Zero Punctuation: Broken Age

[cerebus23]

Think about it ks and greenlight is many game genras are left out in the cold as being too niche, games major publishers would never fund, have a shot, yes the whole scene is out of control and really needs more disclosure and accountability.

Its not a perfect system, but its better than leaving all in the hands of stock boards what games do and dont get made.

 

[gjkbgt]

to be fair, Jam has the same problems with story.
problem, there's carnivores jam/Cathooloo in the city.
solution, No idea.

I know the point of Jam was about situations where no one knows what they're doing.
But so is broken.

Bit of a case of pot calling the kettle black there

 

[[REDACTED]]

When will you do a video about League Of Legends?
There are severs in Australia now. Or DOTA2 or maybe both?

Almost certainly never. He reviews multiplayer games very rarely.

 

[bennbenn]

Registered just to give kudos to the final gag in the video. Best ending to a Yahtzee video in my memory.

 

[pearcinator]

I agree that the puzzles were waaaaay to easy (considering that the people who backed the game are adventure game veterans) but after watching the latest documentary episode it seems that Tim Schafer understands this...

Most of the complaints he is hearing is that the puzzles were too easy and so he will make them a lot more difficult in act II (hopefully) so splitting it up kinda works then. I never got round to finishing Grim Fandango (the game is just too old to work well on my PC) but I have finished Monkey Island 1-4, Full Throttle, The Dig, Myst and plenty of other adventure games of yore.

To sum Broken Age - Act I up...good characters, story is interesting enough to keep me engaged, puzzles are way to easy, will wait for Act II to make up my mind on whether it was worth the $15 I spent to back it...

 

[Michal Gross]

Please please do a ZP review of Rayman Legends!
I for one think that game is great and wonder how high/low are my videogame standards.

 

[Schadrach]

The two game halves are actually really well connected. When I sat down and thought about them, the parallels made perfect sense. The broken age is actually quite good. Short, but somehow still worth it. The girl's story does have some problems, but it is still mostly good. What's more, the "deus ex machina" serves the plot in more ways than just giving you a weapon, it has underlying plot implications. I recommend the Broken Age, it is actually quite good, but keep in mind you are paying 20 dollars for like 3-4 hours worth of game, a lot of which is story. That isn't actually bad- we pay like 20 dollars for a brand new movie that lasts an hour and a half- but it might put some people off.

Since you've finished it, I have an only mildly spoileriffic question: Who do you think the wolf is?

I'm thinking it's either his father or another knitted buddy meant to function as a second layer of the "games." I'm still surprised no one is talking about the Unfortunate Implications of how the stories fit together.

 

[RelexCryo]

The two game halves are actually really well connected. When I sat down and thought about them, the parallels made perfect sense. The broken age is actually quite good. Short, but somehow still worth it. The girl's story does have some problems, but it is still mostly good. What's more, the "deus ex machina" serves the plot in more ways than just giving you a weapon, it has underlying plot implications. I recommend the Broken Age, it is actually quite good, but keep in mind you are paying 20 dollars for like 3-4 hours worth of game, a lot of which is story. That isn't actually bad- we pay like 20 dollars for a brand new movie that lasts an hour and a half- but it might put some people off.

Since you've finished it, I have an only mildly spoileriffic question: Who do you think the wolf is?

I'm thinking it's either his father or another knitted buddy meant to function as a second layer of the "games." I'm still surprised no one is talking about the Unfortunate Implications of how the stories fit together.

Spoiler

I assumed the same as you- his father or another knitted buddy. I think he told Shay that only he could pick the fluffy animals with the grabber on the grounds that Shay is technically supposed to pick his wife or harem or whatever. But if so they are not obeying the spirit of the concept, because Shay can't actually see the girls, and doesn't really understand the impact of the choices he is making. Another question is: why go to such absurd extremes to get a guy a girlfriend? And why does this go back 300 years?

 

[Blachman201_v1legacy]

Spoiler

I assumed the same as you- his father or another knitted buddy. I think he told Shay that only he could pick the fluffy animals with the grabber on the grounds that Shay is technically supposed to pick his wife or harem or whatever. But if so they are not obeying the spirit of the concept, because Shay can't actually see the girls, and doesn't really understand the impact of the choices he is making. Another question is: why go to such absurd extremes to get a guy a girlfriend? And why does this go back 300 years?

Spoiler

Judging from what "Mom" and "Dad" says, both the captain and at least one of the sacrifice maidens are at some point turned into a couple of new Mom and Dad AIs, so maybe is that the whole set-up is actually a very complicated and unethical experiment in brain uploading and/or gaining immortality. But, yeah, that still leaves some unanswered questions as to why the system needs a captain to unknowingly pick the sacrifices.

 

[Moeez]

Personally, really excited for the next episodes of Kentucky Route Zero and The Dream Machine.

Same here. Anyone know when those are expected? Dream machine I understand why it's taking to so long but KRZ should be due any day now. The fact KRZ doesn't really have any puzzles makes the wait somewhat strange.

You should follow KRZ [https://twitter.com/cardboardcompy]'s and The Dream Machine [https://twitter.com/theDreamGame/status/406533115524296704]'s twitter, they gave out hints Episode 2 of KRZ was coming and it did in a week or so.

 

[Baconator96]

This video, basically, is the reason I only pay for kickstarters that have already met their funding deadline.

 

[ShiningMetaLord]

The only kickstarter I ever cared for was Shantae: 1/2 Genie Hero.

 

[4Aces]

at the same time chastising the system for only producing games that people know they want in advance.

It is producing games that people already have. To put is in more simple terms - Zero Innovation. We do not know what new combinations are actually going to work until the Dev actually develops something instead of regurgitating it. Another KS fake-out promising the moon, but delivering cheese, and half-eaten at that.

Wasteland 2 is similarly plagued with it's claims of being 'spiritually' tied to Fallout, but only in the sense that game design for Fallout was made 20+ years ago, and so was W2's. They ask for full development funding, then want to charge ridiculous amounts for those that did not fund it, for a game that is pure bargain bin liner compared to modern AAA POS's (yes, compared to EA crap, the KS stuff is still bad since at least they are using modern graphics engines for their crappy stories).

 

[madstork]

Ah, who can forget felching Meche in Grim Fandango? Might have to fire that one up again.

 

[dfkt]

If I remember right, they made the graphics engine from scratch, which is the quickest way to have costs go to the sky, so a big part of that I'd blame it on that. [...] The positive out of this is that they at least now have the engine done, so developing another similar one should go a lot faster and be a lot cheaper.

Broken Age's engine is completely new

Nope. They used the MOAI framework by Zipline. http://youtu.be/cRRpSu4JelI