Navigation in Out from Boneville is icon-based point & click, but rather than selecting the appropriate icon to use for each occasion, the icon changes over each hotspot to depict what can be done. This nicely eliminates some of the tedious switching between icons to find the right action that happens in many games.

Dialogue is handled in an inventive way when dealing with more than two characters. Rather than having to navigate from one character to the next for a series of two-way conversations, this game allows for conversations between multiple characters at once. When you click on one character, all other relevant characters show as icons at the top of the conversation bubble. Talking to Thorn but have something to say to Phoney? Just click on his icon to address him, and the dialogue options will change to reflect the conversation switch. This is a great touch and hopefully we'll see more of it in the future.

The puzzles run the gamut from light action sequences to logic puzzles to your standard inventory and fetch quests. But what Telltale has done here that most developers seem to miss is offer a variety of organic puzzles. I don't remember the last time I was able to go from escaping flying locusts to figuring out what order to jump rocks in order to cross a stream to playing hide and seek, all in the span of less than an hour. This shouldn't be a surprise, however, as Telltale was founded by several former LucasArts developers, and their experience really shows in the way they approach their storytelling through gameplay.

Another great touch is the built-in help system. This is one game that will definitely not need a walkthrough posted, and not just because of the difficulty level. Running into a problem figuring out where to go or what to do next? Hit the help icon and you'll be given a very generalized clue — just enough to remind you what you're doing. Still lost? Click again and the clue gets more detailed. And you can keep clicking all the way up to the complete solution for the puzzle. This is great for beginning gamers or children who may be playing the game and feel a little lost. And for you walkthrough addicts, it's a little slice of heaven.

That's not to say that there aren't some issues with the gameplay. As I stated earlier, there are two similar action sequences in the game, and while they should be fairly easy to complete, this can be a deal-breaker for some people. These sequences require you to use your mouse to run from creatures while jumping and dodging obstacles in your way, and at least on the two machines that I played on, the game controls occasionally become non-responsive when the mouse movement is too near the edge of the screen. These types of action sequences are becoming more and more standard in adventure games lately, and I have accepted that fact. But it would be nice if we were given the option to skip them if they were too much, or as in the last Leisure Suit Larry game, an option to lower the difficulty of the sequence after failing at it a few times.

Now that we've covered the game itself, how does one go about getting it? Well, Telltale is among the growing handful of companies focusing on digital distribution, eliminating the need to go down to your local computer store to find the one adventure game sitting on the shelf surrounded by all those first person shooters. Distribution for Out from Boneville is being handled through the company's Telltale Now service, and essentially consists of downloading the game to your hard drive and paying for a code to activate it. Even better, included in the download is a free playable portion, where you can check out the beginning of the game before committing.

While I had no problems with my own copy, it should be noted that early public rumblings suggest the game launched with some kinks in the system. Fortunately these seem to be merely growing pains, as Telltale has already addressed some initial problems with registration, and appears dedicated to addressing any technical issues that arise.

As for the download itself, I was amazed to find that the entire package fit into a roughly fifty megabyte download, which is much smaller than even most demo downloads these days, and thoroughly surprising given the overall quality of the package (although it also explains the fixed low resolution and perhaps some of the graphical issues mentioned earlier).

All in all, this is a promising beginning to a series I am definitely looking forward to continuing in the future. The story is charming and witty, the puzzles are a refreshing change from the usual, and the game is appropriate for everyone in the family. If Telltale can add a little more substance to future episodes, I think with a slight graphical makeover on the main characters and a few small changes (like the ability to skip cutscenes and action sequences), this series could definitely end up being a classic.

[Addendum: Since first publishing this review, Telltale has reduced the purchase price of Out from Boneville and introduced a packaged product as an alternative to the download version of the game.]