Broken Age: Act One review: Not quite kick-finished

Back in February of 2012, legendary game designer Tim Schafer took to Kickstarter to subvert the old ways of video game funding. If he had taken the usual route in pitching the classically styled point-and-click adventure game he wanted to make—the genre that originally made him famous, and one he hadn’t worked on for over a decade—“a publisher would laugh in my face,” he said. Fund me directly instead, he insisted, and you could expect something different from the usual blockbuster.

Two years and millions of dollars later, his prediction has been borne out. The first half of Broken Age, which was delivered to tens of thousands of Kickstarter backers earlier this week (this reviewer included), resembles the point-and-click stylings of Schafer classics like Grim Fandango and Full Throttle.

Broken Age‘s general concept is a bit more modern than those well-loved Double Fine games of the past, though. Two children from opposite ends of the galaxy are annoyed by their childhoods, so they strike out on simultaneous quests. There’s little in the way of drama or excitement, but their journeys are buoyed by subtle humor and children’s book whimsy.

The story sure ain’t Halo, and it comes across in an elevator pitch as the kind of game that could only be made by way of blind-faith pre-sales, as Schafer originally promised on Kickstarter. But is the result a testament to artistic freedom or a bad case of careful-what-you-wish-for?

Heavy on character, light on puzzles

Broken Age opens with its two leading children, Vella and Shay, napping in their respective worlds, letting you pick which one you wake. Both are children on the verge of teendom and all that implies—curiosity, change, a burning desire to cast off restrictions—but that’s about all they share in common.

Point to Vella, and you rouse her from slumber against a pastel-colored tree in the colorful town of Sugar Bunting (“where the sweetness is baked in”). Today, she must say goodbye to her family—and, presumably, her life—by way of a centuries-old ritual, to be eaten by a terrifying beast known as the Mog Chothra. This whip-smart girl wants no part of it, of course, so her adventure begins with figuring out how to escape monstrous consumption.

I’m sure you can relate to the problems of a teenager with an overbearing robotic caretaker.

Act One?

The launch of Double Fine’s new game has proven as unconventional as its initial funding. On Tuesday, the game was sent digitally to fans who pre-paid at least $15, either via Kickstarter or a “slacker backer” site. If you want to buy in as a newcomer, you must wait until at least January 28.

That’s a weird restriction, as Double Fine certainly wants newcomers to rush in and pay. In fact, that’s why the current half-a-game is being pushed out as “Act One.” According to a July 2013 update from Schafer about the game’s budget running low, $3.3 million in Kickstarter cash only goes so far. The piecemeal release is meant to spur more buyers into chipping in while the second half is being developed.

Give Shay a nudge, and you wake him on a spaceship. His only companions are overprotective “parents” who exist on computer screens, along with walking, talking dolls who get into fake, super-simplified predicaments (like getting buried in mountains of delicious ice cream—good thing you have a spoon in your inventory!). Shay yawns through these playtime diversions until he discovers a devious man in a wolf’s mask who promises adventure: “When you tire of child’s play, when you’re ready for real danger, come and see me.”

Both quests play out in classic point-and-click adventure fashion: wander through the environs, talk to people, hunt for new items, and use those items to solve puzzles. Players who bought in expecting the same quantity of puzzles as in Schafer games of old may be disappointed, however. Shay’s quest in particular only includes one substantial, multi-layered puzzle in this first chapter, while Vella only has about three zones in which to sort and solve how she must proceed.

The puzzles are all pretty well telegraphed, with a few clever a-ha moments and only one frustrating, “where the heck do I click?” moment to speak of. Still, it’s obvious from the outset that Broken Age is a story-first experience. In fact, Shay’s introductory “missions” poke fun at just this kind of thing, as he yawns through childish pseudo-adventures that essentially solve themselves.

That means the game is at its best when memorable characters emerge, and thankfully, such characters are all over Broken Age‘s first act. A living, talking tree protests on a forest’s behalf, taking particular umbrage when you show him some fruit (“The sweet flesh you ripped from the arms of its mother?!”). A maiden frets about not being chosen—and eaten—by Mog Chothra, which confuses Vella but brings out an interesting aspect of the maid’s teenage-centric perspective. “At least you didn’t get eaten by a monster!” Vella says.

“That’s better than facing my family right now,” the sad maiden replies.

Celebrity voice Jack Black makes an impressive turn as the questionable leader of a city in the clouds, alongside a salty grandfather pining for the days when Sugar Bunting wasn’t so wimpy and a wolf-man who adds much-needed grit to Shay’s otherwise saccharine “boy casts off overprotective parents” half of the game. On the other end of the characterization spectrum, Shay’s snore of a personality—which can’t even be saved by Elijah Wood’s solid voice acting—mutes much of his quest’s plot momentum.

Two disconnected tales

No, this talking tree has nothing to do with the part on the space station. At least not yet.

Players can switch between Shay and Vella at will, giving quick access to twice as many locations and giving you even more room to roam around the world and admire the scrumptious direction. Broken Age‘s watercolor-and-crayon aesthetic lends itself to explosions in color and diversity in setting; as a result, a logger’s tucked-away, heavily decorated cabin is nearly as impressive as a marshmallow-fluff city in the clouds or a candyland-styled playroom on the spaceship.

Strong character designs also help carry the story along, from Shay’s hand-stitched companions to Vella’s hilariously dressed peers in various Maiden Feast events (think Valley girls dressed as giant fishing lures). The only drawback is that zoomed-in shots of those characters reveal particularly low-resolution backgrounds, but players may be too busy blissing out with the game’s pitch-perfect symphonic score to even notice. (Seriously, if Double Fine needs to shore up more money for future development, releasing the score on CD and iTunes will produce a quick cash infusion.)

But the game’s split personality reveals some notable issues. For one, switching between characters serves no gameplay purpose. You’ll never use Shay to toggle something or solve a puzzle in Vella’s world, nor vice versa. Worse, one quest is clearly better to complete before the other in terms of managing end-game revelations, but Broken Age lets you choose what’s essentially the wrong order if you want. More importantly, divvying characters up between two quests means the best ones disappear all too quickly.

This is not a game that smacks players over the head with overt hilarity. Instead, it’s obvious that the 16 years since Schafer’s last point-and-click writing project have been hugely affected by parenthood. Broken Age‘s first act is a deeply personal rumination on the battle between a parent’s protective nature and a child’s instinct to escape and explore, which means this is a game of touching moments and subtle nods to adult humor more than wacky hijinks.