I finished Vela's Act 1 side and started with Shay and I think I ran into a game-breaking bug on the PS4.
During the
Fake Avalanche bit, I went to the right to the whipped cream pipe. I tried using Gary and then the spoon on it. Immediately, I tried using Gary on Shay and the game just freezes.
No pause menu
Victims stop talking
Music keeps going but otherwise, evertyhing's stuck
Watched a stream of a playthrough of Act 2 that was joined by Double Fine's Anna Kipnis. Apparently there is a secret wiring for the hexipals, that few people have discovered so far. It's not related to any puzzles, just an extra thing that they throw in for fun. Anyone seen it?
I had a lot of fun with Act 2. The puzzles were something that I felt was missing from Act 1. Act 1 was far too easy but Act 2 finally started to step it up a bit. Only part I actually got really really stuck on was
giving the tuning whistle to Alex. That fake out with the code on the piece of paper behind him. I was so fixated on that and finding a way to get rid of threads the weaver made.
My main issues with the game.
1. Why the hell couldn't Shay eat the frosting???
2. Why can't I skip 1 line of dialogue instead of only just the whole conversation. I don't want to watch F'ther fiddle around with the knot and fuck up just to see the knot again.
3. Act 2 definitely missing new locales. I like the idea of them being in each others areas but we could have used a break and switched it up.
Watched a stream of a playthrough of Act 2 that was joined by Double Fine's Anna Kipnis. Apparently there is a secret wiring for the hexipals, that few people have discovered so far. It's not related to any puzzles, just an extra thing that they throw in for fun. Anyone seen it?
Watched a stream of a playthrough of Act 2 that was joined by Double Fine's Anna Kipnis. Apparently there is a secret wiring for the hexipals, that few people have discovered so far. It's not related to any puzzles, just an extra thing that they throw in for fun. Anyone seen it?
Watched a stream of a playthrough of Act 2 that was joined by Double Fine's Anna Kipnis. Apparently there is a secret wiring for the hexipals, that few people have discovered so far. It's not related to any puzzles, just an extra thing that they throw in for fun. Anyone seen it?
I had a lot of fun with Act 2. The puzzles were something that I felt was missing from Act 1. Act 1 was far too easy but Act 2 finally started to step it up a bit. Only part I actually got really really stuck on was
giving the tuning whistle to Alex. That fake out with the code on the piece of paper behind him. I was so fixated on that and finding a way to get rid of threads the weaver made.
Heh, I did the same thing. Though that piece actually is useful, since
it maps back to a pattern you already know, which might help you make a connection between what Alex plays and how it's supposed to look on the weaver.
Heh, I did the same thing. Though that piece actually is useful, since
it maps back to a pattern you already know, which might help you make a connection between what Alex plays and how it's supposed to look on the weaver.
Oh I wish. Unfortunately Loom doesn't seem to share the popularity Money Island and Day of The Tentacle have, for example. Maybe the game was too weird for average player. But I loved the weirdness, and the fantasy / surreal setting in it. Too bad it was so short.
Completed the game! I thought it was great. Vita loadings can get very annoying though (especially during puzzles that require a lot of movement between locations). In the end there were only 2 puzzles that I couldn't figure out on my own.
1.
I knew I needed the snake, but "waiting" to (not) die never struck me as an option
2.
It was a diamond shaped charging port. Didn't realize that the Hexipal could fit in there. The actual wiring puzzles for the hexipal was easy enough to figure out though
Also, the spoon was my absolute favourite character. Dragged him onto every interactable person or object I could. Loved his remarks
I can't save the game anymore. When I tap on Manual Save, nothing happens. Don't know whether autosave works, but I'm not gonna put my progress at risk just to find out.
I can't save the game anymore. When I tap on Manual Save, nothing happens. Don't know whether autosave works, but I'm not gonna put my progress at risk just to find out.
Yes, I played it on my iPad. Finished it yesterday, just a few hours after my post.
Strangely enough, when I was returned to the main menu after the credits, none of the menu buttons (Continue, New Game, ...) worked either. Must be a bug in the menu system, I guess. It didn't affect anything in-game.
After force-quitting the game, everything was fine again.
Just finished it today. I generally liked act 1, but act 2 was a huge step up and I enjoyed the entire experience a lot. Felt like the puzzles were adequately difficult without being ridiculous. Got stuck a few times, but never to the point of frustration. The story took a few odd turns, but the characters were all really well written with near-perfect humor. I seriously can't remember the last game that made me laugh this much. I was left feeling very satisfied and the end credits illustrations were a nice touch.
It was also refreshing to play such a joyful game. I loved spending time in this bizarre world with so many lively characters. Doublefine did a wonderful job. I think Broken Age is one of their best games yet.
Just finished watching it, it's a pretty fair review despite being more negative than positive IMO; fantastic story and art, but it's let down by some very simplistic game-design even by point and click standards. I haven't finished the 2nd part of BA but I can absolutely sympathize with people legitimately let down with what Broken Age wound up being after the enormously successful kickstarter, even if the claims of being a scam are bullshit. The amount of times like here or with the Skullgirls Indiegogo where people suddenly become financial experts has got to get annoying for smaller developers who have to turn to crowdfunding.
Yeah, having to support simplistic touchscreen controls hurts the complexity of puzzles a bit. Personally I think adventure game GUI was perfected by Monkey Island 2, and anything after that is a step back. MI3 and Full Throttle are not as bad as later ones tho... they give you more options to interract with the environment.
Well, there really isn't anything simplistic about the puzzles in Act 2, was there? I think that one aspect of one the puzzles was a mistake by Tim Schafer, but other then that, they were of high quality. Varied and well intergrated in both character design and the story. Can't think of many others, if any, recent adventure games that mixed it up as well, with pure object based on, enviroment based, inventory combinations, riddles, etc.
I played the first act on pc/monitor but now i'm replaying it on console/tv (still in act 1).
I feel that Double Fine did a good job in bringing an adventure game to consoles, which isn't an easy task (translating mouse/kb point and click to controller). Controls work well and the UI is easy and fast. Also, the production values are top notch: game looks beautiful and the music, sound effects and voice acting are all rather fantastic. It's really weird that you can't examine any items though, unless they are in your inventory. An odd choice for an adventure game.
I can't comment on story and puzzles yet (which, in the end, is the most important aspect of any adventure game) but i'm rather impressed with the rest of the game so far. It's a shame that we will probably never see another adventure game from Double Fine, now that all the hard work on engine, controls,... is done.
Urg. I enjoyed the game, for the most part, and probably would give it a 4/5, but that ending, or non-ending, is such a letdown. It just stops. What a disappointment.
What a mess of a game. There's a lot of great stuff in this game, and a lot of bad nonsensical time-waisting junk. How did some of this stuff make it into the final game? Why did they think that ending was satisfactorily and fine? This was one of the first games I kickstarted, and I'm embarrassed by the amount I pledged.
I haven't watched the documentary yet, but I can't believe otherwise that there was a time pressure or budgetary reason to end the game as they did. Hell, Curse of Monkey Island had a more conclusive and better ending than this.
Just finished the game. I really enjoyed my time with it so i'd rate it 8,5/10. It's not as good as some of the classics but it's solid and fun for the most part. It certainly resparkled my love for traditional adventure games and made me look forward to finally replay Grim Fandango now (which i bought on PS4).
Some thoughts:
+ great production values
+ unique, fresh and beautiful visuals. Nicely animated
+ stellar voice acting
+ great soundtrack and atmospheric sound effects
+ good user interface
+ controls worked really well on console (clearly a lot of thought went into this)
+ enjoyable cast of characters
+ funny
+ solid gamelength considering the price
+ enjoyable puzzles for the most part. I had the impression that there wasn't as much trial and error involved
+ a lot of dialogue was done for the "try everything on everything" moments (replacing the traditional and boring "you can't use did on that" line)
+ no pixel hunting
- story didn't interest me as much as i had hoped. Also, quite a few unfinished and unexplained story bits.
- character cast wasn't as memorable as some other classic adventures out there
-
no new locations in act 2 Discovering new locations and characters is a big part of why i play adventure games.
- ending was dissapointing
- quite a bit of backtracking without any way to fast travel, especially in act 2. A few more locations would have warranted a mini-map.
- some puzzles seemed random
e.g. is there any indication at all that Carol knew anything about knots?
Now that the engine is done, i hope we will see another Double Fine adventure sometime in the future (i'm not hopeful though given the troubled development and kickstarter funding). I had a great time with Broken Age and i'm sure i'll remember it fondly.
I'm finishing up the documentary and it's a shame that Tim reacts to complaints of part 1 being too easy. The attempt to make part 2 harder actually lead to worse puzzles, which is just as disappointing as where the story went.
Overall a really good documentary. They're a cool team.
Finally finished the game. I took my time, roughly 12 hours, but I didn't rush it, listened to most dialog options and tried to never look up puzzle solutions and rather try them and when it didn't work I quit the game thought on it and pick it up again at a later time.
I rather enjoyed it. Compared to other Schafer Adventures and games I didn't like the style that much even though I get the appeal.
Some characters are really well done, I especially liked the tree.
The puzzles were alright most of the time, Act 2 was a bit harder and I really liked the puzzles where you had to directly connect things from Vella and Shay.
There are lots of times though, when you could see the time and money constraints the team had to work around. The game felt more like Act 1 and 2 were part of a 3 act story where part 3 played in the foreign land and more time would be given to Marek and friends.
Sometimes it even felt like they had all parts in place to pull of a significant twist and had to cut it out because there was no time left:
e.g. when Mother stops the the ship from flying away, just so that Marek can get off board and Vella back in the cockpit. It still felt like there was something that Mother knows and doesn't want to tell you. Like a gray area that isn't explained about her.
.
I hope that DF will do another Adventure title with the same engine and don't repeat the mistakes made with the writing and the art. It looked great in the end, but the hold up in production due to the art was not worth it at all. They would most likely not have had such a hard time had they had a better pipeline for the art and a finished story to begin with.
With around 250k sold on steam and the game being on tablets and consoles, I hope that it turned a small profit for DF, even if it's not enough to go full Indie from here on out and finance the next game from this fund.
Hooray, I'll watch this later on. Bittersweet that we have finally reached the end of our adventure. Whether the game was great or not, I sure am glad to have been part of this.
That last episode was really great. 20 episode documentary. Must be like 10-15 hours worth. Emotional stuff. I mean even if you didnt like the game the documentary alone was kind of fantastic.
Just watched the final episode. This was definitely worth backing for the documentary alone. I wish the final episode would have been more clear on sales numbers/if the game turned a profit in the end. There are a few numbers thrown around and what I took from it was that they kind of broke even but a little more details on that would have been nice.
Still haven't finished the game yet. I started act 2 when it released but I wanted to give act 1 a go again and simply didn't find the time yet.
It elucidates the process of game development, and breaks down the walls between development teams, publishers, and players. Even if adventure games aren't your thing, I recommend you watch the documentary. It's spectacular work across the board.
I look forward to seeing what 2 Player Productions and Double Fine do next!
Wow, Episode 20 was amazing, and yet, very somber. Almost the exact opposite to the thrill post-Kickstarter. Really feel for the team through everything.
I'll always remember Broken Age for the game, the 'sausage making' documentary, and the path it's left for everyone else to follow. If anything, the adventure of following the game and the transformation it's left on the gaming landscape is more exciting than the actual adventure in Broken Age.
They're right, it's almost amazing to note and track how different the gaming landscape is today from 3 years back. The added transparency we all seek is welcome but can get ugly at times, which is why some would back away from it which is completely understandable given the difficulties of providing the message.
Watched a stream of a playthrough of Act 2 that was joined by Double Fine's Anna Kipnis. Apparently there is a secret wiring for the hexipals, that few people have discovered so far. It's not related to any puzzles, just an extra thing that they throw in for fun. Anyone seen it?
People have figured it out, and there's an achievement for it. It's
a different dance, based on one Tim Schafer's brother used to do to tease him, which was also used by the bully in Psychonauts (and Raz himself) and the lead singer of the band Eddie is working for in the opening cutscene for Brütal Legend (also voiced by Raz).
Backed the project with $100, and I'm more then happy with how everything turned out. Game, doc, project management. I know a lot people would disagree with that last point there, but I do think that DF are underestimated there, considering what a feat it was to actually deliver a project like this.
I think the ending of Broken Age is more or less like the ending of Grim Fandango. Pretty short and simple but quite touching. In addition, I think the pictures that appear during the staff credits roll work pretty well as a nice outcome for the adventure.
Discovering new locations and characters is a big part of why i play adventure games.