Broken Age - Double Fine's Kickstarter Adventure Game

[Ravel myluv]

"only to find a specific item was left behind so you have to replay everything again"

This is where I assumed you were talking about hidden objects. But I see now that what you really criticized are deadends, which indeed piss me off even more!

 

[Darth Slaughter]

About broken age, I saw the steam page about it and if one buys it now, they will get the second act for free, and all this talk about it being shorter than the first act gives me the feeling of second act being a DLC...

 

[J_C]

About broken age, I saw the steam page about it and if one buys it now, they will get the second act for free, and all this talk about it being shorter than the first act gives me the feeling of second act being a DLC...

This was said by the community manager a long time ago. I don't think that is the reality.

You remind me of situations in which I solved a puzzle while thinking about it while I was not playing the game... Sometime at school or work, and counting the time to arrive home and try.

You had some bad mental illness bro. You also fantasize about how to romance a video game character at school?

The most satisfied I've ever felt playing an adventure game was when, after a week of thinking about it, I finally figured out how to get on the 'long path' in King's Quest 6, without any hints.

And another lunatic. You really enjoyed that you were stuck in the game for 1 week because of a stupid puzzle? Poor soul. Honestly, if someone has to think about a puzzle for one week that could mean three things:
1. the puzzle is shit, poorly designed and doesn't mean any sense
2. the player is a brain damaged idiot
3. the puzzle is rocket science (thus it is poorly designed).

 

[Darth Slaughter]

You had some bad mental illness bro. You also fantasize about how to romance a video game character at school?

No. I just hated math and geography. Anyway, it's not that I was thinking about the game 100% of the time. Nor I was trying to solve it at school. It was just snap moments, a sudden idea that made sense that you hadn't thought about while actually trying to solve.

 

[felipepepe]

I like how J_C went from furiously defending Broken Age to just bargaining that adventure games were never fun to begin with. Just one more step until you reach Acceptance bro.

 

[thesisko]

You guys who claim to have been thinking about a puzzle for days or weeks - were you actually analyzing the problem for that long? Personally, in most instances were I have been "stuck", it was due to missing some item/location/person.

In other cases, I got stuck due to more logical solutions failing while the "correct" solution was far-fetched.
This required me to first come up with and then eliminate the more plausible solutions. I would not call this "thinking about the solution" though, because one would spend most of the time thinking about the "wrong" solutions.

I can't actually really recall any puzzle that I spent days analyzing and then finally formulated a solution that turned out to be correct.

Oh, and I think Broken Age is a boring game with boring puzzles (at least the first hour I played).

 

[Pyke]

I remember being stuck on the 'old skool' puzzles. My 2 favourite moments were the tentacle costume in Day Of The Tentacle, and the Homing Beacon in Space Quest 6.
Both of those puzzles are fantastically designed, I'm not brain damaged (that I know...), and they certainly weren't Rocket Science and made perfect sense when I 'got' them! But these days, if I got stuck on the puzzles chances are I would just look online for the answer. I think that more comes with me being 30 (eek) and not having a chance to dedicate as much time to gaming as I'd like.

Designing Adventure Game puzzles nowadays is VERY difficult because you do have to take into account that your target market either A) Has less time on their hands, or B) Have shorter attention spans when it comes to games because they have a larger variety of choice.

Its a thin line to traverse, although I tend to lean more to the side of 'less direct clues, more direct puzzles' side of things, which I hope is a happy median (although Ill be honest, I padded the Stasis demo a little with extra clues out of fear people would get stuck and not finish it...). I think perhaps Tim Schafer leant a little too far to the casual iPad market of players and the game length is paying for that decision. I really hope that in Act 2 they will adjust the game design to make it a more challenging experience, and even tweak Act 1 to follow in the ramp of difficulty.

 

[markec]

Some of the most entertaining parts of old adventure games were when you mess something up and you get "rewarded" with funny lines and animations or funny deaths like in Zork series. If you go and play old adventure games with a walktrought youll probably finish it in few hours but youll miss large chunk of the content, maybe even the best funniest parts. In my opinion failure was part of story and gameplay and removing it is like removing a soul from the game.

 

[felipepepe]

I wouldn't say "failure", but trial and error was certainly part of the fun. And the games worked towards that. In MI 1 I got stuck on opening the looking glass, and when I played MI 2 immediately tried that, to what Guybrush said something like "just what kind of puzzle would need you to do so?"

That's a game that is charming a memorable due its gameplay, not because it blew 3 millions on art and voice talents.

 

[Infinitron]

I've found that my willingness to spend days trying to find a solution to a puzzle is proportional to how much I'm enjoying the game as a whole. When I really like an adventure game, Googling for the solution to a puzzle feels almost disrespectful. The game is GOOD and it deserves my time.

 

[Keshik]

I've been stuck on things for a week, but never actively thinking on it for the time, always helps to take a break from it and come back with a fresher mind. The Dig damn near drove me nuts when I first played it, though the reactor puzzle isn't that bad as you just have to trial and error it thinking about it now.

 

[Darth Slaughter]

I wouldn't say "failure", but trial and error was certainly part of the fun. And the games worked towards that. In MI 1 I got stuck on opening the looking glass, and when I played MI 2 immediately tried that, to what Guybrush said something like "just what kind of puzzle would need you to do so?"

That's a game that is charming a memorable due its gameplay, not because it blew 3 millions on art and voice talents.

In fact, guybrush would say: "this is not Monkey 1".

Ironically, opening the spyglass in monkey 1 was NOT required to finish the game...

 

[tuluse]

Anyone complaining about length has on a thick pair of nostalgia goggles.
http://www.howlongtobeat.com/game.php?id=10162
http://www.howlongtobeat.com/game.php?id=2285
http://www.howlongtobeat.com/game.php?id=3748

It's still pointless hipster nonsense of course.

I call bullshit. There is no way someone beats Secret of Monkey Island in 6 hours with no meta-knowledge.

 

[tuluse]

Anyone who spend more than 30 minutes to an hour on an adventure game puzzle these days is going to alt-tab to the answer. Better things to dooooooooooo than figure out dumb adventure game designer logic.

30 min on a puzzle would be a 6 times increase to any puzzle I've encountered in this game so far.

 

[Cowboy Moment]

Ravel myluv , have you played Loom? Or maybe The Last Express? Given that you dislike traditional adventure game puzzles, you might like either of those games. And neither of them goes into the "interactive movie" territory, although Loom is comparatively easy.

 

[you know what time it is]

Pretty sure i have exceeded my average "posts-per-month" dosage already, but i feel like Schafer is getting closer to Molyneux with each of his new projects, in terms of failed expectations and opportunities.

Did he make a single decent game in 2000s yet ? The Cave sucked.

 

[tuluse]

Pretty sure i have exceeded my average "posts-per-month" dosage already, but i feel like Schafer is getting closer to Molyneux with each of his new projects, in terms of failed expectations and opportunities.

Did he make a single decent game in 2000s yet ? The Cave sucked.

I don't think he was involved with The Cave.

 

[DeepOcean]

I remember being stuck on the 'old skool' puzzles. My 2 favourite moments were the tentacle costume in Day Of The Tentacle, and the Homing Beacon in Space Quest 6.
I think that more comes with me being 30 (eek) and not having a chance to dedicate as much time to gaming as I'd like.

I don't have all that time as well but I must be one of the few weirdos left that when challenged by a really good game, say "fuck you" to all the alternatives. If there was a game of the quality of MI 2 released today I would say: Sorry Walking Dead, Broken Age and other half movie crap, now I have a good game to play and you all can rot and die on some place else. The only reason I still paid attention to this game is because I had a huge (I still have.) admiration for Tim's talent, the man knew how to make good games (I think he still does but he likes a ton of money better.) but this bullshit of promising an adventure game and releasing a casual Ipad clicker game/non-interactive children cartoon is almost a kick in the face of anyone that really played and liked his old games.

 

[tuluse]

Bad:
Humor (chuckled... once).

I have problems with the puzzles so far, but I think the game is pretty funny. Though most of the best jokes were optional, which is weird.

 

[DeepOcean]

Pretty sure i have exceeded my average "posts-per-month" dosage already, but i feel like Schafer is getting closer to Molyneux with each of his new projects, in terms of failed expectations and opportunities.

Did he make a single decent game in 2000s yet ? The Cave sucked.

No, the Cave is the product of another disappointment, Ron Gilbert.

 

[you know what time it is]

Pretty sure i have exceeded my average "posts-per-month" dosage already, but i feel like Schafer is getting closer to Molyneux with each of his new projects, in terms of failed expectations and opportunities.

Did he make a single decent game in 2000s yet ? The Cave sucked.

I don't think he was involved with The Cave.

Listed as a studio creative director on wiki. He worked on Costume Quest, Kinect Party, and Middle Manager of Justice (wat) though. The Cave would have been a better choice i think.

 

[tuluse]

Pretty sure i have exceeded my average "posts-per-month" dosage already, but i feel like Schafer is getting closer to Molyneux with each of his new projects, in terms of failed expectations and opportunities.

Did he make a single decent game in 2000s yet ? The Cave sucked.

I don't think he was involved with The Cave.

Listed as a studio creative director on wiki. He worked on Costume Quest, Kinect Party, and Middle Manager of Justice (wat) though. The Cave would have been a better choice i think.

I think he's just listed because he's the CEO of the company and didn't work directly on any of those games.

Actually I have no idea about Kinect Party, but the rest, I don't think Schafer was involved in the actual production of.

 

[J_C]

I like how J_C went from furiously defending Broken Age to just bargaining that adventure games were never fun to begin with. Just one more step until you reach Acceptance bro.

Now you crossed the line. Take that back! I loved the old adventure game, but being a storyfag, puzzles were a secondary thing to me. I was satisfied if the puzzles were decent. And Broken Age has decent puzzles.

 

[Spaceman Spiff]

In some places, there aren't a lot in this 3-4 hour game anyway, I got the feeling that this was some sort of "light" version of the game they wanted to make, like Curse of Monkey Island easy mode.
Items you could just collect for free, when it looked like there could be puzzles that aren't there for whatever reason (intentionally low difficulty, cut content due to budget or time limits).
For example grabbing the knife in the kitchen with the mother watching "just making sure you're safe".

Very disappointing game.

the reactor puzzle isn't that bad as you just have to trial and error it thinking about it now.

I liked this puzzle, it's a good kind of "trial and error".
It's a game about exploring alien ruins and generally figuring out how their contraptions work. You know the goal (getting the lens) and you see the control panel. Pressing a button reveals the flying crystal thing, pressing a different button makes it move in another direction. From there it's not that hard to make the "crane" connection, and realize how to control it to achieve your goal. Then it's a bit of fine tuning to get the right spot.

 

[J_C]

Pretty sure i have exceeded my average "posts-per-month" dosage already, but i feel like Schafer is getting closer to Molyneux with each of his new projects, in terms of failed expectations and opportunities.

Did he make a single decent game in 2000s yet ? The Cave sucked.

The Cave was just what you said. Decent. Every game he did was at least decent.