Broken Age - A Tim Schafer Joint [Part 2 out now for KS backers]

[Great Rumbler]

Broken Age is a point-and-click adventure game based on two characters, a young boy and girl, each "seeking to break the tradition with their lives". The player will switch between the two characters, the boy living alone on a spacecraft, while the girl wants to avoid being sacrificed to a monster by her village.

Broken Age began under the working title Double Fine Adventure (internal codename "Reds") as a Kickstarter crowd funded project promoted by Double Fine and 2 Player Productions in February 2012. Originally set at a modest $400,000 to cover the costs of development and documentary filming, it became the largest crowd-funded video game project at the time, bring in more than $3.45 million from over 87,000 backers within the month.

Release: Q2 2013
Platform: PC, Mac, Android, iOS, and Linux

[Bebpo]

I like!

just please have an inventory

[Himu]

Looks good.

[Great Rumbler]

just please have an inventory

Seems like the kind of thing they'd make sure got put in the game.

[chronovore]

I am excited for this, but a little sad that Ron has left DF, preventing LucasArts revival.

[Bebpo]

just please have an inventory

Seems like the kind of thing they'd make sure got put in the game.

Maybe, but you never know.  I still haven't gotten to playing The Cave, but from the reviews/impressions and interviews it sounds like the biggest problem was that Gilbert & DF believed that "inventories were outdated" and so instead you had a game full of backtracking since you couldn't carry anything.

[Great Rumbler]

That seemed more like it was Gilbert's idea to go that direction, and The Cave was a different sort of animal from the traditional point-and-click adventure that Broken Age is going for.

[bork]

Has Ron Gilbert made anything as good/funny as MI and MI2?

[Joe Molotov]

He tried with Deathspank but.....no.

[Great Rumbler]

It's worth noting that the writing on Monkey Island and LeChuck's Revenge was a collaborative effort between Ron Gilbert, Dave Grossman [now at TellTale], and Tim Schafer [this team also wrote Day of the Tentacle]. Not trying to take away any credit from Gilbert, but the best outcome would be if all three managed to get back together for a project.

[Raban]

It's stunning how Tim Schafer and Rob Gilbert worked in the same building for this long and never collaborated.

[magus]

He tried with Deathspank but.....no.

was it any good? i wanted to play it for quite a while but never could,now i can but i didn't really care....

[Rufus]

It's completely brain dead easy and 95% unfunny but it does look kinda neat and it plays OK.

[chronovore]

It's completely brain dead easy and 95% unfunny but it does look kinda neat and it plays OK.

This is my feeling as well.

[Bebpo]

Eh, it's brain dead easy but 90% funny imo.

The gameplay wasn't bad.  Just shallow simple and the humor was enough to support the gameplay for one game, two games stretched it a bit and I still haven't played the 3rd yet.



The writing was so-so, but the voice acting delivery of Deathspank was SO GOOD that it made the lines really funny.  It was like playing as game as Captain Qwark from Ratchet & Clank.

[Great Rumbler]

[Great Rumbler]

Part 1 of Broken Age is set for January 14th, according to a Tim Schafer tweet that went out about an hour ago.

[Great Rumbler]

Keys are going out to all backers tomorrow through the Humble Bundle.

[Himu]

I hope this isn't another white person lives in technologically sheltered environment, meets black person who is attuned to NATURE (tm) and precedes to teach white person the truth way of living because black people are just are natural spiritual guides who are always there to help the white man.

[Great Rumbler]

The game is about each main character growing up and starting to question the traditions and norms of their respective "society." In the boy's case, he's alone on a spaceship that does everything it can to shield him from danger. In the girl's case, she's about to be sacrificed to a huge monster. It's not really about one teaching the other.

[Cerveza mas fina]

I hope this isn't another white person lives in technologically sheltered environment, meets black person who is attuned to NATURE (tm) and precedes to teach white person the truth way of living because black people are just are natural spiritual guides who are always there to help the white man.

Avatar deserved an Oscar man.

-glen shinobi

[Himu]

Oh thank god. I've mostly been on black out for this.

[Himu]

I hope this isn't another white person lives in technologically sheltered environment, meets black person who is attuned to NATURE (tm) and precedes to teach white person the truth way of living because black people are just are natural spiritual guides who are always there to help the white man.

Avatar deserved an Oscar man.

-glen shinobi

the problem with stories like dances with wolves/avatar is that they treat such stories as if they're rare when in history, defection towards the native side was common.

[Steve Contra]

I hope this isn't another white person lives in technologically sheltered environment, meets black person who is attuned to NATURE (tm) and precedes to teach white person the truth way of living because black people are just are natural spiritual guides who are always there to help the white man.

This isn't a documentary

[chronovore]

I suspect my machines will all choke on this, since they're pathetic and old. Did this ever get an iOS version planned?

[Great Rumbler]

PC, Mac, Linux, iOS, and Android.

[chronovore]

WOOT!

I'll be getting it on iOS then; my iPad is only a year old...

spoiler (click to show/hide)

So... half-dead by Apple's lifespan standards.   

[close]

[Timber]

it's out

[Joe Molotov]

[Great Rumbler]

Downloading now!

[Great Rumbler]

It's pretty good, you guys. I did some clicking on stuff, and then I used some items and listened to some funny jokes!









Really, though, I think this is the first adventure game I've played in a long time that feels like it's close to capturing the feel of those 90's Lucasarts games.

[Himu]

Game is beautiful.

[MyNameIsMethodis]

stopped caring when alex rigopolous is in the game as a character and labelled as Harmonix CEO. Stupid.

[Himu]

[MyNameIsMethodis]

[Great Rumbler]

stopped caring when alex rigopolous is in the game as a character and labelled as Harmonix CEO. Stupid.

Suck it down.

[Stoney Mason]

Played some today. I would guess maybe half of it. It's okay. I mean its charming enough. It's funny enough I guess. It doesn't feel like a classic to me the way a Grim Fandango does. It feels more like the recent double fine output. Decent but not classic level status. 

I like the twisted fairy tale nature of the world. I think that's the best thing it has going for it. It's more adventure game than the recent Tell-tale output but the puzzles are easier than the old ones.

[Bebpo]

Played a little.  Great looking game almost completely crippled by being ultra-idiotic and not letting you skip to the next line.  It's like no one on the team plays adventure games.  Oh great, you can skip THE ENTIRE DIALOGUE SET by hitting space...that's not helpful.  The point is that most people read faster than the lines are spoken and in adventure games with so many lines of dialogue, it really drags the pacing of the game down when you have to sit and listen to every.single.line spoken out.  Almost no adventure games do this and the few that do are shunned by the adventure game community that is me.

I'll still play it because otherwise it seems great (well, I also don't like the minimal/casualized interface where you can only click on a few hot spots here and there), but that makes the game so much less enjoyable for me. 


Also wondering if I should just wait a year until the 2nd half is out so I can enjoy a complete game.  Have plenty else to play and the dialogue thing makes me not want to rush it.

[Great Rumbler]

Turn off the subtitles and it probably won't bother you as much.

[Shaka Khan]

How parts are there, and what's the release schedule looking like?

[Himu]

Played some today. I would guess maybe half of it. It's okay. I mean its charming enough. It's funny enough I guess. It doesn't feel like a classic to me the way a Grim Fandango does. It feels more like the recent double fine output. Decent but not classic level status. 

I like the twisted fairy tale nature of the world. I think that's the best thing it has going for it. It's more adventure game than the recent Tell-tale output but the puzzles are easier than the old ones.

Such a shame. The only Double Fine game I like is still Psychonauts.

[chronovore]

Played a little.  Great looking game almost completely crippled by being ultra-idiotic and not letting you skip to the next line.  It's like no one on the team plays adventure games.  Oh great, you can skip THE ENTIRE DIALOGUE SET by hitting space...that's not helpful.  The point is that most people read faster than the lines are spoken and in adventure games with so many lines of dialogue, it really drags the pacing of the game down when you have to sit and listen to every.single.line spoken out.  Almost no adventure games do this and the few that do are shunned by the adventure game community that is me.

I'll still play it because otherwise it seems great (well, I also don't like the minimal/casualized interface where you can only click on a few hot spots here and there), but that makes the game so much less enjoyable for me. 


Also wondering if I should just wait a year until the 2nd half is out so I can enjoy a complete game.  Have plenty else to play and the dialogue thing makes me not want to rush it.

You may want to look on their forum to see if anyone else is talking about this; there may be a fix, or at least additional users noting it may have them patch it, or fix it for the full release.

[Stoney Mason]

Played some today. I would guess maybe half of it. It's okay. I mean its charming enough. It's funny enough I guess. It doesn't feel like a classic to me the way a Grim Fandango does. It feels more like the recent double fine output. Decent but not classic level status. 

I like the twisted fairy tale nature of the world. I think that's the best thing it has going for it. It's more adventure game than the recent Tell-tale output but the puzzles are easier than the old ones.

Such a shame. The only Double Fine game I like is still Psychonauts.

I wouldn't necessarily be that negative on it. I mean I'm glad Double Fine continues to exist and continues to be able to make games. Even if they aren't necessarily at the scope and size of Psychonauts which I also very much liked.


Finished this first half of Broken Age. It's good. It's solid. It's funny. And the length was fine especially with there being a second half coming later this year. There isn't anything to be embarrassed about here coming out of the Kickstarter process which is a good thing. I think its worth anywhere from 15 to 20 bucks and that seems valid. Yeah I could nit pick some things but ultimately I enjoyed the game.

[Great Rumbler]

Most people that played those old 2D adventure games will probably knock Broken Age for being too easy, but I was always terrible at solving puzzles in those games and enjoyed the story, characters, jokes, and music more than the actual act of puzzle-solving. So, yeah, it's not so much a problem for me.

[Stoney Mason]

[Himu]

that's cool as shit

[magus]

this is allright,it's really pretty game to look at but it feels like it could be better paced,there are time when it just feels like you are just going through the dialog tree's

"WHO ARE YOU?"
*answer*
"WHAT ARE YOU DOING?"
*answer*
"CAN I HAVE THAT ITEM YOU HAVE?"
*no*
"WHAT IF I GIVE YOU THIS OTHER ITEM I HAVE AROUND"
*yes*

the plot is divided in two parts,part 1 is about this guy in space...  he's confined in this ship controlled by this motherly figure ai who smothers him in motherly love,this include really silly thing like a ship control pad designed like a toddler toy,yarn robots that attack him by hugging and fake rescue scenario involving ice cream avalanche's! of course he can't stand it as he yearns for actual space adventure and dangers and the like

one day he discover that a shifty looking (a very shifty looking!) entity dressed as a wolf has somehow boarded the ship and the wolf actualy wants him to go on real space missions which involve rescuing critters with some sort of robotic arms so of course the two decide to join together... and i really liked this part because it's hilarious (especialy the robot's like the spoon which burst into an admiration speech the first time you pick him or the intro where you can browse through different cereal parody including a soylent green one) and at the same time there are a lot of questions (who's the wolf really? what are they rescuing exactly? heck is what they are doing even rescuing? why is the guy in this ship in the first place?) unfortunately after a while you are forced to shift to part 2 whenever you like it or not

part 2 completly shifts the tone and has this black girl instead,everybody in her village is preparing for the maiden festival which sounds like a nice thing but it actualy involve sacrificing maidens to a monsters that sort of look like Azathoth from the cthulhu mythos this includes her obviously and while she thinks the village should actualy try to fight the monsters, everybody else think that she's crazy and that being able to being eaten by it is actualy an amazing honor,the monster arrive but of course she actualy escape because she's A STRONG INDIPENDENT BLACK WOMAN and the rest of the scenario involve her getting back to the city and finding a way to deal with the entity while crossing over the world colorfull cities

and honestly this isn't as amusing as part 1... the scene where the monster attack the village is amazing with all the maidens dressed in exagerate costume screaming at the monster so that they can get eaten but there are fewer funny character afterward and all of the mystery from part 1 is gone,also where the guy in part 1 is a crack-wising sarcasm spewing machine,girl from part 2 is just so damn bland and boring (one recurring joke is how in her dialog tree there is always a choice about her declaring that she's going to murder the cosmic horror)

as far as puzzle go,i got stuck once because i couldn't find an item but otherwise so far it's been pretty easy,just check everything and thing will solve themself... there aren't usualy a lot of room you can go inside before proceding anyway

anyway this has definitely it's moment and is easily the most production valuey game coming out from kickstarter,so cheers for dog!

EDIT: what's that? it's already over? i know the game was going to be separated in 2 act but act 1 is barely 2 hours long ,i'm taking the dog badge award back!

[Great Rumbler]

If you're expecting a P&C adventure game to be longer than 5-6 hours, you're doing it wrong. And I still haven't finished the first part after 2.7 hours, according to Steam.

[magus]

it just felt so short... especialy because nothing really worth of note happens,the whole thing is basicaly just a big set up for a cliffhanger

where are you anyway? i can tell you how close you are to finishing if you don't mind...

[Great Rumbler]

I finished the girl's part and in the boy's part I'm just now to where I can explore the ship.

[magus]

I finished the girl's part and in the boy's part I'm just now to where I can explore the ship.

yeah... you are done as soon as you solve all the 3 thing you need to do to take control

[magus]

i just noticed one pretty interessing fact that probably just make the obvious even more obvious

spoiler (click to show/hide)

the critter you rescue as the boy all follow the same themes of the maiden in the maiden festival,he fails to rescue one bird critter and when you play as the girl coincidentaly you find a bird girl complaining about not being eaten...

so i guess when he was rescuing critters he was actualy unwilling kidnapping girls and the reason is because the ai decided he needed a partner?

[close]

[patrickula]

Steam says it took me four hours... I got stuck for a while on one thing when I thought I'd tested an item somewhere but I apparently hadn't.

I definitely enjoyed the game and thought it was worth playing for sure. I'm really looking forward to the second act. I didn't expect so much world-building and I dug the world the game sets up. The voice acting is great and the writing is mostly great with a few stand-out jokes. The art and music are great too.

As for the negatives:

I thought the structure of the dialog trees was a little lame after playing something like Mass Effect or even a Bethesda RPG. Sure, being able to say everything let's you hear every piece of dialog in the game but I'd like it if you could actually choose how you want the character to behave and move on instead of feeling like I need to try every option every time. The game could still railroad you forward (like in Mass Effect) but you'd end up with a much more cohesive personal narrative of the game. Being given the option to ask for something that you have no idea why you'd want is also pretty goofy.. you know you'll inevitably need it, because videogames, but it seems pretty sloppy to not have to have some kind of reasonable motivation first. When a great deal of the game is dialog trees anyway I wish they had put a little more thought into them being an actual game mechanic instead of just a thing you click through.

The adventure game puzzle logic is a little rarer here then it's been in the past but it isn't gone totally. Some puzzles I just ended up solving by trying everything in my inventory with everything else. The solutions mostly made sense in retrospect but it hardly feels satisfying.

The pixelated backgrounds were a little jarring and shoddy. The art itself is wonderful but I wish they'd worked at a much higher source resolution at least not zoomed in so far if the assets wouldn't hold up.

[Diunx]

its this out on android?

[Great Rumbler]

its this out on android?

Not yet.

[Stoney Mason]

[Great Rumbler]

I guess it could have been a little more difficult. Or a little longer. Or have more people to talk to. But I really enjoyed Part 1, it felt, to me, more like a LucasArts adventure game than any of the adventure games I've played since then. It was a wonderful story with interesting, well-written, well-acted characters in a visually arresting world and those are the three things that I really want more than anything else out of an adventure game. I really wish I could have played through the whole game all in one go, though, having to wait months for Part 2 is no fun at all.

[Bebpo]

For those who've finished this, should I play this now or wait a year and play it together with part 2?  Does it feel like one game that stops halfway or a complete standalone game that has a sequel coming?


Cause for instance with Broken Sword 5 part 1 I feel like I should've waited until part 2 came out since it was all just setup for the rest of the plot that is going to happen.  I have plenty of other good games to play so I don't mind waiting if it'll be more enjoyable to play the parts together as one game.

I really wish I could have played through the whole game all in one go, though, having to wait months for Part 2 is no fun at all.

Oh...yeah sounds like I should just wait.  I'll play the Banner Saga instead.

[Stoney Mason]

I'm fine with the split. All I would have done is blown through the game that much faster. I think Telltale has conditioned me to find these type of games better in short chunks.

And I think the split comes at sort of a good breaking point in the story (At least from what I imagine is going to take place in the second half.)

[Great Rumbler]

The place Part 1 ends at is actually a pretty good place to end, like a season finale [as in, it's not just an arbitrary cut off]. You still feel like you did something, but it also makes you excited for more. There's a "Oh man, where are they going to go from here?!" feeling...in a good way.