First things first: in case anyone cares, I wrote a new poem. It’s called “Past, Present, Future” and it proves once again how much I like to group my poems into three stanzas.

Now, to take on a completely different turn, I’d like to share my thoughts on Telltale Games‘ newest offering: Out from Boneville[1] . Now, everyone and their dog has been telling me that it’s an extremely short game, probably not worth the $20 (US) they’re charging for it. I, of course, don’t mind short games at all; in fact, I welcome them, given the fact that I’m a busy student AND I’m using up a large portion of my free time making my OWN game. And besides, if you think about it, $20 really isn’t that much to pay for a new game these days. I’m pretty sure I spent at least twice that much on Psychonauts, after all…

So I played it, and I’m like “ooh, this is cute”. So cute, in fact, that my twelve-year-old sister decided that she wanted to play the game too after taking a peek at it. Personally, I think this would be a great game for people of that age range. Not that I’m calling Out from Boneville a kids’ game[2] , it’s just that the puzzles to be solved are, in a sense, indirectly educational, and I believe this to be the ideal form of edutainment as a whole. The fact that this definitely isn’t a game JUST for kids (think Mrs. Doubtfire or Spongebob Squarepants) makes it even more ideal in this regard.

That being said, it was mostly your standard adventure game fare. The puzzles were so easy that I didn’t have to use hints of any kind, which, in the spirit of me wanting to play short games, was a blessing. There were mini-games aplenty, which I actually quite enjoyed[3] . I’d have to say that my favourite part of the entire game was the one where Fone Bone was about to be eaten by monsters, and escaped by making them argue with one another over whether they should make him into a stew or a quiche.

I said I didn’t mind the short length of the game, right? Well, I didn’t. But I did mind the fact that there was a cliffhanger ending. And I HATE cliffhanger endings. I mean, you get the sense that something important is about to happen… and then the game just ENDS! The HORROR! The HORROR!

…well, come to think of it, Telltale’s goal IS to produce episodic games, in the manner of books in a series and such. And goodness knows how many books I’ve read containing cliffhanger endings. Ah well, I suppose the best thing to do in this sort of situation is wait patiently for the next installment to be released[4] . And of course, if all the games are going to be this short, it’ll take much less time between installments. Oh, goody.