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1. I don't wanna rag on this too much since most folks know the story behind 'Broken Age' — massively over-funded, Schafer himself admitting he 'designed too much game' (and apparently wasn't exactly brilliant about how he used that funding...)
2. But there's one little-known game in particular that begs comparison to it, which is 2017's 'Memoranda' by a six-person Iranian outfit called @Bit_Byterz. https://store.steampowered.com/app/430410/Memoranda/
3. Like 'Broken Age', 'Memoranda' was built around the work of a single great visual artist, in this case Maliheh Rahrovan ( @maliheh_rhn). The scenes look at LEAST as good as B.A.'s (often better, to my eye), and the game's graphical system in general is at a very similar level.
4. It has its shortcomings. Like many of the best games, it's much shorter than I'd like, and being based on Haruki Murakami's writings, its surrealism feels to me plopped into the game somewhat awkwardly. There's also a degree of awkwardness in some of its writing & voice-work.
5. But on the whole, I believe it's a much better game than 'Broken Age'. I think it's also a much better fit for the adventure game medium.
6. Whereas 'Memoranda"s world — smaller though it may be — spreads gradually outward from the center, 'Broken Age' mostly moves you from one cramped little box you have to try and wriggle your way out of to another. It has too much length and narrowness and not enough breadth.
7. So ironically, although far smaller than 'Broken Age', the world of 'Memoranda' ends up feeling more expansive simply because of how it's structured; it's just one connected world rather than a long string of isolated (and annoyingly tricky to solve) ones.
8. But here's the kicker, my friends: Whereas 'Broken Age' — originally aiming for an already rather portly $400,000 budget — ended up receiving, using (and apparently misusing) the gargantuan sum of $3,336,371 contributed by over 87,000 people... https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/doublefine/double-fine-adventure/
9. ...our humble, neglected 'Memoranda' — a palpably more genuine adventure game experience with graphics that are just as advanced, backdrops drawn at least as artfully, puzzles that don't give you ulcers, and also music that's considerably better —
10. — was made on the Canadian equivalent of all of
nineteen thousand
two hundred
and seventy
bucks.
Thrown in by just over
a thousand
folks. https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1929139578/memoranda
nineteen thousand
two hundred
and seventy
bucks.
Thrown in by just over
a thousand
folks. https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1929139578/memoranda
11. I mean that is a fuckin' 173rd of 'Broken Age"s budget, dudes and dudines.
12. So just think how much bigger a game you could make on a budget even *that* tiny if you DIDN'T use state-of-the-art graphics (which almost never work well for adventure games anyway), or if the game WEREN'T fully voiced. I for one find that infinitely encouraging.
~The End~
~The End~
