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[Five]

So it turns out I was only ten minutes from the ending, putting my total time at a nice round 4:20. I really, really liked it.

Trying out items on different people was one of the best, funniest parts. Using cloud shoes on the mayor-hopeful: "flip flops? I'm in politics; I can't be associated with flip flops!"

Ultimately, most of what I've gotten from backing this is the documentary, but that the first act turned out so well is certainly icing on the cake.

 

[golem]

Finished it in 3:20. Cant wait for the next act!, so many questions..

 

[Haunted]

Trying out different subtitle languages, a really nice touch that even on-screen assets (like signs etc) are translated. I think Oliver did a forum thread explaining the tech, it's pretty nice.

Though I did notice that the subtitles sometimes differ from what's actually legibly written on the texture. :lol (Warnung: Luftschleuse in-game vs Achtung: Luftschleuse in the subtitle.) Both are correct translations of "warning", so I assume that's where the mistake happened.

 

[Saty]

These length and difficulty impressions are disappointing. That wasn't what i expected from a P&C harking back to yore.

 

[Maxwood]

These length and difficulty impressions are disappointing. That wasn't what i expected from a P&C harking back to yore.

It's 1995 all over again.
And it just so happens I love Full Throttle.
I'm guessing the game takes around eight to ten hours, classic Point & Click length. And besides, some people here are fast.

Anyhow. Played a bit over an hour so far, Shay's story. I'm loving it! Schafer is brilliant in creating weird, wonderful worlds inhibited with interesting characters and, well, he did it again. Delicious atmosphere. Don't mind "easy" puzzles, as long as they're fun. And a bit logical, in the game world that is. Which they are.
Voice-acting is what surprised me the most, it's really good.

They did a good job letting the player understand and see Shay

Spoiler

has had enough of those save "adventures" over and over and over again, which the player went through too, but it never got repetitive or boring as it did for Shay.

So many cereals.
What I do miss are the "extra clicks". Now if you click on an item, that's it, most of the time. There isn't anymore dialogue the second, third of fourth time. Well, maybe the second, but not always. Full Throttle didn't have that either, for example, but still. Small gripe.

 

[TheNamelessOne]

Soooo... Anyone else who didn't get a mail with the Steam code for backers?

 

[Vitor711]

Spoiler

Fall through the right-most hole in the tree area.

Oh thank you for that SO MUCH. I thought I had missed how to take the ladder with me or something or that I needed to combine items (something I hadn't done yet).

That seems simple. But, again, I really wish they had a hint system ala Machinarium.

 

[CecilRousso]

These length and difficulty impressions are disappointing. That wasn't what i expected from a P&C harking back to yore.

People are often forgetting that some of the old classics where very short. I beat Loom quite recently on Steam, and it was my first time playing it and not a replay. I beat it in 4h.

My playtime for Monkey Island 1 and 2, games I replayed on Steam, are 4.0 and 5.1h.

 

[ChiliManiac]

....scratches head, why the heck am I not a backer for this game? *cries quietly* Will buy

 

[Acosta]

People are often forgetting that some of the old classics where very short. I beat Loom quite recently on Steam, and it was my first time playing it and not a replay. I beat it in 4h.

My playtime for Monkey Island 1 and 2, games I replayed on Steam, are 4.0 and 5.1h.

I remember Day of Tentacle and Grim Fandango as quite long (but I'm terrible at adventures and tend to get stuck).

My last adventure before this was night of the rabbit and I don't think I was anywhere close the ending after 9 hours, but again, my perception may be tainted by my lack of skills in this genre.

The fact that the story is divided may contribute to the perception of being short.

 

[Saty]

Yeah but the KS pitch also talked fondly about getting stumped by a puzzle, turning the game off and doing something else and getting the a-ha moment even days after. It doesn't sound like Act 1 of Broken Age has anything close to that or challenging puzzles.

 

[duckroll]

Yeah I think the difficulty, or lack thereof, is one of the reasons why Act 1 feels so quick. I played through the entire thing in 3 sittings, but I could have done it in 2 if I wanted. The first time I launched the game, I blew through Shay's entire scenario in 90 mins, in a single sitting. I wouldn't say that I was never challenged at all, because there were a couple of puzzles which required some logical thought, but it also didn't really stump me. There are also some puzzles which might require backtracking if you missed a room or an item required to proceed. But other than that it was pretty much a breeze.

Vella's story actually felt like it had more old school adventure elements to it, with a lot more dialogue and characters, and some dialogue "puzzles" too. But again, there's nothing which really stumped me much because it seemed fairly obvious, and picking every option available and grabbing every item you can take as you go along is pretty much the way to go. I actually think the puzzles for Shay were more clever, while Vella gets to explore a more interesting setting with more variety in tone.

Overall though, I think even if this is half of the entire game, the size isn't particularly small, it's just that it feels light in content in terms of population and play time. I counted the number of unique screen areas (most of them scroll though, so they're larger than one actual "screen"), and Vella has about 18 screens, while Shay has about 19.

Almost 40 unique screens with something to do and interact with in pretty much every screen, and everything being fully voiced, is honestly not bad in terms of design for half an adventure game, especially when the story and characters are fairly unique and doesn't feel remotely derivative. Yet blowing through it in just 2-3 sittings taking up 3 hours definitely does feel short.

One thing I hope for is that since it's likely the second half of the game will reuse many of the areas already created for Act 1, they can maybe populate them with new content and puzzles without having to create tons of new assets. That could definitely increase the amount of game there is without increasing the budget that much... maybe?

I really enjoyed what there is so far. I just wish there were more of it!

 

[Vert boil]

For people that don't want to hunt for 8-bit mode,

Spoiler

1. (Some might not have to do this step.) Set the resolution to a low resolution.
2. Select the keymapper and an icon of Shay and Vella will show up. You need to bind this to a key.
3. Load your game up and press the key you bound.

You can change the resolution back to what it was previously if you had to change it to make the icon appear. I saw some talk about a classic font if you played at the lower res but that didn't happen for me.

Soooo... Anyone else who didn't get a mail with the Steam code for backers?

Check your spam folder, the email is called "Broken Age, Act 1‏".

If it isn't there enter your email address in here and you'll receive a list of all the purchases linked to the address.
You should try is with any email address that you could have used to back the kickstarter or used to pay by paypal if you were a slacker backer.

The only way you wouldn't get in the beta is if you preordered on brokenagegame.com after a certain date. (I don't know what date that is)

 

[ZoddGutts]

These length and difficulty impressions are disappointing. That wasn't what i expected from a P&C harking back to yore.

Yeah, it's rather short. Broken Sword 5 part 1 game took a little over 5 hours to complete and that's at a quick pace by the player, some took 10 hours to complete it.

 

[Krilekk]

Repopulated screens are IMO the worst kind of game design in adventure games. I remember how badly it was in "The Runaway". You checked a paper basket and nothing was in it. One hour later the only way to continue was to check that basket again because something had miraculously spawned there which was needed to complete a puzzle. When you've been to a screen you normally expect to have seen everything and got every item. Adding more at a later point just makes it a messy and frustrating experience.

 

[duckroll]

Repopulated screens are IMO the worst kind of game design in adventure games. I remember how badly it was in "The Runaway". You checked a paper basket and nothing was in it. One hour later the only way to continue was to check that basket again because something had miraculously spawned there which was needed to complete a puzzle. When you've been to a screen you normally expect to have seen everything and got every item. Adding more at a later point just makes it a messy and frustrating experience.

That's not what I meant. I don't know if you've played Broken Age yet, so I don't want to spoil anything, but I think it's totally possible to do repopulate a lot of existing screens in Act 2 without it feeling cheap or stupid. I totally agree with what you said.

 

[Fuu]

I'm not too worried about Act 2, they have the engine and UI ready and a lot of things in place now and will be able to focus more on content, so I don't doubt it will be longer. Not to mention that Tim said it will be harder too since at that point the player is used to how the game works.

I haven't played it yet so I'll get back on the difficulty later, but considering we have people in this very thread who got stuck and some of the recent playtests in the documentary, seems that it may be the right choice to make this act on the easier side. This game will be a lot of people's first impression of the old-school version of the genre and they want players to stick with it.

 

[Haunted]

Remapping controls to mouse only feels much better than using I/Space. No complaints.

Also, hipster lumberjack and talking spoon for best new characters 2014.

I'm not too worried about Act 2, they have the engine and UI ready and a lot of things in place now and will be able to focus more on content, so I don't doubt it will be longer. Not to mention that Tim said it will be harder too since at that point the player is used to how the game works.

I haven't played it yet so I'll get back on the difficulty later, but considering we have people in this very thread who got stuck and some of the recent playtests in the documentary, seems that it may be the right choice to make this act on the easier side. This game will be a lot of people's first impression of the old-school version of the genre and they want players to stick with it.

Well, it's not like we didn't solve that sort of accessibility problem before:

(Monkey Island 2 difficulty select screen)


Probably too much extra work to fit in the development schedule for this, though. If they were to make the Kickstarter for Doublefine Adventure today, I'm sure this sort of thing would be one of the stretch goals.

 

[Cronen]

Just downloaded it now. Can't wait to play through!

 

[Fuu]

Just downloaded it now. Went to the credits to see that my name is not in the backers section. Hmm . Well, regardless I look forward to playing through this. Been incredibly excited to do so after keeping up with the documentary.

Did you pay the $100 tier? If so you should contact DF on their forums to communicate your name is not there.

edit: ninja'd!

 

[Cronen]

Did you pay the $100 tier? If so you should contact DF on their forums to communicate your name is not there.

A quick google search shows that it is for the $100 tier and above! My bad! You beat me to my edit!

 

[Haunted]

Dat ending shot composition, hnngg.

Beautifully done. Took me about 5 hours total.

Spoiler

When the Dead eye God woke up, I was thinking that Shay and Vella's stories were centuries apart for a sec. :lol I liked the reveal at the end. I'm sure we'll see all the 'eaten' maidens again as soon as they're freed from Marek's hold.

 

[ebullientprism]

Are people genuinely upset about the length? 4 hours for a single episode is very decent IMO.

I am not a backer though, will probably get it once the whole thing is complete in a few months.

 

[MBR]

Finished in 4 hours, spent more than an hour of that figuring out that the

Spoiler

solution to the riddle was fruit. I gave my peach to the hipster and figured "So that was just optional, neat."

.

Mind blown at the end, did not all of it falling in place like that. Still some things unanswered, but that's for the 2nd act I guess.

I don't know if this feels like a $3m+ game, but for the $15 I payed for it, it was a really, really good first half (?).

 

[mclem]

Well, it's not like we didn't solve that sort of accessibility problem before:

(Monkey Island 2 difficulty select screen)

That's presented as a difficulty select, but I tend to read it as "Do I want all the content, or less content?". I'm.... not going to pick the latter.

 

[Haunted]

That's not what I meant. I don't know if you've played Broken Age yet, so I don't want to spoil anything, but I think it's totally possible to do repopulate a lot of existing screens in Act 2 without it feeling cheap or stupid. I totally agree with what you said.

Spoiler

Yup, considering the position reversal in the ending, I think that's exactly what they're planning to do.

I also like that they've done a bit of setup work to pay off in the second act, like letting you inquire about the closed room on the ship and letting you interact with the snake without a way to actually get past it.

Very much looking forward to how the mysteries will unfold in act 2.

That's presented as a difficulty select, but I tend to read it as "Do I want all the content, or less content?". I'm.... not going to pick the latter.

Well, technically, it's both. The game is easier because the puzzle sequences you need to complete are shortened. It's a simpler version of the game. Same story, same characters, less complex puzzles.

An extreme modern example would be LA Noire, which lets you bypass all the mandatory action scenes if you so desire.

 

[NZNova]

Game is really fucking great. Good job, Tim and team. Good job. Thanks for making exactly the kind of game that I wanted.

 

[eXistor]

These length and difficulty impressions are disappointing. That wasn't what i expected from a P&C harking back to yore.

Yeah, this and it pretty much being a touch-based game are quite disappointing to me. The game is charming, well-written and beautiful in every way, but for a game designed for oldskool PnC fans this is disappointing to say the least. This wasn't quite what was promised. I'll reserve further judgment until I finish the game though, I might end up not giving a toss after seeing more

 

[nicjac]

Just played part of it. I really like it. The art style is truly stunning. I don't really mind the difficulty, not sure I would have fun being stuck for hours on puzzles like I used to when I played old Lucas Arts adventure games.

It's especially great when you watched all the documentaries. It really came together beautifully.

 

[hornetpie]

can someone give me some help with the propulsion puzzle please

Spoiler

where do i find something that can propel me, ive cut the rope with the knife easily enough but propulsion is puzzling me

 

[nicjac]

can someone give me some help with the propulsion puzzle please

Spoiler

where do i find something that can propel me, ive cut the rope with the knife easily enough but propulsion is puzzling me

Spoiler

You might find something useful in one of the mission rooms

 

[BKJest]

Goddamn, they went all out with the inventory combinations. Nearly everything has a unique response. I'm having a blast just using random items on different things on the screen for humor.

I loved the tidbit in the last episode of the documentary where Tim talked about Elijah Wood being an adventure fan and "getting" why he had to record those weird lines of dialogue. "So this is for when you combine any two items in the inventory?"

 

[ArjanN]

Yeah I think the difficulty, or lack thereof, is one of the reasons why Act 1 feels so quick. I played through the entire thing in 3 sittings, but I could have done it in 2 if I wanted. The first time I launched the game, I blew through Shay's entire scenario in 90 mins, in a single sitting. I wouldn't say that I was never challenged at all, because there were a couple of puzzles which required some logical thought, but it also didn't really stump me. There are also some puzzles which might require backtracking if you missed a room or an item required to proceed. But other than that it was pretty much a breeze.

Vella's story actually felt like it had more old school adventure elements to it, with a lot more dialogue and characters, and some dialogue "puzzles" too. But again, there's nothing which really stumped me much because it seemed fairly obvious, and picking every option available and grabbing every item you can take as you go along is pretty much the way to go. I actually think the puzzles for Shay were more clever, while Vella gets to explore a more interesting setting with more variety in tone.

Overall though, I think even if this is half of the entire game, the size isn't particularly small, it's just that it feels light in content in terms of population and play time. I counted the number of unique screen areas (most of them scroll though, so they're larger than one actual "screen"), and Vella has about 18 screens, while Shay has about 19.

Almost 40 unique screens with something to do and interact with in pretty much every screen, and everything being fully voiced, is honestly not bad in terms of design for half an adventure game, especially when the story and characters are fairly unique and doesn't feel remotely derivative. Yet blowing through it in just 2-3 sittings taking up 3 hours definitely does feel short.

One thing I hope for is that since it's likely the second half of the game will reuse many of the areas already created for Act 1, they can maybe populate them with new content and puzzles without having to create tons of new assets. That could definitely increase the amount of game there is without increasing the budget that much... maybe?

I really enjoyed what there is so far. I just wish there were more of it!

Yeah, whenever I hear people say old school adventure games used to be longer I always think that's just because you were stuck for a couple of hours on an annoying pixel hunting bit / a maze / a nonsense cat mustache puzzle and you didn't have the internet to look up the solution.

In terms of pure content like voice acting and number of scenes they really weren't any bigger.

 

[CzarTim]

Just finished it and loved it to death. When I backed I did it more for the documentary, but man the game blew me away.

 

[Zeliard]

It was lovely. Puzzles were indeed fairly simple but that is at least a better alternative than the illogical and unnecessarily convoluted sort found in many adventure games, and the story and setting are really what are being emphasized here.

Nothing much else can be said about the presentation that hasn't already been said. The art design is beyond reproach - literally every individual screen makes for a gorgeous screenshot - and the music and voice acting fit the style perfectly. From a presentation standpoint, the game is as close to flawless as one would hope.

I also think that due to the nature of the ending, the story probably plays out a bit more seamlessly if you switch back and forth between the characters along the way. There are natural breaking points in the story where you can switch to another character in a fashion that flows well with the overall pacing.

 

[LiK]

Wrote a review on my blog.

http://likchan.blogspot.com/2014/01/pc-broken-age-act-1-review-thoughts.html

 

[funo]

Polygon review is out - see here

They really seem to love it

 

[sub_o]

Soooo... Anyone else who didn't get a mail with the Steam code for backers?

Do they send the code through email ? All I did was to login to my humble bundle account, click on claim past purchases, and it should be there.

 

[LiK]

Do they send the code through email ? All I did was to login to my humble bundle account, click on claim past purchases, and it should be there.

They sent an email but yea, just get it from your Humble page. Easier.

 

[Dandy Lyin]

It took me a little over 3 hours to finish and I absolutely loved it. The music and voice acting is great, the art blew me away, and I found the story entertaining. Oh, and it ended at an appropriate point in the story, which was a nice.

The cursor feels abnormally large. Dragging items especially annoyed me, as I’m just used to clicking an item and then clicking on what you want to use it on. Thankfully I got used to it after a while, and it stopped being an issue.

The puzzles aren’t really difficult at all though there were a couple points where I didn’t know exactly what to do right away. In the most recent part of the documentary, Tim commented on the difficulty saying he wanted to ramp it up for part 2 which is a good thing. I will say that it felt more puzzley than the Walking Dead or the Wolf Among Us.

The story is lovely, and by the end of Part 1 there are some interesting questions to be answered. Like most DoubleFine games, “charming” is the best adjective to use when describing the production as a whole. Broken Age was well worth the wait

 

[Jo-El]

Other than being a little easy (and a little short... I can't wait for act 2!), I loved it! It was everything I wanted from this project. It's the game I always imagined Double Fine would make since they first formed the studio.
I really hope this continues to be successful for Double Fine and they're able to fund additional adventure games in the future. Tim's still got it!

 

[Zeliard]

Yeah I think the difficulty, or lack thereof, is one of the reasons why Act 1 feels so quick. I played through the entire thing in 3 sittings, but I could have done it in 2 if I wanted. The first time I launched the game, I blew through Shay's entire scenario in 90 mins, in a single sitting. I wouldn't say that I was never challenged at all, because there were a couple of puzzles which required some logical thought, but it also didn't really stump me. There are also some puzzles which might require backtracking if you missed a room or an item required to proceed. But other than that it was pretty much a breeze.

Vella's story actually felt like it had more old school adventure elements to it, with a lot more dialogue and characters, and some dialogue "puzzles" too. But again, there's nothing which really stumped me much because it seemed fairly obvious, and picking every option available and grabbing every item you can take as you go along is pretty much the way to go. I actually think the puzzles for Shay were more clever, while Vella gets to explore a more interesting setting with more variety in tone.

Overall though, I think even if this is half of the entire game, the size isn't particularly small, it's just that it feels light in content in terms of population and play time. I counted the number of unique screen areas (most of them scroll though, so they're larger than one actual "screen"), and Vella has about 18 screens, while Shay has about 19.

Almost 40 unique screens with something to do and interact with in pretty much every screen, and everything being fully voiced, is honestly not bad in terms of design for half an adventure game, especially when the story and characters are fairly unique and doesn't feel remotely derivative. Yet blowing through it in just 2-3 sittings taking up 3 hours definitely does feel short.

One thing I hope for is that since it's likely the second half of the game will reuse many of the areas already created for Act 1, they can maybe populate them with new content and puzzles without having to create tons of new assets. That could definitely increase the amount of game there is without increasing the budget that much... maybe?

I really enjoyed what there is so far. I just wish there were more of it!

Chris Remo said this back in July about the size of the game:

The second "half" isn't actually half the game (I know that isn't obvious). The first part will be the majority of the story—probably closer to what acts I and II would be in a typical story. Also, the second part will benefit from all the engine/process/etc. work that already got solved to make the first part of the game, and that part of the game will have already begun development before anything is released, so it won't need nearly as much time to finish up as the first part will have.

So it appears the part we've played is most of the game. Could be things have changed since then and they were able to add more content. I haven't kept up with the development so I'm not sure if there were any updates indicative of such.

 

[kudoboi]

to those who already played it, are there many choices and a huge dialog tree ( at least similar to those telltale ones)?

 

[thefro]

So it appears the part we've played is most of the game. Could be things have changed since then and they were able to add more content. I haven't kept up with the development so I'm not sure if there were any updates indicative of such.

The impression I've gotten is that if Act 1 sells well, we're probably getting a somewhat bigger Act 2 compared to how it otherwise would be. That's why they haven't given a timeline publicly beyond "later in 2014" for the rest of the game.

 

[Peff]

Hm, with any luck he low-balled it, or he just meant that story scenes will take up less of the game time this time around. Hopefully there won't be any more "Can I take this?" "First you'll have t... actually just take it" puzzles.

 

[LiK]

to those who already played it, are there many choices and a huge dialog tree ( at least similar to those telltale ones)?

Nope, it's linear but there's a lot of optional dialogue. Man, just let some chatter play by and it was hilarious.

 

[Sera O]

I've played some of Vella's part, taking my time. So far, it's been pretty magical. How to progress has been fairly obvious, but for a game like this where I'm getting a lot of enjoyment out of the presentation and the dialogue, I guess it's ok. I just left cloud colony, so things may get more complicated.

I haven't noticed any bugs so far, which is a relief. I don't feel the urge to jump between the two characters' stories at all, though. I hope I'm not missing out on anything by not doing that.

 

[Lasthope106]

Chris Remo said this back in July about the size of the game:



So it appears the part we've played is most of the game. Could be things have changed since then and they were able to add more content. I haven't kept up with the development so I'm not sure if there were any updates indicative of such.

That's somewhat disappointing.

As for initial impressions of my first play session, I had a hard time getting into the game - last proper adventure game I played was Machinarium. The beginning half hour felt weird to me, almost in the sense of being "yeah you are being clever" kind of way, if that makes any sense. By the time I got to the Maiden's feast, that's when the game started clicking. I started feeling really relaxed and started exploring and trying to see all the dialog options from all the characters.

Even with the short length, I don't feel cheated for what I paid. It is a very well made game that I imagine lots of children will enjoy playing and making memories like with the old Lucas Arts adventure games. The documentary alone has provided me with a lot of insight and entertainment value. It has made me realize how difficult game development can get.

to those who already played it, are there many choices and a huge dialog tree ( at least similar to those telltale ones)?

No. At least nothing in the scale of The Walking Dead, in which almost every interaction was a dialogue choice. Actually, I found this aspect of the game a little on the short side. I was expecting a lot more dialogue.

 

[LiK]

I've played some of Vella's part, taking my time. So far, it's been pretty magical. How to progress has been fairly obvious, but for a game like this where I'm getting a lot of enjoyment out of the presentation and the dialogue, I guess it's ok. I just left cloud colony, so things may get more complicated.

I haven't noticed any bugs so far, which is a relief. I don't feel the urge to jump between the two characters' stories at all, though. I hope I'm not missing out on anything by not doing that.

I hit zero bugs. Just one subtitle went offscreen. That was it.

 

[Fireflu]

Absolutely lovely experience, such a beautiful game.

There were a few (very minor) rough edges such as character necks appearing in front of the faces in certain cutscenes. Also one area in the cloud place had a very small area to click to get back to the next section which made me think the game had glitched out or something.

Someone needs to go through the game taking some hi-res screenshots (without the cursor). Sooooo much potential wallpaper material! I tried taking some screenshots myself but the colours were all messed up for some reason.