Braid: an excellent XBLA game

[Zeus]

That's what all the reviewers seem to say

http://www.1up.com/do/reviewPage?cId=3169204

Anyone tried it?

[Andrew, Killer Bee]

Yep, I bought it on the day of its release and played through a bit of it yesterday. It's lovely.

It reminds really heavily of Portal: it's puzzle-driven, the puzzles are really clever and tightly integrated into the environment, it's singularly driven by a brilliantly implemented gameplay mechanic (time manipulation, rather than portals), and I don't feel smart enough to play it.

[kali o.]

I've heard nothing but good things, but in no hurry to grab it. To be honest, I've been craving something more along the lines of FF: My Life as King (which is why I d/l Majesty to tide me over).

[Zeus]

It's also a $15 game that's pretty short. This overcharging is a bad trend with d'loadable games

[Andrew, Killer Bee]

$15 is a more than fair price to pay for it.

[Zeus]

$15 is a more than fair price to pay for it.

If it were on disc? I'd completely agree. To me, games aren't consumables you throw away after you're done with them, so $15 is a little much for something that has zero value

[Kupek]

If it were on disc? I'd completely agree. To me, games aren't consumables you throw away after you're done with them, so $15 is a little much for something that has zero value

So your value of the play experience is $0?

[Chris]

If it were on disc? I'd completely agree. To me, games aren't consumables you throw away after you're done with them, so $15 is a little much for something that has zero value

So your value of the play experience is $0?

I'd pay more for box art baby YEAH!

[Andrew, Killer Bee]

Yeah, I'd like to reiterate Kupek's question. What are you paying for when you buy a game? The copper and silicon?

[Lox]

If I can get GTA4 totally finished before the end of August, I'll definitely pick this up. It sounds awesome.

[kali o.]

I picked it up on a whim last night and played a bit. Fully cleared, ummm, 3 worlds?

It's a pretty nifty little game...some of the puzzles are pretty god damn clever. Worth $15 bucks? Maybe...don't use a FAQs (though I'll admit, I figured out the last two puzzle pieces in world 2 solely by luck).

[Zeus]

If it were on disc? I'd completely agree. To me, games aren't consumables you throw away after you're done with them, so $15 is a little much for something that has zero value

So your value of the play experience is $0?

Sorry, "tangible value". I always judge my games based on the number of hours played. THis is what, a 4-5 hour game? About as long as MM9? If so, is it worth the $3 per hour vs the $2 per hour?

But, if it was a budget $20 game and I could sell it for $10 afterwards, all of a sudden it's a better deal.

Downloadable games are just the industry's way of taking back the "lost" profits of used games...at least, that's one of the side effects of it.

[Kupek]

Getting back lost profits is what the big boys want from downloadable games. But games like Braid wouldn't exist with the brick-and-mortar model of game publishing. Small-time developers now have a chance at making a profit at making small-scale games. It has always been possible to buy short games online, but the services offered by the current consoles makes it more viable.

In fact, it's this new distribution model that makes me feel left out more than the AAA titles on next-gen consoles. Mainly because the types of games that are up, I know I would actually buy, download, play and enjoy. With the big titles, I know I'd buy less than three a year.

You have an oddly algorithmic approach to assessing value in a videogame. I think most people look at it as $15 worth of fun, not time.

[Zeus]

Yeah, my view's odd, I agree. But if I can't back it up to ensure that I had it in the future should, say, my HDD crash and it's no longer available on Live, then the value drops IMO. And they drop to well below the price they're asking for Braid

[Tessian]

Yeah, my view's odd, I agree. But if I can't back it up to ensure that I had it in the future should, say, my HDD crash and it's no longer available on Live, then the value drops IMO. And they drop to well below the price they're asking for Braid

You won't spend a lousy $15 on a game JUST because you may not be able to play it in 5 years?? You have a warped sense of worth man... if it were a $50+ game I'd agree with you but you're talking $15! For most of us that's less than an hour's pay, so what's the big deal over it's longevity through the ages?

[Zeus]

Yeah, my view's odd, I agree. But if I can't back it up to ensure that I had it in the future should, say, my HDD crash and it's no longer available on Live, then the value drops IMO. And they drop to well below the price they're asking for Braid

You won't spend a lousy $15 on a game JUST because you may not be able to play it in 5 years?? You have a warped sense of worth man... if it were a $50+ game I'd agree with you but you're talking $15! For most of us that's less than an hour's pay, so what's the big deal over it's longevity through the ages?

Again, it's a personal thing and probably a collector's thing as well. I still do pull out a NES or SNES on occasion (and the TG16) to play them. I enjoy doing that. The $15 don't have any value beyond the game time, which is less than 5 hours (likely). That's too much IMO. Were it Portal, a game I very much enjoy, it would still be too much.

Not all d'loadable games are too expensive. I've already committed myself to MM9 and Bionic Commando Rearmed. At $10 and getting 5-6 hours (at least) out of each, that's worth it. If I didn't already own them, I would have gotten Ikaruga and Rez too.

But there's a loss in value, IMO, when it's a downloadable game versus one on a disc. Also, I rarely pay more than $40 for even a brand new game and get most of mine used for under $30, so my sense of what's "worth it" is a bit skewed.

[bovine]

penny arcade's argument on the subject

http://www.penny-arcade.com/comic/2008/8/8/

[Andrew, Killer Bee]

Anyway, the game is rad. I've cleared the first couple of worlds. The later ones are breaking my mind.

[Tessian]

penny arcade's argument on the subject

http://www.penny-arcade.com/comic/2008/8/8/

I want a beef supreme chucacabra!

[Kupek]

Anyway, the game is rad. I've cleared the first couple of worlds. The later ones are breaking my mind.

How so? What differentiates it from other 2D platformers?

[Lox]

Anyway, the game is rad. I've cleared the first couple of worlds. The later ones are breaking my mind.

How so? What differentiates it from other 2D platformers?

Did you read the IGN article? I thought that did a pretty good job of laying out the mechanics of the game...at least enough that it made me want to play it.

[kali o.]

Anyway, the game is rad. I've cleared the first couple of worlds. The later ones are breaking my mind.

How so? What differentiates it from other 2D platformers?

I'm not a big platform player or fan, but the puzzles are some of the most clever I've seen, integrated smoothly into gameplay (for the most part, it all revolves around the manipulation of time). The art direction is pretty nifty as well.

I heard the ending is pretty rad...so if you spoil it here, please mark the spoilers.

[Andrew, Killer Bee]

How so? What differentiates it from other 2D platformers?

Well, it is fundamentally a puzzle game, rather than a platformer. (Like Klonoa, back in the day.)

Its primary hook is time manipulation. You start out with the ability to reverse time by holding down x, and the game introduces mechanics that play with this: certain enemies or bits of the environment won't be affected by your time manipulation, for example.

Say you've got a key that's unaffected by time manipulation that's in a little alcove that you can't fit into, but a goomba can; and just past where the key is sitting, there's a spiky death pit. So, what happens in the course of normal time is that a goomba walks into that alcove, picks up the key, then walks to his death in the spiky pit, taking the key with him. To beat this puzzle you'd let the goomba walk into the alcove and pick up the key, then reverse time so that he'd walk back out of the alcove and bring the key with him; then you kill him and take the key.

That kind of puzzle might appear in the first accessible world. Later the game introduces different mechanics: like, in I think world 5, when you walk right time moves forward, but then if you move left time moves backward. Imagine that there's a locked door to your left and a key to your right: you move to the right to pick up the key, then to the left to use it to unlock door; but as you move left, time goes backwards and the key floats back to where it was.

Later still the game allows you to record a shadow of yourself: say you walk ten steps right then jump, then reverse time so you go back to where you start; when you stop reversing time, a clone of yourself will walk ten steps right and then jump, while you can go off and do something else.

The game plays with these mechanics to produce really inspired puzzles, and inspires the same kind of fuck-I'm-clever feelings that Portal did, when you figure them out.

Plus, it's beautiful! Its aesthetics remind me a bit of old European Amiga games, except with the detail ratcheted way up. It's nice to see a sorta-cutesy 2D game that isn't typically Japanese-looking.

Anyway, I don't think I'm capable of doing it justice. You really need to play it.

[Andrew, Killer Bee]

<a href="http://www.1up.com/do/blogEntry?bId=883 ... 247">Shawn Elliot on the game</a>.

[SineSwiper]

Bought and beat the game. Got all 60 puzzle pieces. Probably took around 6 hours or so.

Going to Zeus's argument, I bought the game at around noon, and had to get lunch. They both cost about the same price. Though the burger was good, I felt that the $15 or so I spent on the game was worth way more than the burger.

Agree with most of the comments here, in that it's an excellent game. Many of the puzzles are hard, but not hard enough that you're just poking around at shit. Eventually, after some careful thought, you figure it out. The ideas in this game for puzzles are some of the best I've seen. Each world introduces a new element, expands upon it, and has exactly the right number of puzzles based around it. You don't feel like you're repeating solutions, but there's enough to keep you entertained.

The music is really good, and the story, though at bit confusing, keeps you interested. Graphics seem to take 2D to its fullest level with excellent use of parralax scrolling and detailed backgrounds/objects.

SPOILERS: I'm still a little confused on the ending. I went through the "trial by fire" and got to a point where I found the princess sleeping. Then I just happened to hit my X button a few times, and I end up going through the whole thing backwords (or forwards, depending on how you look at it). Not sure if that was supposed to be the only ending, or if there are others. It seems like there are places where you might be able to go up a ladder to her level.

In any case, I wish the story answered some of the obvious questions.

[SineSwiper]

Info on the soundtrack, links to eMusic (which I happen to have an account):

“Maenam”, by Jami Sieber, from the album Hidden Sky

“Undercurrent” and “The Darkening Ground”, by Jami Sieber, from the album Lush Mechanique.

“Tell It By Heart” and “Long Past Gone”, by Jami Sieber, from the album Second Sight.

“Downstream”, by Shira Kammen, from the album Music of Waters.

“Lullaby Set”, by Shira Kammen and Swan, from the album Wild Wood.

“Romanesca”, by Cheryl Ann Fulton, from the album The Once and Future Harp.

EDIT: Some explanation of the ending and general story on GameFAQs' MB (of all places). Spoilers, of course, and look past the stupid comments in-between. (Spark0's posts are interesting. I somewhat saw that connection with the princess battle, but I was too busy wondering if I was doing it right.)

[Zeus]

I grabbed the demo last night to check it out. It's a pretty neat little game, reminded me a lot of Mario Vs Donkey Kong. It's got a great look and is a great idea.

And Sine, maybe down there in KY ya'll pay $15 for a burger, but up here, if you're payin' that much, it's likely at a brothel and you're getting a little "extra" with it :-)

[SineSwiper]

I grabbed the demo last night to check it out. It's a pretty neat little game, reminded me a lot of Mario Vs Donkey Kong. It's got a great look and is a great idea.

And Sine, maybe down there in KY ya'll pay $15 for a burger, but up here, if you're payin' that much, it's likely at a brothel and you're getting a little "extra" with it :-)

It was Burger King, for both Shellie and I. So, it was technically more than just a burger, but the point being that I still enjoyed the game (still enjoying, really) better than the meal that I already forgot about.

[SineSwiper]

Wow, I'm actually writing a FAQ for this game. I kept saying stuff like that in the past, but I spent a few hours into getting a good chunk finished already. I'll give you a draft when I'm mostly finished.

[SineSwiper]

Info on the soundtrack, links to eMusic (which I happen to have an account):

“Maenam”, by Jami Sieber, from the album Hidden Sky

“Undercurrent” and “The Darkening Ground”, by Jami Sieber, from the album Lush Mechanique.

“Tell It By Heart” and “Long Past Gone”, by Jami Sieber, from the album Second Sight.

I'm really liking this Jami Sieber chick. I would highly recommend picking up Hidden Sky. The first track is the title screen, but there are plenty of other good songs in there.

[Flip]

Just finished this game today (bought it from Steam yesterday) and, wow. At first, i also thought $15 was a little much but since i had heard nothing but great things i decided to give it a whirl. I didnt realize it was so short and i didnt know anything about the plot/story, just that it was a uniquely good game... After world 2 and realizing there would be only 6 or 7 worlds in total, i thought i was jipped, but eventually came to realize this game is a work of art and 6-8 hours is so much better than me blowing $15 at a movie or on a DVD.

The short stories in the books caught my attention and i liked trying to figure out what this game was about. Everything was so mysteriously mixed together. The music, drawings, levels, and plot was all pretty creepy and extremely interesting, but by the end i still needed to read this plot FAQ to have it all make sense:

http://www.gamefaqs.com/computer/doswin ... 5510/53842

On some level, i dont like being told what i couldnt figure out, but for a game like this i dont mind as much. I enjoyed everything about it and i see why it earned so many accolades.

[SineSwiper]

but by the end i still needed to read this plot FAQ to have it all make sense:

http://www.gamefaqs.com/computer/doswin ... 5510/53842

Gahhh! It's because of him I can't post my own FAQ. That and GameFAQs draconian rules. I spend 2-3 weeks on a FAQ and GameFAQs denies it because somebody else has the same type of FAQ? WTF?

[Flip]

Your writeup is better than his, i guess you were a day late or something! Sucks. I never thought about the worlds being our of order, but i like the sound of it better with your version.

[SineSwiper]

Your writeup is better than his, i guess you were a day late or something! Sucks. I never thought about the worlds being our of order, but i like the sound of it better with your version.

Yeah, I'm really proud of the step-by-step translations of the passages. I can't put it on GameFAQs, so I can't really show people like Jonathan Blow himself that we are intelligent enough to completely solve what is out there in the game.

Maybe I'm just try to submit it again. After a year of not having any more FAQs, maybe they will reconsider it.

[Flip]

A different take on the story (SPOILERS)







If you look at the worlds as they are numbered, world 1, of course, would be first AND the braid level would be the very first event after the epilogue. Lets not forget that world 1 is played entirely in reverse. In the epilogue (or is it the beginning?), the bomb has been created and tested which means the princess in the braid level is more of a metaphor for Tim's sanity or maybe a symbol of his wife. With the Manhattan project being complete and a success maybe the whole game IS about Tim trying to earn forgiveness from his wife for his insane obsession with the project. In this scenario, the 'princess' in the book exerts at the beginning of each world changes meanings from the bomb to his wife, but it makes a lot of Tim's desire to rewind life make a whole lot more sense.

Whatever ending you believe, the 'princess' constantly changed meaning from the bomb to humanity to sometimes his wife, i think that much is given. But, with the central element of this game being the ability to rewind time, i refuse to believe the entire game is about the creation of a bomb. Since the bomb is so controversial and Tim ruined his life by dedicating to it, it makes sense that he would want to rewind to save his family life and the many lives the atomic bomb destroyed.






There is a lot of ways to interpret the meaning of the game. I dont think Blow had any one right answer.

[SineSwiper]

(MORE SPOILERS)

Hmmm, nah. I still think my theory works out better. The attitudes of World 2 (and the later half of the Epilogue) seem to fit the frame of a man realizing the mistake he has done. Whereas World 4-6 seem to fit more as a man who is throwing away his morality and humanity in search of nuclear energy. By the time you reach World 1, his journey to the dark side is complete.

[M'k'n'zy]

I finished it off not too long ago, am planning to go through again soon and do a star run, and yeah the sheer depth to the storyline is incredible.

[SineSwiper]

Yeah, don't forget about the puzzle, since it's irreversible. Also, one of World 4's star is an absolute bitch to figure out, even with the walkthrough. I just remember figuring out that I had to tap the reverse button as if it was jump to survive head bounces.

[M'k'n'zy]

Yeah, don't forget about the puzzle, since it's irreversible. Also, one of World 4's star is an absolute bitch to figure out, even with the walkthrough. I just remember figuring out that I had to tap the reverse button as if it was jump to survive head bounces.

Yeah but it should be fun to do it at the same time ^_^

[SineSwiper]

Aye, I did have a lot of fun on the 2nd playthrough to get the stars. Plus, I think the reward was worth it. I'm sure you've read FAQs and stuff, but just the realization of what happens in the game is so much more.