Singing Bone's narrative follows two brothers who accept their king's offer to slay a large boar that has been terrorizing a nearby village. The prize, as is so often the case in fairy tales, is the king's beautiful daughter. The younger brother successfully slays the beast and is in the process of dragging the carcass to the palace when he happens upon his brother, who had made a detour to a nearby tavern. Jealous of his younger sibling's future riches, the older brother kills his sibling, hides his body, returns the boar, and claims the fair maiden and the title of prince. Years later, a shepherd hears the bones of the deceased brother singing his tale of woe. The shepherd returns the bones to the king, who has the older brother killed for his deceit.

Just like The Master Thief, The Singing Bone allows players to craft a darker version of the tale that is different from the lighter version. The light theater doesn't depict the boar terrorizing anything, for example, but lazing around like the fat sloth it is. After sufficiently darkening enough of that particular level, Grimm hops aboard the beast, which has been altered to reflect its nasty, vicious nature. Players are then able to ride the boar, whose ability to plow through villagers and livestock is met with satisfying sprays of gore.


Unfortunately, the above is one of the few times The Singing Bone presents anything out of the ordinary for the player to do. The dark theater of the tale, earned after six rather short levels, is satisfying enough, but most levels offer nothing more than a rehash of Grimm's early days where players simply connected the dots to fill in the happenings of each fairy tale.

Like any episode of Grimm, The Singing Bone cannot be judged too harshly; after all, it's free for 24 hours after its release. But the problem lies in the pleasant gameplay revamp in The Master Thief, which doesn't seem to have carried over to this entry at all. Simplistic levels combined with lifeless gameplay do not equal a great experience, but rather a mediocre one that doesn't live up to its week-old predecessor.