Braid

Moby ID: 35529
Xbox 360 Specs
Buy on Windows
$14.99 new on Steam

Description official descriptions

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 the main hub, Tim can eventually access six worlds that consist of different areas. The start of each world reveals a part of 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 on 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 behavior 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.

Spellings

  • ブレイド - Japanese spelling

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Credits (Xbox 360 version)

86 People (77 developers, 9 thanks) · View all

A Game by
Graphic Art by
Additional Graphical Effects Programming by
Animation Prototyping by
Additional Sound Effects by
Helpful Patron
XBLA Facilitation
Room and Board
Rewind Evangelist
Play-Testing and Discussion
Special Thanks
[ full credits ]

Reviews

Critics

Average score: 92% (based on 75 ratings)

Players

Average score: 4.0 out of 5 (based on 139 ratings with 7 reviews)

Time and Lions

The Good
Cool characters. Tim is a short guy that looks mature and wears suits and a tie. The way he looks is symbolic of an old soul trapped in a young/infantile body. It is itself a paradox of time. The main characters, however, are a bunch of lions that Tim jumps on in order to gain access to higher ground. The basic obstacles are similar to Metroidvania games. You can only jump so high, so figure out a way to jump higher. You can't crawl through narrow passages, and you can't morph into a ball. The lions can get there and get the items for you.

Visually fascinating. While the gameplay itself is almost zero fun, I kept playing due to the beautiful graphics, and the following reason.

Deep thoughts and sophisticated views about life, the universe, and existence. I'm touched by World 3 and World 5 especially. In World 5 you create a parallel universe version of yourself, and work with that alter-ego to accomplish a goal together. It makes you ponder upon the choices you have made in life, and how things may have turned out differently. In World 3 a type of glowing objects is introduced that isn't affected by time. It's a symbol of eternity, The Constant, the things in life that never change no matter what happens, such as family, such as There Is A Light That Never Goes Out.

You can't die. It's a game with an undo button that can undo everything you have done. Obviously inspired by the game/software development process itself, as you can type something, change a line of code and then undo. This is a very, very cool and useful feature, that would have been very helpful in a lot of other games.

The Bad
However, Braid doesn't feel any more user-friendly with this unlimited undo feature. You can't die. But you can't solve the puzzle either. About 20% of the puzzles can be solved by a normal person. About 20% more can be solved if you think really hard. The rest of the puzzles are too difficult. Braid really could have been 500% better, if it had just included a hint system. Give me three hints to each puzzle piece. I have to do things to earn the hints. That'll make the gameplay fun. But right now, it's not fun at all, and you constantly have to read a guide just to complete the level.

After reading the guides, it seems that each puzzle has only one, unique solution. How can a game that covers a topic so broad and deep, be so narrow-minded at the same time?

How about this: Let's summon Tim right now and rewind back to the day Braid was released, and surround Jonathan Blow, the project manager, with a bunch of lions and rabbits that are immune to everything ever. The lions and rabbits will not go away until Jonathan Blow give us three hints to each puzzle.

The Bottom Line
Unless you have the ability to manipulate time, and then manipulate Johnathan Blow, there really isn't any fun in Braid. It's probably not meant for that either. A game that aims to provide not fun, but deep questions, and eternal answers.

Windows · by Pagen HD (146) · 2013

Brilliant frustration

The Good
There were plenty of really brilliant moments in the game. Most of them were based on the mechanics of the game. The main mechanic is the ability to rewind time and other mechanics focus around this. The story plays even more brilliantly into these mechanics.

The Bad
There were plenty of frustrating moments. I had to use youtube videos for hints of how to get through plenty of levels and I gotta say that without the opportunity to see how to do I would never have been able to get through those levels. So basically in order to see the brilliancy of the story at least with my limited proficiency required outside help. So it's pretty lucky that this is a game of the youtube age... Even with help some of the puzzles required such a level of pixel perfect precision that it took a LOT of tries to get them.

The Bottom Line
Braid is a puzzle platformer with a twist. You can at any time rewind time meaning that death by monsters or pits are all really not the problem here. The presentation looks hand drawn with watercolor backgrounds.

Windows · by Mark Langdahl (158) · 2017

Braid: Masterpiece or merely above-average

The Good
When Braid was first released on the Xbox in 2008, it received generous amounts of hype and critical acclaim. It wasn't that it was just a fun game: it was practically hailed as the Second Coming for gaming as a whole, due to it's unique gameplay, pretty graphics, and so-called "art" value as well. And while it looked fun, being Xbox-less at that time meant I would just have to sit it out until a PC version was released. A few days ago, I finally managed to get my hands on the full, complete version of "Braid". Was this the timeless masterpiece it was hailed as being? The short answer is no, but that doesn't make it a bad game at all.

Braid is a puzzle platform game. You control a charming little man in a suit and tie known as Tim. Like a certain, far more famous plumber, he is searching for the princess, and he will travel through field, rain, snow, and fire to get to her. While you can run, jump, climb, and bounce on enemies' heads, that will not help you progress. Instead, what you must do is collect puzzle pieces, which are scattered throughout the levels. However, your normal skills will not net you these pieces- this is where the uniqueness of Braid comes into play.

For you see, Tim has the ability to re-wind time backwards. The first time you fall into spikes or make contact with an enemy, the game will stop and tell you that you'll need to press the "shift" key in order to rewind time. Rewinding time is what allows you to solve the puzzles in the game. Miss a jump and fail to bounce off of the enemy properly to grab the piece? No problemo, just rewind and try it again. Need to reach a gate that is quickly closing? You can rewind it and do it again. You can never die in Braid, and because of this, the focus is put strictly on the game's challenging puzzles.

In each stage of the game, a new wrinkle is introduced. In one world, Tim's horizontal position reflects the flow of time. Running forwards will more it forward, stopping will stop it, and moving back will move it back. In another, much more frustrating area, when Tim rewinds, he makes a "recording" of himself that is able to do exactly what he just did. Figuring out how to use these powers effectively forms the core of the game.

Graphics and sounds are nice, if not particularly notable. The game is entirely in 2-D, with a sort of hand-painted look that is pleasant. The music has a vaguely Celtic or folksy feel about it. It's not exactly hummable, but playing the game for prolonged periods of time will make it stick, nonetheless. The sound , like the music, is pleasant, but not very distinctive or outstanding. You might chuckle when you hear the sounds get warped as you control time, but it gets old rather quickly.

The Bad
While Braid is fundamentally sound, I still feel that it is overrated. You see, a lot of critics and people who played this game felt that it should be judged as an artistic experience, and that it tells a metaphorical story. The "story" is nothing more than a bunch of books which you can read before entering the levels. In these books are little blubs of text which try to sound verbose and serious when it comes across as nothing but pure pretentiousness. I'm here for the fun, not for "deeper meanings". The ending has been called one of the greatest of all time, so I was all amped up about it. What I got was, to be honest, a massive letdown, but a lot of people think that it makes the game "deep". There are some interesting interpretations of this game out there on the internet, but if that's really all you're interested in, you could probably skip playing the game and just go look them all up. Apparently, this makes Braid worthy of a 9-10 when in my book it's more of a 7-8. I just don't see that, however.

The Bottom Line
Don't get me wrong, I think that Braid is a FUN game. I think that it is worth playing, and you will be surprised just how clever some of the puzzles are. You might even enjoy the graphics and the music at times. But if you are expecting to be "blown away" by it, I think you should temper your expectations a little.

Windows · by krisko6 (814) · 2010

[ View all 7 player reviews ]

Discussion

Subject By Date
Recommended literature Sciere (927263) Sep 7, 2008

Trivia

1001 Video Games

Braid appears in the book 1001 Video Games You Must Play Before You Die by General Editor Tony Mott.

Budget

Developer Jonathan Blow said he invested about $180,000 of his own money in a three year period to create the game.

Inspiration

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.

References

Many of Braid's levels appear to draw their names from various cultural sources: level 3.2 -- There and Back Again -- is from fictitious hobbit Bilbo Baggins' autobiographical account of his adventures in author J.R.R. Tolkien's The Hobbit, while level 3.4 -- The Ground Beneath Her Feet -- is named either after a book of the same name by author Salman Rushdie or the U2 song also inspired by the book. Level 3.6 -- Irreversible -- suspiciously shares a title with a French film told employing an unorthodox time flow, while levels 4.2 -- Jumpman -- and 6.6 -- Elevator Action -- are names of video games. (Level 6.7 -- In Another Castle -- is one of many nods this game plays to the great granddaddy of the platform genre, Super Mario Bros.)

Awards

  • GameShark
    • 2009 - Best Xbox Live Arcade Game
  • GameSpy
    • 2008 – XBLA Game of the Year
  • IGN
    • 2009 - Overall Best Puzzle Game
    • 2009 - Best PS3 Puzzle Game
    • 2009 - Best PC Puzzle Game

Information also contributed by Big John WV and Sciere

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Contributors to this Entry

Game added by Sciere.

PlayStation 3 added by Kaminari. OnLive added by firefang9212. Linux added by Iggi. Xbox One added by MAT.

Additional contributors: Kabushi, Pseudo_Intellectual, Solid Flamingo, Zeppin, Patrick Bregger, Starbuck the Third, FatherJack, Kennyannydenny, click here to win an iPhone9SSSS.

Game added August 8, 2008. Last modified March 7, 2024.