It got a 95% on Gamespot, an A+ on 1up, a 10/10 on Eurogamer, and a 92% average rating on Metacritic: http://www.metacritic.com/games/platfor ... id?q=braid
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Moderator: Sigma
Also I guess Sony turned the game down for PSN initially. It's kind of funny, I was browsing a thread on Penny Arcade on this game and the designer, Jonathan Blow, actually read through the thread and was responding to questions and concerns and stuff. Sort of like Sage or Slug casually responding in a thread here about a new album of theirs. Helps break down that 4th wall and realize these games are just coming from regular dudes who are living their dreams.Hmm, this makes me seem extremely negative toward Microsoft, when that's really not how it is. Yes, there were some negative interactions during development, but they were also cool about a lot of things.
They didn't try to dictate the game design, as many publishers might -- they were very hands-off there, and what is in the final game is exactly what I wanted to put there. They also bent a lot of XBLA rules, in order to help me make the game the way I wanted, which was pretty cool of them. (For example, the way in which you can launch Braid and be directly in the game -- that is technically illegal if you go by the book, but they saw what I was trying to do and went with it.)
So I just want to add some balance here. For the most part working with Microsoft has been great. There have been occasional problems, including one that I was very upset about -- but there are people at Microsoft who really got the game and worked very hard to help bring it to completion, and it would just be wrong to slight their contribution with some kind of blanket "Microsoft = Bad" attitude.
I'm not ready to ask for help just yet. I'm having a lot of fun figuring this shit out. You'll be the one I go to when/if I give up, though.slimebucato wrote:frank b, what parts are you having trouble on? maybe I can give you a hint or two. I got pretty stuck at points at myself. p.s. fuck your 76 million geometry wars 2 score
same here.. got to play it for about 30 minutes to 45 last night.. some of the puzzles really pissed me off but now i think i know the kind of shit to look for.. looking forward to knockin some levels out tonight..Andvil wrote:I haven't got to play it much, but I completed the world 2 puzzle and I'm really really loving it so far. I played world 3 a little bit but had to stop. I'll be playing this all day long tomorrow, I'm sure. The look of this game is absolutely amazing
Yeah, brilliant game.Combo7 wrote:This completely dominated my night last night. Great recommendation.
I played all the way through World 4 and got all the pieces (except for the last one in World 4, was too tired at that point to figure it out). The difficultly is great, I got stuck a few times but was always able to solve it after a little while. Graphics are good too.
there are still stars you can get which can give you an alternate ending
also the epilogue has really important easter eggs that help tie the story together if you care enough
plus speed runs, i'm not too interested in doing those myself though. not sure if you get anything for completing them.
Erm, I've made a few observations. I'm not sure how much of it has already been said, but what the hell.
Disclaimer: Braid is a game that involves you climbing ladders and picking up keys. However, it also has a plot, and you could quite easily complete the game without ever really coming across half of it.
This is that half.
(All of this is the work of both myself and a guy called Raze.)
Braid is a story that focuses on the development and deployment of the atomic bomb, and the irreversible impact it had on all human conflicts thereafter. At the very same time, it deals with the very human story of a relationship breaking down due to one personגs obsessive need to control this power. Finally, at certain points, the perspective of the bomb creator as a child comes through.
No, seriously.
The main source for all of this comes straight from the passages of the texts found in the epilogue screens, all of which are laid out openly below. Each screen has an alternative passage laid out, which only appears once Tim is located behind an object in the foreground. The italicised text is the alternative.
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-----The boy called for the girl to follow him, and he took her hand. He would protect her; they would make their way through this oppressive castle, fighting off the creatures made of smoke and doubt, escaping to a life of freedom,
The boy wanted to protect the girl. He held her hand, or put his arm around her shoulders in a walking embrace, to help her feel supported and close to him amid the impersonal throngs of Manhattan. They turned and made their way toward the Canal St. subway station, and he picked a path through the jostling crowd.
His arm weighed upon her shoulders, felt constrictive around her neck. גYouגre burdening me with your ridiculous need,ג she said. Or, she said: גYouגre going the wrong way and youגre pulling me with you.ג In another time, another place, she said: גStop yanking on my arm; youגre hurting me!ג
Iגm coming back to this one in a second. For now, take note of the location (Manhattan), and the somewhat schizophrenic splitting of events hinted in the alt text. Three women are shown speaking; the first being the spurned partner, the second being that of the bomb, the third being that of the mother of a persistent child.
----
Again; I want to come back after the big reveal. But the search for the גPrincessג is important, and the description of a man obsessed with observing, with deducing but never really knowing.He worked his ruler and his compass. He inferred. He deduced. He scrutinized the fall of an apple, the twisting of metal orbs hanging from a thread. He was searching for the Princess, and he would not stop until he found her, for he was hungry. He cut rats into pieces to examine their brains, implanted tungsten posts into the skulls of water-starved monkeys.
Ghostly, she stood in front of him and looked into his eyes. גI am here,ג she said. גI am here. I want to touch you.ג She pleaded: גLook at me! But he would not see her; he only knew hot to look at the outside of things.
---
The desert unarguably being that of New Mexico; the bunker, the safe observation point for one of the single most important landmarks in the pursuit of scientific knowledge.He scrutinized the fall of an apple, the twisting of metal orbs hanging from a thread. Through these clues he would find the Princess, see her face. After an especially fervent night of tinkering, he kneeled behind a bunker in the desert; he held a piece of welderגs glass up to his eyes and waited.
The above paragraph is a direct quotation (hence the footnote) from Robert Jay Liftonגs The Broken Connection, of which you can read some of right here: http://books.google.com/books?id=WPiLtm ... #PPA371,M1On that moment hung eternity. Time stood still. Space contracted to a pinpoint. It was as though the earth had opened and the skies split. One felt as though he had been privileged to witness the Birth of the Worldג¦[1]
He describes in painful detail the explosion of the nuclear bomb, the first cry of a newborn world. Robert Jay Lifton himself was a psychologist, notable for his work around the effects on war and genocide on the human condition.
The famous words of Kenneth Tompkins Bainbridge, uttered directly after the successful detonation of the first nuclear bomb, the גTrinity Test.גSomeone near him said: גIt worked.ג
Someone else said: גNow we are all sons of bitches.ג
The alternative text, written from the viewpoint of the bomb itself. The direct aftermath of the explosion, the fallout, and a failure to understand why anyone would want to bring such a thing into the world.She stood tall and majestic. She radiated fury. She shouted: גWho has disturbed me?ג But then, anger expelled, she felt the sadness beneath; she let her breath fall softly, like a sigh, like ashes floating gently on the wind.
She couldnגt understand why he chose to flirt so closely with the death of the world.
John Wheelerגs It-From-Bit theory describes that "... every it--every particle, every field of force, even the spacetime continuum itself- derives its function, its meaning, its very existence entirely--even if in some contexts indirectly--from the apparatus-elicited answers to yes-or-no questions, binary choices, _bits_."The candy store. Everything he wanted was on the opposite side of that pane of glass. The store was decorated in bright colours, and the scents wafting out drove him crazy. He tried to rush for the door, or just get closer to the glass, but he couldnגt. She held him back with great strength. Why would she hold him back? How might he break free of her grasp? He considered violence.
They had been here before on their daily walks. She didnגt mind his screams and his shrieks, or the way he yanked painfully on her braid to make her stop. He was too little to know better.
She picked him up and hugged him: גNo, babyג, she said. He was shaking. She followed his gaze toward the treats sitting on pillows behind the glass: the chocolate bar and the magnetic monopole, the It-From-Bit and the Ethical Calculus; and so many other things, deeper inside. גMaybe when youגre older, baby,ג she whispered, setting him back on his feet and leading him home, גMaybe when youגre older.ג
Every day thereafter, as before, she always walked him on a route that passed in front of a candy store.
(If we were being really analytical, Quantum theory also has things to say around (at a base level) multiple worlds existing at the same time, in alternative states.)
The Ethical Calculus גrefers to any method of determining a course of action in a circumstance that is not explicitly evaluated in one's ethical code.ג Not too much of a leap to state that the deployment of nuclear technology at the end of World War II was one of the biggest ethical dilemmas encountered by mankind.
The Princess is the bomb, and we are being told the story of a man so focused on the development and harnessing of an immensely destructive power that it inevitably falls out of his hands, and into the wider world. One of the pre-word books reads;
"This improvement, day by day, takes him ever-closer to finding the Princess. if she exists - she must! - she will transform him, and everyone."
It is, simultaneously, the story of a relationship so burdened by a manגs obsessive, inquisitive nature that the search for his גPrincessג, his power is the one thing that drives them apart. More;
"Through all the nights that followed, she still loved him as though he had stayed, to comfort her and protect her, Princess be damned."
The hub, the city burst into flame at the title sequence as the brightest of lights burns in the background, could easily be seen to be Manhattan.
Again, mentioned in the epilogue texts, and quite significantly, the placing of two very distinctive towers in the background of the attic screen.
One of the paintings also shows a World War II era poster on the side of a building located on a busy U.S. street, as a young man stares mournfully into flame.
The Princess, somehow harnessed and shackled, looms ominously in the sky, overshadowing everyone and everything with a threat, a power that canגt be taken back. Canגt be reversed.
Stolen from poster above; the flags at the end of each world are nautical flags.
World 2: N
World 3: U
World 4: L
World 5: X
World 6: K
N: No
U: You are (standing into/approaching) danger
L: Stop instantly
X: Stop carrying out your intentions
K: You should stop, I have something important to communicate
The warnings directed towards a man intent on bringing an indescribable power into being.
Think about the ending. A purging wall of flame chases Tim and the princess, all the way up to the point of Tim is found lurking outside a bedroom window. At this point everything reverses; Tim is now chasing her, not following. She is now trying to trap and block Tim from ever reaching her, not aid his progression. Instead of trying to escape the hands of an aggressive knight, he is now the one figure that takes her away from Timגs גridiculous needג, his obsession with control.
And the one point that rounds all this off ג in the pursuit of the eighth star, Tim finally manages to reach the upper half of the screen, and come into contact with the princess herself. What happens?
She fucking explodes.
Spoilered for very long, and pictures, and for genuine spoilers of pretty much everything.
The atomic bomb parallels seem more obvious all the time, but I think what's being overlooked here are the obvious homages to the Mario games and their significance.
The parallels to Mario are all obvious: goombas, pirhana plants, the jumping/climbing platforming elements, the Donkey Kong bit and the ongoing "princess is in another castle" jokes. The important part of this parallel however, and the reason Mario is used, is because of the rescuing-the-princess aspect of that game series. In the Mario universe, it's always so obvious who the hero is: It's the one who is rescuing the princess. Tim, like Mario, sees himself as the obvious hero since he is seeking the princess so diligently. Not until the very end when Tim finally rescues his princess is he able to look at things in retrospect and see that he is actually the "bad-guy" and the game is completed.
This is the Tim from the game, but there's also the Tim from the story. The princess this Tim is pursuing is, as discussed, the atom bomb. This princess is being sought before determing what the consequences of her rescue/discovery might be, or rather, before man is appropriately ready to use his new discovery. Regardless, Tim, as the altruistic Mario character he sees himself as, seeks his princess outright, assuming he is in the right. Not until things are completed and his princess is reached is he able to see his folly and realize he was actually in the wrong (or at least was in too much of a rush.)
This brings us to the epilogue:
The candy store. Everything he wanted was on the opposite side of that pane of glass. The store was decorated in bright colours, and the scents wafting out drove him crazy. He tried to rush for the door, or just get closer to the glass, but he couldnגt. She held him back with great strength. Why would she hold him back? How might he break free of her grasp? He considered violence.
This is Tim's/man's view on science. Tim sees that there is something to be discovered and wants nothing more than to unearth it. Solutions aren't always obvious ("She held him back with great strength"), so Tim, in his zelousness, will use any way to discovery possible ("He considered violence.") In the parallel to the atomic bomb, the scientists of The Manhattan Project were so impatient to make their discovery slowly, via non-destructive means, that they used a violent means--a bomb--as a shortcut to discovery.
They had been here before on their daily walks. She didnגt mind his screams and his shrieks, or the way he yanked painfully on her braid to make her stop. He was too little to know better.
She picked him up and hugged him: גNo, babyג, she said. He was shaking. She followed his gaze toward the treats sitting on pillows behind the glass: the chocolate bar and the magnetic monopole, the It-From-Bit and the Ethical Calculus; and so many other things, deeper inside. גMaybe when youגre older, baby,ג she whispered, setting him back on his feet and leading him home, גMaybe when youגre older.ג
Every day thereafter, as before, she always walked him on a route that passed in front of a candy store.
This is the voice of reason. Tim/Man is obviously just a child and even though he wants his discovery now, reason would show that he is unready to use his tool correctly. He still has so much growing-up to do. If only Tim were able to see this fact in the now instead of in hindsight.
But now, as an "adult," Tim has learned his lesson; lives have been lost and nothing can be done. The past is unchangeable, but by re-examining the past, Tim is able to avoid the same mistakes. By looking at the rubble and stones left behind, Tim is able to build a better life/society using the wisdom he's gained. (You'll notice that the castle at the end is literally build from the levels Tim has conquered or, given the rewind feature, from the lessons he, as the player, has learned.)
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It will never cease to amaze me how potent games are as an artistic medium. Neither movie, nor book, nor still would be able to communicate the concept of "learning" in the way this game has. The player literally learns lessons and improves his play skill and no longer dies; Tim learns from his time travel that his pursuit of the princess was not what he had previously viewed it as; and the story-Tim learns from his mistakes and will never commit such an atrocity again. A movie or a book would be able to communicate two of these perhaps, but the player's learning just can't be duplicated without an interactive medium.
Critics of games-as-art be damned.
Getting the stars and reaching the princess is another brilliant touch to the game. Most of them are located above certain worlds and require ultra obsessiveness to get. For one you have to sit on top of a cloud for two hours (you may have noticed this cloud in the end of one the levels in world 2, it isn't stationary, it is just moving very slowly). Another one you have to start the game over to get if you didn't realize it the first time around (you have to connect two pieces of a star in the corners of two jigsaw pieces of painting 3, but once the painting is complete you can't take it apart again so you have to start over). This may seem like an oversight but it is very much intentional. The others are located above certain levels and require precise timing and complex trial and error. Once you get them, on the final level some of the levers will become time proof and messing around with them will allow you to ride the chandelier to the princess, where she explodes and there is a flash of light. Then you get the final star in her bedroom I think, and back on the title screen you will see the princess in chains in the sky. You can't get rid of this. This whole subquest ties into the game's theme of Tim's obsession with the bomb and what it leads to. I thought it was fantastic when I first learned about it.