Bone: The Great Cow Race Walkthrough
Written by Heather Logas and Dave Grossman
To learn more about The Great Cow Race, please visit Telltale Games.

This walkthrough is intended to help you through Bone: The Great Cow Race in the event that you find yourself stuck. Keep in mind that if you follow this walkthrough exactly, you will miss a lot of what this game has to offer. You might want to stop and smell the roses (or the crocuses) once in a while.

Phoney Arrives in Barrelhaven
We begin with Phoney arriving at the Barrelhaven Tavern, in need of a thirst quencher after all his traveling. There is a bell above the bar and a sign that tells you to ring the bell for service. Phoney can’t reach the bell on his own, however, so he is going to need some form of assistance.

There is a bone that one of the patrons is gnawing on that might help extend Phoney’s reach. Unfortunately, if you click on the bone to take it, our friend Euclid insists that he isn’t done with it. Talk to his friends by clicking on them, or on the small heads above the dialog bubble if you are already conversing with someone. Asking Jon (the man on the right) about Euclid’s bone gnawing habits will lead Jon to tell you about a particular Pawanian soup that all three of them have previously tried. Euclid seems not to want to talk about this soup. Press the topic with Jon and Euclid will wind up losing his appetite. Now you can click the bone to pick it up.

Click your backpack to open it up, and click the bone. The cursor will change to the bone, and you can now click it on the bell to have Phoney use it to ring the bell.

 

The bartender turns out to be Smiley Bone! The cousins will celebrate their reunion and now you can talk to Smiley about the up-coming cow race and Phoney’s scheme for it. Follow the dialog any way you like. Eventually Lucius will show up and press Phoney into service.

Now Phoney has to mop the floor. Oh the indignity! The goal here is to have a nice clean floor with no footprints on it. As soon as the floor is completely free of prints, you’ve reached your objective. Phoney can clean a rectangular area that spans two "spots" side by side. He gets to do this three times in a row before some cretin tramps on his floor and leaves more footprints. Fortunately, Wendell and Jon leave the exact same pattern of prints every time they walk across. The easiest way to get through this is to save the patches directly in front of Lucius for last. Get the spots in the middle of the floor first, then the front areas (closest to where Jon and Wendell walk from), then the left, and finally the spots closest to Lucius. Ideally, you want to clean up all the spots except for the ones in front of Lucius right before Wendell walks across the floor. Then you’ll be able to finish up in three strokes.

The Farm in the Wake of Disaster
After an interlude with important and mysterious story points that I won’t give away here, you find yourself as Fone at Gran’ma’s farm. Talk to Gran’ma and protest your innocence, then gather up Thorn and pack the cart so you can all go to the fair. It doesn’t matter if you pack the cart or talk to Thorn first.

Packing the cart is just a matter of putting Gran’ma’s packages in the right places so everything fits. Click on the cart itself to start the puzzle. Click on a package to pick it up, and click it again to set it down. The packages don’t rotate or flip or change orientation in any way. Put the large crate in the upper left corner of the cart, and the long trunk with the blankets tied on top at the lower right. The small basket goes in the lower left corner, and the bag of housewares at the upper right.

Now that the cart is packed, it’s time to collect Thorn. Walk past the farmhouse to the right to find her, behind the stone wall. She obviously has something on her mind. Click on her to talk to her and see what it is, and when you’re done talking to her, suggest that it's time to go to town.

Now we get to see all our friends happily reunited, and Gran’ma suggests that everyone get some shut-eye.

Bumps in the Night
The landscape changes drastically, and you see a little girl in the middle of some strange looking stones. Curious...

Move the glowing cursor over each of the four carved stones and watch what happens.

Now the scene changes and your little friend is standing next to one of the hooded people. Move your cursor over the dark space next to the hooded person, and then over the person herself. More stuff happens...

After that, morning comes and the Spring Fair begins!

The Spring Fair!
The game now opens up and you can switch at any time between playing Fone, Phoney or Smiley by clicking on the icons that represent them in the upper right hand corner of the screen (for most of the game, Phoney’s the one in the chef’s hat). This walkthrough is in a linear format, however, so let’s start with Fone.

Thorn seems to have a thing for honey and cute honey sellers. As Fone, defend your honor against the honey seller Tom (follow this dialog any way you like), and watch Thorn get annoyed at your macho bravado. She storms off and leaves Fone on his own.

 

Getting Honey for Thorn
Fone can do a number of things now, but let’s try to get Thorn some honey. From the food booths, walk up and to the right to the games area (follow the sign). Find the hay ride cart and walk to the right past it into a lovely wooded clearing. Walk Fone all the way to the right and you will find a large tree with a pool of honey near it. Make Fone climb the tree by clicking on the tree trunk. Fone climbs the tree and finds a giant honeycomb, but there seems to be an enormous bee who would rather Fone not take it. Pick a line to say to the bee - it will probably result in Fone being tossed out of the tree - and then make your way back out to the games area.

The honey seller, Tom, said something about putting bees to sleep with smoke. Click on the hay in the hay cart to grab a handful of hay. Now walk down and to the left to return to the food booths section. Walk further down and to the left and you will find a huge pot with a fire underneath it. Click the hay from your inventory and then click the hay on the fire to get it smoking. This bee is going to require a lot of smoke, since he’s so darn big, so walk back up to the hay cart, get your smoking hay from your inventory, and click it on the big pile of hay in the cart. Voila! Instant giant bee trap!

Of course, Bossy the cow still isn’t in the right spot, so take some more hay from the cart (it’s not all ruined yet) and then click that hay on the cow. The cow will reach for it, and run off into the clearing. Follow the cow into the clearing, and you will see your nemesis the bee fall into a deep sleep.

Now just click the tree to make Fone climb it again, and then click the honey comb and Fone will collect it.

You can find Thorn to try and give her the honey by following the sign labeled "Races" from the fair games area. You can click her to talk to her, or click the honey and click her with it to try to give it to her. Either way you’ll quickly discover that she is in a bit of a funk and doesn’t really want to talk to Fone.

The Great (little) Cow Race!
Fone won’t give up on Thorn just because she’s being sort of cranky. If the honey isn’t going to work, maybe she’ll be more impressed with him winning her a stuffed animal.

In the Games area of the fair, there is a booth labeled "The Great Cow Race". A very cute giant cow hangs up near the top of the booth. Thorn would love one of those, wouldn’t she?

 

First, Fone has to play the cow race game. Click on the man with the udder shaped hat and the Holstein patterned shirt. Fone doesn’t have an egg to pay for the game, so click on the option about asking the man where his accent comes from. This will lead the man to chat about being a fellow traveler, and he will let Fone play the game for free.

The race begins! Your objective here is to hit the little green cow with catapult stones (thereby moving it forward on the track) and get it to reach the finish line before the other cows (and the miniature Gran’ma). No matter where you hit your cow, it will move forward, but the closer you can get to the middle of the bull’s eye, the more the cow will move forward in one go. The catapult is a little wobbly, so you will have to move your mouse constantly to try and keep the crosshairs where you want them. Click the button to fire when the crosshairs are over the cow. Either shooting a bunch at the cow or else being more careful and trying to hit the bull’s eye both work fairly well, so decide which you like better and just try your best. You may get it the first time or you may not, but you’ll probably get it without too much fuss.

The first time you win the cow race, you are presented with a raggedy little toy chicken. This definitely doesn’t look like a proper gift, so play the game again to win a little cow. Still not the big glorious cow displayed at the booth, but it may suffice.

If you want to try to keep going to win the giant cow, you will have to win 19 more times. Fortunately, you don’t have to do this if you don't feel like it - you only need the small cow. But, depending on your sensibilities, it may be worth it.

Strong Guy Fone Bone
Fone still hasn’t had any luck impressing Thorn, so maybe its time to up the macho meter a bit. Just a little farther up the screen from the catapult game, you’ll find a man in a horned helmet standing by a huge strongman apparatus. Click the helmeted man to talk to him and ask him if you can play his game (which he’ll inform you is called the "Burly Barbarian"). Click the mallet to make Fone swing it at the game. Fone won’t be able to knock the weight very high. If you right click on the lever to the right of the main apparatus, you’ll activate the view cursor. Then left click. Turns out the game is set to the hardest level. If you now click the lever, Dirk won’t let you touch it. Sure would be nice if he wasn’t around. But Fone can’t do much about that, so let’s switch to Phoney for now, by clicking on the little Phoney Bone icon in the upper right corner of the screen.

Phoney Scams Jon Oaks
Wonder what Phoney and Smiley have been up to all this time? Switching to Phoney will reveal that the two of them are stuck in the tavern working for Lucius all day. But that isn’t gonna keep Phoney from running his scam. Phoney’s already gotten Benedict to bet, now its time to turn his sights to young Jon Oaks (he's the one standing near the barstools in the tavern).

Jon is young and fairly gullible. Click on him to start talking to him, and turn the conversation towards Jon’s goals and dreams until you get him to question betting on Gran’ma Ben. Follow up by pointing out how old Gran’ma is getting, and then hit him with the final zinger - bring up the real fast cow you’ve heard about! Jon will run off to get more eggs, and now you only have two more suckers to convince.

 

Phoney does something nice for a change (although it's just to further his own interests).
Talking to Wendell or Euclid (the two remaining men in the tavern) will reveal that they are currently in the middle of a tiff. Click on Wendell and talk to him to find out what it's all about. They aren’t going to want to bet until this fight is over, so its up to Phoney to get them back together again. Talk to Wendell until you get to say to him "What the heck are cow shoes?" He’ll hand you a cow shoe, which is too small to fit his cow Maude - and that's the crux of the argument.

Now leave the bar by going out the front doors. Outside, you’ll see Lucius straightening some bent iron bars with his bare hands. Click the cow shoe from your inventory, and then click the barrel of bars to get Phoney to put the cow shoe in the barrel. Lucius will conveniently straighten it for you. Next, walk to your right to where the cow, Maude, is parked. Click on Maude to talk to her. Ask her if she can do anything interesting and then try to get her to do tricks until you can ask her to "shake". Once she shakes, tell her to "hold that pose". This will take you out of the dialog, and you can then take the cow shoe from your inventory and click it on Maude’s foot. This resolves the fight between Euclid and Wendell and the guys are now ready to talk about betting again.

Phoney Suckers Wendell
Wendell isn’t quite as gullible as Jon. Click on him to talk to him about betting, and you’ll see he won’t buy Phoney’s line. He’s not going to be convinced until he sees something wrong with Gran’ma with his own eyes. This is going to require a creative solution.

If you watch the window in the tavern, you’ll notice that Gran’ma runs past every once in a while and hits the punching bag outside as part of her warm-up. Look at the table directly to the left of the table the boys were sitting at earlier and click on the pepper shaker there to have Phoney pick it up. Now take the pepper from your inventory and click it on the punching bag when Gran’ma’s not around. After you see Gran’ma sneeze and Wendell comment on it, click to talk to Wendell again. Bring up the real fast cow you’ve heard of, and Wendell will now bet on it.

Cousinly Support
Fone will wander into the tavern now, looking dejected. I wonder why? (If you haven't been following this walkthrough straight through, Fone may not appear right now - don't worry about it, just skip this paragraph.) Talk to Fone in any way you choose for as long as you want to. You can end the dialog by clicking "I have to get back to work".

The Great Cow Suit
Talking to Euclid will just bring Phoney up against a brick wall for now, so let’s go check in on Smiley Bone. Click on the Smiley Bone icon in the top right corner of the screen.

 

Smiley is working on his cow suit. He’s got most of it done, but he still is in need of a tail, a pair of horns, and an udder. Getting the tail is easy as pie. Smiley likes to get into things, so clicking the coffee pot sitting on the barrel in the foreground of the kitchen will get him to tip it over, just to see what happens. He knocks it over and Lucius appears with a mop. Rather than clean with the mop, select it in your inventory and then click on the cow suit to create a fine looking tail.

Udderly Ridiculous
Wow is that an over-used pun or what? So now Smiley needs an udder. Nothing in the kitchen really screams "udder," so walk Smiley out the back door which is all the way to your right in the kitchen. Continue to walk all the way to the right past the chickens and chicken coop and down the dirt path towards the barn. Hey look, it’s Alvie from the catapult game! And look what he has on his head! (Note: if no one is standing by the barn, it probably means you haven't followed this walkthrough from the beginning - Fone Bone will need to win the game with the little catapults one time, as detailed above, before Alvie will make his way here.)

Click on Alvie to talk to him about the hat and his betting troubles. Alvie needs eggs to bet on the race. Maybe he’d sell you the hat for a couple eggs. Walk back to the where the chicken coop is, and you’ll see that its all locked up. Who would do such a thing? Hmmm.....

Go back into the kitchen and walk all the way to the left to the order up window. Click on a potato to pick it up, then click the potato on the plate to place it there. Click the little order up bell next to the plate to call Phoney to come pick up the order. Phoney will turn around for a few moments, and you can click his hat to pick it up. Lookee there, on top of his head: it’s a key! Click the key and then click Phoney’s head to put the hat back.

Now take the key out to the chicken coop and try it on the lock. Smiley collects some eggs from the coop. Aces! Walk back to Alvie and click the eggs in Smiley’s inventory to select them, then click on Alvie to hand them over. Alvie exchanges his hat for them. Score one for Smiley!

Send Smiley back to the kitchen with his prize. Select the hat and then click it on the cow costume to attach it. Lovely.

Hmm... now where did we see horns? Let’s go back to Fone Bone.

 

Strong Man’s League
If you walk Fone back into the games area (or if you left him there) you will now see Jon running through here, and talking to Dirk (the strongman) about the cow race. Dirk gets all excited and heads off to place a bet of his own. (Note: if you haven't been following the walkthrough all the way, you may still have to get Phoney to convince Jon to bet on the Mystery Cow - as detailed above - before this will happen.)

Now you can click on the small lever next to the Burly Barbarian to set the difficulty to 1. Then click the mallet and Fone Bone will give the platform a good hard smack, sending the helmet on top of the Burly Barbarian flying. Who should show up now but the possums? What a cool helmet! The little varmints abscond with it and Dirk reappears. Impressed with Fone’s manly show of strength, Dirk hands over the Strongman’s certificate and invites Fone to join the league of Strongmen.

A Poetry
After the spooky cutscene, Fone is ready to show his latest prize to Thorn. Walk him down and to the right from the Burly Barbarian and past the sign that says "Races".

Uh oh. What’s this? Fortunately, Ted shows up right when he’s needed to help Fone out. Talk to Ted about the poetry and offer to give it a shot. The screen will change to a close-up of a piece of paper on a stump which has little drawings on it.

As Ted told you before you started, you want to put in flattering imagery and you want the poem to rhyme. When you click on any of the little pieces of paper you will pick it up. Then you can click it in a different square spot to switch out the piece that’s there with the one you’re holding. You’ll notice when you do this that the words in the poem change to reflect the pieces you’re moving around. There’s a place for Thorn’s eyes, one for her teeth and one for her skin. At the beginning, Fone doesn’t have a lot to work with, just images from Moby Dick.

You can move these around and then click on Ted for his feedback. He will inform you (and rightly so) that your efforts are terrible. Fone needs to collect more images to use in his poem. You can talk to Ted for some suggestions and look around the clearing for still others, but the ones you really want you’ll get from the folks at the fair.

Walk back to Dirk and click on him to have a chat. Ask him for suggestions about poetry - ask him to suggest something smooth in particular. Next walk a little bit down to where Benedict is standing. Click him to talk and ask him about poetry as well.

Now, walk further down and to your left back into the food booths area. Talk to the man at the soup booth with the purple hat. He seems really down about something. Talking to him about why he’s so blue will reveal the cause - his brothers stole his toy chicken. Wait, doesn’t Fone have a toy chicken? Why yes, yes he does. Select Toby (that's the stuffed chicken's name) from your inventory and hand it over to the soup guy to turn his frown upside down. Now you can ask him questions about poetry and he’ll provide you with some more imagery for you to use. Ask him three times, even if you don’t like his first two answers.

Now Fone is equipped to deal with this poem. Walk him back into the clearing. Clicking on the poem on the stump will reveal that you now have a whole lot more to work with. In order to complete the poem, you’ll want to put the milk (bucket with milk in it) in the first spot, the silk (pink scarf) in the second spot, and drop of dew (blue teardrop) in the last spot. Now click Ted to read aloud the poem. Ted thinks this is great stuff. Then some exciting things happen... and now you can’t play Fone anymore.

Bullfight
The game may switch you back to Phoney now, but you really want to be Smiley at this point. So click the icon in the upper left hand corner to switch to Smiley. Walk Smiley out to the yard (where the chickens were) and you’ll notice that now the possums are hiding out under their newly acquired helmet. Aren’t they adorable? Click on them to talk to them and see what they’re up to. Offer to play with them, and they’ll explain to you that you need a red cape.

Walk Smiley back into the kitchen and pick up the dish towel that is hanging right next to the door. Now walk over to the stove which has the big pot of water boiling on it. Next to the pot you’ll see are three jars of spices. Click on the red one to have Smiley add it to the pot. The water will turn red. Now take the towel from your inventory and click it on the pot. Voila! A red cape!

Walk back outside and click your cape on the possums to have them play bullfight with you. Unfortunately, Smiley’s arms get a bit tired while playing. Click your cape on the branch that is sticking out from the tree which is between where the chickens walk around and the chicken coop. Smiley cleverly hangs the cape on the branch and now the possums can play bullfight to their heart’s content. When their hearts are contented, they’ll hand over the helmet to Smiley.

Before you head back in, stop and talk to Gran’ma. Ask her if she’s thirsty and she’ll head inside the tavern. Now go back into the kitchen and click the helmet onto the cow costume to add the finishing touches. All right! The sheep’s in the henhouse and the pigs are climbing the roof!

Now switch back to Phoney.

Euclid: The last sucker
So far Phoney hasn’t had much luck with Euclid, but that’s all about to change. Gran’ma will be standing at the bar now. Click her to talk to her. The trick here is to ask her a series of leading questions in earshot of Euclid so that Euclid will grow suspicious of her chances of winning. Start by asking her about her history with the race. Continue on this line until Gran'ma says her age is none of Phoney's business. Next, ask her about this year's race, then ask her who she thinks is the fastest cow. Continue until she says she's not going to try to win the race this year and Euclid responds. Finally, ask her about her farm, and mention the scuffle that happened there. Continue until Phoney asks if Gran'ma is feeling all right and Euclid responds. In each case, you'll know you've gotten to the right place in the dialog when Euclid says something. When he finally says "That’s very, very interesting." you know you’ve got him. Set Gran’ma loose and go back to talk to Euclid. Tell him about the mystery cow, and he’ll agree to bet on it.

 

Mad Cow
Now that no good busy-body Lucius will show up and threaten to ruin everything. You’ll be switched over to Smiley, whose mission is to make enough noise out in the old barn that the rubes will be fooled into thinking the Mystery Cow isn’t a cow to take lightly.

Smiley will start wherever you last left him. Walk him into the yard, near the back stairs of the tavern. You’ll see Lucius has left his barrel of iron bars there. Click the barrel to grab one of the bars, then head all the way to the right until you reach the barn. (This is where Alvie was standing earlier). Click the door of the barn to walk on in.

In the middle of the barn you’ll see a convenient set up of metal objects - pots and washtubs and things like that. High up on the rafters you’ll see a big ol’ bell with a pitchfork near it. Your job here is to make so much racket that the pitchfork wobbles enough to hit the bell. Click on the metal bar in Smiley’s inventory to make him pull it out. Now position him near the collection of metal stuff. Now...click like crazy! Click on the objects with your metal bar, but not the same object twice in a row - clicking different objects will make more of a ruckus. Try to minimize the time between clicks. This may take a little bit of practice, but you’ll get it.

Once the guys are convinced of the Mystery Cow’s magnitude, it’s time for the Great Cow Race to begin!

The Great Cow Race!
Uh oh, change of plans! Now the Mystery Cow has to win the race. Smiley Bone was the fastest kid in his kindergarten class, but these other cows are blocking his way.

Watch the trees that go by on the left hand side. Every once in awhile, one will come by that has a low-hanging branch with a pennant hanging on it. If you click the tail of a cow, Phoney will pull on that cow's tail. Try to pull the tail of the left-most cow as you are approaching one of the low hanging branches. It may take a couple times to get the timing right, but you should be able to get the cow to knock her noggin into the branch, and let you by.

 

Whoops, now another row of cows is in the way - but this time one of them looks familiar. The left-most cow is Maude, the cow with one over-sized hoof. Click on Maude to talk to her while running. Select "Is that you Maude?" and then select the option to "Shake".

Next there is a line of cows with a black one in the middle. If you click the tail of this black cow she will raise her head to reveal her giant horns. Now click on one of the cows next to the longhorn while she has her head raised, and that cow will knock its head into the impressive horns. Scratch another competitor.

Smiley says he has an idea, but now that you are riding on top of a cow what next? You can’t jump down without getting trampled. Look for a cow that bucks its head, and click the back of that cow - it is about to put on a burst of speed. The Mystery Cow will jump across the cow's backs to get to the one you clicked. If you miss it, you'll get another chance - wait for another cow to buck its head instead and click on that one. It shouldn’t take long before you’re cow surfing away.

Yes! You've caught up to Gran’ma. You can select dialog to give instructions to Smiley, but Gran’ma seems to hear what you’re saying and anticipate your moves. Select the line "This isn’t working" (cuz it ain’t) and then select the line "Let’s play opposite day!" Now tell Smiley to go right. Home free.

Or not. Now you’re not just running for the race - Smiley and Phoney’s lives are on the line! Phoney’s inventory will pop open for you. Select the bone. Now click it on one of the rat creatures to have Phoney chuck it and knock that guy out.

Next, open Phoney’s inventory again and select the pepper. This will take slightly more finesse. Click the pepper on one of the rat creature’s eyes. He’ll close the eye if you hit it right. Now click the pepper in his other eye. Ow! His eyes!

Finally, select the pile of eggs from Phoney’s inventory. Notice how one of the rat creatures opens his mouth wide to growl? When he does, click the rat creature’s mouth to make Phoney sling an egg down the rat’s throat.

Hot diggity dog! That was the best cow race ever! But the fun’s not over yet...

 

Rescuing Phoney
Wow, these guys reacted fairly poorly to Phoney's attempt to bilk them out of their savings. Time to get Phoney down and get everyone outta there.

Walk Fone up and to the right to get him back into the clearing where he left the hay cart. The bee reappears and threatens to pound Fone flat. Select the last line to exit the dialog and then take the honey comb from Fone’s inventory and click it on the bee to return it to its proper owner. Now click the cart to take some hay, and then click the hay on the cow to feed it to her.

Now you will be switched to Smiley. Walk Smiley over to where the bread cart is. There you will see the mallet from the Burly Barbarian. Click the mallet to pick it up. Now walk back down to the soup booth. Select the mallet from Smiley’s inventory and then click it on the lock holding the cleaver. Now click the cleaver to have Smiley grab it. Next walk over to the big wooden post that's holding up Phoney, select the cleaver from Smiley’s inventory, and then click the cleaver on the post.

You’re all set! Sit back and enjoy the end of the game. And make sure to stick around for the credits...

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