Broken Age - Double Fine's Kickstarter Adventure Game

[ERYFKRAD]

Can it, fanboi.

 

[J_C]

Can it, fanboi.

Get lost, hater!

 

[ERYFKRAD]

Nope.

 

[J_C]

I command you!

 

[Redlands]

See, if this had been a decent adventure game, the standard of insults would have been higher. Instead, we've got 3 pJ_Cs - 2 pERYFKRADs. indeed.

 

[Bubbles]

AdventureGamers gives 4.5/5, praising the puzzles in particular:

I solved most puzzles on my own with an a-ha! revelation and a deep sense of satisfaction; the two times I consulted a walkthrough, it turns out I was this close.

Meanwhile, PC Gamer:

Puzzles in particular aren’t a high point in the first half, but are largely forgettable. The later ones are markedly worse. Far too many mistake time-wasting for difficulty, with endless traipsing back and forth, dealing with needlessly obstructive characters or mechanics (particularly in the final puzzle, which is tooth-grinding in its over-deliberate fussiness), and developing an obsession with rewiring robots through the most tedious trial and error.

Note to Pyke: do not send out any review copies without a full walkthrough attached.

 

[Pyke]

Fuck - Stasis doesn't even have hot spot highlighting. These reviewers are gonna suffer!

*edit* The launch conditions are all up to my brother who is handling the marketing - but a big part of me doesn't even want to send out review copies. I have this romantic idea of people all experiencing the game at the exact same time - and if they ARE stuck, working through it with other people on forums or on twitter...perhaps throwing out a clue to a person instead of an answer.

BAs scores seem to be pretty high - but I have to wonder if 'forcing' reviewers to power through the game to get their reviews out on time has killed some of the magic in the game - and that comes across in the negatives in the reviews.

That 'aha!' moment that the Adventure Gamers review made was stolen from them by deadlines and a walkthrough. Those are the moments that make these games fun.

Sure most puzzles, when you read them on a walk through seem 'wtf was the designer thinking???' - but when you get into the flow of the game world and figure those things out for yourself... THOSE are the awesome moments. THOSE are the parts that I remember when thinking back to the classics.

Reading 'and then you use a stick to knock an alien banana into the river, grab the banana, hide in a hollowed out log and wait for the right time to jam it in the androids tailpipe' is a ridiculous thing to read...but figuring that out for yourself is awesome. That damned airlock maze in Space Quest 5, or the fossil puzzle in The Dig, or the flag-costume in Day Of The Tentacle. I remember EXACTLY where I was when I finally did the Homing Beacon puzzle in SQ6 (sitting in detention in school).

I've played games with a walk through - and honestly I cant really remember specific puzzle moments in the games. I know that I've robbed myself of those moments...but there is something just 'iffy' about a reviewer doing the same - and then recommending or slandering the game.

A reviewer playing Alien: Isolation on god mode would have a VASTLY different experience to a reviewer playing it with the fear of death. Its an integral part of the design...as integral as puzzles are to an adventure game.

Or maybe I'm just rambling because I'm tired.

 

[felipepepe]

Fuck - Stasis doesn't even have hot spot highlighting. These reviewers are gonna suffer!

You will carry on just as planned, no need to dumb down your game for retarded journos.

 

[CyberWhale]

Fuck - Stasis doesn't even have hot spot highlighting. These reviewers are gonna suffer!

As will your sales!

 

[Pyke]

Fuck - Stasis doesn't even have hot spot highlighting. These reviewers are gonna suffer!

As will your sales!

I just get them with the eye candy. I'm expecting refund requests when people realize its not a CRPG.

 

[Bubbles]

Shack News, 7/10:

The main complaint with Broken Age is that some of the puzzle solutions feel a little too obtuse. There was more than one solution where I not only wondered how the average person would come up with it, but even wondered how it even made sense. Not only did some of those solutions come out of the blue, but some of them even felt arbitrary. The puzzles on Vella's side of the story are particularly tough and require some precision timing, as well as some brain work. Shay's puzzles, on the other hand, require some heavy memorization at points. It wouldn't be so much of an issue, but the game offers few hints on how to proceed, which had me running around in circles for quite a while.

With more focus placed on memorization and obtuse solutions, it felt like Broken Age emphasized its inventory innovations a little less. I didn't feel there were as many chances to mix inventory items together to craft new concoctions. The narrative didn't suffer for this, however, so it's ultimately a minor transgression that can be looked past.

The bolded words are all negatives. And I must have missed the memo on what Broken Age's "inventory innovations" in Act 1 were. Was it just... combining items?

 

[Blackthorne]

AdventureGamers gives 4.5/5, praising the puzzles in particular:

That reviewer is a PR flak and also a known sycophant. Maybe she's right or maybe she's not - I just take everything she reviews with a grain of salt.


Bt

 

[Bubbles]

That basically describes the entire site, doesn't it? One of their staff once contacted me because I had given a half-star user rating to a Telltale "game" and they asked me if I had, by chance, misclicked. There was nothing wrong with a low user rating, no, but it seemed likely that I had made a mistake since the game was so widely acclaimed.

 

[Blackthorne]

Yeah. I don't want to throw too much shade, but I do often find their site to be inconsistent with adventure games, especially considering the name is "Adventure Gamers". But it's not my site, and I won't tell them how to run it.

My personal opinion on Broken Age definitely reflects this opinion: nice looking graphics, good voice acting, thin plot and pretty poor adventure game. It's not total shit, but if I had to star rate it, it'd be 2.5/5 at most. I don't think too many people will look back at this one in the pantheon of adventure games and fondly remember it.

Bt

 

[CyberWhale]

That basically describes the entire site, doesn't it? One of their staff once contacted me because I had given a half-star user rating to a Telltale "game" and they asked me if I had, by chance, misclicked. There was nothing wrong with a low user rating, no, but it seemed likely that I had made a mistake since the game was so widely acclaimed.

They even have their own store. Seriously, WTF?!

 

[RPGMaster]

What happened to the "Act 2 is twice the length of Act 1"?

 

[Bubbles]

What happened to the "Act 2 is twice the length of Act 1"?

Easily achieved:

I can’t do the %#$@&! wire sequence with Shay, I am looking at the picture, I have even looked at how ign did it, and it doesn’t %#$@&! work. How the %#$@&! do you do this %#$@&! thing?

Alright I’ve done it but it took almost a full hour. Shame on you Double Fine

 

[ERYFKRAD]

I command you!

Lolno.

 

[buzz]

They even have their own store. Seriously, WTF?!

They sell games that no other distributor would even touch, so there's no problems with that.

 

[Volrath]

You just think too much into this. Tim didn't want to simulate complexity by adding pH. It could have been Volt or Ohm, or Pounds or anything, it just added a term to the puzzle.

Yeah, guys! Nobody wants to associate adventure games with thinking!

 

[Bubbles]

The knives are coming out on the double fine boards:

ACT 2 is outright unfair, an unstructured, dreadfull mess

Started with Shay. Got dumped in a “you need 5 puzzle strands solved to proceed” setup. Is that good game design?

I started to wander around, and had 12+ game screens instantly open up to me - with no direct puzzle clues what soever. Slowly deduced some of them, then found that they were layered, preventing me to proceed with others, until some gamedesigner would find it fitting to spring an object. Solved one puzzle, then got hit over the head by a hint, that the other one I had leads to would only be solveable with knowledge from the second part, I hadnt even started yet.

So I started Vella, where the puzzles are actually structured in some kind of puzzle rooms, where easily solveable, allthough the plot went haywire, but ok… And then suddenly stuck. Because I had found the solution to one puzzle in the kitchen so fast, that I skipped the “training effect” of what else is possible in the kitchen area. If you do - you are effed, because at this point you have about ten screens, five additional ones in xxx, and in one of them in the xxx environment, 5x2 different world states. This is not gamedesign, this is needle in a haystack structuring. Found what I was missing, with minimal spoilers on the net (xxx). Also, this puzzle layered the solution to one of the other (major) puzzles in (spawned an item) - so again, the gamedesigners are forcing you to abandon one clue string, just out of spite.

Then suddenly, hardstop - you can only continue, if you have found some xxx with Shay. Up until know have gotten no clue on how to solve Shays hard limit puzzle and hit the next hard limit with Vella.

This is the worst game design I probably have ever seen in an adventure. If you are thinking, that the majority of people willcontinue through this mess of a design structure, you are more than mistaken. Also, none of the puzzles so far were what you’d call “intelligent” or fun. So, to add insult to injury…

If you hadnt sent walkthroughs to reviewers, they probably would have seen the structure that is in place for what it is. A bad, bad joke.

http://www.doublefine.com/forums/viewthread/16907/

 

[felipepepe]

Would post a gif, but the message here is quite obvious: Double Fine sucks at puzzle design EVERY GAEM SHOULD BE EASY!

 

[J_C]

The knives are coming out on the double fine boards:

ACT 2 is outright unfair, an unstructured, dreadfull mess

Started with Shay. Got dumped in a “you need 5 puzzle strands solved to proceed” setup. Is that good game design?

I started to wander around, and had 12+ game screens instantly open up to me - with no direct puzzle clues what soever. Slowly deduced some of them, then found that they were layered, preventing me to proceed with others, until some gamedesigner would find it fitting to spring an object. Solved one puzzle, then got hit over the head by a hint, that the other one I had leads to would only be solveable with knowledge from the second part, I hadnt even started yet.

So I started Vella, where the puzzles are actually structured in some kind of puzzle rooms, where easily solveable, allthough the plot went haywire, but ok… And then suddenly stuck. Because I had found the solution to one puzzle in the kitchen so fast, that I skipped the “training effect” of what else is possible in the kitchen area. If you do - you are effed, because at this point you have about ten screens, five additional ones in xxx, and in one of them in the xxx environment, 5x2 different world states. This is not gamedesign, this is needle in a haystack structuring. Found what I was missing, with minimal spoilers on the net (xxx). Also, this puzzle layered the solution to one of the other (major) puzzles in (spawned an item) - so again, the gamedesigners are forcing you to abandon one clue string, just out of spite.

Then suddenly, hardstop - you can only continue, if you have found some xxx with Shay. Up until know have gotten no clue on how to solve Shays hard limit puzzle and hit the next hard limit with Vella.

This is the worst game design I probably have ever seen in an adventure. If you are thinking, that the majority of people willcontinue through this mess of a design structure, you are more than mistaken. Also, none of the puzzles so far were what you’d call “intelligent” or fun. So, to add insult to injury…

If you hadnt sent walkthroughs to reviewers, they probably would have seen the structure that is in place for what it is. A bad, bad joke.

http://www.doublefine.com/forums/viewthread/16907/

Retards can't play an adventure game more complex than...well ... Act 1 of Broken Age. How shocking.

 

[Darth Slaughter]

Fuck - Stasis doesn't even have hot spot highlighting. These reviewers are gonna suffer!

As will your sales!

I just get them with the eye candy. I'm expecting refund requests when people realize its not a CRPG.

well, after finishing development, create a In game hint DLC and sell for half the price of the game.

 

[RPGMaster]

When you read the credits on this mf-er you quickly realise how it so quickly went over budget. Talk about bloat.