Broken Age: Act 2 Pushed to 2015

[Sarah LeBoeuf]

Broken Age: Act 2 Pushed to 2015

The second half of Double Fine's Kickstarted adventure Broken Age is currently in alpha testing.

Nearly a year after the launch of Double Fine's public forum [http://www.escapistmagazine.com/articles/view/video-games/editorials/reviews/10909-Broken-Age-Act-1-Review], with administrator Greg Rice explaining the current state of Broken Age's development.

"The key milestone being that just last week we hit Alpha on both Shay and Vella's halves of Act 2, leaving just the big finale section until we can say the entirety of Act 2 is at Alpha!" Rice wrote. Additionally, voice recording is almost finished, as "next week Tim is headed down to LA for the final major recording session with Vella, and at that point we'll have pro VO for all of the remaining cutscenes ready so that animators can start taking them to final!" Double Fine is aiming to have all of Act 2 completed and in alpha by the end of this year, which naturally means it won't be released until 2015. "As you may have guessed based on recent updates and documentary episodes, the Act 2 ship that will deliver the complete adventure is now looking like it will be early next year... we just gotta give the game the time it needs to really deliver on everything we're hoping it will be," according to Rice.

This isn't the first time development on Broken Age has hit a snag; the game was split on half because Double Fine lacked the funds [http://www.escapistmagazine.com/news/view/125624-Broken-Age-Needs-More-Money] to release the full version, despite raising well over its initial goal of $400,000. With only about a month left in 2014 and no release date in sight, this probably doesn't come as a huge surprise, but it's a bit disappointing to see one of gaming's biggest Kickstarter successes progress so slowly.

Source: Polygon [http://www.doublefine.com/forums/viewthread/15863/]

Permalink

 

[Dalisclock]

I am disappoint. Especially considering the last release date was "Q4 2014". Come and gone and the only news is "We're finally in Alpha!"

Double Fine is on Valve Time now.

I already bought act 1, but I'm not buying anything else DF makes until it's at final release.

 

[if_then_else]

As I'm a backer and I watch the update videos, I saw that coming. They were trying for a December release but you could see it was almost impossible.

A shame, but if it means a better game, then I'm OK with waiting.

 

[JediMB]

I don't mind waiting. I have tons of games to play anyway. >_>

I am looking forward to the release, though. If for no other reason so certain individuals will stop complaining about the lack of a release and move on to complaining about how long it took and how underwhelming it was. Or something. <_<

 

[Gennadios]

I'm waiting for the announcement in 2015 that part 2 is complete and that the "big finale" section is coming a year and a Kickstarter later.

 

[laggyteabag]

What have they been doing for the past year? Sitting on their hands, throwing away Kickstarter money and releasing/cancelling Spacebase DF-9? You don't just start a episodic franchise and then refuse to develop for it.

... oh yeah

 

[fix-the-spade]

Double Fine is on Valve Time now.

No, because Valve spend their own money when they're on Valve time, Double Fine take everyone's money and only then do they start actually doing something by the looks of it.

As perverse as this sounds now, I actually feel sympathy for Bobby Kotick and the way he kicked Double Fine and Brutal Legend to the curb nowadays. Six years ago it seemed like an ass hole doing an ass holey thing, now I can see him sat in his office on the phone asking exactly how much of Activision's money Tim Schafer blew this time and does anyone actually expect them to sell any copies of whatever he's spending a Call of Duty's worth of money making.

Of course, I'm still not fond of Mr Kotick, but in this specific circumstance.

 

[Schadrach]

As perverse as this sounds now, I actually feel sympathy for Bobby Kotick and the way he kick Double Fine and Brutal Legend to the curb nowadays. Six years ago it seemed like an ass hole doing an ass holey thing, now I can see him sat in his office on the phone asking exactly how much of Activision's money Tim Schafer blew this time and does anyone actually expect them to sell any copies of whatever he's spending a Call of Duty's worth of money making.

Schafer is like Molyneux -- he can make decent to great games, but has no concept of the business side at all. Recent Double Fine work is what would happen if no one held down Molyneux to a schedule or budget. Also Godus from 22 cans which *is* Molyneux going at it without someone to hold him to a schedule or budget.

 

[The Bucket]

As perverse as this sounds now, I actually feel sympathy for Bobby Kotick and the way he kick Double Fine and Brutal Legend to the curb nowadays. Six years ago it seemed like an ass hole doing an ass holey thing, now I can see him sat in his office on the phone asking exactly how much of Activision's money Tim Schafer blew this time and does anyone actually expect them to sell any copies of whatever he's spending a Call of Duty's worth of money making.

Schafer is like Molyneux -- he can make decent to great games, but has no concept of the business side at all. Recent Double Fine work is what would happen if no one held down Molyneux to a schedule or budget. Also Godus from 22 cans which *is* Molyneux going at it without someone to hold him to a schedule or budget.

How is Godus going? Is that guy who won the contest to be the "God" of it who seemed kind of apathetic about the whole thing still involved?

 

[Brian Tams]

I'm just waiting for them to inevitably ask for more kickstarter money in order to continue development.

 

[Toilet]

Kotick was right and you shouldn't have given Schafer 2 million dollars.

 

[Maze1125]

No, because Valve spend their own money when they're on Valve time, Double Fine take everyone's money and only then do they start actually doing something by the looks of it.

Did you support their original Kickstarter?

 

[Sight Unseen]

Double Fine is on Valve Time now.

No, because Valve spend their own money when they're on Valve time, Double Fine take everyone's money and only then do they start actually doing something by the looks of it.

You do understand that the whole point of the kickstarter was to make a documentary of the game's development right? It would make no sense with that in mind to have a game that's 2/3 done and then start documenting... They wanted to show the whole process, warts and all. And they've done exactly that. They literally started from scratch without even an idea in mind for the game because that was the whole point of their project. So to insult them because they didn't start this game until they got the money is kind of silly isn't it?

Also note that this was only for Broken Age. MASSIVE CHALICE started out with a much more focused pitch. They already knew what they were making and approximately how it would work. They had some concept art already done. And the game is already content complete and available in early access/backer beta to play from start to finish. They're just polishing bugs and balance at this point.

I feel sorry for those who supported Space Base, but that game wasn't getting the funding it needed so they had to cut it. Double Fine ended up losing money in the development of that game and they had no more funds to support it.But that's the thing with Early Access: if you aren't going to be happy with the game how it is then don't pay for it because it's not guaranteed to get better or even finished if they can't get the funding for it.

 

[Nurb]

This is why people still don't like episodic gaming...

 

[Alatar The Red]

What have they been doing for the past year?

DJing with phil fish

https://twitter.com/TimOfLegend/status/396832829990268928

Double fine being late, prematurely ending development of titles, blowing through their budget in a fraction of a time it was meant to last, needing more money, still organizing expensive parties and still developing from the super expensive SF area. Business as usual. And after the spacebase DF9 situation I doubt they will improve.

Double Fine is just bad with money.

 

[fix-the-spade]

Did you support their original Kickstarter?

No, because it lacked any kind of detailed forecasting on their budget and what they were intending to make looked more or less impossible to do in seven months on $400k. As it turns out my feelings were justified, we're now looking at three years and five and a bit million dollars.

So far I've put crowd funding money into Star Citizen, Planetary Annihilation and Elite: Dangerous. They've all turned out pretty well, even if SC turns out to stink it's been an ambitious and risky project that's treated it's backers pretty well so far.

 

[Dalisclock]

I don't mind waiting. I have tons of games to play anyway. >_>

I am looking forward to the release, though. If for no other reason so certain individuals will stop complaining about the lack of a release and move on to complaining about how long it took and how underwhelming it was. Or something. <_<

Well, part of this is that I really like the games DF makes, for the most part(though Iron Brigade felt kind of unpolished and too dependent on co-op for me). I enjoyed The Cave despite the fact that apparently nobody else did and Brutal Legend was so much fun even if it did have issues.

Then there is the fact that half the game was already done, so it would seem that the base assets are already there to work with, which means making the 2nd half should be easy in comparison. And yet, for the longest time, there was a very vague estimate(late 2014) of when part 2 was going to be completed, which has now been pushed to another vague date (Early 2015).
Somehow I think that Broken Age Part 2 isn't going to show up until around summer 2015, at the earliest, because once Spring 2015 rolls around(and it's already past the "done" date), suddenly it'll be "I know the game was supposed to be out by now, but we've just hit Beta! Also, we need more money. It all disappeared because of....money gnomes".
Waiting till after the projected release date and saying "We just hit Alpha!" like it's some kind of amazing achievement is not encouraging. Instead it makes it look like you don't know what you're doing or you're hiding something.

Finally, there's the whole fact that BA ended on a rather large cliffhanger, and if there's anything Valve fans know, it's a really bad idea to end something on a cliffhanger and then start slipping on the release dates for the resolution, because then the fan base starts getting grouchy.

 

[Redryhno]

Schafer can't keep to a schedule or a budget when he's not being watched over, what else is new?

 

[ShakerSilver]

Goddamn Tim. How much more can you fuck up? Blow your $3.3 million making the first half of the game, host an expensive open-door party 2 years in a row, cancel Spacebase DF9 development, fire a dozen employees, now this? Double Fine is in desperate need of someone to manage the money.

 

[Harry Mason]

3 years isn't slow for a small indie dev team.

Kickstarter doesn't come with deadlines, that's the point.

Breathe, people. Everyone on the DF forums who actually pledged to the Kickstarter is extremely supportive and greeted this news with a "yay!" and people on other websites who have no stake in the project whatsoever say it's an outrage.

Y'all mo'fuggas want indie products on a AAA schedule.