My take on it...

I am a backer and only have slight problems with how it was handled. And no, not about the delays and any of that. I back a lot of games and know delays and over budgeting happens... and it's all about the selling narrative to deside if it's good or bad (point in case, Konami being the bad guys after releasing MGS5 before its time after everybody's hero Kojima went way over budget...).
My problem with how the game was handled was the fact they listened to the fans. DF did the first part of the game as they intended -albeit with some cut content because of budgeting reasons-. The first part was a critical success, but many oldschoolers (yes, people that had already moved from adventure games but somehow though they would like this one just like they were kids) and haters... well, hated it. It was too easy. It wasn't mature enough. Whatever. But they did make the second half harder and more puzzle focused. What happened? The critics hated it. And the others weren't going to change their minds anyway.
People also complained about it being split into two parts. Basically, Broken Age would have benefited from early access, although people would have complained about that too (even though lots of kickstarters -larian, inxile, etc- did it with no repercussions whatsoever.

Anyway, I only played the first half, and it was cute -I always liked Stapley's graphic style-, I liked the story but it was pretty easy (and that always makes adventure too short).

This is, for me, their main mistake. Obviously, the fact that is Tim Schafer and many people hate him magnifies it. As it happens to a lot of other developers in early access and it's part of that defective system. But it doesn't matter if you only say you might implement some feature. People buying the game will always assume it's a done deal. That's why you should always keep that stuff from the clients. It a PR disaster in the making.

Nobody cares about that. Well, some people do, but I don't care about that people. Games are games. All that drama belongs to soap operas and politic forum threads. Those threads that make people leave GOG forums. Those threads I never partake in.

When you are a target already, everything is burning ground. It doesn't matter that Obsidian, Inxile and some other are already involved -and noone cares-. Or the fact that if you're not going to invest -and most of us aren't- it's just a more curated version of kickstarter.

The Cave -the one I want here the most- is from Sega, so that'd be difficult. I'm also pretty interested in Hack & Slash.


All in all, I'm pretty happy that Headlander is finally here. And I hope those conversations with AdultSwim about this game -mainly because DF wanted their game here- don't end in this single game, as they have some interesting game already and some game in the pipeline that I'm very much looking forward to.

Subjectively, I'd describe Broken Age's development a little differently, but would agree with the entire rest. I rather liked Broken Age, but didn't much care for some of the design decisions, including especially art style and mobile optimization. But, well, I am that old school adventure game enthusiast with her impossible demands and have been since 1992. :)


...since Brian Fargo's heatstreet interview on Wasteland 3, I have a veeeery clear idea why inXile gets no shit flung at them, really. Though I have to add, when I asked them to revoke my 2015 Bard's Tale IV pledge on the basis of Fargo's clear cut political affiliation there, it was handled with the utmost decency and willingness to cooperate.

I backed Broken Age and really liked the first part but was less impressed by the second. I really like a lot of DF's games, the only one that I wasn't that impressed by was the one with the dolls (I forget the name). I haven't played Massive Chalice yet, although I did back it.

Actually, thats not true.
Fargo still gets shit.
Appearently some people think its wrong to use kickstarter or fig to fund more games if you had one or two sucesses and somehow calling it a scam.

I guess some people never will be happy no matter what you do.
You are damned if you use a publisher and aperantly you are damned if you try to crowdfund further games
especially if you had a few huge sucesses beforehand.

Glad to see this, thanks to everyone involved in getting it here.

I initially read this as "Headmaster". Don't ask.

As always you have a pretty biased way of seeing thing.

The thing with Broken Age is that it was a basic point of click adventure game, not a complex procedurally generated universe, not a huge open world game, not even a MMO, no it was the most basic and easy type of game you can create, no AI, no complex game mechanic, no advanced 3D engine to build, nothing; and yet, even thought they got ten times the requested budget they still manage to burn all of it before even being able to finish half the game.

When it come to planing failure it reaches levels that would have make even Peter Molyneux and Sean Murray ashamed of themselves; and not long after they did it again with Spacebase DF-9 and this time even selling an unfinished game on Steam wasn't able to save them and they simply dropped it.

So yes it's understandable that peoples are a little "weary" about Tim Schafer ability to handle money and respect a budget, especially as apparently it's a reputation that he had in the industry long before the Broken Age debacle.
What horrible crime did he commit ? Being interviewed by a website you don't like or simply saying that he create games to to entertain peoples and not to push political agenda ?

Even if they used more money than the backers raised i dont get why it matters as long as people got what they paid for.
No backers had to pay more at least too my knowledgde so its not like it affected the orginal buyers.
The complaints i can understand is the one about SJW and Spacebase.
The one about broken age? Nope.

Hi, the one with the Matryoshka dolls is called Stacking.


I'm glad Headlander got finally released here! I've waited a long time...

I also hope their other games will end up here, even those not published by themselves.
Especially The Cave and Costume Quest 2 needs proper DRM-free releases!
(Hack 'n' Slash is published by DF, so shouldn't be that much of a problem to get it on GOG)

This is exactly correct. They delivered a game which (more or less - I personally wanted more pixels) fitted the description in the kickstarter, its really not any of the consumers' business how much money they spent making it.

People just like to complain (and in Gersen's case, in a particularly hyperbolic way).
That's the one! Thanks! It wasn't really my cup of tea. I think I've liked every other DF game I played. I would also love to see The Cave and Costume Quest 2 here. I only buy DRM free so I have to wait patiently....

I feel like I'm missing out on a lot of good games here. Unfortunately, I grew up playing practicailly nothing but platformers on the early consoles. I've been burned out on them for decades and still have no desire to play them. Probably never will. Yet every week there's like 50 new indie platformers released. I love the retro-graphics that many of them have too, I'm just not even remotely interested in the genre anymore =(

Truly best of luck to all the developers releasing these games, but it does seem like the indie-retro-platformer thing is waaaaaaaay beyond saturation point. Unless you happen to be a massive fan of 2d-platformers, then you're in luck! :P

(Edit: I guess maybe this game isn't exactly a platformer but more of a 2D-action sidescrolling game? So many platformers released last week, at first glance this just looked like another one.)

I think you meant less pixels, or bigger pixels?
"Only biggest pixel is good pixel!"

Btw. there is a pseudo retro mode (for fun): Broken Age - Easter Eggs and Secrets

I also stopped buying games with DRM some years ago. But I did made some very few exceptions, The Cave by Ron Gilbert was one.

They've decided for high definition art style and complex animations. The art doesn't draw itself and the assets don't animate themselves. People are doing it which costs money and it takes time.

If they would have gotten only the 400,000$ (without any fees deducted) they would have created only a small Flash-like adventure game in some months or so (+ documentary using 1/4 of that money).

The only real valid complaint about Broken Age IMHO is that it took (actually still takes) so long.
But other than that... of course some complain about the art style, some about simplistic UI etc. etc., but tastes are different.
DF as developer decided to make their design decision like they did and so be it, it's their game!
It fitted the Kickstarter description (which btw. was very vague to begin with, people interpreted all kind of nonsense into it, it got so far some fantasised the game will be Psychonauts 2).

I think the documentary alone was the money worth!

Haha, i just wanted to see some pixels. That retro mode is pretty funny. Very nineties.