I don't mind that, because the first chunk of Broken Age is something special. The Kickstarter all but promised an adventure in the tradition of the old LucasArts point-and-click affairs that launched Double Fine founder Tim Schafer's career, yet the game doesn't rely on nostalgia. It follows two characters: Shay's a bored young man on a deep-space liner, and Vella's a wary young woman caught in a ceremony to appease a ravenous and destructive behemoth. Their stories connect eventually, and there's plenty to enjoy along the way. I like the soft colors and slightly bizarre designs. I like the clouded menace of Shay's story and how it contrasts with the preposterous and overt injustices of Vella's side. I like how it's all about privilege and gender roles without hammering that down. I like the family of bird cultists who live in a cloud colony.
The second part of Broken Age is coming in 2015, and I suspect it'll clear up many of the ideas hinted at in the first half. That'll be nice, but I find myself strangely content with that partial game. It says just enough to satisfy, and it makes a surprisingly complete point for such a short experience. Sometimes you need only half to see the whole picture.
This year brought about a lot of bickering over small and strange things. The greatest was Gamergate, a movement seemingly fomented over complaints of “social justice warriors
” controlling game journalism and colluding with developers. Gamergate was absurd and poorly substantiated when broken down to its base elements, but it was also serious: people were harassed, other people lost jobs, and companies pulled ads from websites (and, when it came to Intel, put them back). And it's still going on in some capacity.