Braid

Description

Braid is a puzzle game disguised as a 2D platformer. The player controls Tim during his search for a princess he has known and lost. Although the objective appears to be rather straightforward at first, the meaning and the motives become much more implicit and are interwoven with the mechanics during the course of the game. From a main hub, Tim can eventually access six worlds that consist of different areas. The start of each world reveals a part of the Tim's background and emotions, rather than progressing a storyline. The second to the sixth world can be entirely explored without solving all the puzzles. Difficult situations can be ignored and revisited later. When all worlds have been completed, the first one becomes available and brings closure to the story.

The game's concept is entirely based around time manipulation. Tim cannot die permanently as the player can rewind time at any moment and usually for any length, even all the way back when an area was entered. While rewinding, the music is synchronized in a similar fashion. Rather than a gimmick, rewinding is an essential element to solve the puzzles. The different worlds give a spin to the mechanic by introducing clones as the player collaborates in a parallel reality with a past version of himself, time can be affected through the movement direction, and Tim can create a circular area to cause time dilation. Certain items, enemies and parts of the scenery are immune to time manipulation or behave in a very different way. Puzzles require close examination of the environment and the behaviour of different items and enemies. As such, the game is entirely about solving the puzzle theoretically by applying the game mechanics and then using trial and error to executive it and discover possible flaws in the proposed logic. This also brings limited replayability to the game.

A world is solved by collecting the puzzle pieces. These need to be arranged and eventually show a picture related to the game's story. There is no filler in the level design, meaning that every platform, item or game element (except for a few enemies) has a specific purpose to solve a puzzle. Fast times can be tracked in a separate speedrun mode.

The later released Windows and Macintosh versions are identical, but come with a level editor.

Part of the Following Groups

• 2006 IGF winners
• Time Manipulation games

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User Reviews

Easy to play, hard to get

Xbox 360

Sciere (119181)

The Press Says

Good Game	Xbox 360	Aug 18, 2008	10 out of 10	100
Totally Gaming Network	Xbox 360	Aug 12, 2008	9 out of 10	90
Avid Gamer	Xbox 360	Sep 16, 2008	9 out of 10	90
Xboxdynasty (XD)	Xbox 360	Aug 28, 2008	9 out of 10	90
videogamer.com	Xbox 360	Aug 07, 2008	9 out of 10	90
Good Game	Xbox 360	Aug 18, 2008	9 out of 10	90
IGN	Xbox 360	Aug 04, 2008	8.8 out of 10	88
Inside Mac Games (IMG)	Macintosh	Aug 26, 2009	8.5 out of 10	85
Video Game Talk	Xbox 360	Aug 14, 2008		80
Jeuxvideo.com	Windows	Apr 16, 2009	15 out of 20	75

Forums

Topic	# Posts	Last Post
Recommended literature	10	Sciere (119181) Sep 07, 2008

Trivia

In an interview with the website Joystiq on 25th September 2008 Jonathan Blow cites the musical influences that initially lived in the same emotional neighborhood as Braid: the album Horse Stories by Dirty Three, the music of Lisa Gerrard, and the soundtrack to Dead Man by Neil Young.