Double Fine Adventure was a bit of a turning point in crowdfunded video games. When Double Fine Productions launched a crowdfunding campaign on Kickstarter seeking $400,000 in funding from the crowd, they couldn’t have imagined netting over $3 million.
The road wasn’t easy from there despite raising over 800% of their stated goal. Eventually Double Fine ran out of money for the game, necessitating a bit of a pivot in strategy. Double Fine Adventure – which was later named Broken Age – was to be split into two parts, with the first part being released to backers on Steam Early Access last week ahead of an anticipated public release later this month. Proceeds from the early access sales of part one would be used to finish part two.
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Part one has now become available to backers, just one of a handful of perks those backers will net as a result of jumping into the Kickstarter early. While most Steam users can only stare at the button to buy the game, backers are playing. Oh, and they saved $10 off the suggested price.
As for the reviews, they’re mixed as they are with most games. Some are criticizing part one for being too easy. Chris Kohler did a nice job of summarizing what I’m gathering as the prevailing sentiment about the game in an article for Wired…
If you backed Broken Age hoping for the return of the point-and-click adventure, what exactly did you want from that? Did you want a story-focused game with great 2-D art? If so, there’s no way you could be disappointed. Were you hoping for a difficult puzzle game that would tax your lateral thinking in the same way Day of the Tentacle did? If so, Broken Age might feel a little flimsy to you. I sped through it without ever getting stuck — there are very few items to pick up and very few places to put them. I should point out that there are certainly some puzzles, especially towards the back half of Shay’s storyline, that are not immediately obvious and do require a bit more player input than simply picking out an inventory item and using it on a piece of scenery.
Again, though, any attempt to pass judgment on the game’s complexity as a puzzle is stymied by the fact that this is just one half of a full game, and it should be expected that the difficulty of the puzzles would increase in the back half.
As one backer commented on Kohler’s article, “Being a backer, I’m kind of feeling proud about this game.” That’s what it’s all about, isn’t it?
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