A question about Braid

[Ninety-Three]

I agree with SuperBiasedMan, one of the things that keeps me from being harsher about Braid's narrative is the way I tell jokes. Sometimes I'll make a joke based on something very obscure or obtuse, thinking to myself "Of everyone listening, maybe one person will get this", but I still make the joke because I think it'd be really funny to the one person that gets it. For all we know, his goal with Braid's narrative was to make something that's understood by one in every ten thousand people. That might not be a good use of his time, but it's a valid artistic goal.

 

Assuming that wasn't his goal, I also agree that he made some kind of mistake. What I find interesting is that Jonathan Blow must by now be quite aware of the fact that no one (or almost no one) "gets" Braid, but he hasn't ever tried to explain it. Occasionally he tells people that a specific idea is wrong, but I can't think of anything he's said that's trying to help people be right, and I wonder why that is.

 

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. 

 

Of course, I'd been assuming this went without saying. The gameplay is great, and it's so separate from the narrative that any narrative issues don't impact it.

[SuperBiasedMan]

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. 

 

Totally, not saying that author's intent is the be all and end all of a game's success. I was only speaking about criticism of Blow and his intended message. I entirely enjoyed playing the game just as a game. The underlying narrative mostly escaped me, I read the ending as purely a feminist point about the power dynamics of being male in a relationship with a woman and it being problematic. But I could tell that reading glossed over some text passages, and when I tried to read more thoughts about it I found that the response was muddled at best.

 

Assuming that wasn't his goal, I also agree that he made some kind of mistake. What I find interesting is that Jonathan Blow must by now be quite aware of the fact that no one (or almost no one) "gets" Braid, but he hasn't ever tried to explain it. Occasionally he tells people that a specific idea is wrong, but I can't think of anything he's said that's trying to help people be right, and I wonder why that is.

 

I'm 100% certain this is because he thinks that the message is best conveyed by the game itself, and that explaining it in words is redundant when the message he spent years crafting exists for people to hear.

[Bjorn]

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.

 

Oddly enough, that article makes him sound even more alien to me. That's not a criticism, it's just I don't think I could envision someone with more of a philosophically different approach to the world compared to myself.

 

I really don't mind Blow or his opinions at all though, the industry needs more voices challenging its assumptions.  I know that's an older article, but I kind of hate it, and a few others like it over the years, that put Braid and Blow on too much of a pedestal while conveniently ignoring whole swathes of the gaming landscape, past and present.  It also ignores why Braid was successful, which in part had to do with gaming sites gaining an interest in indie developers and promoting them, the promotion that Microsoft did of Braid, its arrival on the cusp of digital only games being widely accepted.  It ignores the context of where and when Braid entered the scene.  None of that is Blow's fault, but I think it does explain some of the pushback against him, which had to do with his promoters and not him. 

[eternalGoldenBraid]

 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.

 

I think it's easy for people who looked up the star locations online to think that finding them seems impossible.  In fact, there are clues that will lead to the stars, but you have to look very closely, and you have to have the attitude that *everything in the game has a purpose*.  For example (extreme spoiler warning): why are there bits of extra platform here and here?  What's this extra stuff over here?  Why is there a little ledge up here?  When I found clues like this, it reminded me of the Asimov quote: "The most exciting phrase to hear in science, the one that heralds new discoveries, is not 'Eureka!' but 'That's funny...'"

 

When I was searching for the stars, I sometimes thought of the trick first, before solving the puzzle.  When I found a really neat trick, like bouncing a goomba on my head repeatedly, or rewinding time to get a double bounce off a different goomba, I had the feeling that, "If Jonathan Blow didn't use this trick in a star puzzle, then he made a mistake and missed something really cool."  Once I had that feeling I knew I was on the right track.  One aspect of scientific research is that you don't know where to look -- but you are guided by certain aesthetic feelings, feelings of elegance or beauty that suggest you are going in the right direction.  I think Braid captured that experience.

 

A friend of mine and I found all the stars (except world 3) without spoilers.  In my case, in order to find the stars I had to become obsessed.  There were entire days when it was difficult for me to stop thinking about where the stars might be.  So, through the gameplay itself I experienced Tim's obsession -- I became just like Tim searching for the Princess.  That's one way I think Braid is a brilliant game.  And it didn't feel like a waste of time.  I felt like I was honing my problem solving skills, and learning to be more observant, in a way that would translate into something useful outside of Braid.

 

I suspect that Jonathan Blow himself doesn't realize to what extent searching for the stars makes your brain tuned in to finding subtle things in the game that don't seem to have a purpose.  Jonathan Blow never got to search for the stars himself.  After one has found all eight stars -- and learned to look *really closely* for things in the game that don't have a purpose -- there are certain things in the epilogue that will just drive you crazy.  Why is the first set of books sparkling green?  In Braid, nothing sparkles green without a purpose, or so I thought.  What is the purpose of the epilogue cloud and why does the epilogue block artwork show a book and a coffee cup melting through a table?  Why is it possible for Tim to fall through the moving platform?  To be even more obsessive: What's the purpose of the purple curtain and the wooden structure?  Why must Tim be facing away from a red book to trigger the Om sound?  Why is the Om sound not used in a very interesting way in a puzzle?  Isn't it tempting to reverse time while the Om sound is playing, changing the octave?  (You can only change the octave for the Om sound coming from the book that is not sparkling green -- this confirms that the Om sound is coming specifically from the book.)

 

I want to preface this by saying that I think Braid is a work of genius, a masterpiece, including the epilogue, and that it has elevated video games to a higher level, etc.  But in my opinion, if someone were going to criticize Braid, this is where Braid is most open to criticism. For someone who has found all the stars without spoilers, these weirdly tantalizing clues in the epilogue hint strongly at the existence of some secret puzzle.  When I noticed these things in the epilogue, I felt that if I didn't pay close attention to them, then I would have failed to learn the lessons that Braid had worked so hard to teach me.  I spent days or even weeks wondering if I had missed something in the epilogue.   If I hadn't seen the talk where Blow says the cloud serves no gameplay purpose, and the

where Blow says that there are some optional puzzles in Braid that don't give you acknowledgement -- and that for mature gamers, appreciation of the situation is the only reward you need -- then the epilogue would still be driving me crazy.  So, if one were being critical, then one might say, "Braid treats your time and attention as precious -- except in the epilogue, when the game sends you on a wild goose chase."

 

I think the melting table artwork did have significance -- if it didn't, then Blow might as well have shown us a picture of a spork.  I think it was hinting at the ability of Tim to fall through the platform, and that the main point or "meaning" of Braid is to make discoveries like that.  I was thrilled when I discovered the trick of falling through the platform.  So I thought the epilogue was awesome, even though I'm saying I think it's open to criticism.

[Latrine]

I think the reason the first set of books sparkles green is because the only set of books in the epilogue that include a red book (the other exception is the very end with three green books) that don't have the green sparkles require you to notice that and use that fact to find the hidden message in the red book. So it's more of a contextual clue for that puzzle than having its own meaning. Similarly the other odd elements in the epilogue may be drawing your attention to the unique mechanic of the epilogue, that is the hidden messages activated by putting Tim behind a foreground element. 

 

As for the artwork for the epilogue level, I can't really come up with a good explanation for that. Perhaps it's hinting at the common physics metaphor related to quantum tunneling that there is a small probability that any object can pass through any other as long as the atoms line up right, this makes some sense considering all the physics allegories in the epilogue. The falling through platform trick seems related to this but it might just be a side effect of the fact that Tim is immune to time reversal from the platform's effect but the platform itself is not immune, which is needed to solve the puzzle in that room. I don't remember if this kind of immunity to collision while reversing time is used anywhere else in the game though. 

[eot]

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.

You're being sarcastic, aren't you? I do sort of feel that way about him though. I share a lot of his views and I enjoy (and respect) that he is able to express them so articulately. Unlike Bjorn I relate to him quite a bit.

 

 

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.

Honestly, in 2008 I don't think a lot of people had the idea to even look for meaning or message in mechanics or design. That's why people focused on the text.

[eternalGoldenBraid]

The falling through platform trick seems related to this but it might just be a side effect of the fact that Tim is immune to time reversal from the platform's effect but the platform itself is not immune, which is needed to solve the puzzle in that room. I don't remember if this kind of immunity to collision while reversing time is used anywhere else in the game though.

 

Interestingly, it's impossible to do the "falling through platform" trick on Elevator Action, perhaps because on Elevator Action the moving platform is too thick.  Even in the epilogue, the timing must be just right to make Tim fall through the platform.

 

My theory is that the video game only checks for collisions every so often, and by rewinding time quickly the relative velocity between Tim and the moving platform is higher than normal -- and the game just doesn't check for collisions frequently enough, so it's possible for Tim to fall through the table.  (I'm not a game programmer, so I could be wrong.)

 

The fact that the elevators on Elevator Action are too thick for this trick to work suggests, I think, that Blow was aware of this possibility when designing the levels.

 

Jonathan Blow has said that when he was designing Braid he felt that he was not inventing puzzles so much as discovering them, by exploring the consequences of the time rewinding mechanic.  I imagine that at some point in his exploration Blow may have realized it's possible for Tim to fall through a moving platform in this way.  This is the kind of discovery Blow would be delighted by, especially because it's sort of reminiscent of quantum tunneling.  So he may have decided to highlight this phenomenon in the epilogue, as a final optional puzzle.

[thorn]

I think the melting table artwork did have significance -- if it didn't, then Blow might as well have shown us a picture of a spork. 

 

If he showed us a picture of a spork, people would be saying "I think the spork artwork did have significance - if it didn't, then Blow might as well have shown us a picture of a melting table".

 

 

I love Braid for its atmosphere and its puzzles, but I didn't spend more than 5 minutes thinking about what it all means. Everything Blow has said about it makes me think that it's deeply meaningful for him, but impossible to get for anyone else. He doesn't seem to care whether people understand it or not, so I assume he consciously designed it so that no-one but him could. And that's fine. It's not a criticism. I'm just not going to waste my time philosophising over an impossible Zen koan.

[syntheticgerbil]

I think Tim sort of looks like Tim from The Office, so the princess is most likely Dawn and the knight is Lee. The atom bomb is most likely a representation of David Brent's career.

 

Anyway, the cloud you can stand on is just the Secret Santa in the finale, hence why a book is melting into a table (Tim is pulling a prank on ol' Gareth again!).

[syntheticgerbil]

Seriously though, if you hold down crouch while standing on the cloud, you fall behind the background scenery and you can run right and get a warp whistle. Saw it on The Wizard.

[SuperBiasedMan]

I love Braid for its atmosphere and its puzzles, but I didn't spend more than 5 minutes thinking about what it all means. Everything Blow has said about it makes me think that it's deeply meaningful for him, but impossible to get for anyone else. He doesn't seem to care whether people understand it or not, so I assume he consciously designed it so that no-one but him could. And that's fine. It's not a criticism. I'm just not going to waste my time philosophising over an impossible Zen koan.

Except that Blow has lamented that more people don't get his game.

[N1njaSquirrel]

Anyway, the cloud you can stand on is just the Secret Santa in the finale, hence why a book is melting into a table (Tim is pulling a prank on ol' Gareth again!).

 

My favourite bit was when Tim put Gareth's jigsaw piece in jelly. 

[osmosisch]

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

When it doorbreeks to a Braid publiek.

[Roderick]

That's kind of Braid outmeasured, Osmo.

[Erkki]

I probably have thought about the meaning of things in Braid for a couple of hours in total, but it was triggered either by posts in this forum or interviews with Blow, not the game itself. I also didn't find a single star as far as I remember. The game is awesome even without trying to connect the dots. But I still love that there are hard to find secrets and some intentional hidden meaning and that it probably connects with game mechanics more than the narrative.

[thorn]

Except that Blow has lamented that more people don't get his game.

 

I hadn't seen that. I was basing it off (among other things) my impression from the articule that Merus posted.