Finished Act 1 of Broken Age last night. It needs to be said that this is Tim Schafer’s first point and click adventure game in 15 years which means to say that my last encounter with him in this familiar space was during my teenage years when Grim Fandango, Day of the Tentacle and Full Throttle were kings of the adventure genre.
The gaming industry is changing. Because video games is now a multi-billion dollar industry, it has long evolved from the wild wild west of the 90’s where rules and business models didn’t seem to matter (as much). With the arrival of the big studios (like EA) buying out the innovation from the smaller studios, building a game has turned into a series of cogs where taking risks seem to be frowned upon in favor “what works.” Just look at the number of first person shooter clones.