Bone Demo

[Benny]

So the demo is out.

 

I'm downloading it now. What does everyone think of it?

[Remi]

The Remi likes the little he tried of it. There are some obvious minor issues (probably because of budget constraints), but it seems like a fun game so far.

 

I did, in fact, just purchase the full copy.

[Joshi]

I don't know whether it's just the time of day or what, but I can't get to any download page (I can hit the 'download free' button, but after several minutes trying, it just say's "This document contains no data")

 

Can anyone link me to that actual file? If not I'll just try again later. Thanks.

 

EDIT

Never mind, it's downloading.

[Benny]

I've always been a bit lukewarm about Bone, what little I knew of it didnt really grab me. Unfortunately the demo doesnt really make me want to buy the full game.

 

Yes its short, but there really wasnt any hook, anything that made me think 'this is quite cool'. I also got irritated by the slightly wonky dialog tree, the rich guy said 'I'm not giving up what I have for that catawauling hobo' about 5 times.

 

Hopefully the full game is better and perhaps if you've read the comic books the demo comes across better. For someone like me though with little prior interest in Bone, the demo really doesnt do much to change my mind.

 

Dammit, I hate sounding like a stereotypical fanboy cynic.

[Thrik]

No, I agree. I'd never heard of Bone before Telltale picked it up, and after playing this demo I can't say that I'm particularly enthused. It's kind of sound, but a few gripes that Benzo and Remzo pretty much summed up above combined with the lack of any significantly interesting points in the demo reduce it to a fairly mundane affair in my opinion.

 

I will still buy a copy so that I can try it out properly though eventually, since this was obviously a very poorly chosen part of the game in the demo -- there *has* to be more interesting stuff than this later in. Plus, I'm sure Telltale could use actual purchasers. ;

[Gabez]

This is the new EMI!

 

But no, seriously, I'll try it out later.

[Remi]

The one thing that does bug me in retrospect, is that the demo only consists of the part of the story before the cousins get split up. This is really just an intro to the intro, and I can see how it wouldn't entice anybody not familiar with the Bone comicbooks. It's at least not a good introduction to the actual story.

[Joshi]

I also agree, it looked like it was setting up to maybe be an okay game (I like the interface, point n click in realtime 3D instead of static, pre-rendered backgrounds), but there was really nothing there that made me wish there was more game (apart from it being really short obviously). I guess if I had the whole game I'd probably play it all the way through (If I didn't, I'd stop playing after about 5 mins, but this didn't feel like on of those games), but nothings really making me want to shell out some cash for it. That said, I currently have no cash, and once I do get some, I may give in and actually buy it, so I guess we'll see.

[Skinkie]

Cash in, it can't do any harm, after all, your funds can be used to make Sam and Max... oh.... and I'm downloading it now, hopefully, I find it intriguing.

[Alien426]

I'm not very happy with the demo. I made some screenshots with FRAPS when I played the demo and now I can tell that between the moment I took over control to the cliffhanger ending are only 9 minutes. The full game is said to be 2 hours for experienced adventurers and 3 or more for newbies.

 

Seeing that I can buy a bazillion games on eBay for less than I won't spend the money. I recently bought a collection of 232 games for 32 Euros and it had some classics like Broken Sword, Chronomaster, Death Gate, Fable, Floyd (Feeble Files), Hell, Indy 4, Jack Orlando, Larry 5+6, Monkey Island 2, Orion Burger, Shannara...

 

I'm sorry for the developers, but I'm also sure that adventure games will still get made even if we don't all fork over the bucks out of guilt feelings or compassion.

 

I hope Sam & Max won't be as episodic as Bone. When the customers don't keep buying the games, will they be left alone with the last cliffhanger?

[Udvarnoky]

According to Telltale, their games are supposed to be self-contained rather than dependent on the next one.

 

Don't fork over bucks out of compassion, fork it over because Bone is fun!

[Alien426]

Don't fork over bucks out of compassion, fork it over because Bone is fun!

That's exactly it. I have seen too little to know whether it would be fun. Today, I've played the demo again and I still felt that I only did four or so actions and then fled the locusts in a mini-game. Come on, adventurers always complained about those. I'd rather shove around some crates than frantically jump over rocks.

 

I spent more time on the demo of Sherlock Holmes: The Silver Earring than I could assume to spend on the full game of Bone. I can't even be sure that I'd like those few hours, because the demo didn't give me much clues as to whether the game might be good. All it conveyed was "technically well made, but short".

 

I'm not ruling out that I'll buy the game, I'll just wait for reviews I can trust and maybe the price should drop a bit, too.

[ThunderPeel2001]

Bone = fun! (No really.)