This chunk of the game at least addresses one of the major flaws in the first half. There's one brilliant puzzle that riffs on some of Guybrush Threepwood's more infamous life-threatening situations. Familiarity doesn't quite breed contempt in this case - Double Fine's aesthetic and wit is too strong for that - but it saps the experience of any sense of forward momentum, of being on an adventure, and by the end what had once been charming places and characters have all but lost their appeal. Having spent over a year delivering this concluding section, fans will be justified in wondering what necessitated such a delay. In any adventure game, such geographical inertia would be frustrating. Everywhere else is somewhere you've already been. The best you get is access, literally at the very end of the game, to just three new rooms beneath an existing location. I kept waiting for the story to move on, to give me somewhere fresh to discover, but it never comes. You'll once again be going back and forth through the familiar handful of rooms and corridors on Shay's ship, and rattling between the same clouds, beach and forest that Vella so completely explored. More disappointing, there are almost no new locations. There are only a few new characters, with most of your interactions as both Vella and Shay involving the same characters who populated Act 1. At the point where most adventures would take its heroes to new locations to meet new characters, Broken Age opts to stay in the same places - albeit slightly changed by the preceding events. In gameplay terms, the choice proves more problematic. It allows each character to learn more about the other in an organic way, without resorting to too many leaden exposition dumps. In a story built on a bedrock of parallels and symmetry, it's an idea with merit. Vella is now trapped on board Shay's old ship, while Shay is left stranded in Vella's world. Having brought its heroes together the first time, a clumsy accident immediately separates Vella and Shay once more. The ability to swap between Vella and Shay's stories at any time returns, but once again there's no dramatic reason for the feature.
SHAY BROKEN AGE UPDATE
Downloaded as a free update to the existing game file, and swapping over with no fanfare or title card, the "Act 2" aspect is more to accommodate the curious release schedule than any shift in game structure. Indeed, for players who have yet to start the adventure, the change will be seamless. She faced the beast and won - revealing an enormous lie encompassing both her and Shay's experiences in the process.Īct 2 picks up immediately at this point. Meanwhile Vella, groomed to be sacrificed to the monster Mog Chothra, had similarly stepped beyond the roles her society had laid out for her, and taken control of her own destiny. Shay, raised alone in a stiflingly risk-free environment aboard a spaceship, had ventured beyond the cossetted routines laid out for him and discovered that his world wasn't everything he thought it was. Such is the hurdle Double Fine has set itself with its fractured - or, yes, broken - development of Broken Age.īack in January 2014, we left parallel heroes Vella and Shay as their storylines finally converged. It may not be the longest delay in gaming, but a 16-month cliffhanger is still a tough burden to drop on your players, even more so when the cliffhanger in question comes at a critical juncture in a narrative adventure. Be warned - spoilers and discussion for act one lay below. Today, Dan returns to the second act to see what's changed. "Fans will be forgiven for expecting something a little more chewy, a little more experimental, from a developer who made his name by turning adventure games upside down," Dan Whitehead said in his review.
We reviewed the first act of Tim Schafer and Double Fine's return to adventure games early last year, and found it attractive but a little hollow. The second half of Double Fine's adventure offers more puzzles, lots of repetition and a muddled conclusion.Įditor's note: Broken Age's second and final act is out this week.
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