ThunderPeel2001

Broken Age - Double Fine Adventure!

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Spoilers in response to Bjorn's spoilers

 

There's an even more explicit suicide attempt from Shay that's possible to miss. When you're outside of the ship in the space suit, you can cut your air hose with the knife without attaching the air canister. Shay get's rescued by the arms and when he comes to he says something like "Ah well, it was worth a shot". He might even say something as he's suffocating initially, I can't remember. Anyway, that's some darkness right there.

 

I'm certainly curious what's going on. It's pretty clear his "discovering" Marek and the events that follow are planned, which means whoever designed the whole system deliberately drives the kids in these ships to the breaking point so they'll be easy to manipulate. Pretty messed up.

 

This game is so RAD!

 

I'm not sure this has been mentioned in this thread (probably has) but the grandmother in Vella's story says that the feast happens every 14 years, which is about Shay's age, so it does seem like everything including Marek's discovery seems to occur either cyclically or in other "ships". If there's only one ship, then the former sort of suggests this really twisted Moon-like thing where boys grow up performing these tasks until they become aware or find out about the sacrifices and get replaced or cloned.

 

It could mean that Shay's revolt is an engineered behavior, like you mentioned, to make him unquestionably seek adventure after years of pampering, and kind of undermines his agency as a character by a whole lot.

 

I love this thing. I've not played many adventure games in the past but this is really something!

 

EDIT:

 

-insert Shay's Rebellion dumb implications here-

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Ok, going along with the themes and even title of the game. It's a reflection of taught gender roles. The females, gee at age 14, get "sacrificed for the good of the village" to the great monster that takes them away from their home, and doing so is an honor they have to dress up for to woo the monster. Meanwhile at age 14 the boys (boy?) gets taught to save small defenseless creatures by taking them away from their homes. I.E. Marriage, except the Dead Eye God (unknown name dude) screwed up by  helping Vella to "kill" Mog Chothra.

 

That's what I got from it. Warning, may actually spoil things for part 2.

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Ok, going along with the themes and even title of the game. It's a reflection of taught gender roles. The females, gee at age 14, get "sacrificed for the good of the village" to the great monster that takes them away from their home, and doing so is an honor they have to dress up for to woo the monster. Meanwhile at age 14 the boys (boy?) gets taught to save small defenseless creatures by taking them away from their homes. I.E. Marriage, except the Dead Eye God (unknown name dude) screwed up by  helping Vella to "kill" Mog Chothra.

 

That's what I got from it. Warning, may actually spoil things for part 2.

 

That is a brilliantly simple summary of the game's main themes, and not something that I had even considered.  I wouldn't call it spoiling anything if you've finished part 1, it's rather clear once you've had it pointed out to you, not like it's a hidden theme.

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If there's only one ship, then the former sort of suggests this really twisted Moon-like thing where boys grow up performing these tasks until they become aware or find out about the sacrifices and get replaced or cloned.

I don't think there can only be one ship. Didn't Vella's grandfather say the townsfolk used to fight (and occassionally defeat) the Mogs?

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I definitely got the feeling that the rebellion cycle for the boys was engineered.  The controls on the hand grabber felt like a toy that was meant to be played with by shay.  Also, there's a couple shifty eyed moments by the moon dad that seemed to imply he was running that aspect of things.

 

The idea being, I guess that the care-taking ship AI would help find a mate for the child in their care.

 

Also I think someone pointed out that the "dead eye god" could be Shay from the future, but I think it's a clone or another boy that was subjected to a similar upbringing inside a Mog.  Time travel just seems like it's not needed, or even the most interesting story to tell.  I also think it's a lot more interesting if they're not clones, but are just offspring of previous sacrifice girls and boys in mogs from previous years.  Whatever the case, they both have the same "home planet" story.

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The whole idea that the ship is doing this seems plausible. Weren't they on a mission to find and POPULATE a new planet? But still what about the other kidnapped girls? And what if they have a girl instead of a boy? Sure, it's possible that they use future tech to insure that the child is male, but still... it seems a way to far-fetched plan just to get the kid married, and they are just too many things that could go wrong...

 

Shouldn't be advanced enough for cloning? What if the kid doesn't like any girl or more than one? Not to mention that he'd still be in his rebellious stage, marriage is probably the last thing on his mind.

 

While I do agree that the rebellious stage was engineered, unless they keep the girls frozen (or whatever they've done to them) and manipulate the kid until he's ready for... mating. Like I said before, it seems lke a ridiculous amount of effort just to get a kid married, not to mention.... What happens to the dad later? Hmm, I wonder if Marek is Shay's dad? Seems a bit far-fetched though, that would mean he's become a slave to the ship or accepted his fate or something weird and morbid like that.

 

All I can predict and hope for, is that Shay will get the adventure he wished for... and regret wishing for it and Vella will kick butt until she gets answers... Hopefully with Mr. Knife by her side!

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The Dead Eye God is named Alex you guys.

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Just finished Act One! Really enjoyed it. I started as Vella, then switched between the two whenever I felt I'd finished a section or needed to think in order to progress. That worked pretty well, although I probably should have started with Shay as his opening is so much stronger. Vella's first two rooms are pretty dull, and also I didn't feel like the story-telling was as strong - it may be because I already knew the

maiden's feast

set-up from the doc, and a new player is supposed to get

a creeping realisation of what is happening

, but I never felt that moment of

"oh shit, the maidens are ther feast?!"

. Plus, I didn't feel the

monster was sold as super-scary and evil (I know, I know, the twist, but there are plenty of ways they could have achieved it),

which again could be because I was used to seeing it.


 

Anyway, once I'd got past that opening, I enjoyed her side a lot more, especially coming back to it from Shay's side - the juxtaposition of

barren spaceship and floaty, lively cloud city

was really nice. And the

ground

locations were ace too. I'm a bit envious of people playing this with no knowledge of what was coming.


 

Overall, I was happy with the simplicity of the game. It's not full-on Lucasarts (although you could argue it's on a similar level with Full Throttle), but it has enough puzzling and inventory use that I had to stop and think a few times. I never got stuck, though, so it took me 4 hours all in all. The only thing I would have liked was a 'look at' function separate from the 'interact' one, I really felt that was needed in some places.

 

Finally, the presentation and story-telling was great. Looks and sounds great, plus lots of nice dialogue, characters and plot developments (especially the

crossover

stuff which is always cool - reminded me of those big moments in LOST).


 

Really looking forward to Act Two.

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I know they haven't announced a date for Act 2, but have they given an approximate timeline/month/season/year/lustrum?

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I know they haven't announced a date for Act 2, but have they given an approximate timeline/month/season/year/lustrum?

Sometime in April, I believe.

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Vella's first two rooms are pretty dull, and also I didn't feel like the story-telling was as strong - it may be because I already knew the

maiden's feast

set-up from the doc

I think seeing the doc first may be a strong factor, at least for us the realisation worked just like it was supposed to. I intentionally didn't watch the doc until I played through the game for precisely this reason.

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Huh, I thought Vella's opening was easily stronger. I've seen both sides here. 

 

I have to say I'm not happy with the puzzles. It's like someone mentioned in this thread earlier: you just know what you need to do. I was stuck twice, but both times because of communication issues by the game and not because the puzzle was tough or clever.

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both times because of communication issues by the game

 

What were those?

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I'm about to dive into Vella's story, I finished Shay in one sitting the other day. When news of Broken Age came out I wasn't super excited initially but I had a blast playing through Shay's half. I used to be deep into adventure games (playing and making them) but nowadays I find that most of the traditional ones just can't hold my attention anymore, but this was the perfect mix of story and difficulty and art that had me hooked and not even thinking of stopping or switching to Vella. It's a really great game.

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I backed Broken Age, was considering the documentary already worth my donation, and then I played the game! So awesome, really loved everything about it.

 

I fell behind on the documentary episodes, which I consider fortunate, because the last 4 or so are pretty spoilery with locations and characters that were fun to discover for the first time in the game (but is awesome for seeing how the game is made). Now I'm conflicted, because the doc is SO GOOD, but I know I should stop watching episodes again so it doesn't spoil too much of Act 2.

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In case any backers missed it, there's a new doc episode and side-quest up. They're currently aiming for a Dec/Jan release of part 2.

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In case any backers missed it, there's a new doc episode and side-quest up. They're currently aiming for a Dec/Jan release of part 2.

 

I was really depressed by the e-mail update last week, where it was announced that Schafer just finished writing Act 2 and the finale.

 

Are they really going to have this recorded, animated, coded, etc. in a few months?

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I'm sure they were recording, animating, coding, etc. some stuff that was already done while he was finishing writing.

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Yeah, according to that email, because of the way the game's structured, they've been able to get Shay's segment to beta, even though Tim only recently finished the writing on the rest of the game. The time estimates still seem optimistic, but I don't really have any idea how these things work, so what do I know.

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Possibly the finale is just entails the last few rooms, and all of the end animation. I would guess backgrounds and set pieces were at least concepted a months ago. He also said he's wrote a lot of the circumstantial type puzzle dialogue as well.

 

I at least hope this is the case and that's why it will be done!

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