Great Cow Race preview
 

Yay! Great stuff, Emily.

I guess there was still no release date given more specific than "Spring?"

Glad you enjoyed it. :) Telltale's addressed a lot of the things that people complained about in the first game, so I'm glad to be able to spread the word about some of those changes. :D

Nope, not yet.

It's sounding more promising. What bothered me about 'Out From Boneville' wasn't so much it's short length, but more it's ultra linear structure and lack of interactivity. Therefor it's encouraging to know that this will be more non linear.

The ability to switch between characters should be interesting, I don't really know of any other adventures aside from DOTT that have actually done this.

Also, the Lucius model is looking like a pretty accurate representation of the comic book character.

Is far as I'm concerned though, my decision of whether to purchase will come down to how they've handled the gameplay this time round. I want to be playing a proper adventure game this time, and not another interactive story.

Can you elaborate? In your opinion, what's the difference?

I suppose there isn't an actual difference. I just mean that I want something that I can interact with more and which requires more thought, rather than just wandering through the scenarios and watching stuff happen without really doing much.

Maniac Mansion, Zak McKracken? To some degree the Indiana Jones games.

Didn't mean to put you on the spot. I asked so I could apply your idea of a "true adventure" to what I know about the game. :)

I do feel like there's a lot to do in this game. There are multiple things to look at on each screen (more on some screens than others) and of course there is a lot of dialogue. I wouldn't say that the puzzles are necessarily much harder than in the last game, but in general, there are more things to do (both required and optional).

The game is still geared at a younger or less experienced player than most of us are. But where the first game was tipped much more toward the younger / less experienced player, I feel like The Great Cow Race is more in the middle of the spectrum. On the plus side, the story that's told is much better than what you find in a lot of harder games (both because it's based on a good book, and because the designers are really good at translating story into gameplay).

Yeah I'm not expecting a considerable jump in difficulty with this game. I think the level of challenge set by Boneville is more or less going to continue with the sequels. That's with this series, anyway. I'm sure, say, Sam & Max is going to be aimed at more experienced adventure gamers. I'm just glad to hear that Telltale is steadfast in their mission to make the puzzles, difficult or not, completely woven into the story rather than being arbitrary brain-teasers. I love the term "interactive story;" to me that's more what adventures are all about, more so than puzzle solving.

So, pretty much everything people suggested should be improved in OFB; length, puzzles, Thorn (model / voice), linearity, lack of non-essential hotspots, abrupt ending... seems to have been addressed in GCR?

This Telltale company, I quite like them you know...

Those screenshots are so tinny. :P

Only two of the screenshots (the close-ups of Phoney and Lucius) are small. That's because I stole borrowed them from the most recent blog. :P Definitely look at the rest of the gallery, because those are the only small ones. Decided to keep them anyway, because the Lucius model's pretty cool. ;)

As an added bonus, I just added two shots of the new Thorn to the gallery. :D What do you guys think?

Really is hard to tell withough seeing her animated. Though I assume Telltale will have learned a few animation tricks on realistic and semi-realistic humans while working on CSI.

Without going back and looking at old screenshots, the hair's the only thing that looks different to me. Still, I'm a male and we're not supposed to notice when our lady friends have makeovers, are we...


Oh, and I didn't read 'tinny' as tiny, but anyway...

Very informative preview. Pretty much everything in the text excites me; it seems like they're continuing along the path back to true adventures that I so loved Bone for being a first step towards. I can't help noticing the shadows have disappeared from characters though... maybe that's just because of the incomplete lighting.

Upon reading these news I, the excrementious excreter, sqeezed out an excretive squeal (edit: thanks junk) of joy! (I just wanted to use those words in a sentence--they're all in the dictionary!)

That "squeel" one's not in any dictionary I know... (sorry, just seemed to good an opportunity to pass up, unless it actually is a word and my dictionary's inadequately stocked, in which case I look like a complete asshole...)

Compare the new model to this picture of the old one. It's not just the hair, but also the shape of her face and eyes. The face was longer and more angular before; now it's rounder with softer edges. Same with the eyes -- they were kind of narrow and slitty before, and now they're a bit larger and rounder. They're subtle changes, but I think both contribute to a younger, more innocent feel for the character. I definitely think this model is closer to the Thorn in the book than the previous one.

Also, you can't tell from those screenshots, but she's wearing leggings now. Kevin Bruner made a funny comment when I was there, about the fact that they had to change Thorn out of her skirt because it was "problematic." I asked why, and he said "Because Fone's really short. And he first meets Thorn when she's sitting on a log..."

Hadn't occurred to me, but I see what he means. :crazy:

I would take everything you've seen so far with a grain of salt. My understanding of Telltale's development tools is that they can continue making lighting, camera angle, and choreography changes up until pretty much the last minute. So although what you're seeing in these screenshots is indicative of the people and places in the game, these screens do not show the precise staging, etc. that we'll be getting in the finished product.

actually i'm quite

It is nice to see a company that actually listens to their fans, and actually solves the problems of the first release (which were quite fundmental)

while i didn't had a problem a problem with OFB game length, i was quite dissapointed from the limited interactivity with the game world.

But the most important problem with bone is the story - it's plain too good!
for me , who never read the comics it was a nice surprise , and i just can't wait to the next game (which can be problem, a very serious one)

Fantastic stuff! Made me smile. :)

Woo this is really exciting! :) Great preview Emily!
I simply loved first Bone game. The only things that bothered me, were lenght of the game, a bit strange story-pacing toward the end (it felt rushed) and Thorn's voice&appearance (new model looks much closer to her book-self)
Anyway, love the graphic and atmosphere! Really really charming. Now the only thing that is missing are some shadows underneath characters ;) don't really understand why there are non?
Telltale is really shaping up to be one of my favorite developers!

...Gobliiins series, Schizm, Fahrenheit. "To some degree" (ie. at one or two points in the whole game only) Gabriel Knight 2, Broken Sword 3 and certainly several others I can't think of right now.

Great preview, Emily. I don't predict Bone series to be my cup of tea anyway, but it's very cool that Telltale pays so much attention to the players' feedback.