By Hilde van den Berg
Staff Writer
Most of us may have heard of the “Kickstarter” phenomenon, whether in passing or because you’ve donated to one yourself. Anyone, a company or an individual, can start a project on the Kickstarter website, and it is up to the general public to decide whether they want to fund it or not. A set goal has to be reached in a set amount of days. If that is actually achieved, the project can be executed. This is what happened to the video game “Broken Age”. It was originally called “Double Fine Adventure” when the initiators were looking for sponsors. It’s one of the most well-funded Kickstarter campaigns to date, with over 87.000 people having contributed over three million dollars before the deadline.
Now, almost two years later, the game has been released. On the 28th on January 
2014, it hit the web and so far it has received an enormous amount of praise from critics. For example, American entertainment website IGN gave Broken Age a score of 9.5 out of 10. The plot is fairly simple: there are two parallel storylines going on in the game, and the player can switch between them at any point in time. In one storyline, a girl named Vella wishes to escape the horrifying tradition called the “Maiden’s Feast”. In every village, girls are sacrificed to the monster Mog Chotra to keep it from attacking the villages. It’s seen as an honor by all the townspeople, and Vella is continually laughed at when she proposes to fight the monster instead. Her adventure really starts when she attempts to get away from the place of offering and makes it her mission to slay the monster. In the second storyline, a boy named Shay (voiced by the one and only Elijah Wood) has been raised inside a spaceship. The computer considers itself his mother, and continues to baby him; he’s provided with fake space missions to keep him busy, until he finally has enough, and wants to find a way to escape from life as he knows it. Somewhere along the line a mysterious person inside an animal suit (it looks like a mixture between a wolf and a fox) also comes along, and I’m very curious as to how that will pan out.
Not only are the stories incredibly interesting, but I’m personally a big fan of the graphics. There’s something simple about them, but there’s so much detail and some of the sceneries are simply wonderful. I think there’s nothing better when you see that a lot of time has been put in a game. You should always judge for yourself, though, so I suggest you look the game up online or on Steam. Even though I’m a broke student, I wouldn’t consider getting my hands on it illegally. A lot of money went into it and, at least to me, it seems worth the 23 Euros it costs. If you’re not prepared to pay that much, or if you really need to use your money for more “useful” things, go find your favorite gaming channel on YouTube and check whether they’re already playing it. If not, try suggesting it to them or find another channel to check it out in the meantime. Anyhow, I’m very excited to see what else this game can bring us. It has gotten some great reviews, and hopefully it will live up to all those expectations for the people who have yet to play it. If anything, you’ll be glad that human sacrifices have gone out of fashion around here.
Hilde van den Berg, class of 2016, is from Doetinchem, The Netherlands.
