Zero Punctuation: Braid

[Mozgus]

Braid finally hit PC. Beat it in 2 hours. Got all the pieces. Got stumped just 3 times for about 5 minutes. It was...good. Glad I didn't buy it though. Absolutely no replay value. No better than just 'good'. All of Yahtzee's complaints were dead on as usual. I'm really tired of indie losers overhyping these kinds of games. If no one made it out to be the best thing EVAR, I might have enjoyed it more.

So yeah, it looks, sounds, and plays well, but the levels do repeat a little, some of them do pull dick moves, and the story is complete bullshit and not associated with the game in any way. It was NOT clever, and no, that's not because I was too stupid to "get" it. It's worth $5-10. It's not worth $15. That's my judgment anyway. You can find much better games for $15.

[Gamerforlife]

Braid finally hit PC. Beat it in 2 hours. Got all the pieces. Got stumped just 3 times for about 5 minutes. It was...good. Glad I didn't buy it though. Absolutely no replay value. No better than just 'good'. All of Yahtzee's complaints were dead on as usual. I'm really tired of indie losers overhyping these kinds of games. If no one made it out to be the best thing EVAR, I might have enjoyed it more.

So yeah, it looks, sounds, and plays well, but the levels do repeat a little, some of them do pull dick moves, and the story is complete bullshit and not associated with the game in any way. It was NOT clever, and no, that's not because I was too stupid to "get" it. It's worth $5-10. It's not worth $15. That's my judgment anyway. You can find much better games for $15.

I kind of agree. I have said before that one of the most annoying things about game reviewers is that they try too hard to appear smart and so games that seem a little artsy or different get more hype and praise than they deserve. This has happened with Odin Sphere, Bioshock and Braid and will certainly happen with other games as well. You have to have substance. It's not enough to just be an artsy game. I was surprised that even Penny Arcade were exaggerating how awesome Braid was. I don't always agree with Yahtzee's reviews, but aside from the humor, I appreciate seeing a game reviewer tell it like it is, even if he isn't always right. It's why Bill Hicks is one of my favorite comics too. Again, not someone I always agreed with, but damn he had balls like grapefruits.

I feel like there is a great gaping canyon between most video game reviewers today and REAL gamers. It bothers me because it hurts the industry. I consistently see things popping up in modern video games that any gamer I talk to or posts on forums like this hate. It's because game reviewers will typically not call a game out on these things or they'll actually praise the game for having it, or criticize it for not having it. I know gamers are sick and damn tired of gimmicky, trendy QTEs in modern games but we keep seeing them. Hmmm, wonder why that is

[Mozgus]

This video makes me glad I didn't bother with the stars. I would have absolutely no fun trying to do this. Just rage.

[Dakinggamer87]

Yahtzee's review for Braid was awesome.. dead on accurate

[Ivo]

I know I am reviving and old post but I only played and finished Braid this weekend and I wanted to comment some thoughts here. Hopefully some of you will be interested in having a bit of discussion about it again.

There was a LOT of care in the design of this game. I mean some of the things may be accidental but there is so much that most have to have been intentional.

Through the worlds of the game there is an intrinsic connection between the gameplay and the "story", the points that are conveyed. This appears to be the crucial issue that designer Jonathan Blow wanted to show (not tell): you can do things with games that you can't in books or movies, so you can use those to communicate in other ways with the game itself. In turn I find it also a bit "meta" that to communicate this, Blow made a game (show, not tell)!
The "story" chosen isn't entirely clear (which is also intentional) but it is easy to argue that it was well chosen as the themes are relevant and match so well what the mechanics convey.

I've seen some complaints about Braid being too short. I disagree. I think David Sirlin even says he has not played any game that was too short, but he did play many that were too long. If a game is too expensive that is a different issue.
Perhaps Braid is too expensive at $15 but I don't want to discuss the price other than say it was part of an Humble Indie Bundle so you could pay what you wanted at that time.
In terms of design considerations exclusively I think Braid has about the perfect length as it is. I've also seen some complaints about repeat levels but I feel those elegantly serve design purposes.

2nd world: The game has a basic mechanic of time rewinding that is also associated with a central theme. This world sets the basics. Leap of faith perfectly illustrates this: in a regular game the design of the level would be cheap, but not here.

3rd world: the "green" effect grants immunity to time manipulation and clashes directly with the 2nd world, illustrating the ideas of freedom covered in the books. The last level applies it directly, requiring Tim to be immune himself which really nails the concept.

4th world: again a theme that clashes directly with the theme from the previous world, now instead of some monsters, keys (or you) being imune to time even Tim is now a prisoner of time. The theme perfectly illustrates what was discussed in the books, the rigidity as Tim was growing up and the social tight ropes. More than any other world you basically have very little deviation from the way the designer intended you to solve the puzzles here. I thought the repeat of the "Hunt" level was particularly clever. Note that the last level "Fickle Companion" makes you rely on one of the few instances in the world of a monster that is really free from the rigidity (there are other cannon-fodder
monsters that you need on 4-5). Related to one of the parts in a book, you too as a player probably feel a bit relieved when this rigid world is over - I liked the puzzles but I felt that! And it is nice that when you get to the castle in this world you just keep going in contrast with the other worlds.

5th world: the shadow world I think hits some self-contrasting themes: collaboration (with the shadow), loneliness (your companion is your own shadow) and simultaneously there is a theme of willing self-sacrifice in order to reach a goal (which connects quite directly with the books). It is interesting how this world ties together collaboration and loneliness at the same time.

6th world: the slow world didn't connect so much for me though. I get the limited radius of the effect but I think the other worlds had more elegant connection of gameplay to ideas. Maybe I just didn't get the message. It is mentioned in the text that the ring makes people slow to approach (as if that was bad) but actually the puzzles require you to make other stuff slow. Also it adds another button or key press, and more variables such as the place where you put the ring which is a slight compromise to the great elegance of the game. I appreciated the puzzles, which were well designed (and there are often some visual elements to help you know where to put the ring) but I would perhaps say this is the weakest world in terms of design. Maybe I just missed something?
I liked that Impassable Foliage really rewards using the "time stop" (between rewind and fast forward), which is a very mild benefit in some other circumstances (like the "Phase" level back in world 3) and mostly useless given that you can rewind, let it go, rewind (sort of like a DJ). I am sad to say I think even with Impassable Foliage the game fails a bit in introducing this possibility, perhaps because doing it is a bit clunky. I wouldn't be surprised to know that many people finished the game without ever using or really thinking about "time stop" (which is a shame as it can be quite cool).

1st world: the reverse world, with the order of the world naming was intentionally reversed - not subtle but makes sense. The music being reversed is a nice touch. The short levels illustrate the mechanic and set up the grand finale, which is quite well executed in both versions of it and ties together main themes explored during the game.

Noticing some of the stuff in a game so carefully designed to the extent Braid is, is almost unavoidably going to be a group effort - this too fits the theme and I believe was intentional. For example, I read in the internet that the flags in the castles are nautical flags with specific meaning. This will be extremely easy to notice for someone that deals with those flags, but rather unlikely for others to spot that something specific is going on and figure out what. Similarly, people more familiar with the Manhattan skyline can identify some specific visual references.

Now about the stars! Let me just start with this: the stars are not for everyone and I think they were clearly not meant for everyone by design.
I think the game is fairly clear on that and tries to avoid penalizing completionists that want to get 100% on games (although the stars still do that to some extent, but it is mostly unavoidable). The fact that the game doesn't really mention the stars explicitly has two effects: it does not actively punishes completionists that don't care for the design of the challenges involved (which given what they are is quite understandable); and more importantly it ties with the insecurity of the existence of the Princess which is a significant part of the metaphors the game represents - on this I find it interesting that you can find old posts from not so near the original release of the game with people saying they got them and others disbelieving it and so on. I also think it was probably intended that the collection of all stars would effectively turn into a group effort, which again fits with the theme of the metaphor as already said (about the flags).

I think the most controversial stars are the 2nd and 3rd world stars. The others are basically just technically hard, usually from a platforming point of view (although the time rewind helps make it relatively easy on at least some of them, while reinforcing the "irreversible" theme on the others that involve "green" enemies).

2nd world (the basic world of time rewind - the central mechanic of the game) has an "I wish I could fast forward" star (you can rewind but you can't fast forward unless you have rewound first). I'm tempted to call this bad design. Yes it is annoying. I can't conceive anyone will actually stick around in front of the game, you will just go do something else and check to see how close you are already. But it perfectly conveys that point, fits into the world and sets up the next world where stuff is free from time manipulation entirely. Also if the designer wanted to just be a jerk he would have put the trickier (quite easy) jump in the end instead (although you could just rewind anyway). So I ended up appreciating it as good design.

3rd world (the irreversible world) has an "irreversible" star. I'm also tempted to call this bad design. Yes it is annoying (notice a trend) that you probably will have to re-start the game to get it (which I'm pretty sure was intended by design to happen that way, so it wasn't just sloppy but intentional). But once again it perfectly conveys the point, it fits into the world, and it also fits very well with a metaphor of discovery and learning where you often don't know if you will reach understanding and may even need to re-start from scratch to get somewhere. As the game is relatively short the penalty for starting over to get the star is not huge so I actually consider this star to be good design as well (personally I enjoyed replaying the game to read and make more connections between the books and the gameplay etc.). Note that (like with other stars) the techniques required to get it once you know where it is are explained to you by then (namely on world 2).

The 4th world has two stars. Harsh! The 5th world has a star and the 6th world has a star. They mostly reinforce the concepts of the respective worlds and levels, although to some extent one of those in the 4th world would perhaps fit just as well thematically in the 5th world, but in terms of puzzle it has to be in the 4th world. With few exceptions they require only concepts that have been illustrated during the game to get puzzle pieces.

The extra books on the epilogue - the extra text is in some cases requires a bit of extra puzzle to activate them, which is also nice.

Finally The finished constellation - I saw a constellation and I though greek mythology. I see someone chained, with a greek mythology mindset and it made me think of Prometheus. I'm convinced the constellation is supposed to be unambiguously female so I'm not very sure this was intentional on the author's part (I wouldn't be surprised though, despite the gender mismatch) but if it was intentional it fits with the theme of the game very well.

Ivo.

[J T]

Hey Ivo, I saw you mention elsewhere that you were feeling kind of lonely after not getting a response to this. I feel kind of bad because I had read your post before and meant to respond, then left and forgot about it.

One of the things I really loved about Braid was the ways in which the storyline was represented in the gameplay. As you pointed out, one of the central mechanics is of turning back time, and since much of the storyline is about regret and wishing one could turn back the clock, there is perfect representation of the central theme embodied in the gameplay of Braid. So much of the game is about noticing your mistakes, rewinding, and correcting them. It represents how so many of the things we screw up in our lives are because we just didn't have enough time to think, or we just made a slight error that could have easily been adjusted. Normally, we don't get second chances and we don't have much time between the point where we think about something and the point where we have to act.

Braid's gameplay is very contemplative in this respect. The puzzles are challenging and require a mix of logical deduction and trial and error. This is a game that wants you to think, and isn't afraid to let you fail (though it will always let you rewind and learn). But the fact that it wants you to learn at all is very different from the many games that have you push a button to be awesome, or that string you along with infantilizing tutorials for every possible action. Braid hints at what you should do, but it wants you to struggle like a good Socratic teacher.

There is an appreciation for not only the "game on the screen", but the "game in your mind". Braid is a game crafted with the idea of activating your mind. This is most obvious in the puzzles, but the books throughout the game are also intentionally left vague so you are left with the "game" of trying to piece together in your mind what the storyline might be. This has you looking for clues in the world, the jigsaw puzzles, and the gameplay to try to understand the cryptic passages of the texts between worlds. I think it is rare for games to acknowledge the "game in your mind" and I Braid seems to do it rather well. I really appreciated that it required some mental struggle to complete this game and it was nice to have a designer assume I was smart enough to figure things out rather than assume I would need to have my hand held through a bunch of tutorials and QTEs.