Though originally a goal of $400,000 was set to cover the costs of development and documentary filming, Broken Age became the largest crowdfunded video game project at the time, raising over $3.45 million from more than 87,000 backers within the month.

[6] Vella Tartine (voiced by Masasa Moyo) is a young woman living in the Badlands, a land ravaged by the Mogs, giant creatures that come from beyond a wall called the Plague Dam.

She is able to wake its pilot, Alex, from his three hundred year stasis, and he helps her to rig the ship's scanning system to fire a laser at Mog Chothra when he shows up for the Feast.

Shay Volta (voiced by Elijah Wood) is a young man and seemingly the only passenger on the spaceship Bossa Nostra (Bassinostra), an "incubator vessel".

The computer's diurnal AI, named "MOM", acts as a mother figure to Shay, occupying him with infantile "missions" and boring routines, while preventing him from learning about or exploring anything farther than the outside of the ship.

During one of these rescues, Shay refuses to leave the last creature behind, causing the ship to be attacked, and trapping Marek underneath a pile of debris.

Before his ship's crash, Alex had a talking cello named Marek who told him to hack the controls and rescue innocent creatures, just like Shay, who realizes that they were really capturing girls.

Vella pretends that she is Shay to trick his mother into opening the door, but they are both quickly locked inside by Marek, who reveals himself to be Marekai, a member of a race called the Thrush.

Within the credit sequence, it is shown that the Thrush is deposed from power, the Plague Dam is demolished, and the humans of Loruna and the Badlands form a peaceful alliance.

[10] The two studios began to work out the specifics of the project, but Schafer realized that publisher interference would make an honest portrayal of game development impossible.

[12][13] The adventure game genre was selected to offer the public a product that would not have existed without their support, and help to distinguish the project from the developer's publisher-financed work.

[12] Further rewards were added through a second update two weeks into the effort, including digital soundtracks, physical copies of the game and documentary, and an art book.

[26] Schafer stated that the total funding was nearly the same as the budget for their previous downloadable titles, Costume Quest and Stacking,[17] as well as his earlier LucasArts game, Grim Fandango.

[12][21] A later update by Schafer affirmed that the additional funding will support development for the macOS and Linux platforms and select iOS and Android devices.

Additionally, the game will have voice acting for the English version, and include text localization for French, German, Italian, and Spanish languages.

[28] With the added funding for better production values, Schafer estimated it would likely take about a year to complete the game, missing their original anticipated October 2012 release.

[34] As Schafer had not written anything by the time development started, early efforts focused on creating a game engine, art style, and answering technical questions.

Nathan Martz, the technical director for Double Fine, stated that the open source nature of Moai allowed them to easily alter any aspect of the code base, while also supporting all of the targeted platforms.

For the first time in the company's history Double Fine decided to enlist the help of an outside studio, hiring SuperGenius to assist with art and animation.

[36] Double Fine also realized that they would run out of the Kickstarter funds before 2015, either requiring them to drastically cut back on the project or alter their release plans.

[37] They had noticed that breaking the game into halves would fit naturally with events already occurring at the midpoint of the story, making the split relatively simple from a production perspective.

[39] In the end, the first act was deemed complete and polished enough to graduate from Early Access on January 28, with the second half to be released as a free update later in the year.

He preferred this so that the narrative end of the game before the credits could be focused solely on Vella and Shay, instead of having each character appears to speak a line or so as to explain their fate.

Initially McConnell planned to use only a small ensemble for the musical score but, as the game development progressed, he realized some parts needed a bigger orchestral sound.

[50] During the Electronic Entertainment Expo 2018, Schafer announced that Broken Age will be available on the Switch later that year, alongside the remastered version of Grim Fandango.

[74] He also echoed a common criticism of the frustrating difficulty of the puzzles, which many reviewers felt were much harder than in Act 1, especially if players tried to pick it up without replaying the first half.

[82] Johnny Cullen of VG247 compared the Double Fine Kickstarter to the release of Radiohead's album In Rainbows, which the band had sold through their website in a pay-what-you-want model prior to a physical printing, without the interference of a music publisher.

Double Fine Adventure brought in 61,692 new users to Kickstarter, and greatly increased the platform's visibility and viability for funding of games projects.

[92] In October, Project Eternity surpassed Double Fine's funding record, further suggesting the crowdfunding model will continue to be a part of the gaming landscape.

[94] In the months following its release, the creators of Broken Sword,[95] Gabriel Knight,[96] Leisure Suit Larry,[97] Space Quest[98] and Tex Murphy[99] have all managed to raise amounts in excess of Schafer's original goal of $400,000.