Despite the ordinary name, Jeff Smith must be an interesting fellow. That is, considering he’s behind Bone, a series of comic books detailing the lives of the three Bone cousins, Fone, Phoney and Smiley. This motley crew of blood-relatives have traversed the weirdest, wackiest locales known to man and met some exceedingly different characters in the series of nine graphic novels. Developer Telltale, comprised of former LucasArts employees, has created the PC rendition of Bone: Out From Boneville, Smith’s very first foray into comic book-don.

Out From Boneville begins with Fone, Phoney and Smiley engaged in an argument. It seems the cousins have been kicked from Boneville. Rather, Phoney has. You’ll gather that the Boneville inhabitants could not stand his stingy, sour nature and that sanity prevailed with the grouchy Phoney being disbanded from the land. Fone and Smiley followed in the footsteps of their cousin, for reasons unknown. We assume the inhabitants of Boneville wanted absolutely no trace of Phoney left and chucked Smiley and Fone from their midst too. There’s little backstory presented as the game begins, but this doesn’t really matter, as you’ll quickly pick up tidbits of information that the characters drop during their conversations. At any rate, Out From Boneville’s plot is not particularly deep and there’s more emphasis placed on introducing the several unique, bizarre characters than telling an intricate tale. Ironically, considering the developer’s name.

Soon enough, Fone, Phoney and Smiley are split up. As Fone, you enter a valley filled with a mixture of odd animals and humans and it’s your job to reunite the cousins and seek safe harbor. This valley has the effect of overwhelming Fone and Phoney –  the latter who you’ll play as later on in proceedings – and you get the impression that the Bones are experiencing a huge climate change. Speaking of weather, the valley in Jeff Smith’s comic book was home to a splattering of snow in places. The valley in the game is devoid of any snow, which was a decision made by Telltale for easiness sake, we’re guessing. At any rate, Out From Boneville is no great looker, although everything is rendered in 3D and the character models are charming. More on the visuals later.

For an adventure game to succeed it certainly doesn’t need to rely on razor-sharp textures, and the immediately sparse-looking locales in Bone would have been more acceptable had the actual gameplay been better. You’ll quickly realize that the point and click format doesn’t work well within a 3D engine. The major problem is the annoyance factor, which can reach levels of magnitude if you have the uncanny ability of clicking in the wrong spots. For instance, you may wish to guide Fone out through a bush, but click the mouse cursor too high and you’ll watch him jauntily walk to the precisely wrong spot. What with Out From Boneville being a short game – even for the first in a series of episodes – you’ll inevitably bear the control system for the duration of its two-hour existence, and if you’ve grown up on LucasArts adventures, it will be familiar territory. And if we’re sounding overly harsh, it’s simply the skewer of criticism we spear at games that come our way. In all honesty, Bone doesn’t control awfully; it’s just not a control system that is conducive to precision.

 

Instead of presenting the player with a series of puzzles, Telltale has looked to vary the experience with both arcade-esque mini-games and puzzles that fall under the traditional “adventure" header (most notably, inventory conundrums). As far as mini-games are concerned, you’ll find yourself steering a fleeing Fone from all kinds of monstrosities a couple of times during the game, doing so solely with the mouse. It’s a rather jarring experience for anyone who is accustomed to traditional forays through adventure territory, but not wholly bad. At another point, you’ll try and have Fone slink away from a pair of arguing rat creatures, watching to see if they’re not looking your way. Initially frustrating, this sequence becomes manageable by learning to look for certain signs, and to the game’s credit, it’s immensely rewarding to escape the clutches of the rats.

In an effort to a young audience too, both Fone and Phoney will need to play hide and seek with a set of wonderfully voiced possum children at different junctures in the game. This acts as another little mini-game as you listen to the possum’s cries of “hot!" and “cold!" in an effort to uncover their hiding places. It’s also one of the gameplay portions that is not present in the comic book, although in total, there’s not really enough new content on offer.

Switching control between Phoney and Fone is commonplace during Bone and the experience differs appropriately. Fone is well mannered and soft-spoken and he gets on well with the denizens of the valley. On the other hand, Phoney’s rash, hard demeanor and his penchant for insults will land him in trouble more than once. There’s a satisfying line drawn between the two characters, and that of Smiley Bone too.

Mini-games aside, the beef of an adventure game should lie in the puzzles, and Out From Boneville is lacking here. What with a hint system – which does alleviate the possibility of begging the question: “what do I do next?" – you should have no trouble with Bone’s puzzles, no matter your age, or experience with titles of this ilk. Puzzles never veer into the realms of punishing, and thankfully so, but it’s undeniable that added challenge would have helped in more ways than one (for one, protracting the experience).