Graphics: The distinctive graphical simplicity of Homestar Ruiner has carried over to SBtF. Solid colors, smooth textures and large objects and character models make the game look like a high-res version of the classic Charlie Brown TV specials. The characters also seem to have more close-ups than in Episode 1, and their faces have been made a bit more expressive. You get the feeling that you’re watching a two-dimensional newspaper comic come to life in colorful 3D.

Interface: No major changes to the first game’s interface are apparent. Click on a spot on the ground to move, double-click to run, and click on characters to speak to them. Conversation bubbles open above the characters when there are multiple threads to explore, and you can right-click to skip dialogue you’ve heard before. Inventory, map and photo icons are placed in the upper-left of the screen. You can’t manipulate the locations on the map as you could in Homestar Ruiner, but there’s really nothing to manipulate this time, so that’s not a problem. Sometimes your character moves in the opposite direction from where you click, and controlling the characters in the Math Kickers minigame can be confounding until you read the onscreen help info, but the interface never gets in the way of the story, which is all you really require to play the game.

Gameplay: The story is a bit more focused this time around, with an objective that is much more clearly defined. The metal detector that you use to find buried secret objects is useless without a shovel; fortunately, you find the items together in SBtF, unlike in Homestar Ruiner, in which they were found a considerable distance apart. Finding those objects, however, does nothing to advance the story; they seem as if they were added to lengthen the game’s playing time, which clocks in at three to five hours, depending on how strongly you feel about finding all of the items. Unlike the other two minigames, Maps and Minions has to be conquered to finish the game, and until you discover the key to victory, you could become seriously annoyed with it. I did note a big bug in the later stages of the game—Strong Bad has a conversation with Strong Sad in Homsar’s kingdom, but if he returns there alone later on, he still has the same talk with Strong Sad, even though he’s not there. Hopefully Telltale will squash it in the final build. Once again, the real enjoyment of the Strong Bad series is found in the humor. Strong Bad is a bit less snarky this time, only because the story gives the other characters more to do than they had in Homestar Ruiner, but there are far more laugh-out-loud moments this time, making me look forward to future episodes.

Sound FX: Ambient sounds are few and far between in SBtF. Foley effects don’t match the surfaces on which the characters walk, but realism was certainly not something at the top of the designers’ to-do list. The frequent crackling fires in the game are convincing (Strong Bad has a touch of pyromania in this episode), and the effects that are included blend in with the story instead rather than becoming a distraction.

Music: Much like the sound effects, the music is sparse at best. There’s a continuously looping dance track playing in Pom Pom’s disco, and an interesting song that plays during the closing credits, but everything else is pure background.

Difficulty: SBtF is a recent landmark for me. Of the recent spate of adventure games I’ve played, this is the first one I have managed to complete without looking at a walkthrough. That’s not to say that I didn’t bash my head against the wall (figuratively) a few times, but I was eventually able to figure it all out. The hint system was a big help, although several of Strong Bad’s hints didn’t seem to lead me in the right direction (I’m mostly referring to the puzzle in the disco, in which a clue mentioning something about diplomacy made me scratch my head). But if I could do it, chances are that most of you can do it better and faster.

Overall: The Strong Bad series seems to be evolving nicely. The story in this episode is more engaging, the ancillary characters are being used more effectively and the script is even funnier than in Homestar Ruiner. I’d like to see more story and less distraction (caused by the metal detector and its useless snipe hunts), and perhaps a few more characters could make an appearance (meeting Strong Bad’s parents would be a good start), but Strong Badia the Free shows that the series could have some serious legs if properly nurtured. I look forward to the next one.