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Broken Age |OT| A Double Fine Adventure! [iPad/Ouya Act One out now]

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Fantastapotamus

Wrong about commas, wrong about everything
Huge spoilers. Do not read any of this without finishing act one. Took me about three hours. I liked it quite a bit.

The ending sure makes you think about things. I figured the "Dead Eye God" might've been Shay, but that was soon proven apparently wrong. Shay was actually the one grabbing up maidens at the feasts with the boom arms! But for what purpose, and what's Merrick's deal with all this?

I actually didn't think of that. Wow.
The Merrick stuff is really interesting. Also, if you think about it that makes Merrick the bad guy, right? Also also I hope mom is alright :( I like that AI (And the little sock dudes)

If you think a bit further, if the Mog thing appears every 14 years and Shay did this for the first time....well....
 
To solve the riddle? Go back to the ladder, go up, go pass the bird again, go to the extreme left of the tree, pick the branch to shackle it then go down the tree, go left and pick the fruit that fell. That´s the answer, just show it to the guardians.

And if you are already inside:

You need an idol to activate the device, go back to the lumberjack to ask for it.

I must have a bug then, because
the lumberjack says nothing about the idol. The conversation just starts with the intro and ends immediately as if he has nothing to say. I also can't put back the piece of crystal into the window.

EDIT: Solved it!
 

Peff

Member
The lack of difficulty is kind of a bummer. The puzzles are more about not missing any hotspots than actually solving the obstacles, and there aren't all that many possibilities to begin with. I guess they didn't want a cat hair moustache debacle. Everything else was great, though, and complaints against Full Throttle's length/difficulty did result in Grim Fandango, so act two can't come soon enough.
 
My name is in the credits, I put my wife and kids in there, too, all the names spelled right and my last name is historically prone to typos. All correct. I'm very happy. :)
 

jett

D-Member
Played 20 minutes, cute and funny so far, I accidentally moved the story ahead and missed some side stuff, it seems. :p Two things:

1.- Is Marek supposed to have no facial animation in the game? His face doesn't move when he speaks in mine.

2.- This game is framed for 4:3. When I run it full screen I actually get the image cut off in my 16:9 monitor. Dat iPad market, I guess.
 

Peff

Member
Played 20 minutes, cute and funny so far, I accidentally moved the story ahead and missed some side stuff, it seems. :p Two things:

1.- Is Marek supposed to have no facial animation in the game? His face doesn't move when he speaks in mine.

He's not actually a wolf :p You can see the separation between the mask and the suit if you look closely
 

Fantastapotamus

Wrong about commas, wrong about everything
Played 20 minutes, cute and funny so far, I accidentally moved the story ahead and missed some side stuff, it seems. :p Two things:

1.- Is Marek supposed to have no facial animation in the game? His face doesn't move when he speaks in mine.

Yes. It'll make some sense later.
 
Well, that was pretty short (3.7 hours by Steam's count) and simple/easy... but great story and writing, and holy shit that ending. :O

Can't wait for part 2 now. Hopefully there are more complex puzzles though.
 
So is there a consensus yet on how "beta" this actually is? I'd love to play it now but if it's still pretty buggy, I'd rather wait for launch day. I'm trying to attempt to avoid the landmine field of spoilers so forgive me if this has been asked already.
 

VandalD

Member
I actually didn't think of that. Wow.
The Merrick stuff is really interesting. Also, if you think about it that makes Merrick the bad guy, right? Also also I hope mom is alright :( I like that AI (And the little sock dudes)

If you think a bit further, if the Mog thing appears every 14 years and Shay did this for the first time....well....
Well, he was definitely lying to Shay. It's impossible to to pin Marek as evil because we don't really know his motivations. Obviously he's wanting Shay to unknowingly abduct girls for whatever reason, either for their own protection or for some devious purpose. Very strange how he tries to stop Shay from "rescuing" all of them.

Mom has secrets of her own too. She brings up a sacrifice story and escaping. There's the locked door on the ship that has a "surprise" behind it, whatever that means, to go along with the quarantine area in Marek's room. And just the fact that she essentially is keeping Shay prisoner on the ship for some unknown reason. Marek with his "hacking" and mom could even be working towards the same objective, whatever that is. I really like how Shay and Vella's stories are revealed to work together while still having a good amount of mystery for act 2.

I didn't expect to have an easy time with this, as I'm not usually an adventure game player, but easy is definitely better than absurd jumps in logic that only the developer would think of. Absolutely looking forward to act 2 both for the story and to see how well the puzzles advance in complexity.

So is there a consensus yet on how "beta" this actually is? I'd love to play it now but if it's still pretty buggy, I'd rather wait for launch day. I'm trying to attempt to avoid the landmine field of spoilers so forgive me if this has been asked already.
Can't tell you about a consensus, but I didn't have any issues at all. There are some weird visual things, but nothing game ruining.
 

Artanisix

Member
ENDING THOUGHTS:
IOHYMFUCKFINGOGOGODDWHATTHATENDINGWHAT

Game is so INCREDIBLY BEAUTIFUL and FUN. Took around 4.5 hours in total, I was stuck for a while until I learned you could put items together. Every single character (even
that shady-ass ho marek
was chock-full of charm and personality. The story was great. My ONLY desire is that Act 2 is longer and more difficult.

So, so fucking good.
 
Huge spoilers. Do not read any of this without finishing act one. Took me about three hours. I liked it quite a bit.

The ending sure makes you think about things. I figured the "Dead Eye God" might've been Shay, but that was soon proven apparently wrong. Shay was actually the one grabbing up maidens at the feasts with the boom arms! But for what purpose, and what's Merrick's deal with all this? In thinking about how this all come together, I think I want to have another run through it to see if there are plot points that I missed. And then there's the fact that pyramid ship guy mentioned Project Dandelion. "Dead Eye God" is Merrick maybe? Oh man. Also, did anyone get past the snake?

Use yourself as bait. I think you'll get it from there.

Oh My GoooooooDDDDDDD I didnt even put those pieces together.

mind_blown_tmnt.gif
 

mattiewheels

And then the LORD David Bowie saith to his Son, Jonny Depp: 'Go, and spread my image amongst the cosmos. For every living thing is in anguish and only the LIGHT shall give them reprieve.'
Do $15 backers not get in the credits?
 

VandalD

Member
Oh My GoooooooDDDDDDD I didnt even put those pieces together.
End spoilers:
If you go back to the "rescue" missions, you'll see on the second mission there are five people to bring in with your boom arm, and the last one always gets away, because that's Vella! The first time you did a rescue, it was in Meriloft, and you left that girl behind.
 

duckroll

Member
Beat it. As I suspected, it took about 3 hours. Each half of Act 1 seems to be about 90 mins long, I don't actually have any issue with the content in Act 1, since it feels well designed, does a good job of introducing the player to the characters and the world, and the writing is good enough that it's humorous and interesting without trying too hard to be built around a specific twist. I found the revelations to be fairly predictable, and I think most who pay attention while playing through both stories will figure out what's going on, and that doesn't make it any less satisfying.

Difficulty wise it's pretty easy, but I appreciated that there was quite a bit of variety to the interaction in the game. It's all point and click but you're not doing the same stuff over and over. Vera's story has more dialogue stuff and interaction with other characters, while Shay's story has more fiddling with gadgets and interfaces. The music and voice work is great too.

My one concern at this point is that I want the game to be bigger than it appears it might be. Ideally Act 2 should be twice as large as Act 1 or more, or it's going to end up feeling like a pretty small game compared to the LucasArts greats. I think it's pretty fair to compare them, since Schafer himself has expressed in the documentary that it was what he was aiming for in terms of meeting expectations, because he didn't want to make a game which felt lacking in content considering how big the Kickstarter got.

The setting they have created for the game certainly doesn't lack in scale and scope, and the ending of Act 1 suggests many possibilities for how much larger the game could be, so I guess the only question is whether they can afford to make the game as big as they want to at this point.
 

Artanisix

Member
End spoilers:
If you go back to the "rescue" missions, you'll see on the second mission there are five people to bring in with your boom arm, and the last one always gets away, because that's Vella! The first time you did a rescue, it was in Meriloft, and you left that girl behind.

More end spoilers: I also just realized
that Shay isn't in space, but rather is underwater. There is some fishy shit goin' on. It also makes me wonder if the Dead Eye God actually spent 300 years in cryogenic sleep or not.

EDIT: Actually maybe Shay was in space, sorry. His ship did end up going to the cloud place after all. /shrug
 

GavinUK86

Member
It took me about 7 hours. I really took my time. Clicked every nook and cranny. I always play adventure games really slowly though to take in everything.

It was brilliant. I'm very glad I was a backer. Roll on the retail build end of the month and then Act 2. Very exciting.

Also, 8-bit mode is amazeballs.

wLBIdK0.jpg


dh4rW1s.jpg
 
More end spoilers: I also just realized
that Shay isn't in space, but rather is underwater. There is some fishy shit goin' on. It also makes me wonder if the Dead Eye God actually spent 300 years in cryogenic sleep or not.

EDIT: Actually maybe Shay was in space, sorry. His ship did end up going to the cloud place after all. /shrug

Well all the space inside and outside his ship is simulated. When Vella goes inside you can still see the space backdrop with a hole in it.

Also I feel like Alex was cryogenically frozen because he make references to Steel Bunting

What I want to know is
what's the deal with Shay's "mom." They make you think she's Vella for a bit.

Incidentally when I switched to him for the first time I had just fallen into Curtis's house, and I played Shay all the way up until his Mom tells you the story of how she's programmed with the memories of a sacrificed girl. Righter after that I switched back to Vella and she knocks the sun out of that stained glass picture. I played her up until I met Alex in his space ship and he mentions his mission, I switched back to Shay just in time to hear "Mom" talk about the same thing.
 

pulga

Banned
Fantastic! I didn't even remember I backed this thing so long ago! Everyone jumping on the beta or waiting for the full release?
 

Fuu

Formerly Alaluef (not Aladuf)
I was going to wait for stabler release but I just finished watching episode 13 of the documentary and thought fuck it, I'll play this in its current state. This entire project is an unique opportunity, and since I've already been doing things I don't usually do (like watching a documentary before experiencing the product) I might as well make an exception to how I approach betas.

I wish I had decided earlier though, it's past midnight here so I'll have to wait until I get out of work later. Ah well.
 

pj

Banned
Quite easy and short.

Everything in the game is quality (except some low resness in closeups), but it seems like not a whole lot of content given how long they've been working on it. Hopefully part 2 is a lot bigger.
 

Zafir

Member
Fantastic! I didn't even remember I backed this thing so long ago! Everyone jumping on the beta or waiting for the full release?
I loaded it up for a bit to check it out, but I'll be waiting for the full release. I have a good number of things to play at the moment, and I'd rather just marathon it in one with no waiting anyway.
 
Well all the space inside and outside his ship is simulated. When Vella goes inside you can still see the space backdrop with a hole in it.

Also I feel like Alex was cryogenically frozen because he make references to Steel Bunting

What I want to know is
what's the deal with Shay's "mom." They make you think she's Vella for a bit.

Incidentally when I switched to him for the first time I had just fallen into Curtis's house, and I played Shay all the way up until his Mom tells you the story of how she's programmed with the memories of a sacrificed girl. Righter after that I switched back to Vella and she knocks the sun out of that stained glass picture. I played her up until I met Alex in his space ship and he mentions his mission, I switched back to Shay just in time to hear "Mom" talk about the same thing.

Maybe the ship isn't consuming the girls but rescuing them, because the woman who programmed the ship was put up for sacrifice or something like that.

What I want to know is why was the ship scared to go to that fishing village? I'm guessing the sacrifice happens every year or every couple of years or whatever, so since Shay only operated the ship for that one year, is there other people on that ship? are there other ships in the water eating girls??
 

Lunzio

Member
Need Vella story help if possible:

How does one weigh down the ladder to get the egg that keeps being unhooked? I feel like I'm missing some sort of way to attach an egg to the ladder - have fruit, large shoes, and 2 eggs
 
Need Vella story help if possible:

How does one weigh down the ladder to get the egg that keeps being unhooked? I feel like I'm missing some sort of way to attach an egg to the ladder - have fruit, large shoes, and 2 eggs

large shoes + ladder = magic
 

Harlock

Member
And the review embargo lifted for those in the biz

They used the same argument of Nintendo embargos:
The decision to set this originally was not made with any sort of malicious or controlling intent, but rather to keep spoilers to a minimum and give press time to enjoy the game, reflect on it, and write a review without feeling rushed to get it out first. However, it’s clear the excitement will be difficult to contain.
 

Sharp

Member
Just finished it. Was really great.

Ending spoilers:

Wherever it is in Shay's storyline when you hear that the purpose of the ship is to help Shay's people repopulate the planet, my first thought was, "don't you need females for that?" I wonder if the reason the ship requires sacrificial maidens is in order to provide Shay with a mate...

This would also explain why Marek was saying they had "enough" and not suspecting that there was going to be any real danger.
 

Llyranor

Member
How far in are you?

Got two gold eggs, apple and ladder+shoes combo in my inventory. I think I just need to get Gus out of the way to get the real egg back to trade it with the 3rd egg to dump all 3 at the donation cloud. I'm stuck at the Gus part, and the fruit has been the only thing that hasn't done anything yet, so I thought it'd involve it somehow.
 
Need Vella story help!

I've got the death ray ready, but I can't figure out how to get the sand to stick together! What do I do? I've got cloud shoes, sap, ladder, stool, and death ray button.
 

Sharp

Member
As far as game length goes: I think there's actually plenty of content for half an adventure game (in terms of rooms and unique dialogue). The problem is just the ease of the puzzles. We all know Tim Schafer can give very challenging puzzles when he wants to, so given that he's already said he plans to make the second half harder I'm sure the difficulty will be upped there.
 
Got two gold eggs, apple and ladder+shoes combo in my inventory. I think I just need to get Gus out of the way to get the real egg back to trade it with the 3rd egg to dump all 3 at the donation cloud. I'm stuck at the Gus part, and the fruit has been the only thing that hasn't done anything yet, so I thought it'd involve it somehow.

You have to fall through the middle hole at the peach tree (not the one at the base of the tree, but one of the other holes that is in the clouds. This will knock you into Gus, and it will knock him off.
 

adg1034

Member
Need Vella story help!

I've got the death ray ready, but I can't figure out how to get the sand to stick together! What do I do? I've got cloud shoes, sap, ladder, stool, and death ray button.

Besides Vella, who cares the most about getting the Maiden's Feast ready?
 

Llyranor

Member
You have to fall through the middle hole at the peach tree (not the one at the base of the tree, but one of the other holes that is in the clouds. This will knock you into Gus, and it will knock him off.

Hmm.
The location of the hole vs the tree center just makes it look like it's further behind (and thus you'd just fall off and have the bird catch you again) when compared to Gus's location vs the trunk. Maybe I have a bad sense of perspective. Well, I guess that's that.
 

inm8num2

Member
Need Vella story help!

I've got the death ray ready, but I can't figure out how to get the sand to stick together! What do I do? I've got cloud shoes, sap, ladder, stool, and death ray button.

If something doesn't stick together, you can offer something sticky to help. :p

Whoops, too late.
 

Berordn

Member
Alright, I'm stuck on what is presumably close to the end of Vella's story.

Got everything sorted out except for a weapon. I've got the stained glass, ladder w/ shoes, and stool in my inventory. I'm going to guess it has something to do with the snake?
 

fallout

Member
I finished it one sitting and found it to be an absolutely wonderful experience. The pacing was great and even with the puzzles being a bit on the easy side, I had enough "Aha!" moments to make me feel satisfied.

Ending spoilers:
I KNEW YOU COULDN'T USE YARN TO TRAVEL THROUGH SPACE!
 
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