08.17.08
Braid
Took a lot of effort to resist the temptation of calling this post “Braid Blows”, but I thought that would be a bit of a low… Blow.
Ahem.
I’m through Braid, though I haven’t yet completed it. The game consists of 5 worlds (numbered from 2-6) with a 12-piece jigsaw puzzle each. Each actual puzzle in the game yields one piece, and when you’ve completed the jigsaw, you’ve solved the world. You can, however, move through the worlds without solving all the puzzles, so while I have made it through the final world, I’m still missing 1 piece in world 5 and 5 pieces in world 6.
Braid is an important game, and a major part of the continuing effort to explore the artistic potential of the game medium. Braid’s major contribution in this context is an effort to merge narrative themes with the gameplay, using gameplay mechanics as metaphors for the existential problems the protagonist, Tim, is facing.
Braid’s narrative also has the amusing little intertextual quirk that it’s based on the old Super Mario Bros. plot. It essentially takes the line “Your princess is in another castle” and reinterprets it completely, turning it into a story of soul mates and a failed relationship.
The thing with Braid’s narrative is that it’s not a plot, it’s a set of vignettes. It’s very artful in that sense, and pretty far from the mainstream: It’s not really interested in telling you a story, it describes a set of powerful moments and then uses its art and its gameplay as an abstraction of this already pretty abstract narrative.
But hey, it works, and it’s a lot of fun. Especially for a puzzle game, because that’s what it is. It may look like a platformer, but it’s not primarily about hitting the jumps right or timing your movement (though it is about that as well), it’s mainly about figuring out how to use the time-bending tools at your disposal to obtain the jigsaw pieces. Enough has been written about how Braid’s challenges seem to expand your mind, and it’s all true. It’s so true that I find myself completely unwilling to use a walkthrough, which is why I’m still 6 pieces short of completing the game. I will eventually, because the puzzles are that good.
I would have liked to describe the fantastic artwork and music in Braid, which looks like a moving painting and sounds like a happy dream, but instead I’ll direct you towards artist David Hellman’s outstanding illustrated Gamasutra article about the creation of Braid’s art. The only thing I could possibly add to that article would be every superlative in my vocabulary, but if you only read the article, maybe all those superlatives won’t be necessary at all.
I’m compelled to finish this article with a warm recommendation: Please purchase Braid. It’s out for X-Box Live Arcade right now, and it’ll be out for PC soon - hopefully very very soon. I have no qualms about making this recommendation, because I simply find it difficult to imagine the sort of player who wouldn’t enjoy Braid.
