Broken Age - Double Fine's Kickstarter Adventure Game

[RPGMaster]

All in all I don't think that Broken Age was the financial disaster that its been made out to be. The money it raised kept a rather large team of professionals in one of the most expensive places in the world to live for 3 YEARS. While other members of the company were being layed off - Broken Age still had money to keep people fed, housed, and in supply of thrift-store-ironic tshirts. Sure it hasn't created total independence for them - but that was a huge pipe dream. Even TELLTALE whos games have sold MILLIONS of copies are having to rely on creating games for existing IP's and license deals.

I think that the game (with GOG, Steam and other portals) is probably close to around 300 000 copies sold. When it hits the bundles it could probably double that easily (although the money made is obviously vastly less when sold in bundles).
Even Wadjet Eyes most successful game (Gemini Rue) has lifetime sales of 230 000 sales (bundles included).

While they DID overcapitalize on the game itself - it HAS made its sales numbers....I just think that it would have made those numbers ANYWAY if they had spent less on the game. It seems that the thing that really hit them hard was splitting the game into 2 parts. An extra year of finances on an entire team of people is a LOT of money (probably ANY profit that it would have made went into ACT 2's production).

I think that Thimbleweed Park will probably sell the same amount of copies that BA has done - but with a tiny team the profit/cost ratio will make it a commercial success even if it gets nowhere near Telltale numbers.

The problem for DF is they also went several months over schedule for Act 2 putting them back in the red unless sales pick post Act 2 release.

 

[Boleskine]

 

[Athelas]

I think the design of adventure game puzzles could benefit from giving the player a set of tools that can be used in a variety of ways. Something like the distaff in Loom.

 

[Western]

MRY What do you think of adventure games incorporating CYOA elements, along with multiple puzzle solutions and/or failure states that let you continue the game?

I think it solves some of the problems adventure games have but at the expense of multiplying the workload, particularly if the CYOA elements are more significant than Telltale games.

 

[Bubbles]

I think the design of adventure game puzzles could benefit from giving the player a set of tools that can be used in a variety of ways. Something like the distaff in Loom.

Or the robots in Broken Age.

 

[Redlands]

It might be an unpopular opinion, but I think the general aim to remove the "illogical" puzzles from adventure games may not necessarily be a good thing in and of itself. I think that there are definite subgenres where having all-logical puzzles works well: the Myst series, since those are mostly based upon "mechanical" puzzles, or a mystery set in more or less the real world, are good examples. But then you have games like Nord and Bert Couldn't Make Head Or Tail of It wouldn't work at all in that case, since it's world isn't trying to be immersive; it's just trying to be a very "game-y" place. (That might make it more of a puzzle game, but where adventure games end and puzzles begin is a difficult, separate topic.) Or a game set in a cartoon universe, where "cartoon logic" applies instead. Or, say, the King's Quest games, where clues come from fairy tales and such.

This is very different to what I (and others) were complaining about earlier with the pH thing. There (if the puzzle is as described, which it might not be and has just been translated poorly from the game) it's actually punishing you for extra knowledge: if you know how pH actually works, then it just breaks your brain when the puzzle (again, if it is as described) goes against that in such a spectacularly awful way; moreover, if you don't then you'll have a worse understanding of what pH is in the real world at the end of the game (and why, if you're going to use existing terms, use them properly or not at all). What I'm talking about is the exact opposite: rewarding the player for having extra knowledge by allowing them to make progress, even if it's with puzzles that aren't explicitly clued within the game, or require you to go outside of the game to figure them out. It's a bit like you and the developer are going head-to-head: both of you can use all the resources at your disposal, and whoever comes out on top is the victor of that battle of wits.

I guess what's brought this on has been thinking a lot about cryptic crosswords (another thing I enjoy doing sporadically). If you're not familiar, they're much like regular crosswords, only the clues are heavily word-play based (rather than strictly dictionary definition-based like regular crosswords) and that it usually helps to what the "rules" are before you start solving them (otherwise they'll just seem like gobbledygook, although a few are incredibly clever and can be both a "straight" and cryptic clue). However, if you're good at playing around with words and letters, and you have a good command of the language in which it's set, you get rewarded by completing a puzzle containing (hopefully) some very cleverly-constructed clues.

Another thing that's brought this on is that my husband got me a really great puzzle book for Christmas: it's called Maze by Christopher Manson (apparently there's also a game version of it). It was one of those "Figure it out first and win a prize!" deals. You're given very little direction, and very few specific clues for how to proceed. The whole thing can be incredibly overwhelming when you realize that anything and everything can be a clue. But a lot of the clues/references reward you for having knowledge (or at least, the ability to gain knowledge), and trying to put all of these clues together to figure out how to get through the maze, unlocking all of its mysteries.

Yet another (which I thought of mid-writing this post) was Dracula's Riddle: I think that's still up on the internet if you wanted to have a look. Again, it required you to put in a lot of effort and be crafty, especially if you wanted to work on it by yourself. But again, I felt like my own thinking improved by playing it and trying to see how damned clever the setters had been.

Now, this is very different from the cat mustaches and rubber duckies of this world, but I think that the baby's been thrown out with the bathwater, which is why story is now such an overwhelming force in a lot of new adventure/"adventure" games. Granted, maybe I'm just weirdly masochistic (I mean, I do play text adventures by writing my own maps and walkthroughs), but for fuck's sake there needs to be some better middle-ground between people like me and those who claim Myst is hard (which it is... but only if you happen to be deaf, or illiterate, or innumerate) where the latter, who don't want to be genre-savvy or be bothered looking up anything but a walkthrough, get to set the level of difficulty.

Also, as a separate note, if you like puzzles, I heartily recommend the movie The Last of Sheila. I won't say anything about it to avoid spoilers, but it was written by Stephen Sondheim and Anthony Perkins based on their own set of games with their friends. You'll even get something out of seeing it twice, because the movie is littered with clues. It also has James Coburn mockingly going "Boo hoo hoo!" at a young Ian McShane. Also Raquel Welch.

 

[talan]

I finished Act 2 -- I liked it overall.

Total time according to Steam is 13.1 hours...

 

[Zarniwoop]

all-logical puzzles

Myst

Downloaded part 2 yesterday, I'm curious to see how this turns out.

 

[imweasel]

I just finished Act 2. Afterwards I thought about how great Grim Fandango is in comparison and shed a single manly tear.

The puzzles were much more challenging in Act 2, which is good. But the setting is still shit, the story is a complete illogical mess, the background story is never really explained, most of the NPCs are boring, some of the puzzles are tedious and at least 3/4 of Act 2 is made up of recycled areas. The game is pure mediocrity, don't buy it unless it is on sale and you have nothing better to play.

 

[RPGMaster]

Lesbians in a kid's game. Schafter SWJ confirmed.

 

[Lucky]

I think the design of adventure game puzzles could benefit from giving the player a set of tools that can be used in a variety of ways. Something like the distaff in Loom.

Memoria did something like this with the staff and it worked rather well there. You know what the staff can do and it's not a single use item, so it's always in the back of your head when you're looking at the puzzles. Making of use of reliable, if not always realistic, tools like that for puzzle design could help make puzzle solutions more tangible to the player.

 

[Eyeball]

see also: crowbar, in 90% of adventure games.

 

[Lucky]

You don’t really need to figure how to best use a crowbar though, so you wouldn’t be able to scale puzzle difficulty to the player getting used to the tools properties.

 

[DosBuster]

So I liked most of the voice actors and what they brought to the characters, but holy shit, Vella and Shay, (well Shay had a few good moments), fuck man Vella's voice actor in particular sounded like she half-asleep at the recording studio.

All in all, I enjoyed the game for the $15 I spent on it alongside the documentary, I'd say I got a good deal.

EDIT: Oh, ok, the story makes more sense now. This theory has been semi-confirmed on the backer forums, essentially, the "final element" thingy is actually player agency. The thing that interlocked Vella and Shay allowing them to solve complex puzzles, was us.

 

[felipepepe]

Yeah, this theory about the game's TR00 MEANING is quite amusing:

Vella comes from a village of bakers, they make handcrafted things full of love - They are indie devs.
The evil guys are the AAA industry. They keep players (Shay) inside a protective bubble, with nothing but repetitive fake adventures, and whatever players find cool outside, they instantly buy and destroy to feed their themselves (kidnapping girls with the spaceship)
You save teh world by putting indie devs and players together, without evil mega corporations interfering. Huzzah

I actually think this is clever (if self-centered), but it only works on a superficial level, and still doesn't explain stuff like Shay's parents or how the evil bad guys are defeated... fells like some elements were forced into (like Shay sensing the "right" girl) just to make the metaphor work.

 

[iZerw]

Another review from gatheryourparty.com: Broken Age Act Two is a Complete Disaster.

The story of how Broken Age got made is arguably more interesting than the story of Broken Age. Similarly, the puzzle of how Broken Age got made is arguably more interesting than the puzzles in Broken Age. You can hear about the first one in the documentary ‘Double Fine Adventure’, which is both longer and more interesting than the game whose development it follows.

 

[Deleted member 7219]

Well, I thought Part 1 was shockingly bad overall, with one or two good moments and the rest just crushingly awful. I'm using superlatives here because Tim Schafer really should know better. He has achieved Molyneux levels of decline.

I own Part 2, but I won't bother playing it simply because my response to the first one was so negative and from the reviews of Part 2, it sounds even worse.

 

[Pyke]

Is there a decent plot outline somewhere? Im not gonna have a chance to play the game for a while, but Im interested in all of the story talk.

EDIT - Tis on the Wikipedia page.

 

[felipepepe]

Gather Your Party going the click-bait way? Why title your review this: "Broken Age Act Two is a Complete Disaster."
If your conclusion is this: "Broken Age is by no means bad. It’s an above-average game, peppered with glimpses of brilliance that ultimately don’t amount to anything."

 

[aratuk]

Gather Your Party going the click-bait way? Why title your review this: "Broken Age Act Two is a Complete Disaster."
If your conclusion is this: "Broken Age is by no means bad. It’s an above-average game, peppered with glimpses of brilliance that ultimately don’t amount to anything."

Editors' tendency to exaggerate more moderate conclusions arrived at by writers, who will be like, "Holy shit! That is not what I said!" To which editors say, "Nm. Dont worry bout it"

 

[Aeschylus]

I own Part 2, but I won't bother playing it simply because my response to the first one was so negative and from the reviews of Part 2, it sounds even worse.

It's much, much better than part 1. That's starting from a pretty low bar, granted, but it's something.

 

[evdk]

Memoria did something like this with the staff and it worked rather well there.

That was already present in Chains of Satinav with the fairy magic (iirc this is also in the Geron portions of Memoria)

 

[felipepepe]

Meanwhile, at the fortress of decline:

 

[evdk]

Yeah, I also prefer my FPSs Zynga style these days.

Spoiler

WHAT.
THE.
FUCK.

 

[felipepepe]

I think Vogel is just waiting for someone to write how RPGs are pointless so he can go and retire.