Braid

[Bolty]

Anyone else play this game?

The game's marketing says:

"Braid is a puzzle-platformer, drawn in a painterly style, where the player manipulates the flow of time in strange and unusual ways. From a house in the city, journey to a series of worlds and solve puzzles to rescue an abducted princess. In each world, you have a different power to affect the way time behaves, and it is time's strangeness that creates the puzzles. The time behaviors include: the ability to rewind, objects that are immune to being rewound, time that is tied to space, parallel realities, time dilation, and perhaps more. Braid treats your time and attention as precious; there is no filler in this game. Every puzzle shows you something new and interesting about the game world."

Braid PC Reviews on Metacritic, with an overall score of 90.

I picked this game up on Steam during their summer sale for roughly 2 bucks. It's a small indie game that's a puzzle platformer in the vein of Super Mario World. It even pokes fun at the typical Mario conventions ("the Princess is in another castle!"). Seems uninteresting, right? Just another of hundreds of games like it. Except...

"In an age when many games feel like clones of one another or are designed to be easy to beat, Braid sticks to its guns and delivers a rewarding and memorable experience that's definitely worth checking out. It's like an invigorating breath of fresh air, and proof that a handful of independent developers can create games that raise the bar for others."

-- IGN

and

Gentlemen, I think we're looking at a masterpiece, in the same sense in which Portal is one too. A cerebral and pleasant experience, never frustrating without proper reward, never dull or monotonous.

-- Computer Games Online

You can try the free demo of Braid on Steam here.

As the game's marketing states, there is no filler in this game. You're presented with puzzle after puzzle after puzzle, and once you solve that puzzle, you're not really presented with the same challenge ever again. They could have chosen to go that route to pad out the game's length, but they avoided that trap. As a result, you get some unthinking reviewers complaining that the game is short. Of course it is; there's zero repetition of challenges. And the game is awfully clever about some of them. I found myself thinking nice job, developers more than once after solving a puzzle that bended my mind in a new direction. It's sort of like that first play-through of Portal, where it changes how you think about first-person shooters. Braid changes how you think about platform games.

If you're worried that the game is too action-oriented or "twitch," if you can complete Super Mario World level 1-1, you have enough ability to play this game. The difficulty isn't so much in twitch skills or super timing; the difficulty is in the puzzles. Figuring out HOW to do something is 10 times more effort than actually doing it, especially considering that if you screw up, you can always reverse time and try again (you can't really "die" in this game).

Anyway, thumbs up for a refreshing indie title that I highly enjoyed.

[Tuftears]

I've played it! It was solid. ^_^

[LemmingofGlory]

Yup, Braid's great. For another atmospheric puzzle game, "The Misadventures of PB Winterbottom" is fantastic, and I feel there can't be enough praise for "Limbo."

-Lem

[Occhidiangela]

Hi Lem.

Long time, no see.

[Bolty]

I just gotta bump this because this game is really, really, really, really, really good.

I beat it 2 weeks ago and I'm still thinking about it. And while the entire game reeks of ingenuity, the final level especially just totally blows your mind. Don't read any spoilers. Just play it.

More info at Braid's website here.

[LemmingofGlory]

Long time, no see.

I know, right? I've been off in RL-land like some sort of uncool wanker unwilling to cave to the peer pressure of open-ended games and MMOs. So viva Braid and all that!

-Lem
For Greiz!

[LochnarITB]

I tried the demo for a bit. I went into it initially thinking "rewinding time is kinda nice for when I screw up, but a save load would work too". When it finally clicked how time - not timing - was at the heart of the puzzles, I actually giggled at solving the puzzle. I don't dare unlocking the game though. It's the kind of thing I would obsess over and get frustrated when I can't grasp what eventually becomes obvious. I can't afford to meltdown any more brain cells so I'll just keep on playing WoW and the Path of Exile beta.

[Chesspiece_face]

If you are intersted in games like this I highly recommend checking out VVVVVV. It doesn't have the narrative that Braid does, but it does have brilliant Platforming/Puzzle mechanics that are a blast. Pretty sure it's $5 on steam. It's also got some of the best retro music in a game for a long time.

(Random factoid: The string of Vs in the game's name is visually meant to represent a strip of spikes. You will see a lot of these in the game. =P)

[Bolty]

I don't dare unlocking the game though. It's the kind of thing I would obsess over and get frustrated when I can't grasp what eventually becomes obvious.

Can't argue with that. I was stuck on one of Braid's puzzle pieces towards the end of the game for forty-five minutes one night. I sat there just wracking my brain, because as you'd probably noticed, the game itself is simplistic, yet brilliant.

I went to sleep. Next day, signed in to take yet another look at the puzzle and solved it in 2 minutes. Just needed a fresh look at it to get my brain out of the rut it was in, trying to approach it in exactly the wrong way. As I grabbed that puzzle piece, I laughed in satisfaction - the answer was so easy and so obvious, but I couldn't hit it the day before.

That may happen more than once with Braid.

A further hint: the entire game is a metaphor. I can't go deeper into that without giving things away. And the ending won't hit you over the head with the meaning of it, either. You have to figure it out.

[Treesh]

Damn you all! I've got enough games coming up that I want to try, but the more I hear you guys talk about it, the more I want to try it. I curse you all for trying to spread the word about really enjoyable games.

Edit: Curses! There's even a free demo on Steam for it, which of course is now being downloaded. At least I'm doing this right before work so I won't have time to fiddle with it.