Broken Age

Broken Age has an excellent story, with several twists and surprises. I would love to say more about it, but I would not want to spoil it for you, and the story alone makes the game worth playing. 

 Recently, I have rediscovered my love for point and click games, which lead to me playing Broken Age.
Broken Age tells two parallel stories, of Shay, a young boy living a sheltered life on a space-ship, and Vella, who lives with her family, and prepares to sacrifice herself for the good of her village. As you may expect, their stories end up intersecting.

During the game, you get to play as both Shay and Vella. Both of them have well-developed personalities, and both struggle against the traditions that they grew up with. Shay has lead a very sheltered and isolated life, and that comes across in the character. Vella had grown up with a loving family, and has a far more practical approach to life. 

The non-player characters also manage to add interest to the story, although sometimes they come across as lacking depth, but their sheer charm and quirkiness helps to keep an interest in the story, and speed it along.
Visually, I really enjoyed playing Broken Age, it has an almost storybook aesthetic, which I really enjoyed. You get to see a lot of colour, and it suits the outlandish characters that you encounter during the game. 

As a point and click, you know what to expect in the gameplay, with most interactions taking place by examining things, clicking on them to use them, or by using objects. When dealing with the characters, you have a set of dialogue options. I enjoyed most of the dialogue, and even when it did not contribute to problem-solving, it offered entertainment, humor and more depth to the world.

The puzzles in the game provide the most challenge in the game, and in the first act, the puzzles arise organically within the story, and feel a part of a coherent world. The second act fails this, and adds to much puzzling for puzzling’s sake. I had to resort to a walkthrough a couple of times, and I found a couple of the puzzles simply tedious to go through. 

While I ended up really loving the story, writing and presentation in Broken Age, I really feel that it left something lacking as a game. I really feel let down by the quality of the puzzles in the second chapter. Despite that, I would still recommend it.