Broken Age playable for backers now! Preorders open for non-backers!

Double Fine Productions today announced that Act1 of Broken Age, the first graphic adventure game led by Tim Schafer in 16 years, will release on January 28 for Windows, Mac, and Linux. Preorders are open now via Steam: http://store.steampowered.com/app/232790/

The Act 2 conclusion of Broken Age will ship later this year as a free update for all owners of the game. In the future, the game will also ship for Ouya, iOS, and Android.

Broken Age tells the story of Vella Tartine and Shay Volta, two teenagers in strangely similar situations but radically different worlds. The player can freely switch between their stories, helping them take control of their own lives and dealing with the unexpected adventures that follow.

The development of Broken Age began began two years ago in a historic, record-breaking Kickstarter campaign—and Act 1 of the game is nearly here, in all its beautiful, 2D, hand-painted glory, with an original orchestral soundtrack and an all-star vocal cast starring Elijah Wood, Jack Black, Wil Wheaton, Jennifer Hale, Pendleton Ward, Masasa Moyo, and many more.

“It’s been sixteen years since I’ve made an adventure game, almost twenty years since I’ve made a point-and-click, and just shy of two years since I dared the internet to force me to make one,” said Double Fine president and Broken Age writer/designer Tim Schafer. “Coming back to the genre has been like finding an old jacket in a box in your garage that you haven’t worn in twenty years, but once you shake the dust off and put it on you realize it’s an amazing jacket and it still fits, and once you patch the holes in the pockets it could easily take a spot in your main jacket rotation.”

“Oh, and also, in one of the pockets was three and a half million dollars,” Schafer added.