Broken Age - Double Fine's Kickstarter Adventure Game

[J_C]

I know.

 

[felipepepe]

Well, just imagine John Romero kickstarting a old-school shooter. Pictures of DOOM on the kickstarter page. "For fans of old-school shooter, this is a chance to prove that there is still a large demand out there for a unique medium that inspired so many of us."

Then, 2 years later, we get a dumb easy corridor shooter, full of cutscenes, where you can only carry two weapons at a time, and there's regenerating health & cover.

Romero's fanboys then come out to tell you that no one ever liked rocket-jumping and searching for first-aid kits. They say that the game has first-person camera, some guns, levels to walk and enemies to shoot; so it's a shooter and Romero delivered all he promised.

 

[evdk]

Well, just imagine John Romero kickstarting a old-school shooter. Pictures of DOOM on the kickstarter page. "For fans of old-school shooter, this is a chance to prove that there is still a large demand out there for a unique medium that inspired so many of us."

Then, 2 years later, we get a dumb easy corridor shooter, full of cutscenes, where you can only carry two weapons at a time, and there's regenerating health & cover.

Romero's fanboys then come out to tell you that no one ever liked rocket-jumping and searching for first-aid kits. They say that the game has first-person camera, some guns, levels to walk and enemies to shoot; so it's a shooter and Romero delivered all he promised.

The thing is nobody would trust Romero like people trusted Tim. Oh well, live to learn.

 

[J_C]

Well, just imagine John Romero kickstarting a old-school shooter. Pictures of DOOM on the kickstarter page. "For fans of old-school shooter, this is a chance to prove that there is still a large demand out there for a unique medium that inspired so many of us."

Then, 2 years later, we get a dumb easy corridor shooter, full of cutscenes, where you can only carry two weapons at a time, and there's regenerating health & cover.

Romero's fanboys then come out to tell you that no one ever liked rocket-jumping and searching for first-aid kits. They say that the game has first-person camera, some guns, levels to walk and enemies to shoot; so it's a shooter and Romero delivered all he promised.

You know well that this is a bad comparison. BA has EVERYTHING an oldschool adventure games has, it is just some aspects is weaker than it should be. A popamole shooter with health regen is nowhere near an oldschool shooter, because it has elements that an oldschool shooter should never have.

 

[Redlands]

BA has EVERYTHING an oldschool adventure games has

Apparently it doesn't have a fanbase that enjoys using its brains.

 

[Volrath]

Well, just imagine John Romero kickstarting a old-school shooter. Pictures of DOOM on the kickstarter page. "For fans of old-school shooter, this is a chance to prove that there is still a large demand out there for a unique medium that inspired so many of us."

Then, 2 years later, we get a dumb easy corridor shooter, full of cutscenes, where you can only carry two weapons at a time, and there's regenerating health & cover.

Romero's fanboys then come out to tell you that no one ever liked rocket-jumping and searching for first-aid kits. They say that the game has first-person camera, some guns, levels to walk and enemies to shoot; so it's a shooter and Romero delivered all he promised.

You know well that this is a bad comparison. BA has EVERYTHING an oldschool adventure games has, it is just some aspects is weaker than it should be. A popamole shooter with health regen is nowhere near an oldschool shooter, because it has elements that an oldschool shooter should never have.

Why are you lying?

 

[DeepOcean]

Well, just imagine John Romero kickstarting a old-school shooter. Pictures of DOOM on the kickstarter page. "For fans of old-school shooter, this is a chance to prove that there is still a large demand out there for a unique medium that inspired so many of us."

Then, 2 years later, we get a dumb easy corridor shooter, full of cutscenes, where you can only carry two weapons at a time, and there's regenerating health & cover.

Romero's fanboys then come out to tell you that no one ever liked rocket-jumping and searching for first-aid kits. They say that the game has first-person camera, some guns, levels to walk and enemies to shoot; so it's a shooter and Romero delivered all he promised.

The thing is nobody would trust Romero like people trusted Tim. Oh well, live to learn.

The difference is that everybody said Daikatana was shit at the time but now many fanboys are suffering of Stockholm Syndrome or really smoking crack, I don't know. It is like you can hear them chanting:"Broken Age is good, Tim didn't failed us." trying to convince themselves, it's actually an interesting case of study for a psychologist.

 

[Darth Slaughter]

Well, just imagine John Romero kickstarting a old-school shooter. Pictures of DOOM on the kickstarter page. "For fans of old-school shooter, this is a chance to prove that there is still a large demand out there for a unique medium that inspired so many of us."

Then, 2 years later, we get a dumb easy corridor shooter, full of cutscenes, where you can only carry two weapons at a time, and there's regenerating health & cover.

Romero's fanboys then come out to tell you that no one ever liked rocket-jumping and searching for first-aid kits. They say that the game has first-person camera, some guns, levels to walk and enemies to shoot; so it's a shooter and Romero delivered all he promised.

At least, John romero doesn't have daughters...

You know well that this is a bad comparison. BA has EVERYTHING an oldschool adventure games has...

Except Puzzles.

 

[J_C]

You know well that this is a bad comparison. BA has EVERYTHING an oldschool adventure games has...

Except Puzzles.

It has puzzles. Weak ones, but still has them.

Well, just imagine John Romero kickstarting a old-school shooter. Pictures of DOOM on the kickstarter page. "For fans of old-school shooter, this is a chance to prove that there is still a large demand out there for a unique medium that inspired so many of us."

Then, 2 years later, we get a dumb easy corridor shooter, full of cutscenes, where you can only carry two weapons at a time, and there's regenerating health & cover.

Romero's fanboys then come out to tell you that no one ever liked rocket-jumping and searching for first-aid kits. They say that the game has first-person camera, some guns, levels to walk and enemies to shoot; so it's a shooter and Romero delivered all he promised.

You know well that this is a bad comparison. BA has EVERYTHING an oldschool adventure games has, it is just some aspects is weaker than it should be. A popamole shooter with health regen is nowhere near an oldschool shooter, because it has elements that an oldschool shooter should never have.

Why are you lying?

I'm not. We can argue that the adventure game aspects are weak here and there, but they are there.

 

[Ravel myluv]

I wish I had been that skeptic... Day of the Tentacle is my favorite adventure game ever, the moment a image of it there, I had to back it.

I'm trying for a refund, but if they deny me I guess I can sell the swag I got on MercadoLivre. Clearly DF fanboys are not few, so it shouldn't be hard to sell even in huehuehueland.

Oh come on....

It's a game obviously made with heart, and with no intention to trick its fanbase. It's not exactly what you were expecting, but a refund? People asking for refunds are ruining Kickstarter!
Kickstarter is not the fucking trade market, it's a DONATION system! So yeah, you have to take the risk that the final product won't be to your liking.

You're no different than the whiners who asked for a refund when Torment went turn-based!

 

[J_C]

You're no different than the whiners who asked for a refund when Torment went turn-based!

 

[felipepepe]

People asking for refunds are ruining Kickstarter!Kickstarter is not the fucking trade market, it's a DONATION system! So yeah, you have to take the risk that the final product won't be to your liking.

I didn't DONATE anything, I pledged to fund the development of a old-school adventure game. Such game was not made, so it was Double Fine that failed their side of the deal. I don't see why I should simply leave it be when a company is this dishonest with their consumers.

And I'm not even asking for a full refund, just of stuff like the big box, that wasn't sent yet. Extremely fair.

You're no different than the whiners who asked for a refund when Torment went turn-based!

Think what you will, I'm not doing this for your approval.

 

[Ravel myluv]

People asking for refunds are ruining Kickstarter!Kickstarter is not the fucking trade market, it's a DONATION system! So yeah, you have to take the risk that the final product won't be to your liking.

I didn't DONATE anything, I pledged to fund the development of a old-school adventure game. Such game was not made, so it was Double Fine that failed their side of the deal. I don't see why I should simply leave it be when a company is this dishonest with their consumers.

And I'm not even asking for a full refund, just of stuff like the big box, that wasn't sent yet. Extremely fair.

You're no different than the whiners who asked for a refund when Torment went turn-based!

Think what you will, I'm not doing this for your approval.

Yes you did donate. That's Kickstarter: a donation system. Some projects have zero rewards for the backers.

Double Fine was dishonest? More like they didn't do the game to your liking, I don't see how that's dishonest. Their kickstarted project was EXTREMELY vague, so you can't blame them for breaking promises they didn't even make.

 

[felipepepe]

Yes you did donate. That's Kickstarter: a donation system.

Because you say so? Go and search DF's kickstarer page, or the entire kickstarter rules and guides for that matter. Kickstarter is a funding system, where the funded companies HAVE to deliver what they promised. This whole "is a donation" thing is nothing more than passive people providing their own excuses for not fighting for their money.

Double Fine was dishonest? More like they didn't do the game to your liking, I don't see how that's dishonest. Their kickstarted project was EXTREMELY vague, so you can't blame them for breaking promises they didn't even make.

Project was indeed extremely vague, the only thing promised was a old-school classic game. And that one thing wasn't delivered.

I won't go AGAIN on a fight about what is old-school or whatever. I'm not suing DF, I'm just politely asking for a refund. If they do, cool; if not, fuck those losers, I'll just sell my swag and they'll never see a centavo of mine again. Unrelated third-parties like you or those fanboys at their forum have nothing to do with this, yet insist on thinking you have a say. It's only on public forum because DF's staff is too busy locking my thread on Steam to reply their e-mails.

But I have to admit, it has been very funny to see the most devoted Double Fine fans saying that if DF refunded every angry consumers, they would go broke. Such trust in their wonderful game.

 

[evdk]

But I have to admit, it has been very funny to see the most devoted Double Fine fans saying that if DF refunded every angry consumers, they would go broke. Such trust in their wonderful game.

True Art is suffering!

 

[felipepepe]

But I have to admit, it has been very funny to see the most devoted Double Fine fans saying that if DF refunded every angry consumers, they would go broke. Such trust in their wonderful game.

True Art is suffering!

 

[buzz]

Okay, I finished the game too. It's not AS BAD as the people in here put it. It is pretty simple indeed, but I can at least appreciate that they're going for a fairly "old-school" design for them, despite the initial impressions. It's not like Machinarium or some walking simulator that passes as an adventure game.
The game itself is made much easier because of a few obvious flaws:
1. One-button interaction instead of verb/medalion interaction.
2. Lack of red herring interactivity, aka objects/places that are just there for the funny lines. The only one that I remember in Broken Age is the snake one. Also, most rooms/scenes have one or two objects where you can interact, that hurts it too. That was always my favorite part in adventure games and I'm sad to see it so limited in here.
3. Not having an easy/normal toggle or the ability to turn off hints.

But yeah, it does a few decent things. There are for example some objects that can be missed if one does not thoroughly explore (the knife, the fruit), some object combination (the replacement doll iirc, the ladder with the shoes), some puzzles that require ignoring the preset logic of the game (like the rescue Gus thing), puzzles within puzzles (when you have to go to Prima DOOM). They're not mindblowing or anything (I've finished the game in less than 4 hours) but you have to give a bit credit to the fact that most of you played adventure games before and know how react/think with its various puzzles. The Walking Dead has like 2 or 3 puzzles in the whole game, this one has more, just really simple ones with many given hints. It ain't just a barely interactive cartoon. It's LucasArts adventure lite

If this was the 400k game that they initially promised (minus the detailed background/animation, the orchestral music and the VAs), I'd be fairly satisfied with it. Really the biggest flaw was that they just focused so much on delivering an AAA experience to a game that didn't require it. Cut the kewl cutscenes, maybe hire less expensive voice actors, do more interactivity in the game and it would be pretty good. The characters are funny (I didn't exactly LOL, but it did make me chuckle/smile throughout), the story is not as MATURE/SERIOUS as I initially expected, it's fairly okay. I've never played LucasArts games for their Riven-level of puzzles, but for their wacky concepts/dialogue and so on.

 

[felipepepe]

Funny thing is, I can't but feel that if they didn't get all this insane money, they would just use the AGS engine like Heroine's Quest did, and make a much better game.

 

[sea]

He is just talking about the ideas of what makes an old school adventure game, looking at the adventure games of today. Is it the story? Is it the complex puzzles? Is it the verb using interface? Answering the "what is a old school adventure games" question is not easier than answering the "what's an rpg?" one. Would Broken Age be old school enough for you guys if it had more complex puzzles, but using the same one click interface? But what if it had the verb using interface, but still had easy puzzles (because verb interface is =/= complex puzzles)? Would it be old school if the enviroments had more stuff to temper with, but the puzzles and UI were the same?

If you expected more complicated puzzle design, I can understand being disappointed in Broken Age's. But I also think that people conflate puzzle complexity with interface complexity. The old verb interface for using objects was definitely interesting and had its charm, but in almost all adventure games I played (admittedly not too many), only one verb was ever valid on one object at once... so the rest of them were basically pointless and it was just educated guesswork figuring out which verb worked on which object. That to me is not really interesting gameplay or puzzle design.

Broken Age's real issue with puzzle design, I think, is more in the relative lack of depth in its order-of-operations puzzles. Screwing up a puzzle in Broken Age is rarely possible; when you can screw up, you can usually try immediately again. Instead of digging a hole for yourself that you need to un-dig yourself from (and thus better understand the moving parts in the puzzle), the game just pushes you out and resets you to the beginning. The number of moving parts relatively speaking tends to be quite low. Furthermore, some features, like combining items, are rarely used, and you never have to, say, combine two items and then split them up later (at least what I have seen so far, I haven't finished it quite yet). I don't think it's bad, but it's definitely on the lighter side of things; I think even Telltale's games have more complicated puzzles than Broken Age's.

But, I do really have to wonder if the response from some people would have changed if the tone of the game moved more towards classic LucasArts-style humour, and/or the verb interface was used instead, but the general challenge and depth of puzzles was the same. Maybe we'd see no complaints at all from some people, who really just wanted Monkey Island 7, instead of the discussion about how dumbed down the game was (and to be fair, I think it is a valid complaint to say Double Fine delivered a tone and style very different from what they promised).

 

[buzz]

I think this is what we are going to get with most Kickstarter games (at least this first wave): "good enough" games that will do some fairly okay things but nowhere near as great or better than what the classics did. In a sense, Broken Age is incline over crappy shit like Gone Home or The Walking Dead for example just like SRR and Wasteland 2 are incline over Mass Effect and Skyrim, but our only real hope is to treat these games as a smaller step towards the actual rejuvenation of their genres.

I was afraid of this happening ever since the kickstarter craze began. People being massively disappointed by the kickstarter games and the chance of the genres coming back being even lower than before.

 

[Ravel myluv]

Yes you did donate. That's Kickstarter: a donation system.

Because you say so? Go and search DF's kickstarer page, or the entire kickstarter rules and guides for that matter. Kickstarter is a funding system, where the funded companies HAVE to deliver what they promised. This whole "is a donation" thing is nothing more than passive people providing their own excuses for not fighting for their money.

Double Fine was dishonest? More like they didn't do the game to your liking, I don't see how that's dishonest. Their kickstarted project was EXTREMELY vague, so you can't blame them for breaking promises they didn't even make.

Project was indeed extremely vague, the only thing promised was a old-school classic game. And that one thing wasn't delivered.

I won't go AGAIN on a fight about what is old-school or whatever. I'm not suing DF, I'm just politely asking for a refund. If they do, cool; if not, fuck those losers, I'll just sell my swag and they'll never see a centavo of mine again. Unrelated third-parties like you or those fanboys at their forum have nothing to do with this, yet insist on thinking you have a say. It's only on public forum because DF's staff is too busy locking my thread on Steam to reply their e-mails.

But I have to admit, it has been very funny to see the most devoted Double Fine fans saying that if DF refunded every angry consumers, they would go broke. Such trust in their wonderful game.

Call it donation or funding, I don't see much difference.
The thing is, kickstarted projects have an obligation to deliver their product as they presented it, but there's no regard for quality. As long as they didn't outrageously lie, there's no reason why anyone should get a refund, however shitty the game.

If you believe Broken Age is not what Double Fine has kickstarted, you're nitpicking.
If BA had zero puzzles, you MIGHT have a point. But having shitty puzzles is not a good reason enough to ask for a refund.

Do whatever you want, I"m just disappointed people would go on to behave like that against creators who put love in their product.

 

[felipepepe]

In a sense, Broken Age is incline over crappy shit like Gone Home or The Walking Dead for example just like SRR and Wasteland 2 are incline over Mass Effect and Skyrim

I actually prefer Gone Home to Broken Age. It was a game that aimed for one thing, and did that very well, while also keeping a good atmosphere and a decent story. My only complains about Gone Home were the price and the hype around it.

Broken Age is no incline, the position of the developers is "this is how a adventure game in 2014 should be", and I completely disagree with that. Deponia and Primordia are the real incline here. Same way that Underrail is the incline over Skyrim, not W2.

I"m just disappointed people would go on to behave like that against creators who put love in their product.

Such retarded argument. Are Double Fine the only people in the world that put love in their work? Do you think that Bethesda wasn't happy and proud of delivering Fallout 3? Does that makes it less of a shitty game?

 

[sea]

I think this is what we are going to get with most Kickstarter games (at least this first wave): "good enough" games that will do some fairly okay things but nowhere near as great or better than what the classics did. In a sense, Broken Age is incline over crappy shit like Gone Home or The Walking Dead for example just like SRR and Wasteland 2 are incline over Mass Effect and Skyrim, but our only real hope is to treat these games as a smaller step towards the actual rejuvenation of their genres.

I was afraid of this happening ever since the kickstarter craze began. People being massively disappointed by the kickstarter games and the chance of the genres coming back being even lower than before.

To be fair, there is only so much you can do on a tight budget. It's a trade-off in time spent, quality and scope, and cost. I think what we are going to see is Kickstarter helping to get certain studios (like inXile and maybe Double Fine if their game ends up selling; not sure about Obsidian since they are a much bigger studio) on their feet and financially independent. I wouldn't want those devs eating up Kickstarter dollars and goodwill for that long, when it's the small projects that wouldn't happen otherwise that really need it.

 

[buzz]

while also keeping a good atmosphere and a decent story

What do you mean "while"? That's all there is to it (though I'd truly disagree with you on the decent story part, because it was fairly shit). And shit like that or Heavy Rain or Kentucky Route Zero are the face of "modern" adventure games, with stuff like what Wadjet Eye or Daedalic make being the Knights of the Chalice of the genre. If anything, the popularity of Broken Age might give us more Primordia and Stasis and Quest for Infamy (though it could also blow back in our face and justify the interactive movie crap even more).

 

[Tigranes]

sea is spot on. I haven't finished yet but just about every puzzle seems to in practice be stand-alone. Challenge A, you need item X used on spot Y, until you figure it out you are stuck, but you get lots of hints until you do, and nothing else works. Once that's solved there is Challenge B. Heck, quite a few of the items are single-use, so there is as little overlap as possible, instead of having a small set of tools and principles you learn and keep using. It was a bit sad how many different items you get the response Oh, Gary Doesn't Want To Grab That. GARY IS A GRABBER BUT OF COURSE YOU KNOW HE IS ONLY EVER USEFUL TO GRAB A SINGLE THING IN THE ENTIRE UNIVERSE