In storytelling, there is rarely such a thing as a coincidence. Every background detail and line of dialogue has been put there for a reason. My tabletop roleplaying group have caught onto this concept quickly. If I mention a seemingly insignificant character or detail about the weather, for example, my players will aggressively theorise until the cows come home. It does make it quite hard to hook them in for a storyline, I must admit. This detail-oriented approach can really lend itself to powerful storytelling in video games, especially of more story driven games like the topic of this week’s article – Broken Age.
Broken Age has two main characters – a young woman named Vella and a young man named Shay. As the sun and moon motifs from the game’s opening indicate, the worlds that Shay and Vella occupy are complete opposites. Although, as we find out at the end of Broken Age’s first act, they are in fact, related, much like the floating space rock and ball of gas that we see in the sky each day. However, what these two have in common is a desire to break free from their lives, from the traditions and ideals that they are expected to maintain. Which is something I think a lot of us can relate to in an ever-changing world.
Shay is an outer space explorer, living a mind-numbing routine, accompanied by his “parents” – a pair of Artificial Intelligence programs that are tasked with keeping him safe. This “safe” lifestyle has become restrictive and suffocating to Shay, leading to him searching for a change. Shay wants to break free. Meanwhile Vella, has been chosen to represent her village in a ceremony called “The Maiden’s Feast”. The feast in question is for a horrific creature called Mog Chothra, who chooses some of the women to be his sacrifices. This feast is treated as a celebration by the villages, rather than you know, a barbaric waste of human life. Vella wants to fight back.
As a point and click game, Broken Age focuses more on dialogue and puzzle solving, rather than any intense combat features or stealth mechanics. Want to avoid being eaten by Mog Chothra? Convince a nearby bird to give you a lift by using a corset as a makeshift saddle (obviously). Need to rescue some helpless yarn creatures from an avalanche? Eat the avalanche with your spoon because it is made of ice cream (why?). Some of the puzzles can be a bit complex to wrap your head around, especially when people in Meriloft KEEP TALKING ABOUT THE IMPORTANCE OF BEING LIGHT INSTEAD OF HELPING YOU OUT.
Taking a page out of the theatre approach to storytelling, Broken Age is broken (cue evil laugh) into two acts. The first act introduces you to Shay and Vella in their own worlds and you get to see them react to surroundings they are comfortable in, as well as newer situations. You get a glimpse of how they react in times of trouble, their morals, and their ingenuity. You’d think there wouldn’t be many places that Broken Age could go to when it comes to storytelling, considering one of it’s two protagonists is in outer space but it throws you a curveball at the end of Act One.
Spoiler Alert:
It is revealed that Shay was never in space at all. He was inside Mog Chothra, a mechanical monster that is a part of something called “Project Dandelion”. In her attempts to take down the beast, Vella awakens Alex, a previous pilot of an ancient spaceship called the Malrouna, who helps her rig a laser trap for the beast. The trap works, bringing Mog Chothra down and allowing Shay to crawl out. Vella and Shay briefly see one another, before Vella falls into Mog Chothra and Shay becomes trapped on the outside. The two switch worlds and the player realise that these two stories are more deeply connected than they first appeared. Shay, for example, had a series of “secret rescue missions” that had him saving various critters using his ship’s mechanical arm. This little minigame directly mirrors the Maiden’s Feasts in Vella’s story, where the maidens are plucked from their podiums by a large arm. Suspicious.
It is during Act Two that Broken Age takes a step from the mildly sinister undertones of it is opening act, to a much darker tale. You do not expect point and click adventure games to undertake such drastic tonal changes, but Broken Age achieves this, dragging you along for the ride. Marek, a stowaway on Shay’s ship from Act One, reveals the true purpose of Operation Dandelion. It is not to find a new home planet for Shay, who is supposedly the last of his species.
The Thrush, a species that Marek (whose true name is Marekai) is a member of, believe that the rest of the planet is infected with a horrible disease. So, they trapped a subsection of humans and governed over them, using the Maiden’s Feasts as a method of removing inferior genes from the population. Vella escaping Mog Chothra on two separate occasions, was not a coincidence. Her genetic makeup is deemed “superior” and the Thrush are planning on killing her and merging their DNA with hers, to “perfect” their bloodline and assume total dominion over the planet.
Naturally, the game has a standard happy ending with Shay and Vella finally meeting face to face and peaceful alliances being drawn between the citizens behind the Plague Dam and those beyond it. However, what really intrigued me about this game was the connections between Vella and Shay. At first glance, they seem like utter strangers to one another. Different worlds, different situations, different people surrounding them. You do not expect to find those common threads between them, yet they are there. A bit like real life.
Something that I have discovered over my years of battling my mental health issues, is that although nobody’s journey is the same, there are some defining events and attitudes that tie us all together. Whether it is coping with sensory overload or struggling to discern hallucination from reality, mental health conditions are something that we each must live with, every second of every day. That constant battle, that constant war within yourself is a part of what makes us who we are. Why we fight for justice, why we speak up when we see wrong in the world. We stand up because if we do not, nobody will.
See you soon,
CaitlinRC