Broken Age

Broken Age is a point-and-click adventure video game developed and published by Double Fine. Broken Age was game director Tim Schafer's first return to the genre since 1998's Grim Fandango, and was released for Microsoft Windows, macOS, Linux, iOS, Android, PlayStation 4, PlayStation Vita, and Xbox One platforms. The game was developed in two acts; the first was released on January 28, 2014 (two weeks earlier for Kickstarter backers), and the second was released on April 28, 2015. A retail version of the complete game for Windows, macOS, and Linux, published by Nordic Games, was released on April 28, 2015. A Nintendo Switch version was released on September 13, 2018.

Development
Broken Age began under the working title Double Fine Adventure as a Kickstarter crowd-funded project promoted by Double Fine and 2 Player Productions in February 2012. Though originally a goal of only $400,000 was set to cover the costs of development and documentary filming, Broken Age became the largest crowd-funded video game project at the time, raising over $3.45 million from more than 87,000 backers within the month. It remains one of the highest-backed crowd-funded projects of any type, and its success helped to establish Kickstarter and other crowd-funding mechanisms as a viable alternative to traditional venture capital and publisher funding for niche video game titles. The game's development was chronicled by an episodic series of documentaries produced by 2 Player Productions.

Why It Rocks

 * 1) The graphics are gorgeous with everything looking as if it was taken straight from a storybook.
 * 2) There are lots of fun interactions and dialogue that can lead to some funny moments.
 * 3) * The sabotaging of Shay's train mission is noteworthy. Considering all the baby crap that Shay's been put through, the imminent doom of plummeting adorable plushies unto extremely sharp rocks has never been so funny. It all ends with the rocks being revealed to be pillows. Shay's excited face through all this can really best describe this situation.
 * 4) ** To drive the hilarity home, Shay is whooping in delight while his plush buddies are screaming in terror and saying things like "I'm sure he had his reasons!"
 * 5) ** To drive home the point of how much he's happy to face some true danger, later in Act 2 he's overjoyed to be attacked by the snake, to the point the snake gets tired constricting him and passes out.
 * 6) Great soundtrack.
 * 7) Great voice acting with lots of celebrities voice roles. This includes, Elijah Wood, Jack Black, Will Wheaton, Jennifer Hale, David Kaufman, and more.
 * 8) A great story about two teenagers trying to break away from the conventions set up for them only to find out something major going on behind the scenes.
 * 9) The success of this game had a visible impact on the adventure genre, inspiring several other established adventure game developers to use Kickstarter as a means to return to the genre. In the months following its release, the creators of Broken Sword, Gabriel Knight, Leisure Suit Larry, Space Quest and Tex Murphy have all managed to raise amounts in excess of Schafer's original goal of $400,000.

Bad Qualities

 * 1) Unsatisfying ending: The game doesn't have a proper ending, but instead decides to wrap up everything via images during the credits.
 * 2) Ass Pull: There is more evidence that Shay's parents are AI than evidence that they are humans in Act 1, and the reveal that they are really humans in Act 2 requires a combination of selective parental neglect, weird terminology usage on Shay's part, and technology we hadn't seen up until the reveal to work.
 * 3) * What doesn't help is that you can find a picture of Shay WITH his parents so why doesn't he remember them?
 * 4) Missed Opportunity: Late into Act II, Levina is revealed to be working for the villains. Nothing comes of this and the character is never mentioned again.
 * 5) While many of the puzzles are great, there are some that are too complex.
 * 6) * One of the puzzles requires some Fourth Wall thinking, and using a method that you never needed before. To figure out Shay's favorite toy for his Mom's quiz in Vella's half of act 2, you need to notice the picture of him with a stuffed snake, switch to his story, and progress enough for him to find the snake from Vella's story, get constricted by it, and hear him call it Mr. Huggy.
 * 7) * On another note, getting the snake as an item. You need to have Shay stand still until it tires itself out. It does make more sense when you factor in his suicidal tendencies though... plus, you might just let the snake choke him just to listen to all his lines.
 * 8) * The Hexapal. You have to map out what wire/node combinations make what symbols, and then wire it up accordingly with the only hint of the first set of symbols being in the background of an innocuous picture that can easily be missed or overlooked. Even worse, the layout of the wiring is different each playthrough, so even if you know what to do you have to figure out the layout all over again.

Reception
The game's first act was well received by critics, scoring 82/100 on review aggregation website Metacritic. Adam Sessler of Rev3Games gave Broken Age Act 1 a 4/5 calling it a beautiful game with wonderful and funny writing. Justin McElroy, writing at Polygon highlighted the game's characters as "grounded while approaching absurdity and adversity with brave, heartfelt sincerity" giving the game a "kind of depth that's so often lacking in other 'funny' games". Within a month of the first act's release, Schafer confirmed that its sales would be sufficient to cover the remaining development costs for Act 2.

Act 2, released more than a year later, received a similar response overall, with a Metacritic score of 73/100. Despite this, many critics saw the second act as a letdown following the success of the first: John Walker of Rock Paper Shotgun praised the art and voice acting, but criticized Act 2 for its re-use of locations from Act 1 and lackluster ending, following up his review with a lengthy article expanding on his criticism of the story. Other critics had similar complaints, including Justin McElroy, who in an update to his initial Act 1 review, was disappointed by too much puzzling in the second half. He also echoed a common criticism of the frustrating difficulty of the puzzles, which many reviewers felt were much harder than in Act 1, especially if players tried to pick it up without replaying the first half.