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Broken Age - Double Fine's Kickstarter Adventure Game
- Thread starter J_C
- Start date
Redlands
Arcane
- Joined
- Mar 23, 2008
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- 983
Making John Walker butthurt about an adventure game is easy; but this one was hilariously telling about Walker himself. He's basically Shay: completely infantilized, he whines and mopes like a stupid fucking teenager, only too happy when other people are being blamed for being in that state (Act 1), but when any of the blame comes on to him (or his own personal avatar) it's the worst thing ever (Act 2).
Sweet Jesus, didn't he bitch enough already in this review? Does this topic needs a follow up article on that?
I think he started some holy crusade, first Molyneux, now Broken Age. Does he want to prove something?
tuluse
Arcane
- Joined
- Jul 20, 2008
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- 11,400
I'm glad you are able to enjoy this with your daughter, I really am. If the pitch was "Tim wants to make a game for little kids" might have still put in my $15. It's just disappointing when you're expecting something like his LucasArts work.
Yep - that's one of my feelings about it too. And I bet a lot of people were expecting something more along the lines of Day of the Tentacle or Full Throttle. Live and learn, I suppose. I don't think they could ever launch another Kickstarter just by saying "Let's make an old school adventure" and have absolutely no battle plan for it!!
Bt
aratuk
Cipher
- Joined
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- 466
I guess "release day" only happens once, after all… or at least, there is a limit to the number of times.
Honestly kind of concerned for Doublefine, with the way their last few releases have gone. Too quietly.
I like Broken Age, for what it is. But for what it is, I doubt it should have taken so long. Seems like they spent way too much time and aggravation determining exactly what to do.
Pyke
The Brotherhood
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.
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.
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Last edited:
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Not really "people", just his sycophants here on the Codex.
Too bad he falls hook, line and sinker for the Old Man Murray libel.
MRY
Wormwood Studios
Pyke I generally agree with your post, but I'm going to nitpick two points.
, culminating in a husky, "Coca Cola." I suspect what TellTale would say is that they are making the most popular adventure games in the world based on the most popular IPs in the world. They would probably end with a husky, "Game of Thrones" or "Avengers." I'm reasonably confident they'll be doing Star Wars games before the year is out. It's not what I would want to do, but I'm fairly sure it's what they want. After all, as between Tim Schafer, Ron Gilbert, and TellTale Games, who got to make the sequels to Monkey Island?
--EDIT--
Also, I'm not fully getting the assertion that Broken Age Chapter 2's launch is doing poorly. When the first chapter launched, it peaked at 3,134 simultaneously players; when the second chapter launch, it peaked at 2,897. That seems pretty good retention for an episodic game. (For example, TTG's Game of Thrones game had 6,632 for episode one, then 4,717; Dreamfall Chapters had 1,329 then 1,327, so better retention, but it's still not going up.) Obviously, simultaneous players typically way understates how many people are playing the game. For example, Primordia had sold about 4,000 Steam keys during its launch month (and pre-sales), but peaked at 178 simultaneously players. Is the issue that everyone who bought Chapter 1 already owns Chapter 2?
I think "having to rely" isn't quite right. I think if you asked them, you would get a speech not unlike to the one where the big ad man in the last episode of Mad Men lists off the brands that the heroes are going to get to work on
when they lose their independent shop
You're leaving out GOG, iOS, and "other portal" sales from Gemini Rue, for what it's worth. The 230k figure is only Steam (and bundles activated on Steam). Gemini Rue is in the top 20 bestselling adventure games on GOG, so I'd guess there are at least another 60k sales there.
--EDIT--
Also, I'm not fully getting the assertion that Broken Age Chapter 2's launch is doing poorly. When the first chapter launched, it peaked at 3,134 simultaneously players; when the second chapter launch, it peaked at 2,897. That seems pretty good retention for an episodic game. (For example, TTG's Game of Thrones game had 6,632 for episode one, then 4,717; Dreamfall Chapters had 1,329 then 1,327, so better retention, but it's still not going up.) Obviously, simultaneous players typically way understates how many people are playing the game. For example, Primordia had sold about 4,000 Steam keys during its launch month (and pre-sales), but peaked at 178 simultaneously players. Is the issue that everyone who bought Chapter 1 already owns Chapter 2?
Last edited:
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Very famous article written in 2000 by game reviewer Erik Wolpaw (who would later go on to become the writer for Valve's Portal), basically accusing traditional adventure games of being a crap genre that deserves to die.
Ah. Yeah, well. I'm one of those guys who like the shitty puzzles in many old adventure games but I still sort of agree with them being shitty. Most great puzzles are ones where the solution makes sense, it's just hard to figure out. Such puzzle design is rare in older adventure games. The satisfaction of overcoming something like the rubber ducky in TLJ is less an "AHA!"-moment and more an "OH WTF LOL"-moment. You persevered through stamina and thoroughness more than by creativity and ingenuity. I think my own attitude is that old adventure games died because of some overstated flaws but by killing them completely we also lost much of what made them great, completely unecessarily. The industry's answer was to reinstate adventure games but just without the puzzles, which is even worse.
I played through the Wolf Among Us a couple of weeks ago and really enjoyed the story, but I wish it had some more interactive meat.
I never saw the appeal of that article...it nitpicks on shitty puzzles from a few games and goes "thus, all puzzles suck".
The obvious counter-point are puzzles like the Insult Sword-Fighting in Monkey Island. It's a complex puzzle, but the goal is quite clear and its mechanic is quite obvious. Reply witty remarks with an appropriate witty remark. You do this by fighting other pirates and learning their witty remarks and how they counter yours. When you master of it, the game throws a curve ball, as the Sword Master(tm) uses different remarks, but that can be replied using the ones you already know.
A fantastic and memorable puzzle, miles ahead of anything in Broken Age or the stupid "Press A when you see A" comatose monkey task of modern adventure games.
The obvious counter-point are puzzles like the Insult Sword-Fighting in Monkey Island. It's a complex puzzle, but the goal is quite clear and its mechanic is quite obvious. Reply witty remarks with an appropriate witty remark. You do this by fighting other pirates and learning their witty remarks and how they counter yours. When you master of it, the game throws a curve ball, as the Sword Master(tm) uses different remarks, but that can be replied using the ones you already know.
A fantastic and memorable puzzle, miles ahead of anything in Broken Age or the stupid "Press A when you see A" comatose monkey task of modern adventure games.
Look, I have sold literally hundreds of my adventure game in my lifetime, and I can tell you they're not dead! Literally HUNDREDS.
Bt
Bt
Pyke
The Brotherhood
tuluse
Arcane
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Grunker
The Longest Journey is in general not a well designed adventure game (though it has it's moments). The key with adventure game puzzles is that they make sense in the context of the world you are exploring—not the real world. Thus as felipepepe said insult sword fighting makes perfect sense on Melee Island. The rubber duck puzzle doesn't make sense in any context.
Not that there weren't bad puzzles in some great games (In MI itself, I figured out the red herring puzzle only through brute force and another hint would have been appreciated), but LucasArts and Sierra (especially the former imo) had some great puzzle design consistent with the world they were presenting.
The Longest Journey is in general not a well designed adventure game (though it has it's moments). The key with adventure game puzzles is that they make sense in the context of the world you are exploring—not the real world. Thus as felipepepe said insult sword fighting makes perfect sense on Melee Island. The rubber duck puzzle doesn't make sense in any context.
Not that there weren't bad puzzles in some great games (In MI itself, I figured out the red herring puzzle only through brute force and another hint would have been appreciated), but LucasArts and Sierra (especially the former imo) had some great puzzle design consistent with the world they were presenting.
Don't necessarily disagree on any particular point. My favourite adventure game is probably Indiana Jones and the Fate of Atlantis, and that game IMO speaks to both the flaws and strengths of the older games. When best, you really are Dr. Jones finding ancient mysteries via research and puzzle solving and adventure. When worst, you're objectives are a bit unclear and you stumble upon solutions.
MRY
Wormwood Studios
Infinitron tuluse The funny thing is that while I played a decent number of adventure games before reading the OMM article (KQII, KQV, KQVI, QfG, SQI, SQIV, GK1, GK2, MI1, MI2, MI3, Indiana Jones 1 & 2, Zack McKracken, Loom, Dragonsphere, Full Throttle, Grim Fandango, TLJ, I'm sure I'm forgetting many), the accusations actually seemed dead on to me. But as you guys point out, when you really look at it, very few adventure game puzzles were outright illogical, OMM just picked glaring examples from games with weak puzzles. Some kind of psychological quirk is at work in making OMM's argument so persuasive, such as: (1) crappy puzzles standing out in our memory much more than great puzzles; (2) logical but not great puzzles almost totally disappearing from our memory; (3) and good puzzles that we couldn't solve or our being mentally repackaged as crap puzzles. I mean, by now it's practically an article of faith even among adventure game fans that "adventure game logic" is/was terrible.
It may be that what hurt adventure games the most was not horrendously illogical puzzles but the fact that the failure state for being unable to solve a puzzle is (typically) being unable to progress in the game. While I am 100% sure that there is a kind of puzzle-solving skill that a player can develop, the way the player develops it is not like the way the player develops skill in other games -- it's more gradual by far. In Contra, for example, a bad player will be unable to progress past a certain point, so he'll have to keep replaying the first part of the game but he'll get better as a result. As he gets better, he'll get farther. In a cRPG, a weaker player can typically grind his characters' levels up or save scum or just keep hoping for the perfect series of rolls from the RNG. Moreover, those games (and FPS games and RTS games, etc., etc.) typically offer a gradient from flawless playing to barely scraped by, all of which permit progress. But with puzzles in an adventure game, if a player gets stuck and can't, with a little thought, figure out the solution, it's not like he can go improve his skills by playing the start of game again. And he can't level up his character. And, often, there's no "scraping by" alternative path. He'll just be stuck until he gets a FAQ or item-spams (if that's a solution). Same with missing a hotspot or an exit or something.
As a result, I would suggest that adventure game players often have the experience, "I was stuck in the game, and there was nothing I could do about it until I cheated or solved the puzzle without any use of logic." When a player comes away with that reaction, he doesn't think "the game was challenging" so much as "the game is unfair." With that mindset, it's easy to adopt the OMM argument, even if it is objectively false, because it elegantly and reassuringly explains the player's subjective experience.
I had various fantasies for how to address these issues in Cloudscape, but I doubt I'll ever put them to practice. QfG is a great example of how to do it, though, albeit in the context of an RPG hybrid.
It may be that what hurt adventure games the most was not horrendously illogical puzzles but the fact that the failure state for being unable to solve a puzzle is (typically) being unable to progress in the game. While I am 100% sure that there is a kind of puzzle-solving skill that a player can develop, the way the player develops it is not like the way the player develops skill in other games -- it's more gradual by far. In Contra, for example, a bad player will be unable to progress past a certain point, so he'll have to keep replaying the first part of the game but he'll get better as a result. As he gets better, he'll get farther. In a cRPG, a weaker player can typically grind his characters' levels up or save scum or just keep hoping for the perfect series of rolls from the RNG. Moreover, those games (and FPS games and RTS games, etc., etc.) typically offer a gradient from flawless playing to barely scraped by, all of which permit progress. But with puzzles in an adventure game, if a player gets stuck and can't, with a little thought, figure out the solution, it's not like he can go improve his skills by playing the start of game again. And he can't level up his character. And, often, there's no "scraping by" alternative path. He'll just be stuck until he gets a FAQ or item-spams (if that's a solution). Same with missing a hotspot or an exit or something.
As a result, I would suggest that adventure game players often have the experience, "I was stuck in the game, and there was nothing I could do about it until I cheated or solved the puzzle without any use of logic." When a player comes away with that reaction, he doesn't think "the game was challenging" so much as "the game is unfair." With that mindset, it's easy to adopt the OMM argument, even if it is objectively false, because it elegantly and reassuringly explains the player's subjective experience.
I had various fantasies for how to address these issues in Cloudscape, but I doubt I'll ever put them to practice. QfG is a great example of how to do it, though, albeit in the context of an RPG hybrid.
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