So... a year ago this neat little indie game called Braid came out that everyone raved about and had interesting discussions regarding. And I did not get it because I didn't have a windows computer. And then a month later I got windows for my intel Mac and didn't make the connection that "hey, I can play Braid now." And then a day ago I saw it for sale on Steam, realized I hadn't played it yet, realized that I COULD play it, and... well... I played it. But now I feel lame for having missed the boat of fun discussions.
(I actually read a bunch of the discussions a year ago because I didn't think I'd get to play it, so even if someone here hadn't had all the Braid-conversation they could possibly need, it'd still have a kinda "been there, done that" feeling, even for me).
So I guess I'll just say... if you haven't played this game yet, please do so. It'll take about as long as it'd take to read a novel, and you'll get about the same thing out of it. This is one of a few games I've played that really succeed as art for art's sake as well as succeeding at being fun for fun's sake.
[ September 15, 2009, 12:37 PM: Message edited by: Raymond Arnold ]
Posts: 4136 | Registered: Aug 2008
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I played Braid when it came out. Fantastic game. Unlike Flower, I don't recommend it to everyone, but I do recommend it to most gamers and some non-gamers.
Posts: 10886 | Registered: Feb 2000
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I actually do recommend Braid to everyone, with a caveat: If you like puzzle games, I definitely recommend playing it all the way through by yourself with as little help as possible. But if puzzles really aren't your thing, I think you can get a lot out of the game even if you look up the solutions on youtube.
If you're going that route, I recommend plyaing through each of the worlds once (you can almost always bypass puzzles that are too difficult. You'll need to solve them to reach the last level but you can still explore the rest of the game without much difficulty)
Then go back a second time, looking for solutions you might have missed before, and if you find yourself stuck and frustrated go ahead and look up the answer. I admit I did this a few times, but even then, seeing someone else solve it made me go "Damn that was clever."
The final level by far has the most "oomph" factor, and if you've played through the rest of the game you should be able to beat it by yourself.
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Braid is one of those games that's hard for me to put a simple descriptor on. It makes me glad I'm not a professional game reviewer; summing it up as "B+" or "three stars" or the like would be heart-breaking.
The art is gorgeous. The time-and-space mechanics are ingenious. There should absolutely, positively be more games with that kind of creativity and originality on display.
Annnnnd... It made me grit my teeth. A lot. It's all well and good to make a game where you can get through without seeing everything, and maybe have some neat tchotchkes for the 100% perfectionists. But Braid conceals the story from you for not completing every last thing, and the trick in the final level for the alternate/"true" ending borders on being a cheat. And even with everything revealed to the player, the story still gets a lot of "Huh?" responses. If "the cake is a lie", the Princess is a metaphor... On top of a metaphor... On top of a metaphor.
It's like after hours of struggling to pitch a ball into a basket in a carnival, you're given a teddy bear. But the real prize is that there's a key inside the teddy bear, which opens a door to the house listed on the key, only the address is backwards, and you have to realize that "Christmas Day" is code for Pine Street, and...
It's a game that is absolutely complete, but having completed it, you don't feel like it's finished, somehow. It's absolutely worth playing, I'm glad it exists, and it still makes me want to rip out my hair.
Posts: 3826 | Registered: May 2005
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I confess I did not bother attempting to discover the true ending for myself (I already had heard the general gist of it, and it seems like the general gist of it isn't even that specific, and I just don't feel like spending bajillions of hours finding something that isn't exactly "rewarding.")
In semi-related news, has anyone played Spelunkey? (http://forums.tigsource.com/index.php?topic=4017.0). It's a procedurally generated platformer. I consider it a good game for essentially all the opposite reasons that Braid is a good game. Rather than emphasizing forgiveness, it's an extremely punishing game with 16 levels of perma-death. Playing Spelunky next to Braid was an interesting comparison. They're essentially flip sides of the same coin.
Not a whole more I can say about it unless someone else has played it, but I recommend giving it a try. (Unlike Braid there is no deep meaningful point behind it other than to have fun. But it's good. It's also free).
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I'll have to give it another shot. I have mercifully and luckily remained unspoiled. I only played through 40 minutes or so.... And I enjoyed it. I think I got distracted by some other game I was also playing at the time. Posts: 2267 | Registered: May 2005
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Okay, whatever else you've done, you guys have sold me on Braid. I've been hearing about it for awhile, but now gonna get it and play it.
Posts: 1080 | Registered: Apr 2006
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After reading this thread, I went ahead and downloaded the demo. I liked that well enough and so I bought the game. I played it through and often went back to previous worlds several times before I figured them out. It's been a nice mix of frustrations with aha! moments. Now I've gotten all but three of the puzzle pieces I need to move on to the next level and I'm getting frustrated and sadly no more aha!s. I hate the idea of looking up the answers online, but I'm getting tired of beating my head against the wall without results.
Posts: 2149 | Registered: Aug 2000
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I discovered the other day that Braid is an awesome game to play at parties, or otherwise with groups of people, because everyone can pitch in ideas on how to solve puzzles and be wowed by the various new stuff. And the more people you have, the more likely someone is to come up with the solution. And rather than looking up the answers online, it still feels like "you" beat the game, albeit in a plural sort of way. (Like a bunch of hunters gathering to beat a mastodon, except that you're nerds instead of hunters and the mastodon is a weird poetic game).
So I'd try inviting some friends to play through the game, at first just to watch them (it's actually fun to see other people discover the mechanics), and as you near the end of the game you can all work together at it.
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Well, as I said all the major discussions happened a year ago so there wasn't much left to talk about.
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Youtube has walkthroughs for anything you truly can't figure out. I think, like Half-Life, it has a fairly good curve for figuring out puzzles just before you get truly frustrated, but only on the actual "get through the levels" path. Once you start trying to get all the puzzle pieces... Using a walkthrough begins to seem like less of a cop-out.
Posts: 3826 | Registered: May 2005
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As I said before, I did use the walkthrough a lot, and even then, just watching how the puzzles got solved made me go "damn, that was clever" a lot of the time. Still, I think solving them with a friend would be more satisfying and wish I had thought of it earlier.
Posts: 4136 | Registered: Aug 2008
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Anymore, I check for walkthroughs if I get stuck for more than 10 or 15 minutes. When I think of the hours I spent trying to figure out Myst...*shudder*. I'm just not quite clever enough, some of the time, and trial and error gets too boring.
(I also get sick of action games that aren't really puzzles but are just designed to require near-perfect play to finish a level.)
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