Braid

[toblix]

Just wanted to let y'all know I'm still awaiting Braid with bated breadth:

[miffy495]

OK, just seeing that Donkey Kong tribute shot makes me need this game. When's it out?

[Noyb]

Early 2008, presuming Xbox Live Arcade's certification system is anywhere near predictable.

[Nachimir]

I got to play this for a few minutes while Indiecade was in my town a few months ago. It is excellent, and rewires your brain in a similar way to Portal

[brkl]

The guy who does the graphics for that game is the artist from A Lesson is Learned but the Damage is Irreversible, the greatest comic to ever grace this mucky virtual dive. I'd love to play it, but don't have the hardware.

[Tanukitsune]

Has anybody else got it and beaten it yet? The ending is as confusing as hell!

[Scrobbs]

EG gave it 10! That alone makes me interested in give it a go.

[miffy495]

This game is baffling. And awesome. Bafflawesome. I just got to World 4 and decided to give my brain a break. When I realized that going right made time go forward and left made it go back in this level, it made the whole thing even more bafflawesome. So no, haven't beaten it yet. Going to try and get all of the puzzle pieces as I go. Only missing the top left piece of the World 3 puzzle, and got all for World 2. Some of them are really tricky. It definitely does require putting to use the same part of your brain you used in Portal.

[Tanukitsune]

You definitely feel smarter after beating this game! :3

Although I think it's a bigger mental workout than Portal since it has a new time mechanic in each world!

I felt pretty good after getting the last puzzle piece!

The ending is really bafflawesome!

[Noyb]

Finished it tonight. Still trying to wrap my head around the epilogue to decide how much is intentional symbolism and how much is vague arbitrary pretension. It was an instant buy after seeing that the first level was named after a Richard Feynman lecture. I love the puzzles, which have less an "aha" moment than a "holy crap, that was awesome" moment, and the world which forces you to think of space and time as equivalent is absolutely amazing. Fairly short, but satisfying enough that I am beginning to hate all those brats online whining about the price after only playing the demo (and probably not solving all the puzzles in that world to boot ).

[Tommy Gun]

How short is it? [EDIT: I've been reading it's about 5 hours.]

I was really excited about this game, but the demo didn't blow me away. It's still cool, and the art is beautiful.

My roommate said he'll probably buy it though, so I guess it doesn't matter! $15 is a bit much, especially since I haven't bought N+, etc. yet. I need my points for Rock Band!

Edited August 8, 2008 by Tommy Gun

[Erkki]

Article about the art in Braid on Gamasutra .

The game itself is great. The trial version convinced me to buy it in just a few minutes.

[twmac]

The artwork, the music, the puzzles...

It is beautiful, when I get paid at the end of the month it is my first purchase on XBLA. 1200 points is too much for Lumines but not for this.

[Nachimir]

3 worlds in, and I'm enjoying this incredibly

It has me reflecting on a number of things. It was said in a story telling session at Develop that people get inside characters very quickly, and this means attempting to get them to empathise with the protognist is doomed - it's far more effective to build empathy with NPCs than get a player to look at their own motives from afar.

Braid seems to be doing it though, because much of the game is about everything that has happened to the protagonist outside of whatever present moment you're playing him in. The burning city and the ambiguity of his plans have set up far more interesting hooks for me than most (in fact pretty much all) games can.

This might bite me in the ass if it doesn't have an incredible ending, but there's a lot of eloquence about Braid, like the way it's sometimes

more convenient to leave enemies alive than kill them all, and the game encourages this by not giving points for jumping on them

The aesthetic and soundtrack are really relaxing too.

[Erkki]

Just finished it. The final world was crazy! The difficulty is less than previous worlds, but the way the time flows there messes with your brain, in a good way. I laughed pretty hard at a couple of tricky places.

I felt the ending was a bit anti-climatic though, but perhaps that's exactly how it's supposed to be.

[Nachimir]

I finished it last night. A most satisfying experience, given that I once spent a few years reading up on the

complexities, ambiguities and history of romantic love.

Make sure you get the secret text in the epilogue.

Each screen with a red book has a part which hides Tim. Stand there, facing away from the red book while it's open, and alternate text will display showing a different viewpoint on the same event.

My interpretation:

He contrasts romantic love with atom bombs in terms of their power over us, and the assumptions made about them with and without hindsight. The opening screen is Tim in the midst of his own broken heart. He left his wife because he was in love with another woman, but she didn't want him and his pursuit of her made him like a stalker, a monster. Braid is about him coming to terms with it all.

(IMO)

-----

I managed without walkthroughs, except for one puzzle that broke me:

the one with the falling ladder where you have to exploit the ring, time reversal and time immunity all at once

It was just incompatible with my firmware. All the others were 15 minutes maximum, but I banged my head on that one for about 1.5 hours, at one point even making the game crash, before giving in and taking a sneaky look at youtube. Even then I still didn't quite understand until I'd attempted it a couple more times. It was the final puzzle piece, and I feel a little bit dirty as a result

Despite my weakness there, an immensely satisfying game to play though. The bosses were fun, and

using the chandeliers on them was a nice touch to set up that part of the final level in a meaningful way.

I also really like that the time rewind mechanic allows it to get away with some insanely finicky platforming at points without becoming frustrating.

Edited August 11, 2008 by Nachimir

[netmonkey]

I just finished the game myself. It's interesting that while solving those incredibly conceived puzzles makes the player (me) feel like the smartest person in the world, and yet the storyline makes the player (me again) feel totally dumb.

I kind of understand what happened, but it's difficult to connect the pieces, the story being the hardest puzzle of them all. And while it seems like it's very open to interpretation; I don't know how to feel. I don't know if what I did in the game matters at all.

I think I need some time to think about this though. Maybe I'll understand it better if I let it sink in my head.

Nevertheless, excellent game. I loved every second of it. Even the frustrations were good.

[Tanukitsune]

Apparently there are a bunch of stars you can pick up for an alternative ending...

I've actually seen this ending on Youtube... I like the original ending better...

[Nachimir]

Apparently there are a bunch of stars you can pick up for an alternative ending...

I've actually seen this ending on Youtube... I like the original ending better...

I'm not going to bother with the stars, and just did a few searches for the alternate ending but couldn't find it. Link pls?

[Tanukitsune]

Here it is!

[Nachimir]

Thanks.

There's also a reading of the ending at rllmuk, with some interesting stuff:

Stolen from another forum; the flags at the end of each world are nautical flags.

World 2: N

World 3: U

World 4: L

World 5: X

World 6: K

N: No

U: You are (standing into/approaching) danger

L: Stop instantly

X: Stop carrying out your intentions

K: You should stop, I have something important to communicate

[Nachimir]

Argh, current speedrun time = 46.50

The record is currently a mind boggling 29.56 :0

[toblix]

I'd possibly attempt a speed-run that was rewindable, i.e. you shape a perfect run-through of the game much like I had to do on some parts of the the final level. Of course, even that wouldn't work with all the world-specific scenarios, but hey.

I sort of dig the concept of always being able to rewind back and try again and end up with a complete string of absolutely perfect moves. For example, some of the jumping sequences where you'd rewind back and forth and adjust momentum and angle -- a complete replay of that would look fucking awesome.

[toblix]

Just to be sure, we're talking about a single run-through of the entire game in 45 minutes, right? You don't get to retry parts of it or anything?

[Nachimir]

That's right. Once you complete the game, the speedruns option opens up. A timer appears in the top right during them, and no time effects influence it.