"The last one was fun, don't get me wrong, but it was too short."

So opens The Great Cow Race, the second installment of Telltale Games' series of Bone adventures. The line, spoken by a Barrelhaven local in reference to the previous year's race, pokes fun at the chief complaint many gamers aired after playing the series' debut episode, Out from Boneville: great concept, but over way too soon. Telltale's building their business on the notion that short, frequent releases will be more fun for players, and more attainable for the company, than the traditional longer games that take years and millions of dollars to make. We fans can be stingy, though; we want as much as we can get for the least out of our pockets. Can there be a balance?

The second Bone game, which is due out this spring, suggests so. I recently paid a visit to Telltale's office to get a sneak peek, and boy do I wish I could have brought every one of Adventure Gamers' readers along with me. You're just going to have to take my word for it: The Great Cow Race is shaping up to be the game we all wanted Out from Boneville to be.

Don't get me wrong. It's still "short." By that I mean it's not an epic, Myst- or Grim Fandango-length game. But it's a lot closer to the 4–6 hours Telltale's been touting since the beginning, not to mention a much richer, more fulfilling experience. Where the first game, though charming, felt a bit skimpy and rushed, this one feels very much like Book 2 of Jeff Smith's comic series brought to life.

The version I played was still rough around the edges. Voice acting had not yet been recorded, the lighting and final camera angles weren't in place, and many of the characters just stood around with arms outstretched in that creepy way 3D models do. But behind these obvious rough spots is a vibrant world that's much more active and immersive than the first. This has something to do with the setting, the town of Barrelhaven during its annual festival, but it's also clear that Telltale has worked hard to give players more to do and see this time around. The game world is tight and self-contained—you spend most of the game inside the limits of the small town—but everywhere you turn, there are people to talk to, hotspots to examine, and things to try.

If you played the first game, you'll remember that the ending chase sequence dumped you off in Barrelhaven, resulting in an unsettling feeling that part of the story had been left out. That's because part of it was. The Great Cow Race goes back in time a bit, starting with Phoney's arrival in Barrelhaven after he sneaks away from Gran'ma Ben's farm in the middle of the night. Next we see Fone, Thorn, and Gran'ma dealing with the aftermath of that chase and packing up to go to the fair. The disparate timing might be jarring for those expecting a straight continuation of the first game, but once you get through the initial scenes, this doesn't matter. Cousins Fone, Phoney, and Smiley are reunited in Barrelhaven, where the townsfolk are buzzing about who will win this year's cow race. Fone Bone and Thorn have their first tiff, leaving love-struck Fone desperate to win back her attention. Phoney, always scheming, gets a great idea for making a fortune off the race. And good-natured Smiley's just glad to be along for the ride.

The first Bone game featured a few multi-person conversations, during which you could jump from talking with one character to chatting with another, mid-dialogue. The Great Cow Race takes this concept one step farther by allowing the player to toggle among Fone, Phoney, and Smiley during much of the game. (This is similar to the gameplay in Day of the Tentacle, which is no surprise considering DOTT's designer Dave Grossman is also a designer on the Bone games.) A few times you need to switch characters in order to progress—for example, Phoney can't talk with Gran'ma Ben inside the Barrelhaven bar until Smiley convinces her to go in—but for the most part, the three cousins' tasks are independent. I liked this, because it meant I never felt stuck. That's not to say I never hit a point where I didn't know what to do next, but rather than wandering around frustrated (or begging Grossman and co-designer Heather Logas, who were standing nearby, for a hint), I just switched to another cousin. This ability to bounce among playable characters makes for a nice blend of narrative and non-linearity. Ultimately you do have to accomplish each cousin's set of tasks, but most of these can be done in whatever order you want.



As before, the game is packed with conversation. Dialogue trees have acquired something of a nasty reputation in adventure games, because they usually consist of a long list of questions that must be asked and answered before you can proceed. Not so with The Great Cow Race. Although several puzzles hinge on your ability to lead a character through a dialogue in a certain way, much of the game's dialogue is optional. This is an area where your playing style will have a big influence on your experience. Those who don't go through all the dialogues will finish the game faster, and they risk missing a lot of the charm and humor infused into this little world. The nice thing about many of the dialogues being nonessential is that players who breeze through the game will likely hear new conversations and jokes if they play it a second time.

The art style and engine haven't changed significantly, but Telltale has made a few small but effective improvements over the first game. The most obvious is that Thorn has a new character model. She looks a lot softer and younger now, and is wearing leggings instead of a skirt. Although I didn't hear it, I'm told her voice has been recast as well. Another welcome change is that saved games are now stored chronologically rather than alphabetically, making it much easier to load the right game when you resume playing.



Although none of the mini games were implemented when I saw The Great Cow Race, they seem to fit well into the story, such as a carnival game that Fone Bone plays hoping to win a prize for Thorn. The puzzles I did see ranged from standard inventory and dialogue fare, to a few very creative, story-driven challenges. My favorite is a sequence in which Fone must use images he's "collected" during his travels to write a poem for Thorn—I've never seen anything like it in an adventure game. All of the puzzles support and are supported by the story; you won't be tasked with working through slider puzzles to open locked doors or stacking Hanoi towers to reach high shelves. It really feels more like you're playing a story than a game.

If you weren't a fan of the chase sequences in Out from Boneville, you're probably more than a little apprehensive of the pinnacle event in the second game: the cow race. I won't give away exactly what they've done, but I can say that Telltale has created a series of little puzzles that occur during the race, yet don't require lightning-speed reflexes. And the way the cows' udders swing as they run is hilarious.

Okay, this is great and all, but I bet a lot of you are still hung up on the game's length. I can't begin to guess how long it will take the average player to go through The Great Cow Race, but I can assure you that I played for four hours straight, without cutscenes, mini games, or voice acting implemented, and I didn't quite reach the end. Yes, it's still short by adventure game standards, but Telltale's always been honest that each episode would be. That's the trade-off for getting a game every six months or less. The important thing is that The Great Cow Race is shaping up to be much more substantial and satisfying than Out from Boneville was, as well as a bit longer. The team took pains to make sure we'd get more for our money this time around, and even at this unfinished stage, it shows.