History VideoGame / BrokenAge

* BubblyClouds: Meriloft, which has multiple people lampshade how strange having this as a village is by saying it's only possible through keeping things as light as possible while also giving them a large surface area.

* In act II, Shay's mother sits around doing absolutely nothing while Vella goes around organizing their escape plan.

** The solution to the final puzzle involves [[spoiler: deliberately causing the two ships to go into meltdown while they're connected to each other and the progatonists and their families are onboard]]. There's no indication of why this is a good idea, and the adults naturally try to prevent it.

** Instead of treating the fact that they are sending their young women to be devoured by a monster in exchange for some years of mercy like the tragedy it is, Vella's village treats like a festive, colorful and joyous occasion.

'''Note:''' The climax of Act 1 has a TwistEnding that results in Vella stuck on Shay's ship and Shay stuck on Vella's world. Since this sets the stage for all of Act 2, '''SPOILERS''' related to this change in setting will be '''UNMARKED''', though tropes related to the twist itself will remain spoiled.

* MeaningfulEcho: M'ggie comments that "Short things can surprise you" when she gives Vella her ladder. Vella echoes her words when [[spoiler:she uses the ladder to pry open Mog Chothra's mouth, rendering it vulnerable to Alex's death ray]].

* GuideDangIt: One of the puzzles requires some Fourth Wall thinking, and using a method that you never needed before. [[spoiler: To figure out Shay's favorite toy for his Mom's quiz in Vella's half of act 2, you need to notice the picture of him with a stuffed snake, switch to his story, and progress enough for him to find the snake from Vella's story, get constricted by it, and hear him call it Mr. Huggy]].

%% ZeroContextExample entries are not allowed on wiki pages. All such entries have been commented out. Add context to the entries before uncommenting them.

* AerithAndBob: Almost everyone in the game has a common English name, including all the robots and appliances on Shay's ship. Shay and Vella are slightly unusual names, but not very strange, especially for protagonists. Then there's Merek.

* GuideDangIt: One of the puzzles requires some Fourth Wall thinking, and using a method that you never needed before. [[spoiler: To figure out Shay's favorite toy for his Mom's quiz in Vela's half of act 2, you need to notice the picture of him with a stuffed snake, switch to his story, and progress enough for him to find the snake from Vela's story, get constricted by it, and hear him call it Mr. Huggy]].

* StayingAlive: [[spoiler: Merek]] survives being ''nuked'' and comes back to cause trouble in the finale.

* DoesNotLikeShoes: Vella, and possibly[[note]]Many have their feet obscured by their dresses, so it's debatable[[/note]] every female character in her world, except the ones in Mariloft who have to wear cloudshoes.

* EverythingIsRacist: The Talking Tree tends to get offended to much of what Vella says and does because it's anti-plant. Shay, not quite as much. In fact, one puzzle requires Shay making Tree laugh at a joke.

* Railroading: Shay's "missions" in the first part of his story are incredibly simple, have obvious solutions, and there's no alternative way to approach them. This demonstrates how absolutely controlled his life is. Lampshaded with the one that is actually on a train, and the only way to progress the plot is to make it go OffTheRails.

* WhatHappenedToTheMouse: There were two maidens taken from Mariloft, though we never learn their names. And [[spoiler: they are not shown among the people rescued from the ships in the end sequence.]] Moreover, the actual fate of the ultimate villains is never explained, although circumstances imply they were dealt with somehow.

** Vella's a girl, Shay is a boy.

** The Cinna-Moons box is a reference to the infamous scene from ''Film/ATripToTheMoon'' where the Man in The Moon gets a rocketship lodged in his eye. Another cereal is this to Quaker Oats Oatmeal. Also, [[SoylentGreen Soylent Dreams]].

The girl, Velouria Beastender Tartine, has just been selected for a "great honor": her participation in her village's highly esteemed festival for the EldritchAbomination "Mog Chothra" (the latest in a long distinguished line of Mogs) as one of the maidens that will potentially be devoured by the monster in exchange for the monster leaving the town in peace for another 14 years. Faced with this dire situation, Vella finds herself coming back to a single question: "What if we actually tried to fight the monster?"

* ArtShift: Alex is slightly more realistic than the rest of the cast, as he's based on Alex Rigopoulos of {{Harmonix}}. Ditto for the Train Conductor, who is based on the train conductor from the board game ''Ticket To Ride''.

* AnachronismStew: Vella's world seems relatively primitive (and has the type of theocratic thought common to primitive cultures), yet she mentions video games during act 2.

* UnroboticReveal: [[spoiler:Shay's mom and dad are actually his parents; apparently referring to the former as "computer" was a teenage rebellion.]]
* ViolationOfCommonSense: How Shay deals with the [[spoiler:constrictor]] in Act 2. [[spoiler:Ignore Shay's constant comments that he's suffocating, and wait for the ''snake'' to tire out. Apparently all those "hug attacks" left Shay very resistant to constriction.]] There's a clue to this in Vella's side, as she finds [[spoiler:an old photo of Shay wrapped up in a plush snake toy.]]

* WhatHappenedToTheMouse: There were two maidens taken from Mariloft, though we never learn their names. And [[spoiler: they are not among the people rescued from the ships in the end sequence.]]

** Completely inverted with Shay, who had a plush snake toy called "Mister Huggy" as a child.

* InterfaceSpoiler: [[spoiler: Doing Shay's story before Vella's makes it obvious that Mog Chothra is Shay's ship. Doing Vella's story first makes Mog Chothra more of a mystery.]]

* {{Retraux}}: [[EasterEgg Retro]] [[NostalgiaFilter Mode.]] [[note]]Go to options, turn down the resolution completely, then go to the hot-key change menu. There should be a picture of Vella and Shay, click on it, assign a button, then go to the game and press the assigned button for sweet, sweet pixels. For the [[PS4 Playstation 4]] version, just press R3 (Push the right stick) to toggle.[[/note]]