I've been thinking about the game more, and trying to figure out why the game feels so short even though there is quite an amount of visual assets, and I think ultimately, it lacks a high level of interactivity.
Consider this: not only are there more screens than puzzles in the game, but in each screen itself, there really isn't that much to interact with. Interaction can come in various forms, but in traditional adventure game lingo let's just use talk/look/take. I don't really think the game lacks in the take department, since most items which look like they can be taken, can be taken. Not a fan of red herring items either, so it's good the game doesn't have them. But there's quite a severe lack of look and talk options.
For look, let's take Shay for example. I'll just use one of the very first screens here - the one where he's sitting at the controls and you have to pick a mission at the start. I was really excited when I saw the screen because it was really detailed and there were all sorts of silly gadgets and stuff on the control panel. I wanted to mess with them or at least click and get reactions. But nope, you can't click on anything there. It's locked to the dialogue menu where you just pick a mission. That's disappointing because simply having fun distractions like that would increase the player's investment in the setting, and also provide fun diversions which pace them through the story in a slower way if they enjoy optional stuff like that.
For talk, I think Vella has a number of examples, but let's take the very first main screen - your house at the start of the game. There are five characters in the room, and there could be a good amount of interactivity if talking to characters about a topic can allow them to say things which open up other dialogue options with the other characters. This is something I find lacking in the dialogue throughout the game - I can't think of a single time where talking to other characters unlock additional dialogues with related characters even if it makes sense.
Playing a good point and click adventure game should involve the player being able to click on anything interesting on the screen and get unique responses whether they are related to a critical path or not. In Broken Age, it feels like a lot of the responses are generic in a given area, and there aren't many hotspots on a screen to begin with. That's probably the main thing which leads to the game feeling very easy and on rails, where you can easily breeze through the game, even though the content on the critical path isn't lacking. Simply with the lack of anything else to do other than to progress, it makes the game feel much smaller than the content represents.
