Braid – Fifteen clams for a decent puzzle platformer

omfg braid lol!

Braid was released on the Xbox Live Arcade last year, and was touted as being 2008’s Portal.  Like any game worthwhile on consoles, it’s been released a year later on a real gaming platform.

What makes Braid much different than Portal, or any other casual puzzle type game, is that it was developed by one dude – Jonathan Blow.  So when you take a look at the game in full, it’s pretty impressive.  The graphics and sound are done by other people, I think, but the actual gameplay mechanics, much like the Portal gun, are extremely solid.  The main character is Tim, who wears a suit and tie for some reason and is on a quest to find The Princess.  Oh, and Braid is obviously inspired by old platformers like Super Mario.

Braid uses a time reversal mechanic – so you can never die, just rewind time.  Throughout the levels, there are certain elements which are affected by this time reversal/fast forward, while others are not.  For instance, in one level, there are a bunch of clouds which travel backwards, and a bunch that travel forwards, and the ones going backwards are immune to the time reversal mechanic, and the ones going forward are not.  It’s not obvious at first, but once you figure this out it becomes clear how to proceed through the puzzle.

The level design is absolutely stellar – after finishing some of the puzzles, I’d sit back and wonder how thick Jonathan’s neckbeard was, simply because I had never seen a puzzle in a game that challenging or rewarding.  These puzzles aren’t just simple physics or mazes – they actually require a huge amount of thinking and trial and error on your part, and they’re so well done and unique.  It’s the kind of thing that major game developers could take notes from – and hopefully they are.

The downside to Braid is that it is short – too short, and if it weren’t for the quality of the game or the fact that it’s independently developed, I don’t think the fifteen dollar price tag would have been justified.  But it’s good, creative, and thoroughly rewarding gameplay more than makes up for the price of admission.

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