The first act of Broken Age is a satisfying and impressive point-and-click adventure that, while incomplete, feels like eating the first of two Reese’s peanut butter cups. After shattering Kickstarter recorders with its successful $3 million dollar campaign, Broken Age is undoubtedly the biggest game released thus far on Kickstarter funding. Broken Age was sold to the public as a throw-back, a promise to resurrect a kind of game that no longer exists, and to that degree, the first half of this point-and-click adventure is dead-on. Where the game falters, the reason why you might find yourself wishing for more, is that in it’s desire to stay as “old-school” as possible, Broken Age fails to inject anything new or definitively original in the point-and-click genre.
That’s the point, right? To give people something that they could not get anywhere else, something they could only get from this Kickstarter. That is true, and it is a strong point in Double Fine’s nicely crafted game. Broken Age is so archaic–a term that is actually of endearment in this case–it might take you a moment before you can remember how a true point-and-click adventure works. It is a sign of how gameplay is defined these days, and refreshing to have a game assume you will find the answers on your own. Point-and-click adventures are often off-beat puzzle games that ask you to think outside of the box and experiment with your surroundings. These kinds of games can be frustrating and repetitive, which is why the genre has seen such a decline. People don’t like to wander about, dicking around with the same three tools trying to yield different results. To Double Fine’s credit, the frustration aspect–the time spent “stuck”– is rather minimal. Even when I was stumped, it felt like there were wide variety of options that I had yet to try. When you are well and truly perplexed, you can flip over to the other side of the story to take a break from your current predicament, as the two stories of Shay and Vella can be swapped at any time.
The core of Broken Age is so true to itself that you have to admire it. There are no frills to the game. Unlike Telltale’s recent successes that focus more around narrative than any sort of puzzle solving, Broken Age is a game that truly focuses on simply creating a world to click your way through, giving you a decisively linear path. The game is straightforward in what it is asking, and upfront about the objectives it sets for the player. Things might be hard to sport, or slightly obtuse in their design, but usually a little persistence and exploration will lead you to discover the answers you are looking for. The onus is on you, the player, not on the game to spoon feed you the answers–though sometimes they can’t help themselves. While it is refreshing to see Double Fine take this approach to gameplay, the puzzles aren’t anything earth-shattering in the genre. Double Fine resurrects the point-and-click adventure in a pure manner, but their dedication to the genre does stand head and shoulders above any other example.
Narratively, the game tells the separate stories of Vella and Shay, consistently hinting at their intertwining nature. Vella is a girl who lives in a village that used to be filled with warriors, but has since devoted itself to the fine art of baking. Giving up the ways of war, the citizens of Sugar Bunting have succumbed to the rule of Mog Chothra, a beast who comes to the village each year during the Maiden’s Feast and selects sacrifices from a group of offered young women . While, ostensibly horrifying, every sacrifice seems totally accepting, even honored, by their gloomy fate. When Vella decides to forsake tradition and fight Mog Cothra, no one seems to understand her motives. The other story is that of Shay, a boy who has spent is life in a spaceship surrounded by computers who protect him from reality and treat him like a child. When Shay finally escapes his routine-cushioned lifestyle, he stumbles into a more important and more dangerous mission than he has known before.
Both tales are spun with great charm and witty dialogue. While never capturing the laugh-out loud humor, the narrative is cleverly written to keep you smiling and prevent boredom. Thematically, Broken Age demonstrates truly mature storytelling, giving both protagonists parallel plots, while deftly avoiding being heavy-handed. The only problem with the simplicity of Double Fine’s set up, is that it provides little room for Vella or Shay to really grow or change in any way. While their situations have inciting moments, the characters start with one motivation and continue along the same path, failing to really provide any surprises in how they respond to the situations given. Both Vella and Shay seem to blindly accept the world around them, rather than interpreting and altering it, despite the kooky characters and bizarre settings.
While Vella and Shay may lack variety, the same can not be said for Broken Age’s gorgeous world. Picturesque and beautiful, Broken Age is like so many creative independent games recently, proving photo-realism isn’t everything, and a well-crafted art-style can be as important as technical prowess. Broken Age does a lot with very little, putting together each frame with intelligent choices, trying to draw your eye to what is important, while still preserving the natural beauty of each scene. Shay’s world of a sci-fi spaceship, may pale in comparison to Vella’s fantastical adventure, but his playrooms attempt to redeem the cold metal with whimsical childhood elements. It’s smart, it is creative, it works, visually Broken Age is a treasure.
For all of the wonderful aspects of Broken Age, the game remains impossible to score as it is ambiguous in what its full package is really all about. While a interesting and clever ending is delivered by the developer, it fails to accurately demonstrate how the package is going to tie together. There are plenty of elements to enjoy about Broken Age’s first act, it lacks meat in certain areas, passing through settings and characters in an almost dismissive answer. It is likely that most of these ideas will be revisited in the second act, but without the second piece of the puzzle it is impossible to know if the game’s intriguing set up will have any real payoff.
No one can ignore Broken Age’s expectations as The Kickstarter heard round the world. Even under the weight of such scrutiny, Tim Schafer and the team at Double Team have delivered a fantastic first piece of content that tells an engaging story while delivering on its promise of a pure point-and-click adventure. There are a wonderful mix of elements coming together in Broken Age, its clever writing, straightforward gameplay, and amazing art are all parts of a fantastic product. However, that product is incomplete, thus it is is impossible to truly recommend on the whole. Shay and Vella may have surprising moments waiting for us in the second half, the gameplay might find more creative ways to stay true to form, but it is impossible to say. What can not be argued is Broken Age has started in impressive fashion, showing all of its backers that their faith has been well placed. Even if Broken Age’s second half is nothing more than a gif of Vin Diesel dancing to Katy Perry, people will still praise the game’s fantastic first part.
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