Broken Age Won't do Early Access, Launches Jan 28

Steven Bogos

The Taco Man
Jan 17, 2013
9,354
0
0
Broken Age Won't do Early Access, Launches Jan 28

Purchasing the first act of Broken Age will entitle you to a free copy of the second act when it is released.

Broken Age fans were super excited when the game that broke Kickstarter records and then asked for more [http://www.escapistmagazine.com/news/view/125624-Broken-Age-Needs-More-Money] was finally given an "early access" release date of January 14. While Kickstarter backers were able to play the game as a closed beta as promised, those hoping to pick it up on Steam today were instead greeted by an announcement from creator Tim Schafer, stating that the game will no longer have an "early access" period, and will instead be available as a full Steam release on January 28.

"For various logistical reasons," said Schafer, "and because we believe Act 1 is a polished and satisfying piece of content in its own right, Broken Age will be a standard Steam release that includes a 'Season Pass' granting access to Act 2 once it is complete. Anyone who has Act 1 - either by being a backer, or by buying the game separately - will receive Act 2 as a free update when it's ready."

Previously, Schafer had intended to use funds from early access sales of Act 1 to make Act 2, but now it looks like he's changed his mind on that. Those interested can pre-purchase Broken Age [http://store.steampowered.com/app/232790/] on the Steam store for the discounted price of $22.49, or grab the game and its soundtrack for $26.99.

I think this is a much better way of doing it than the early access route. Early access is okay for sandbox-style games where the plot isn't that important, but I would hate to ruin an adventure game's experience by playing a "beta" version of the game.

Source: Polygon [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kuCErygUS_g]




Permalink
 

dragongit

New member
Feb 22, 2011
1,075
0
0
It's... technically early access I guess. Though you could argue that Telltale has been doing "early access" for quite some time. Hell they haven't even released the second episode of Wolf and who knows when the rest of Walking dead will be. Just call it episodic if you want Schafer, that at least will quell some of the audience. though they might expect 5 acts if you do...
 

Sight Unseen

The North Remembers
Nov 18, 2009
1,064
0
0
Basically all they are doing is changing the label for what it will be released under from Early Access to regular game. The price, value, content, and release date do not change at all. Profits from Act 1 will still be partially going towards funding Act 2, and everything else remains unchanged.

EDITTED: Steven fixed his article so my issues with it were fixed mostly.
 

Steven Bogos

The Taco Man
Jan 17, 2013
9,354
0
0
Sight Unseen said:
Thanks for the feedback, I always appreciate it.

I was unaware that the game was still available to backers via a closed beta. Thank you for clearing that up.

I'm sorry if you thought my initial article was biased, because it assuredly was not. I am eagerly awaiting Broken Age's release date so I can pick it up.

Can you please let me know exactly what you found biased about it, apart from the mistake i made in not knowing that a closed backer-only beta was available?
 

Dr.Susse

Lv.1 NPC
Apr 17, 2009
16,498
2
43
I'm going to buy this very quickly.

It's still a regret of mine that I didn't kick start Broken Age. I was a bit skeptical of the process at the time but now I'm absolutely excited for this.

Tim and the staff at Double Fine are great at what they do and I'm sure they hit this for a six/home run.
 

Pedro The Hutt

New member
Apr 1, 2009
980
0
0
I'll wait for reviews to start coming in from people who aren't complete Double Fine sycophants. A lot of the fans/backers seem to become completely hostile at even the slightest criticism of the game or company. So do pardon me if I'll take their opinions of the game with a pinch/barrel of salt.
 

Evil Smurf

Admin of Catoholics Anonymous
Nov 11, 2011
11,597
0
0
I've played it, it's charming but it's like a children's book. It's funny and beautiful, but not overall engaging.
 

Sight Unseen

The North Remembers
Nov 18, 2009
1,064
0
0
Steven Bogos said:
Sight Unseen said:
Thanks for the feedback, I always appreciate it.

I was unaware that the game was still available to backers via a closed beta. Thank you for clearing that up.

I'm sorry if you thought my initial article was biased, because it assuredly was not. I am eagerly awaiting Broken Age's release date so I can pick it up.

Can you please let me know exactly what you found biased about it, apart from the mistake i made in not knowing that a closed backer-only beta was available?
I'm sorry for accusing you of being biased, it's just something about the way it was written and how you had a lot of factual details wrong that rubbed me the wrong way. That and the fact that every journalist and their dog seems to be getting in on this "let's hate on Broken Age" fad where one journalist who is a backer makes an article based on information that only backers were supposed to know. They rob the article of all context and make it seem worse than it really is and throw a misleading title on it and then it spreads through the internet where other online journalists see it and make their own articles citing that article. And so the misinformation spreads.

I'm just really sick of it at this point because I dont think that Double Fine has deserved any of the hate that they've been given by most online news sites except maybe Kotaku. I guess I've just seen too many of these articles that were clearly biased against Broken Age, that when I saw yours on a news site and community that I actually care about I had a kneejerk reaction and had to say something about it. I'm glad that you updated your article and I'm sorry for accusing you of being biased, this is just something I care about and I've seen too much unwarranted negative press for it.

One more niggle about your article though, is that the game was never planned to be released to the public on January 14. Jan 14 was always going to be the backer only release with a 2 week advance beta for them. Jan 28 has been the targeted release date for Broken Age for at least two months or so if not more. I know that the escapist published an article a week or so ago saying that it was going on early access on the 14th but that was also wrong and what they should have said was that it was going into the backer beta.

Pedro The Hutt said:
I'll wait for reviews to start coming in from people who aren't complete Double Fine sycophants. A lot of the fans/backers seem to become completely hostile at even the slightest criticism of the game or company. So do pardon me if I'll take their opinions of the game with a pinch/barrel of salt.
I was a backer for the game and I played it yesterday as soon as I could. I know you probably won't listen to my word on it but let me just say this.

I really enjoyed the game and I feel like my pledge ($110) has been completely worth it. But I thought my pledge had been worth it before the game even came out since the documentary and the extra goodies I got have been really high quality and I like them a lot.

The game itself is a very good game that clearly has a lot of love and effort put into it. The art style, animations, voice acting,music and humour are all phenomenally well done. The puzzles are mostly situational logic puzzles with very few "actual puzzles" (If you've played Machinarium, that's what I mean by actual puzzles)and most are not very hard. The story for most of Act 1 is good but nothing earthshattering and it's slightly childish. That's not to say that adults won't enjoy it, but I think younger kids could easily play and enjoy this game too. Without spoiling anything, the ending blew my mind and made me realize just how well crafted the story actually was, and I am absolutely psyched for Act 2 right now.

Is it worth $25 on Steam? I'm not sure. It took me roughly 4 hours to beat act 1 so that means you should expect 8-10 hours of total game for your money. There are some alternate dialog choices you can make but they don't affect the plot at all, so replay value is fairly low unless you want to see the story and glorious artwork again. The game looks and feels really high quality but the puzzles and story aren't anything earthshattering so far. As it stands this is a very loving and well-made callback to old adventure games, but it doesn't re-invent the wheel, and I don't think that this game will bring back the golden age of adventure games. But it was still a lot of fun to play while it lasted.

So take that for what you will.
 

elvor0

New member
Sep 8, 2008
2,320
0
0
Pedro The Hutt said:
I'll wait for reviews to start coming in from people who aren't complete Double Fine sycophants. A lot of the fans/backers seem to become completely hostile at even the slightest criticism of the game or company. So do pardon me if I'll take their opinions of the game with a pinch/barrel of salt.
Dr.Susse said:
I'm going to buy this very quickly.

It's still a regret of mine that I didn't kick start Broken Age. I was a bit skeptical of the process at the time but now I'm absolutely excited for this.

Tim and the staff at Double Fine are great at what they do and I'm sure they hit this for a six/home run.
Mainly aimed at Pedro, but quoted Dr Susse so he knows it's worth picking up.

I wouldn't say I'm a huge DF fan. I've only really played Brutal Legend and Psychonaughts, obviously I have /played/ Monkey Island, because who hasn't, but point and clicks ain't really my thing and I never finished it. I mainly backed Broken Age just because I wanted to be part of it. I'd forgotten about it until my beta email came through yesterday to be honest.

But Broken Age has been /really/ enjoyable, it's funny, (but then Double Fine are one of the few devs that can write genuinely funny games), the voice acting is good (okay I'm a total Jennifer Hale fanboi), the art style is lovely, all hand drawn, cutesy and yet slightly sinister at the same time. I will say however, if you're a hardcore point and click fan, and like moon logic puzzles, this may not be quite what you were expecting. There are puzzles, but from what I've played so far, they're not really complex, it seems to be more about the story than anything else. The gameplay feels like a conduit to experience that, which like I said, has been really enjoyable so far, it certainly is worth picking it up for that.