Broken Age

« Double Fine promised a classic point-and-click title when it launched its crowd-funding campaign three long years ago, but the developer didn’t just rely on nostalgia. Instead, it made a game that captures the humor of the games Tim Schafer worked on at LucasArts while creating a modern aesthetic that totally suits the story. »

« Broken Age is a wonderful experience that I can’t recommend enough. As someone who grew up on the LucasArts-style adventure games of old Double Fine has pulled through with just enough nostalgia and modern aesthetic, offering up a fresh and funny classic in an age where blockbuster games rule the roost. »

« Taken as a whole creation, the game is as great on PlayStation as it is on PC. [June 2015, p.88] »

« Incredibly polished, with gorgeous visuals and terrific voice acting, only some difficult late-game puzzles stop Broken Age from being the absolute pinnacle of the genre. »

« For those who haven’t tried point and click adventure games, it’s a great introduction to the genre; for those with more experience, well, they don’t get much better than this one. »

« While Broken Age doesn't break much new ground in the genre, it does deliver a wonderfully enriching adventure that’s buoyed by sharp writing and likeable characters. »

« I don’t want to hear that you don’t like point-and-clicks. You like beautiful things, and Broken Age is truly beautiful. And that’s all you really need to know. »

« Broken Age is a new masterpiece created by Tim Schafer and his talented team. If you love point and click games, this title is a must play. »

« I love the game but you basically need a walkthrough to play it and see the story through its completion. If you miss one thing you basically get stuck for many minutes. It doesn't help that it consumes a lot of time walking around in this game. There are also some mechanics that really needed to be explained such as combining inventory. I was literally stuck on that forever. This should've made things you can interact with a bit more obvious as some things completely blended in with the background that you wouldn't think to click. I also hated how you cant sprint your char nor fast travel as that took a huge chunk of the playtime, especially when you need to backtrack. With it being a bit more complicated the farther you get in the game as you have lots more to interact with and a bigger map I decided to give up as by that point I was just using a walkthrough as I missed somethings and kept needing to go back to do the next step of where I was »

« I've never been down a rabbit hole quite so hard as in this game. The first several hours are amazing, you're in unfamiliar land with strange things happening & interesting characters & dialogue everywhere it's a real joy to play until the puzzles ramp up & eventually become unsolvable because they're randomized & if you can't figure them **** so I was unable to complete the game at the end after I came so close. Some of these puzzles are insane, which seems to be a trend in point & click adventures, they expect you to know & figure out to combine 20 different things in the world to progress???? Act 1 you can basically do everything yourself, Act 2 you're going to struggle. This game is two different stories / protagonists happening at once you choose which you want to play but can switch between the two. Both stories & environments are interesting, I absolutely enjoyed Vella's story more over Shays, but overall loved them both, would have been nice to been able to finish the game but I really enjoyed the dozen hours I got to spend in this surreal world. Vella's story is one that will stick with me for a lifetime, very creative & well written like Alice in Wonderland, you get so immersed & believe everything you see no matter how ridiculous things become. »

« Beautiful and lovely game. Funny, wonderful characters and amazing story. Not regretting being a baker. »

« Broken Age is a game with great potential that ultimately falls flat due to what feels like an abrupt ending. While the artwork, dialog, voice acting, and central themes are executed extremely well, the story fails to bring it all together in the last five yards. The game does have its good points; I certainly had a decent laugh more than once at some of the jokes, and a couple of the puzzles really gave me an "aha!" moment when I finally solved them. Additionally, I appreciated the character switching mechanic, which really helped ease some frustration. While I'm not the biggest fan of point-and-click games, the earlier parts of Broken Age did keep me entertained. I would recommend this as a game for younger kids to play, as I feel like it has a good message and is a very wacky looking game. However, this one just wasn't for me. »

« Act 1 starts off well. Interesting story and characters. Really like the artwork and the puzzles weren't so bad. Too bad act 2 just ruins all that. The story becomes a mess and it's the same areas just flipped this time. I was really hoping the story was going in one direction but it went in another which didn't make much sense to me. I didn't like how plot points are just info dumped onto you by certain characters. The puzzles in act 2 are tedious and close to impossible without a guide. Honestly the whole second act just feels like they got lazy. I believe originally act 1 and 2 were about a year a part? Even the ending isn't really an ending. Just a bunch of still pictures during the credits. This game just doesn't deliver. I cannot recommend it. Boy, I'm glad I wasn't a backer for this rubbish. »

« Double Fine being Double Fine. Beautiful art direction, good humor and pure creativity mixed with poor technical implementation, raw ideas and outdated gameplay. Pros: + Oh my, this watercolor art is mesmerizing. I don’t know how they made it, but it doesn’t feel digital. + I enjoy Tim Schafer’s sense of humor. It’s dark and kind and topical at the same time. He overuses wordplays (but I do the same). So tonally it’s perfect. + Voice acting is good in general. But Elija Wood is perfect as Shay. And Jack Black is welcome too, though he’s toned down here to fit into overall mellowness of the game (I want more of his eccentricity!). + If we started to talk about Jack Black, the subplot about the Cult of Lightness is the best part of the game. It’s funny. It’s smart. It’s very meta. + Solving some of the puzzles in Act 2 made me feel smart. Which was a feeling long forgotten in modern games which are very direct in their approach. Cons: - It’s a point-n-click adventure. And this genre died for a reason. This game has all genre problems: pixel hunting for missed objects, illogical puzzles and bad puzzle design in general (you will understand what I mean when you reach the knot one), monotonous backtracking through locations. Broken Age doesn’t propose any new gameplay mechanics and isn’t tested enough to avoid the old ones. - This genre is about puzzles. And puzzles are not great here. Act 1 is not a challenge whatsoever. But not in a feel-good ‘I’m making progress’ way, and more in a “there is no logic to what I’m doing, but let’s click here and see what happens”. Act 2 has more gameplay inside. But it’s very uneven. Some puzzles are nice. But others are undercooked (again, the knot one) or unnecessary convoluted. In the end, I referred to youtube 3 times to move forward, and each time it was not a disappointed “oh, why didn’t I think about that?“, but an angry “it’s just mean”. - Also, the studio made a questionable choice to make two puzzles the way that you’re need a peace of paper to solve them. At first, I felt annoyed and angry with. Cause it’s an outdated game design (especially after the shallow first act). In the end I appreciated it in the one puzzle (it’s more a nostalgia hit than good game design, but what works — works). But in the second puzzle I hated it. Because it wasn’t thinking in that case, just monotonous noting. And this old school puzzle design doesn’t fit the game world themes anyway. Common, it’s 2020 (ok 2015 at the original release). Be congruent, Tim! - As with any DB game this one is full of great ideas either executed poorly or dropped midway. Both story-wise, world-wise and gameplay-wise. The ”two worlds” mechanic is implemented poorly and un-evenly. The different towns feel like a pastiche not like a unified world. This technique worked in Psychonauts, because each level was in a new mind, but here there is no good reason for this. But it hurt the story the most. It tries to be very meta. But with no good internal storyline to support this. This game doesn’t have a hidden meaning or something. But it always nods that it does. And it gets old really fast and devalues all the stakes in the story. - And finally PS4 version is plagued by bugs. With some of them being unforgivable. Like not being able to see some of the items in your inventory because of the glitches above them or some lines of dialogue being muted. It feels like DF doesn’t care about its gamers at all. 5 years after release in such a small game some critical bugs are still not fixed. #facepalm »

« Broken Age is a pretty good point-and-click game however many of the puzzles are very frustrating and the game barely offers any hints at times. Going back and forth without any fast-travel is also tedious and gets boring fast. Good voice-actors and interesting story. »

« [SPOILER ALERT: This review contains spoilers.] »