A question about Braid

[eternalGoldenBraid]

SPOILER ALERT.  This thread contains spoilers for the video game Braid.

 

If you haven't played Braid, please play it unspoiled while you still can.

 

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Question: Did anyone ever notice you can

in the epilogue of Braid?

 

Is this what the epilogue block artwork is hinting at when it shows a book and a coffee cup melting through a table?

[Problem Machine]

It's been a long time since I played it, but I don't think I noticed it at the time. Given the attention to detail Jon seemed to put into all aspects of the game, it's hard to believe that's accidental. The epilogue seems to break a number of rules established elsewhere in the game as well, such as the strong separation of background and foreground (something he mentioned as being a priority in the art design talking about the game before release).

[Merus]

The epilogue has several places where additional text can be shown that makes each screen's relevance to the game's themes clearer. I suspect that's involved in one of them.

[syntheticgerbil]

I think we've argued about this at length years ago elsewhere on this forum, but if there was any consensus is that Jonathan Blow didn't make many aspects of Braid's story and meaning comprehensible to... anyone who wasn't Jonathan Blow.

[Jake]

I have a question about Braid, but I've asked it before.

[eternalGoldenBraid]

@Jake do you really have a Braid question? What is it?

[Merus]

I think we've had more time to work out what Blow was getting at than we would have had then. Blow's all but confirmed some aspects of the reading.

[Nachimir]

Has he? The last thing I saw on this was Blow saying something like "No one has understood my game yet"

[Problem Machine]

@Jake do you really have a Braid question? What is it?

I assume that it's whether you ever wish if you could go back in time.

[eternalGoldenBraid]

haha.

 

Jonathan Blow has said in interviews that he was once reading a Braid discussion on some internet forum, and somebody wrote "seven one syllable words" that captured very well (in Blow's opinion) what Braid is about.  In another talk I think Blow described it as eight short words, or something similar to that.  Does anyone know what he was referring to?

 

My attempt would be something like, "Braid is about what it's like to be a scientist."  In the actual gameplay, we explore the consequences of hypothetical tweaks to the laws of physics, much like a scientist.  And my experience solving puzzles in Braid often reminded me of the Asimov quote that: "The most exciting phrase to hear in science, the one that heralds new discoveries, is not 'Eureka!' but 'That's funny...'  It was impressive how well Braid captured that aspect of being a scientist, and made me learn to be a more observant person in the process.

 

But I also like Jeff Liu's description: "Braid is about chasing an evasive goal and the consequences suffered both chasing it and ultimately reaching it."

[Merus]

This is the article I'm thinking of where Blow talks about what Braid was about.

[eternalGoldenBraid]

That's a good article.

 

I often hear interpretations of World 1 like this one from the article:

 

And then time begins rewinding (which makes events unfold in their “proper” sequence), allowing us to see the truth: all this time, the princess hasn’t been waiting for Tim to rescue her; she’s been fleeing him. While she appeared to be removing obstacles for Tim before, she was frantically tossing them in his path. The burly knight who carried her off was actually her savior.

 

I suspect many people here will agree with me or think this is obvious, but I don't think that when time begins rewinding we see the "truth".  Rather, we just see a different perspective on the world.  From Tim's perspective, he is on a grand quest to find the Princess (representing his great vision), and is driven onward by a wall of fire.  From the perspective of other, "normal" people who don't share his inspiration or his obsession, Tim is perceived as a creepy guy -- a guy that girls should run from into the arms of some douchy, vapid knight.  Tim sees the Mona Lisa, while other people see L.H.O.O.Q.  So we sense the loneliness Tim experiences because other people don't share or appreciate his vision.

[eternalGoldenBraid]

Oh and to be fair, the article itself acknowledges this when they quote Blow saying:

 

"Something that’s even more widespread is that people play the final level with the princess and then latch onto the interpretation that it’s like an M. Night Shyamalan surprise ending,” Blow said, with the air of one by now accustomed to bottling his rage. “Like, ‘Oh, shit—Tim was a stalker the whole time!’ But that doesn’t even make sense."

[Roderick]

When is the year of the Braid, when we finally unlock the full meaning of this game?

[Erkki]

Maybe The Witness will have an easter egg that unlocks the secrets of Braid, but it's inaccessible until the year of the PS4?

[Ninety-Three]

No, once we reach the apex of the year of the PS3, our self-aware consoles will ascend to a higher plane of existence where they can finally comprehend the true meaning of Braid: It was in them the whole time.

[syntheticgerbil]

Well when I play The Witness I'll just look out for books stuck halfway into tables, clouds that you can stand on, and atom bombs.

 

 

Now that I really think about it, I'm kind of ticked that getting all of the stars in Braid just kind of fails to inform anything else about the story. Why couldn't Tim just do a little dance or something?

 

What is Braid?

[Ninety-Three]

Now that I really think about it, I'm kind of ticked that getting all of the stars in Braid just kind of fails to inform anything else about the story. Why couldn't Tim just do a little dance or something?

 

I get the impression that there is something meaningful there, even if it only comprehensible to Jonathan Blow. I'm not sure if he was trying to make us understand, and did a terrible job of it, or if it was a self-indulgence thing where he made it for himself. Either way, there's probably a really complicated explanation for it that we'll never be given.

[SuperBiasedMan]

The game seemed to be about pursuing something so doggedly that you lose sight of your true goal, so in that sense it seems fitting that getting all the macguffin collectible items fails to tell you anything about the character's narrative.

[Latrine]

Yes, I think this is the problem that Blow has with popular interpretations of Braid. Everyone is focused on the overt character of Tim and his supposed narrative arc, but he doesn't see that as what Braid is about at all. He's focused much more on the game design and puzzles that you play through. That's why what we've seen of The Witness has pretty much no narrative elements, because he doesn't want those to distract from the core game experience this time. 

 

Getting the stars in Braid is amazing because those are the best puzzles in the game (except the one you have to wait two hours for). They're also in the game that way because they're a meta-commentary on achievements and completionism. You're not supposed to be rewarded for getting the stars, getting them was its own reward. The fact that actually getting them all is kind of an anticlimax is not a mistake.

 

I was just rewatching the ending on Youtube and this one part of the epilogue actually jumped out at me as prescient about Braid's reception and how Blow has responded to it. It's almost surprising that he didn't see it all coming because he calls it out right here in the game. 

 

Ghostly, she stood in front of him and looked into his eyes. "I am here," she said. "I am here. I want to touch you." She pleaded: "Look at me!" But he would not see her; he only knew how to look at the outsides of things.

 

Also I have to say that I find the common interpretation of Blow as a pretentious hack for putting all the oblique text in the game and hinting at deeper meaning really off-putting and anti-intellectual. There's no piece of work that requires some extreme level of intellect to be able to interpret or understand. The aspiration here was that people who be able to make their own interpretations beyond the surface level narrative that you see in most games, and his disappointment is that most people did not look beyond the surface or even if they did that they focused more on the text than the game.

[Ninety-Three]

He's focused much more on the game design and puzzles that you play through. That's why what we've seen of The Witness has pretty much no narrative elements, because he doesn't want those to distract from the core game experience this time. 

 

Well all we've seen of The Witness is screenshots, mostly of environments (I hear he's taken it to a few shows, but I don't think any footage has made its way online). However, I've been following his devblog (or perhaps I learned this from some alpha review someone did), and the game contains audiologs from a narrator figure who addresses you directly. Obviously we don't know how much of that there is, but I'd been imagining them serving a purpose much the same as the books in Braid, which comprised 90% of its narrative.

 

Where were you getting the idea that he's less focused on narrative this time?

 

Getting the stars in Braid is amazing because those are the best puzzles in the game (except the one you have to wait two hours for).

 

Well the one where you have to assemble the painting wrong to jump on it to reach a star (and can't ever get the star if you complete the painting) was not exactly great. Overall, I remember disliking several of the star puzzles not because they were hard, but because it wasn't clear they were puzzles. There were several puzzles where you had to find a way to jump out of the top of the screen, without the indication that this was possible, nor would achieve anything. It felt like several of the levels required you to simply look at the level and declare "Hey, I bet if I did this, then this, then this and maybe if the jump distances are exactly right, I could get a goomba over there. Then I could jump on his head and I'd be pushed off the top of the screen for a moment. Right, let's get to it then." All of that without having any reason to want to be pushed off the top of the screen for a moment.

[Nachimir]

This is the article I'm thinking of where Blow talks about what Braid was about.

 

I've had the tai chi experience of Jon leaving a group conversation to practice it about two metres away from everyone. That article does an absolutely great job of making him a bit more understandable.

[SuperBiasedMan]

I definitely think there's too much of an anti-Blow contingent that got annoyed when the meaning of the game didn't present itself to them conveniently. But at the same time, as an artist you have to decide both what you want to communicate and who you will communicate it to. With that dual goal in mind, you need to figure out how best to say what you want based on the content of the message and the audience receiving it. If the message is not fulfilling to the audience, whether that's based on the audience themselves or the content, there's a certain degree of responsibility to which the artist is beholden.

I'm not that familiar with Blow's output to know how much he's thought about how he should have presented the game to make it clearer for the people he wanted to talk to, but I think it's fair to say that he did not 100% communicate what he wanted and he could have tried different methods of getting it across that could have done better.

 

This is just how I look at it personally, but I definitely think it's a valid way to criticise Blow to an extent. But it is also difficult to make a game that's meaningful if you're not going to tailor it to a framework gamers are used to operating in.

[Twig]

Jonathan Blow is probably my favorite indie developer. I love everything about the guy. Number one role model!

 

The fact that I don't understand anything about Braid beyond what people have told me about it has no effect on my opinion, really.

[Latrine]

There have been videos of the beginning portions of The Witness, last one was at the Playstation event in December.

 

 

I remember they talked about audio logs early in development but I'm not sure if they're still in the game. Even if they are, the presentation of the game is much more streamlined and focused on getting the players to the puzzles. For example I think Blow mentions here that there is no soundtrack to the game, it's just ambient sounds. Whereas Braid has a very specific soundtrack. 

 

The painting puzzle is actually one of the ones that I like, although I do agree that being able to put it in an unsolvable state is bad. But the point of the stars is that they're only there for the most dedicated fans. You have to explore the game to its full extent, or more likely read about the game online, to find out about them. Either way, they're designed as actual "achievements", rare parts of the game that not every player is going to experience.

 

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I do think it's fair to criticize parts of Braid, no game is perfect. And sure you can criticize Blow for not communicating in his game what he apparently wanted to communicate to everyone. However as a counterpoint, the game stands on its own legs regardless of its author's intentions and is appreciated by many people. There's a reason Braid is one of the first great indie games of this era, and apparently the fact that everyone didn't "get it", as if there's something that everyone has to "get", doesn't change my own enjoyment of the game at all. Just like there's an overemphasis in discussion of Brain on its narrative, there's also an overemphasis on Blow's artistic intent. Both of those things are his fault of course, but neither of those things is what Braid actually is.