Broken Age

Broken Age is a point-and-click adventure game that Double Fine both developed and published. It marked Tim Schafer’s first work in that genre after his 1998 title Grim Fandango. The project, initially called Double Fine Adventure, was promoted through a Kickstarter campaign run by Double Fine and 2 Player Productions in February 2012.

The game came out in two separate acts. Act 1 launched on January 28, 2014, with Kickstarter backers getting it two weeks earlier. Act 2 followed on April 28, 2015. A retail version of the complete game for Windows, macOS, and Linux, handled by Nordic Games, also appeared on April 28, 2015. Later, a Nintendo Switch version arrived on September 13, 2018. The game was made available across Microsoft Windows, macOS, Linux, iOS, Android, PlayStation 4, PlayStation Vita, and Xbox One.

Though the original Kickstarter goal was $400,000 to cover development and documentary filming, Broken Age became the largest crowdfunded video game project on Kickstarter at that time. It raised over $3.45 million from more than 87,000 backers within a month. It still ranks among the most-backed crowdfunded projects of any kind, and its success helped establish crowdfunding as a workable alternative to traditional venture capital or publisher funding for niche video games. An episodic documentary series by 2 Player Productions tracked the game’s development.

In terms of gameplay, Broken Age is a point-and-click adventure. Players direct a character to move around the screen, examine objects, and talk to non-player characters to learn more about the world. Two playable characters exist, each in seemingly separate worlds; players can switch between them at any time through the interface, but the characters never directly interact. Instead of using verb lists like earlier adventure games, the game uses context-sensitive actions. Schafer explained that, in practice, there was really only one verb—“interact with”—so the team chose this more modern approach. Each character has their own item inventory, and items can be used by dragging them onto context-sensitive areas or combining them with other inventory items.

The plot follows two teenagers with no obvious connection, each trying to break from their traditions.