Broken Age

This game is a major blast from the past! I remember watching stampylongface playing the game when I was younger. Game’s amazing except the hexipal puzzles, those were annoying.

Bought it when I saw it pop up on my store front, solely because I remember watching stampylonghead play it a decade ago--was just as good as I remembered it to be.
World building is rich and the story/dialogue is actually really good, enough to willingly not skip the dialogue constantly. Fairly easy and understandable puzzles to guess at the start, but they progressively get a lot more confusing (you will most likely need guides for small things).
+10 points because i love jack black

Watched Stampy's play through of this when I was a kid, loved the story and art style and had to buy it for myself. Such a beautiful and well made game 10/10 <3

Broken Age is a Point&Click adventure game about a boy and girl beating the odds. Beat it in 12.4 hours using a game controller and off-game notebook. Difficulty starts off easy then gets a little hard towards the end. Good game for older kids/young teens.
Unexpectedly played this game all day from beginning to near-end, then finished it the following day. The music and artwork are great, as are the character designs and the world as a whole. Lot of the jokes and lines made me laugh.
Like every other review says, Broken Age starts out great and holds your attention for all of Act 1 - Vella's storyline, especially. Then unfortunately in Act 2 it gets tedious and the plot flow gets tangled in a mess of puzzles. Most of the puzzles and minigames early on are easy, and straight-forward. Some require timing. Then they get straight up hard to figure out and require paper and pencil to scrawl down notes. Most of that is fine and on par to P&C games.
The problem with Act 2, and the Finale, is it follows the repetitive formula of Shay's intro like a run-on joke that's gotten stale. That sort of thing's fine in small bursts, or a one-hat trick. But after re-entering into the situation, going down the same corridors over, and over, and over, and over again to get the order right to have it reset, and rewiring the same bots X times, I was more relieved when the game finally ended than entertained by the ending.
I got stuck twice in the game hard enough to have to look at a guide, but if I'd messed around enough on a level of 'throw items at characters and guess at answers', I would've solved it eventually on my own. If the game had more direction on these, or the clues were written clearer, it would've been less painful.
Broken Age has plot holes the size of a Mog's stomach.
The artwork advertising the game doesn't do enough justice to illustrate what Broken Age is about. I had no idea what I was getting into or what kind of game it was besides 'random Point&Click Adventure'. It sat in my game pile unplayed for so long because it looked like just another game and nothing special.
That said, I did enjoy most of the game. I mean, I played it beginning to end like a crazed game maniac in a single weekend. And I feel the age group the game was meant for can easily look past the repetition, connect with the characters, turn a blind eye to the plot holes, and easily enjoy this game with enough fond memories to make everything worth it. It's beatable, It's less than 5$ on sale. It's as Point&Click as you can get for an adventure game. If you like games like the Deponia series, you'd like this one. Broken Age has flaws and could be better, but it's a finished, complete game without bugs and I think it's worth playing through once if you're into this sort of game.

Broken Age is a beautifully crafted adventure game that tells the story of two teenagers, Vella and Shay, who are both seeking to break free from the constraints of their respective worlds. The game's stunning hand-painted graphics and vibrant colors transport players to a whimsical world filled with strange creatures and magical landscapes.
The gameplay of Broken Age is focused on exploration, puzzle-solving, and dialogue choices. Players must navigate through the game's intricate environments, interacting with characters, and solving puzzles to progress the story. The puzzles are well-designed and challenging, but never frustrating or tedious, ensuring that players are always engaged and entertained.
The game's storytelling is masterful, weaving together the two parallel stories of Vella and Shay in a way that keeps players invested in both narratives. The game's characters are charming, relatable, and often humorous, with strong voice acting that brings them to life.
One of the standout features of Broken Age is its incredible score, composed by renowned composer Peter McConnell. The music perfectly complements the game's visuals, creating a truly immersive experience for players.
Overall, Broken Age is a superb adventure game that excels in all areas- storytelling, gameplay, visuals, and sound. It's a game that is sure to delight players of all ages and backgrounds, and is a shining example of the power of video games as an art form.

Broken Age delivers a captivating narrative split into two acts.
Act 1 impresses players with its stylized visuals, superb voice acting, and memorable characters, creating an enchanting world that draws players in from the start. The stylized visuals of Broken Age are a feast, reminiscent of hand-drawn animation. The art style is unique and charming, immersing players in a beautifully crafted world with a vibrant color palette. Each character and environment is meticulously designed, contributing to the game's overall aesthetic appeal. It's clearly a labor of love and showcases the incredible art talent DoubleFine can present so often.
Voice acting is also a standout feature, with a stellar cast that brings the characters to life. The performances are filled with emotion, humor, and personality, enhancing the player's connection to the story. The characters themselves are well-written and endearing, making it easy to invest in their individual journeys. It's a really funny game.
Act 1 sets the stage for a compelling narrative, seamlessly blending humor and emotion. The puzzles are clever and short, and I never had to resort to guides. Pacing was great and I wanted to see where the story led. But, then we have Act 2. The game fails to provide clear indications of when it's time to switch characters, leading to confusion and a sense of aimlessness. This lack of guidance disrupts the flow and can leave players frustrated as they navigate the diverging storylines. Act 2 also introduces a series of puzzles that are not only challenging but also frustratingly obtuse. The wiring puzzles and knot puzzles, in particular, can feel like tedious obstacles that hinder the overall enjoyment of the game. The questionnaire segment, where players must pretend to be Shay, is simply uninteresting. I feel that if you've explored his bedroom, you should just be able to skip this. Similar feeling to the tree joke segment. The NavScarf puzzle doesn't help, and overall the lack of clarity and the unintuitive nature of the puzzles can lead to unnecessary frustration or the use of a guide, which is less than ideal.
In conclusion, Broken Age shines in its stylized visuals, excellent voice acting, and captivating characters, especially in Act 1. However, the pacing issues in Act 2, along with the frustrating puzzles, hinder the overall enjoyment of the game. While Broken Age delivers a memorable and charming experience, it falls short of maintaining a consistently satisfying gameplay throughout its entirety. Worth checking out on a sale, but limited replayability and bad pacing ultimately doom the game.

Broken Age is a beautiful game, with an interesting story, in which you control two people in parallel: a white teenager, Shay, and a black teenager, Vella. The racial and gender issue seems evident: Shay is raised in a space that is totally safe and alienated from reality, while Vella is participating, along with other girls, in a ritual of sacrifice, in which they are devoured by a monster in the belief that this will save the rest of the village. The game is full of twists and turns and I recommend not reading the rest of the review if you want to avoid spoilers.
At the heart of the story is the fact that they both live in a lie. The boy lives in what he thinks is a spaceship. He doesn't even have control of the ship, the controls are toys and the one who really runs everything is his mother, who he believes is a computer program that pampers him like an overprotective mother. Tired of false adventures, he finds a passage to the ship's underground, where he meets a wolf who invites him to do something meaningful. He informs them that the galaxy is at war and that he can save the lives of innocent people by rescuing them from dangerous areas. This, of course, is a lie created to encourage the boy's "heroism". He is actually controlling the monster that is kidnapping girls from the local villages. His ship is not actually in space. It's the monster itself.
Meanwhile, Vella questions the society's tradition and saves herself from being devoured by the monster, meeting other societies and ultimately attacking and taking down the monster like a true hero.
When the monster is knocked down, Shay and Vella briefly meet but don't say a word to each other. Vella simply expresses her anger and tries to punch Shay, believing him to be responsible for the kidnappings (and she wasn't exactly wrong about that). But he dodges the punch and both end up switching places. This part of the game is an interesting example of reuse of scenarios for new puzzles. At that moment, the solution of the puzzles on one side depends on the solution on the other side, revealing a connection between the characters.
Only then is the villain's plot really revealed: a caste that considers itself pure and genetically superior has isolated itself from the rest of the world until it becomes something alien. However, they need the "impurity" of other "specimens" to continue living. "We are like a crystal castle that needs stone and mud to keep standing", says the antagonist.
The symbolism seems to indicate an anti-fascist message, where white kids, even without any racist intent, are tricked and used to advance a racist agenda. Shay was mistaken and alienated on several layers. First, because he was treated like a baby, second, because his parents disguised themselves as artificial intelligences when they were actually real people, third, because he believed he was in space when he was on earth, fourth, because he believed he was doing something meaningful when he was actually collaborating with the plan of the fascists.
Vella, on the other hand, manages to intuit what is really going on, shows courage and does what is necessary to free herself and the other girls. Yet it is only by working together, without even knowing it, that they achieve victory. In the end, the monsters' bodies melt, forming a bridge, where Shay and Vella meet again, this time smiling, but still not saying anything, leaving the possible dialogue to be imagined. The bridge represents a hope of cooperation between two people from totally different realities to reach a common goal.
The credits images reveal the outcome of each character, which makes the credits attractive. Although the ending seems rushed and abrupt, as if it was done in a hurry, it manages to convey the main message of the game. All in all a very worthwhile game.