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Long read: The beauty and drama of video games and their clouds

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Broken Age to feature Jack Black and Jennifer Hale

As Harm'ny Lightbeard, lifter of clouds, and Mom, respectively.

Double Fine has revealed that Tenacious D frontman Jack Black and Jennifer Hale (FemShep from Mass Effect) will be joining the cast of Broken Age, aka The Game Previously Known as Double Fine Adventure.

The reveal was made at PAX earlier today in a panel partially attended by Eurogamer. Black will play Harm'ny Lightbeard, the lifter of clouds, and Hale will play Mom. The pair previously worked together in Double Fine's heavy metal opus Brutal Legend, where Black starred as roadie Eddie Riggs, while Hale played his gal pal Ophelia.

Other returning actors include Psychonauts star Richard Horvitz (who played Raz), Nick Jameson (Dr. Fred in Day of the Tentacle), Cree Summer (Brutal LEgend's dominatrices), and Grey DeLisle (Brutal Legend's Zaulia).

Check out the full cast in the actor reveal trailer below.

Watch on YouTube

Elsewhere, during the panel Double Fine responded to the criticism about Broken Age debuting on Steam Early Access to earn more money.

Much like the cast of The Office, the Double Fine team got used to the fact that their exploits were being monitored by a crew of documentarians so while the backers had context to base the move in, the rest of the public did not, hence the belief that the studio had blown its load prematurely.

"We got so accustomed to sharing so much with the backers," said Double Fine community man Chris Remo. "The documentary crew is in our office all the time, so it sometimes feels like the backers are seeing what's going on, so when this release clarification came it seemed like sort of a shock for us because we had to remember, 'Oh right, not everyone in the world is seeing this stuff.'"

This was due to the fact that the studio wanted to keep this behind-the-scenes stuff as a bonus for backers. "We were trying to keep that a reward. Something people bought into," said producer Greg Rice. "So we've had a really direct line of communication with them and kind of providing context for a lot of the things we're talking about, so it's difficult when things get out publicly."

"The lesson was not that we should have been less open, but that we should have been more open," said Double Fine head honcho Tim Schafer.

Massive Chalice lead designer Brad Muir added that he used to be afraid of leaks, but now he stated, "I literally can't leak fast enough."

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