Interesting, it actually is a bit like that.
You can take over other people (dolls) that are 1 size larger than you, so in order to get the larger size ones you have to get a small one, a slightly bigger one and so on.
But you do basically take over dolls that have specific abilities that you need, so it is somewhat similar yes.
More cutesy of course.

As far as I'm concerned, Broken Age is a new classic adventure game, because it beats the hell out of a lot of the newer ilk, with a far more fascinating unraveling plot and characters, and there are plenty of puzzles that are fun to work through. I don't care how long it is, or how easy the puzzles are, there was plenty to discover, enjoy and reminisce on, and as I find that to be the spirit of adventure games, I found Broken Age to be a fantastic success with one the best and most appropriate cliff hangers I've seen. (It's rather amazing that it wasn't planned from the start, because it sure feels like that in the game. I guess that's a measure of the talent behind the game.)

Though people like to joke about funding the second act, if you've seen the documentary, you know they've made around $1.7 million by the end of March and that's probably higher now, so they could probably make it to September or October or so, judging on how they managed the funds earlier on in the project. I'm not going to criticize them, because there's no rule, either implied or otherwise, that a studio must complete it's Kickstarter game solely based on the funds that were raised with it and Double Fine found a way to honor the spirit of the proposal by coming up with a way to fund it without being strangled by a publisher.

If you look at the reaction to Jane Jensen's recent release, you can see that people have rather high expectations of what can be achieved with limited funds and you can either to choose to release a janky game with little polish or really spit the workman's polish into the final product, but you can't please all the people all the time.

Anyway, I bought Stacking because I really enjoyed Psychonauts and Broken Age, and now I'm working through their past catalog. I don't care if it's short, as long as it's fun and memorable. There are all sorts of much longer games I paid 50+ for that made a lot less impact to me than something like Broken Age.

It's Tim Schafer!!
Can I get your autograph?

Sorry my hand hurts from all the masturbating I've done anticipating the profits from this Stacking promo and I've scheduled a sexy money shower at the money spa pretty soon.

:-D Hahahaha
Well, you did spur me into installing Broken Age. Want to form my own opinion on it seeing how they seem to vary greatly.

The full game isn't even out yet (only the first half) so I really don't understand what all the hate is for. Actually, people's negative reactions are usually based on what their expectations were going in - they ended up expecting something and the first half of Broken Age wasn't what they were expecting I guess.

I really enjoyed the first half - hopefully you do too :)

Expectations ? Sure.
The lead on Grim Fandango, co-creator of DOTT and (if memory serves) co-writer of Monkey Island asked for money to make a "classic point-and-click adventure". Some people who threw money at him - like me - had the weakness to believe that meant doing something at least remotely resembling, I don't know, the classic point & click adventures he worked on ?
The gall of those people. Expecting what was announced, with a DOTT screenshot to emphasize the point even.

I even added Grim Fandango to the list to drive home the point that it's not about the interface type ; it's about the puzzles, which are the only damn gameplay elements in classic adventure games in the first place, shoddy Sierra action sequences & Indy fighting aside. Without them, or without at least of modicum of goddamn difficulty in them, it becomes a cartoon where you have to click repeatedly "play" instead of just once. If he wanted to do this, he could have been honest upfront.

Of course, if the second act unveils DOTT / Monkey Island / Indiana Jones brillance, which is pretty damn unlikely, I'll stand corrected. But even the first half hour of any LucasArts adventure had more puzzling going on than the first act of Broken Age.

I like the creativity of the themes of Double Fine games. I haven't seen a game like this, and while like many of their games there's an element of tedium, I like the creativity and there are plenty of fun puzzles.

Maybe it's not for everyone, but I haven't seen a double fine game I'm not very glad they made. They have their own 'feel'; not one that's entirely my preference, but still a lot of fun and I don't forget their games soon.

You make a perfectly fair point about expecting that specific kind of game at the beginning of the campaign, but it was made clear when they far overshot the original goal that the entire game design would need to be retooled and re-imagined in order to utilize more of the budget. There really should have been more of an emphasis on puzzles than what we saw in Act 1, but like any other kickstarter I was more interested in giving some money to someone who has made great games in the past, and giving him a chance to return to that genre and give his take on where he thinks it should head from here. I really don't think he had a clear goal or specific idea in mind before he pitched the idea of making an adventure game. I mean, the whole point of the adventure in the very beginning was to (1) for the fans to see the full process of how a game is made from the beginning conception stages to the end product, and (2) to see if anyone was still interested in a more "traditional" point and click. It was only really a very general idea in the original pitch after all (if another kickstarter were done with such a general intent, it probably wouldn't get funded! Whether this is good or bad depends on your perspective, but I think it's made for a good experiment so far in this case).

All that being said, the only way to know for sure whether it was a disappointment or not lies in how the second "Act" plays and how the game ends. I honestly don't think it's possible to make a retrospective judgment yet on a game that's not even complete yet, so I'm willing to give Tim and team the benefit of the doubt for now. :)

Sure, but how does that equate with "let's remove the game elements and focus on the movie elements" ? If anything, it casts the suspicion that had they only gotten the amount they asked for, we still would have gotten this abortion, only uglier and without voiceovers or something.

If the first act of Broken Age is where the adventure genre should head according to Schafer, it only raises the suspicion that those great designers of the 90's - except maybe for the strategy guys, see Julian Gollop's Chaos Reborn for an example of sticking to ones guns - really wanted to be movie directors all along, and that they feel that amidst all that makes a video game, the elements truly unique to the medium - in this genre's case the puzzles - were/are more a hindrance than anything.
Jane Jensen just did the exact same thing with Moebius, only with a smaller budget and thus less polish in the graphic department. It's even worse because Jensen initially announced there would be both a "casual" and an "experienced" difficulty modes, with the "experienced" mode touted to include "Sierra-level" puzzles. Seems only the casual mode survived.

Is Moebius what Broken Age would have been without the golden shower ?

I haven't watched the documentary yet, I'll wait for the DVD (if they ever manage to raise money for the pressing). Anyway, the documentary was one fourth of the total planned budget, so if it turns out entertaining/interesting/thought-provoking/whatever it will mean half (or one fourth money-wise) of the promise will have been kept.

As for your second point, that's just it, the Kickstarter's success seemed to indicate that there were people still interested in a "more traditional point and click" ; so why not do one ?

Frankly I won't hold my breath, because I think that if nothing else, Schafer is a competent designer, and that he aims for his games to be a coherent whole. This means that having a second act with puzzles (I won't even say "puzzle-heavy", that would imply there were puzzles in the first act) will result in an highly unbalanced game.
Even more, making the second act a real "traditional point&click" would upset the mass/casual market he seems to be targeting, the ones who want an "story-driven experience" rather than a game. Which is fine in itself, there are even good half-games like that. I just wish he hadn't played the nostalgic/traditional/old-school card solely to get the dinosaurs' money. I can't shake off the impression that we've been used, and that the DOTT screenshot was nothing more than bait.
Ah well, caveat emptor and all that.