First impressions: Broken Age Part 1 (VIDEO)

Between all the early access games and Kickstarter experiments, we’re living in a brand new world of video game funding. But one of the earliest and highest profile Kickstarters that helped start this revolution? Broken Age. The Double Fine adventure game raised a whopping $3.3 million on Kickstarter back in 2012, and since then gamers the world over have been waiting patiently to see if Broken Age can breathe some new life into the point-and-click adventure genre.

Today, the first half of the game — it has been split into two parts to help fund development of the second half — hit Steam for the 87,000 or so people who backed the project when it was on Kickstarter. And since one of those people was me, I thought it’d be fun to give you a sneak peek into the game before it becomes available to the general public via on January 28. (We’ll have a full review for you sometime soon, but it’s going to take me more than a few hours to beat this game).

Watch the beginning of Broken Age

As a story-based adventure game, Broken Age is pretty self-explanatory. So for those of you who’d prefer to see it in action, here’s the first twenty minutes or so of the game with no commentary. There are minor spoilers here, but as you’ll see, this is really just the tutorial and I’ve cut out the only major plot element that comes up during this early part of the game, so this isn’t going to ruin the story for you. Enjoy!

If this intro seems a little childish and easy, by the way, it’s by design. The game is a coming-of-age story and it’s about breaking out of those childhood barriers and becoming an adult. It gets tougher and more serious pretty quickly, but I didn’t include any of that in the video above because I didn’t want to include any major plot spoilers.

A dream come true

If it’s not evident from the video above (or if you opted not to watch it), here’s the short version: so far, Broken Age is looking like everything we thought it could be. From what I’ve played so far — which is a fair ways beyond what you can see in the video above — the story is quite engrossing, and the game has a pretty classic Tim Schafer sense of humor. I’ve laughed out loud at least twice while playing it so far.

The gameplay is pretty much exactly what you’d expect. It’s a point-and-click adventure game. If you like that, you’re going to be right and home. If you don’t, you’ll probably hate Broken Age. This is not a game about skill or quick reflexes, it’s about thinking and solving puzzles while experiencing an engrossing story.

It’s also about looking at some incredible art. The game’s style is based on paintings by Double Fine artist Nathan “Bagel” Stapley and it is gorgeous. Seriously, it’s like going to an art museum where the paintings move and talk and you can interact with them. (Also, some of the paintings are voiced by Elijah Wood). Seriously, just check out some of the screenshots, or watch the video above in full resolution. Gorgeous.