Broken Age is easily the most high profile adventure game in years due to its massive KickStarter game and Tim Schafer’s name. I don’t consider myself a fan of the genre and I’ve never even played the famous Grim Fandango, but I have to admit that getting people like Elijah Wood and Wil Wheaton to do your voicework can still get my attention. Seems to me however that it’s just a way to make your game a lot more expensive than it needs to be.
The game trumpets that there are two main characters, a girl and a boy, and that you can freely switch between the two. Vella grew up in a baking village in what seems like a medieval world and is selected to be a sacrifice in the Maidens’ Feast, a ritual meant to appease a huge monster called Mog Cothra. Though everyone including her own family claims that it is a great honor, Vella wonders why no one tries to fight against them instead. At the same time, Shay grew up inside a spaceship on a long term mission to search for a new home world. Coddled by computers and the ship’s systems, he has no responsibilities and is assigned fake and perfectly safe “missions” that are meant only to entertain him. The fact that you can freely switch between the two stories means that if you’re stumped by one path, you can go to the other one and work on it for a while. You do need to complete both paths eventually however.
The writing, art and voice work are all fine. One thing that especially impressed me is how almost every kind of interaction between any two objects has its own unique line with voicework. Naturally they use that to setup all kinds of jokes and this really is the kind of game in which you’re expected to exhaustively try every combination of items. As for the puzzles, they start out being rather straightforward but slowly ramp up in difficulty over the course of the game. You really are meant to pay attention to all of the details as they’ll often come up in puzzles later, sometimes much later. Eventually the puzzles get to a point where you’ll need to jot down diagrams and notes on pieces of paper and use your deductive skills to work out the answers. The difficulty surprised me but I’m okay with that. What I’m less okay with are puzzles that involve actions that your character should be able to do but you’re forced to get someone else to do. For example, one puzzle requires the frosting from a cupcake to be removed. Instead of licking it away yourself, you need to find the right person to do it for you, which is just ridiculous. I was surprised that properly doing some puzzles toward the end requires the two characters sharing knowledge even though they can’t communicate with one another.
The story is okay. It’s nothing particularly outstanding and I think Vella is a much more interesting character than Shay. The big twist isn’t hard to guess and there are few truly laugh out loud moments but the whole thing is enjoyable enough. I think I liked The Longest Journey more than this, being a game with an adventure that feels more epic and eye-opening. One trope that I particularly disliked here is that this is a story that is essentially about children whose guardians don’t believe enough in them so much of the challenge is working around the guardians to get things done. It makes me feel like the game is geared to a younger audience and consequently feels less serious. Overall it’s a fine game, but not one deserving of its huge hype.
