Galilee Bones and the Juggernaut of Jordan

(I beta tested this game)

In the pantheon of names for Indiana Jones rip-offs, “Galilee Bones” is good but not great – I’ve told the story about making my friend name his Dr. Jones-ish RPG character “Tennessee Williams”, right? – except I only realized significantly after I started playing the eponymous game that it’s a double pun, since it also calls back to the author’s Galaxy Jones dyad of games. That’s not the only moment when a game that at first seems to be a straightforward archaeologist vs. Nazis romp throws a feint.

For one thing, there are the puzzles: while there’s a satisfying mix of sneaking, fighting, and thinking in what initially seems like a small, contained area eventually reveals itself to contain multiple layers of challenges that require readjusting your expectations to surmount. While working through this may involve trial and error for some players, even the trickier bits are well-clued, meaning that several times I smacked my head, impressed by how well the game sets up even distinctly counter-intuitive actions like (Spoiler - click to show)handing the priceless occult treasure to a Nazi.

Then there’s the plot, which again begins like every Indy pastiche imaginable but quickly starts complicating itself: a series of short flashbacks begin interrupting the action, providing some fun backstory but also introducing another character into what’s otherwise a mostly-solitary adventure. These flashbacks also set up a final twist that reveals that the actual conflict, and Dr. Bones’s role in the story, was different than it first appeared.

And this isn’t a game that denies players the pleasures of the thing it’s emulating: for all these reversals and rug-pulls, you still get to clock unsuspecting Nazis on the head, delve into lost tombs, decode hieroglyphs… it’s a neatly-accomplished balancing act, making Galilee Bones a game that does a bunch more than it needed to.