book? Stay away.

read the FANTASTIC grafic novel.
a must buy for fans and supporters, soso game for the rest. would like to see bone and brothers in other games maybe ones taking place outside the books.

this game follows the comics closely and its not bad but are a tad short.
the 2nd one is better more because of the events but they tried to be a little different from the books in that one.
i would only grab this if your really into Bone or point&clicks adventures.