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Braid (video game)
Encyclopedia
Braid is a platform
and puzzle video game developed by independent software developer
Jonathan Blow
. The game was released on August 6, 2008 for the Xbox 360
's Xbox Live Arcade
service. A Microsoft Windows
version was released on April 10, 2009. Hothead Games
ported
and released the game to Mac OS X
on May 20, 2009 and the PlayStation Network on November 12, 2009. A Linux
port, created by Ryan C. Gordon
, was released December 14, 2010 as part of the second Humble Indie Bundle
.
The basic story elements unfold as the protagonist, Tim, attempts to rescue a princess from a monster. Text passages laid throughout the game reveal a multifaceted narrative, giving clues about Tim's contemplations and motivations. The game features traditional aspects of the platform genre while integrating various powers of time-manipulation. Using these abilities, the player progresses the story by finding and assembling jigsaw puzzle
pieces.
Blow designed the game as a personal critique of contemporary trends in game development. He funded the three-year project with his own money. Webcomic
artist David Hellman drew the artwork, which underwent several iterations until it satisfied Blow's vision. A preliminary version of Braid without the final artwork won the "Innovation in Game Design" award at the 2006 Independent Games Festival
; the final version received additional accolades. The game received highly positive reviews from critics, eventually becoming the highest-critically-rated title on Xbox Live. Some reviewers, however, criticized the game's price relative to its length.
environment. The player controls the protagonist Tim as he runs, jumps, and climbs across the game's levels. Tim jumps and stomps on enemies to defeat them, and can collect keys to unlock doors or operate levers to trigger platforms. A defining game element is the player's unlimited ability to reverse time and "rewind" one's actions, even after dying. The game is divided into six worlds, which are experienced sequentially and can be entered from different rooms of Tim's house; the player can return to any world previously visited to attempt to solve puzzles they missed.
Each world has its own time-based game mechanic:
Each stage contains puzzle pieces that must be collected to create jigsaw puzzles that tell the story, and to unlock the last stage. On completing the main game, a speedrun
mode becomes available for select levels and the entire game. There are also eight stars hidden throughout the world of Braid that correspond to the stars in the constellation of Andromeda
just outside the main character's house.
Following completion of the game, the player finds additional texts that expand the story. The ending of the game is purposely ambiguous, and has been subject to multiple interpretations. One theory, based on the inclusion of a hidden event and the famous quotation stated by Kenneth Bainbridge
after the detonation of the first atomic bomb—"Now we are all sons of bitches"—is that the princess represents the atomic bomb and Tim is a scientist involved in its development. Some also refer to the name of the game as both reference to the hair braid of the princess Tim seeks as well as the intertwining of time, demonstrated by the various time mechanics explored in the game. Journalists have considered Braids plot to be interwoven with the game itself, much as the book Dictionary of the Khazars
and the films Memento and Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind
interweave the narrative into the work's construction. In this sense, some have considered the game to carry a simple credo, such as "You must look back to go forwards" as suggested by Eurogamer
's Dan Whitehead. Others have likened Braid to punk rock
, designed (as explicitly stated by Blow) specifically as a statement against the status quo of the industry; it is considered to deconstruct
traditional gameplay concepts, such as jumping on enemies or rescuing a princess from a castle as borrowed from Super Mario Bros.
, and rebuild them in the game to force the player to rethink current game design. Blow has stated that there is more than one interpretation of the story; he "would not be capable" of explaining the whole story of the game, and said that the central idea is "something big and subtle and resists being looked at directly." Blow considered Braid to be "about the journey, not the destination". He purposely designed the plot to not be fully revealed to the player unless they completed the game, seeing it as a way to provide "a longer-term challenge".
Jonathan Blow
came up with the concept of Braid in December 2004 while on a trip to Thailand
, and started development work on it in April the following year. By December 2005, a version of the game was completed that had the same number of worlds and puzzles as the final version, but lacked the final artwork; this version won the Independent Games Festival
game design award at the 2006 Game Developer's Conference. While working on the art direction, Blow tightened the presentation and mechanics of the puzzles to improve their playability. During the game's three years of development, Blow put about US$
200,000 of his own money into its development, most going towards hiring of David Hellman for artwork and for living expenses.
Originally, Blow had envisioned the game to be broken into several different worlds as in the final game, each exploring facets of space, time, and causality, but with each world having very different high-level mechanics. One mechanic that he could not develop further was a world with no "arrow of time
" that would have required the player to traverse the level in a manner that could be repeated in reverse. For example, the player would have been forbidden to jump down from a tall height while moving in forward time, as they would not be able to jump that height in reverse time. While this idea was not used, Blow discovered the rewind feature could be developed further for other aspects. Another game mechanic that Blow considered was to show the player the expected result of an action they would take; while this concept was informative, he did not find it to be an entertaining game mechanic. Blow had previously explored this in a prototype game called "Oracle Billiards", the game predicting each billiards
shot before it was made. He had found the billiards setting too chaotic for this idea and this led him to try out similar ideas in a simpler "Mario-style" setting. After selecting the game mechanics he wanted, he began adding puzzles that made philosophical points on his views on game design in general. After brainstorming more puzzles and concepts, Blow dropped the least interesting puzzles and worlds from the game. Blow wanted to include significant consequences of rewinding time, not found in games such as Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time
, Blinx: the Time Sweeper
, and Timeshift
in which rewinding time creates few or no changes to the game's world. While these games immerse the player with these time-shifting effects using a first- or third-person perspective, he decided to use a 2D
presentation. Blow noted that some of the puzzles in Braid would have been more difficult or impossible to solve in any other perspective.
One of Blow's design goals was to achieve gameplay innovation naturally through the artistic expression of the game. He used Rod Humble
's The Marriage as an example, in which Humble set out to make a game that related his feelings of being in a marriage, instead of developing game concepts first and adding the story later. As such, Blow noted that while there were no new gameplay mechanics, the game play felt different from any other game. Another concept that he used for Braids development related to the game's presentation to the player. Blow recognized that many games present a complex interface to the player that get in the way of understanding the game, but at times are needed to explain the game's rules to draw in players. Blow referenced Jeff Minter
's Space Giraffe
, pointing out that the game never communicated the purpose of playing the game upfront to the player, citing that as one of the reasons for the game's poor reception. Braid was developed to promote this non-verbal communication to the player, explaining the fundamental rule of each world at its start and allow the player to interact with that rule throughout the world. Commenting during the development of his following game, The Witness
, Blow noted that he would run into difficulty in demonstrating the game only through video footage, as it would not show "what happens in the player's mind during the puzzle-solving process", a problem that he has also encountered with The Witness.
Blow recognized that the puzzles in Braid had a range of difficulties, with some puzzles being more difficult for certain players than others, and did not have any set difficulty curve
. He designed most of the game's levels to let the player bypass the puzzles, allowing them to experience the rest of the game even if they could not solve a difficult puzzle. Only certain boss fights require the player to defeat the enemy character before continuing on, using a combination of the time mechanics. Blow hoped that players would be able to find solutions to puzzles they had skipped by completing puzzles later in the game. Blow felt that "unearned rewards are false and meaningless", and thus included collectibles earned only after solving a puzzle. He strongly discouraged players from using a walkthrough
to work their way through Braid, instead encouraging players to solve them on their own so that they "will feel very good about" completing the puzzles without help; Blow created his own official "walkthrough" that teases that it will guide the player but instead restates his insistence that the player work through the puzzles on their own. Some puzzles pay homage to other video games; one level features a Donkey Kong
-inspired puzzle, and the ending of most worlds tells the player that "the princess is in another castle", similar to the end of each world in Super Mario Bros.
The game's story was influenced by such works as Italo Calvino
's Invisible Cities
, Alan Lightman
's Einstein's Dreams
, Robert A. Heinlein
's The Cat Who Walks Through Walls
, and David Lynch
's Mulholland Drive
. Specifically, while Blow took the unique narrative model of Invisible Cities, he did not like the homage to it in Einstein's Dreams, and thus avoided taking the story in that direction. Blow's goal was that Braid would "be mind-expanding" and that "people [would] get experiences from it that they [had] not gotten from anything else". Blow opted to present his story through on-screen text instead of in-game cutscenes, asserting, against criticism of the lack of such cut-scenes, that Braid was "conceived as a videogame with its story presented in the tradition of a few books that I respect".
. Blow gave Hellman rough images of the level's layout and told him to draw over it. Hellman and Blow iterated through several styles before settling on final versions. Through these changes, the two worked to identify and remove elements of the art that could confuse the player, while retaining aesthetic elements that would be generalized by the player as non-functional parts of the level. Once the game's overall artwork was created, Blow and Hellman broke out functional pieces that could be used in Braids level editor. As each world was built up using these pieces, Blow suggested more changes that reflected the tone of each world and avoided art that distracted from the gameplay. "Time and Forgiveness", the first world the player encounters, was drawn to create a feel of exploration and forgiveness, while artwork for "Time and Decision" used a mix of "luxurious domestic objects (nice furniture and fabrics) with rugged outdoor objects (swampy water, rotting piers and nautical rope)" to create an intentionally "incongruous" look to convey aspects of alternate realities. Several variations on the game's backgrounds were done until they arrived at the concept of blurring the background elements to make them appear out of focus, while keeping the foreground elements sharply in focus and clear to the player. Particle effects were applied to both background and foreground elements to add apparent motion to them, such as the waving of grass blades or the movement of clouds. The character visuals were originally created by Edmund McMillen
, but were later redrawn by Hellman "to better match the now-predominant style of the backgrounds".
artists Cheryl Ann Fulton
, Shira Kammen
and Jami Sieber
. Part of Blow's decision to use licensed music was to reduce development costs. He also felt that those who regularly compose video game music did not have the necessary skills needed to create the mood he wanted for the game. He ultimately selected eight tracks that were sufficiently long to avoid notable looping while a player attempted to solve a difficult puzzle, and that provided a "different and interesting" sound when played in reverse to match the reverse time mechanic of the gameplay. Blow also selected songs that were "organic and complex" as to help set the game's mood and aimed "to present something that isn't necessarily clear-cut". The selection of the music influenced the creation of the background artwork for the game. Both Kammen and Sieber received favorable feedback from listeners as a result of their works' inclusion in Braid. Magnatune released a soundtrack of the game's music on April 9, 2009, which includes two additional song remix
es that incorporate some of the time-shifting elements from the game. The songs included in Braid are:
was dropped from the competition despite being one of six finalists. Several other developers followed suit and later withdrew their games, including thatgamecompany
's flOw
and The Behemoth
's Castle Crashers
.
Braid was originally developed as a Windows title with possible console versions, though Blow was not committed to releasing either a PC or console version first. Blow signed up with Microsoft to release the game on Xbox Live in mid-2007, with that version officially announced at the 2007 Tokyo Game Show
. Blow was critical of the Xbox Live certification process, as he believed the effort to meet all the requirements could have been better spent on polishing the game. At the same time, the certification team allowed him to retain certain aspects of his vision for the game that were otherwise contrary to the process, including giving the player immediate control of the game instead of requiring a start-up title screen. Microsoft also requested that Blow include some additional hints to the player based on results of playtesting, but Blow held his ground, refusing to release the game if he was forced to add these. He said he would likely not release a game again on the Xbox Live service under the same business model. Blow later released a Braid theme
for Xbox Live; though he wanted to release this theme for free, Microsoft required the theme to be priced at a nominal level.
The Windows version was originally slated for a late 2008 release but slipped to at least October 2008. Blow decided to prevent Braid being overwhelmed by a number of large titles that were scheduled for release in late 2008 and pushed the release to early 2009. The PC version benefited from the work by Blow to create Braid on a standardized platform like the Xbox 360 in order to finish the core game before dealing with various compatibility issues inherent in PC development. Prior to the game's release for Microsoft Windows, Blow had priced the game at US$
20, using pricing models for other games such as World of Goo
and Crayon Physics Deluxe. However, this was priced $5 more than the Xbox Live version, leading many to criticize his pricing choice. Due to this response, Blow reduced the price to meet the Xbox Live cost, stating that he would "rather have people talking about the game itself" than complaining about its cost. Hothead Games
ported Braid to both the PlayStation 3
and Macintosh
platforms. A Linux
port was done by Ryan C. Gordon
and released in December 2010 as part of the second Humble Indie Bundle
alongside the Windows and Mac version. Blow said that a WiiWare
version would not be possible under Nintendo's current size restrictions.
Blow has expressed that he has no current plans to release more levels or make a sequel; however, he specified that "if another developer out there really likes the time mechanics and wants to make a game that uses them, and perhaps some new ones, with their own new level designs, then hey, awesome." Shortly after the PC release, Blow released resources for a level editor for Braid that allow users to import new graphics into the game.
, making it the top-rated Xbox Live Arcade game and the 10th highest-rated Xbox 360 game. Braid was purchased by more than 55,000 people during the first week of release. According to Blow, Braid was the second-largest selling Xbox Live Arcade title in 2008 and sales were "very profitable", making him more money than if he had been working at a high-paying job for the time it took to develop the game.
Braid has been considered a masterpiece, and was highly praised for the unique puzzles it presented. Dan Whitehead of Eurogamer
noted the creative variation on time manipulation and the need to understand the non-linearity of his actions made him feel as if "years of gaming blinders have been ripped away." Jason Hill of The Age
stated the puzzles were "elaborate and formidable", but "impeccably designed and hugely satisfying to solve", a point reiterated by Sunday Herald Suns Paddy Reiley. The connection between the puzzles and the overall presentation of the game was favorably received; Tom McShea of GameSpot
stated that Braid was "the rare game that will make you rack your brain trying to solve puzzles one minute while challenging you to come to terms with its mature tale the next". Sam Roberts, game director for the Slamdance Film Festival Guerilla Gamemaking Competition, was impressed that Braid did not "feel immature" as it "expects much" of the player as any other form of media and "doesn't short you in any respect". Braids artwork and presentation were given high regards. Nick Suttner of 1UP.com
commented that Braids artwork "juxtapose old-school design sensibilities with impressionist backdrops and lovingly hand-painted environments", while McShea stated that the game's visuals were "eye-catching but never distracting". Wired
s Jean Snow wrote that Braids "beautiful symphonic melodies contribute to what is already an impressive and unique vision", and that "the soothing tunes are probably the reason you never really lose it when facing particularly tough puzzles". Arthouse Games' Jason Rohrer interpreted the ability to rewind time indefinitely as a commentary about traditional platform game design: the fact the player is not forced to restart the level when they die gives greater emphasis to the game's "core challenges".
The game was primarily criticized for its short length. IGN
's Hilary Goldstein stated that the game offers "no reason to come back" once you've completed all the puzzles. However, others compared Braids short experience to similar criticisms with Portal in that its length "can be disregarded in the face of its unique approach to storytelling and expansive ideas". The game's price was also seen as a negative for the game, though McShea wrote that "Braid is worth every penny". Edge
also noted that while Blow had tried to integrate the story and gameplay throughout the game, this only worked well in the final world, and otherwise the story was "a little trite in its self-conscious obscurity". However, others — including new media
academics — have disagreed, praising the philosophical complexity of the game, saying "Jonathan Blow’s Braid is the sort of ontological labyrinth that Jorge Luis Borges might have made. Embedded in the simple gameplay design are genuinely huge concepts."
The PC version of the game was considered to be "faithful" to the Xbox 360 version of the game, retaining the same content without adding any new features. Reviewers commented that Braid benefited from keyboard controls. However, as a port of the Xbox 360 version, the lack of initial support for optimizing the graphics display for one's computer, either through larger screen resolutions or turning off certain game effects, was seen as a drawback, though it is expected that patches will be released to add these options. Both the PlayStation 3 and Macintosh ports of the game by Hothead Games were found to be easily accessible on the system and retained all the innovation and challenge of the original Xbox Live game.
for their 2008 awards in "Best Original Downloadable Console Game", "Best Platformer", and "Best Licensed Music", and by Official Xbox Magazine
for their 2008 awards of "Xbox Live Arcade Game of the Year", "Best Soundtrack", and "Best Ending" and one of their "Indisputably Incredible Runners-ups to Game of the Year". Braid was awarded the "Casual Game of the Year" at the 12th Annual Academy of Interactive Arts & Sciences
Awards. Braid was nominated for five Xbox Live Arcade 2008 awards, winning one award in the category of "Best Innovation". MacWorld
included Braid in its 2009 Game Hall of Fame. IGN
named Braid the 8th best Xbox Live Arcade game in a September 2010 listing.
considered the game as the "Sex, Lies and Videotape of indie gaming, a potent symbol for the saleable potential of non-mainstream productions". Goichi Suda
, developer for killer7
and No More Heroes
, stated that playing Braid made him want to try making a 2D title. Tim can be unlocked as a playable character in Super Meat Boy
, a game designed by independent game developer Edmund McMillen who had previously created Gish
and the original character designs for Braid. Fans of the game have created papercraft of Tim and other characters from the game. Braid has also garnered academic interest and acclaim for its complexity, with narratologists saying 'Anyone who thinks... the unique constraints of game play cannot possibly be used to best structure a story has probably not encountered Braid, which marries pure mechanics and story into a philosophical platform.'
Platform game
A platform game is a video game characterized by requiring the player to jump to and from suspended platforms or over obstacles . It must be possible to control these jumps and to fall from platforms or miss jumps...
and puzzle video game developed by independent software developer
Independent video game development
Independent video game development is the process of creating video games without the financial support of a video game publisher. While large firms can create independent games, they are usually designed by an individual or a small team of as many as ten people, depending on the complexity of the...
Jonathan Blow
Jonathan Blow
Jonathan Blow is an independent video game developer. His game Braid won the "Game Design" award at the Independent Games Festival in 2006. He is currently developing The Witness, to be released in 2012....
. The game was released on August 6, 2008 for the Xbox 360
Xbox 360
The Xbox 360 is the second video game console produced by Microsoft and the successor to the Xbox. The Xbox 360 competes with Sony's PlayStation 3 and Nintendo's Wii as part of the seventh generation of video game consoles...
's Xbox Live Arcade
Xbox Live Arcade
Xbox Live Arcade is a type of video game download distribution available primarily in a section of the Xbox Live Marketplace, Microsoft's digital distribution network for the Xbox 360, that focuses on smaller downloadable games from both major publishers and independent game developers...
service. A Microsoft Windows
Microsoft Windows
Microsoft Windows is a series of operating systems produced by Microsoft.Microsoft introduced an operating environment named Windows on November 20, 1985 as an add-on to MS-DOS in response to the growing interest in graphical user interfaces . Microsoft Windows came to dominate the world's personal...
version was released on April 10, 2009. Hothead Games
Hothead Games
Hothead Games is an independent video game developer and publisher based in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada. Hothead is best known for its role-playing/adventure video game series, On the Rain-Slick Precipice of Darkness, based on the Penny Arcade webcomic...
ported
Porting
In computer science, porting is the process of adapting software so that an executable program can be created for a computing environment that is different from the one for which it was originally designed...
and released the game to Mac OS X
Mac OS X
Mac OS X is a series of Unix-based operating systems and graphical user interfaces developed, marketed, and sold by Apple Inc. Since 2002, has been included with all new Macintosh computer systems...
on May 20, 2009 and the PlayStation Network on November 12, 2009. A Linux
Linux
Linux is a Unix-like computer operating system assembled under the model of free and open source software development and distribution. The defining component of any Linux system is the Linux kernel, an operating system kernel first released October 5, 1991 by Linus Torvalds...
port, created by Ryan C. Gordon
Ryan C. Gordon
Ryan C. Gordon is a former Loki Software employee who is now responsible for icculus.org, which hosts many Loki Software projects as well as several new projects created by himself and others...
, was released December 14, 2010 as part of the second Humble Indie Bundle
Humble Indie Bundle
The Humble Indie Bundles or Humble Bundles are a series of game bundles, that are sold and distributed online at a price determined by the purchaser. The games are multi-platform, DRM-free, and independently developed, and buyers can set the revenue split between the developers, charities and...
.
The basic story elements unfold as the protagonist, Tim, attempts to rescue a princess from a monster. Text passages laid throughout the game reveal a multifaceted narrative, giving clues about Tim's contemplations and motivations. The game features traditional aspects of the platform genre while integrating various powers of time-manipulation. Using these abilities, the player progresses the story by finding and assembling jigsaw puzzle
Jigsaw puzzle
A jigsaw puzzle is a tiling puzzle that requires the assembly of numerous small, often oddly shaped, interlocking and tessellating pieces.Each piece usually has a small part of a picture on it; when complete, a jigsaw puzzle produces a complete picture...
pieces.
Blow designed the game as a personal critique of contemporary trends in game development. He funded the three-year project with his own money. Webcomic
Webcomic
Webcomics, online comics, or Internet comics are comics published on a website. While many are published exclusively on the web, others are also published in magazines, newspapers or often in self-published books....
artist David Hellman drew the artwork, which underwent several iterations until it satisfied Blow's vision. A preliminary version of Braid without the final artwork won the "Innovation in Game Design" award at the 2006 Independent Games Festival
Independent Games Festival
The Independent Games Festival is an annual festival at the Game Developers Conference, the largest annual gathering of the indie video game industry. It was founded in 1998 to assist and inspire innovation in video game development and to recognize the best independent video game developers...
; the final version received additional accolades. The game received highly positive reviews from critics, eventually becoming the highest-critically-rated title on Xbox Live. Some reviewers, however, criticized the game's price relative to its length.
Gameplay
Braid is played by solving physical puzzles in a standard platform gamePlatform game
A platform game is a video game characterized by requiring the player to jump to and from suspended platforms or over obstacles . It must be possible to control these jumps and to fall from platforms or miss jumps...
environment. The player controls the protagonist Tim as he runs, jumps, and climbs across the game's levels. Tim jumps and stomps on enemies to defeat them, and can collect keys to unlock doors or operate levers to trigger platforms. A defining game element is the player's unlimited ability to reverse time and "rewind" one's actions, even after dying. The game is divided into six worlds, which are experienced sequentially and can be entered from different rooms of Tim's house; the player can return to any world previously visited to attempt to solve puzzles they missed.
Each world has its own time-based game mechanic:
- 2. Time and Forgiveness plays as an ordinary platform game, except that the player may rewind time to undo their actions. The section includes several challenges that would be unplayable or unfair in an ordinary platform game, but become feasible when the rewind mechanic is available.
- 3. Time and Mystery introduces objects surrounded by a green glow that are unaffected by time manipulation; for example, switches will remain flipped even if time is rewound to before the action occurred. Rewinding can thus be used to change the synchronization between objects that can and cannot be rewound, the basis of many puzzles in this section. This theme is also used in later worlds to denote objects unaffected by the player's time manipulation.
- 4. Time and Place links the passage of time to the player character's location on the horizontal plane. As the player moves toward the right, time flows forward, while moving toward the left reverses the flow; standing still or moving vertically will pause time. The player's location must be carefully managed in relation to enemies and objects.
- 5. Time and Decision involves a "shadow" of the player character appearing after the player rewinds time and performing the actions that the real player character rewound; if the timeline expires, the shadow will complete any initiated falls and jumps but will otherwise stand still before disappearing. Things coloured in violet can interact both with the main character and its shadow at the same time. Puzzles in this section revolve around using this mechanic to carry out multiple actions at once.
- 6. Hesitance provides the player with a magic ring which, when dropped, warps the flow of time around itself; the closer moving objects (including Tim) are to it, the slower time passes for them. The regular rewind control remains available.
- The final world is labeled simply as "1." In this world, time flows in reverse. Rewinding time returns the flow of time to its normal state.
Each stage contains puzzle pieces that must be collected to create jigsaw puzzles that tell the story, and to unlock the last stage. On completing the main game, a speedrun
Speedrun
A speedrun is a play-through, or recording thereof, of a whole video game or a selected part of it performed with the intent of completing it as fast as possible, optionally under certain prerequisites, mainly for the purposes of entertainment and competition...
mode becomes available for select levels and the entire game. There are also eight stars hidden throughout the world of Braid that correspond to the stars in the constellation of Andromeda
Andromeda (constellation)
Andromeda is a constellation in the northern sky. It is named after Andromeda, the princess in the Greek legend of Perseus who was chained to a rock to be eaten by the sea monster Cetus...
just outside the main character's house.
Plot
Tim is a man searching for a princess who "has been snatched by a horrible and evil monster." His relationship with this princess is vague at best, and the only clear part of this relationship is that Tim has made some sort of mistake which he hopes to reconcile or, if possible, erase. As one progresses through the six worlds in Braid, storyline text at the beginning of each world provides further insight into Tim's quest for the princess, and alludes to the overarching gameplay mechanic of each level. The themes evoked include forgiveness, desire, and frustration. The final level, in which everything but Tim moves in reverse, depicts the princess escaping from a knight, and working together with Tim to surpass obstacles and meet at her home. Tim is suddenly locked out of the house, and, as time progresses forward, reversing Tim's actions, the events show the princess running from Tim, setting traps that he is able to evade, until she is rescued by the knight. Tim is revealed to be the "monster" the princess is running from.Following completion of the game, the player finds additional texts that expand the story. The ending of the game is purposely ambiguous, and has been subject to multiple interpretations. One theory, based on the inclusion of a hidden event and the famous quotation stated by Kenneth Bainbridge
Kenneth Bainbridge
Kenneth Tompkins Bainbridge was an American physicist at Harvard University who did work on cyclotron research. His precise measurements of mass differences between nuclear isotopes allowed him to confirm Albert Einstein's mass-energy equivalence concept. He was the Director of the Trinity test of...
after the detonation of the first atomic bomb—"Now we are all sons of bitches"—is that the princess represents the atomic bomb and Tim is a scientist involved in its development. Some also refer to the name of the game as both reference to the hair braid of the princess Tim seeks as well as the intertwining of time, demonstrated by the various time mechanics explored in the game. Journalists have considered Braids plot to be interwoven with the game itself, much as the book Dictionary of the Khazars
Dictionary of the Khazars
Dictionary of the Khazars: A Lexicon Novel is the first novel by Serbian writer Milorad Pavić, published in 1984. Originally written in Serbian, the novel has been translated into many languages...
and the films Memento and Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind
Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind
Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind is a 2004 American romantic science fiction film about an estranged couple who have each other erased from their memories, scripted by Charlie Kaufman and directed by the French director, Michel Gondry. The film uses elements of science fiction, psychological...
interweave the narrative into the work's construction. In this sense, some have considered the game to carry a simple credo, such as "You must look back to go forwards" as suggested by Eurogamer
Eurogamer
Eurogamer is a Brighton-based website focused on video games news, reviews, previews and interviews. It is operated by Eurogamer Network Ltd., which was formed in 1999 by brothers Rupert and Nick Loman. Eurogamer has grown to become one of the most important European-based websites focused on...
's Dan Whitehead. Others have likened Braid to punk rock
Punk rock
Punk rock is a rock music genre that developed between 1974 and 1976 in the United States, the United Kingdom, and Australia. Rooted in garage rock and other forms of what is now known as protopunk music, punk rock bands eschewed perceived excesses of mainstream 1970s rock...
, designed (as explicitly stated by Blow) specifically as a statement against the status quo of the industry; it is considered to deconstruct
Deconstruction
Deconstruction is a term introduced by French philosopher Jacques Derrida in his 1967 book Of Grammatology. Although he carefully avoided defining the term directly, he sought to apply Martin Heidegger's concept of Destruktion or Abbau, to textual reading...
traditional gameplay concepts, such as jumping on enemies or rescuing a princess from a castle as borrowed from Super Mario Bros.
Super Mario Bros.
is a 1985 platform video game developed by Nintendo, published for the Nintendo Entertainment System as a sequel to the 1983 game Mario Bros. In Super Mario Bros., the player controls Mario as he travels through the Mushroom Kingdom in order to rescue Princess Toadstool from the antagonist...
, and rebuild them in the game to force the player to rethink current game design. Blow has stated that there is more than one interpretation of the story; he "would not be capable" of explaining the whole story of the game, and said that the central idea is "something big and subtle and resists being looked at directly." Blow considered Braid to be "about the journey, not the destination". He purposely designed the plot to not be fully revealed to the player unless they completed the game, seeing it as a way to provide "a longer-term challenge".
Development
Jonathan Blow
Jonathan Blow is an independent video game developer. His game Braid won the "Game Design" award at the Independent Games Festival in 2006. He is currently developing The Witness, to be released in 2012....
came up with the concept of Braid in December 2004 while on a trip to Thailand
Thailand
Thailand , officially the Kingdom of Thailand , formerly known as Siam , is a country located at the centre of the Indochina peninsula and Southeast Asia. It is bordered to the north by Burma and Laos, to the east by Laos and Cambodia, to the south by the Gulf of Thailand and Malaysia, and to the...
, and started development work on it in April the following year. By December 2005, a version of the game was completed that had the same number of worlds and puzzles as the final version, but lacked the final artwork; this version won the Independent Games Festival
Independent Games Festival
The Independent Games Festival is an annual festival at the Game Developers Conference, the largest annual gathering of the indie video game industry. It was founded in 1998 to assist and inspire innovation in video game development and to recognize the best independent video game developers...
game design award at the 2006 Game Developer's Conference. While working on the art direction, Blow tightened the presentation and mechanics of the puzzles to improve their playability. During the game's three years of development, Blow put about US$
United States dollar
The United States dollar , also referred to as the American dollar, is the official currency of the United States of America. It is divided into 100 smaller units called cents or pennies....
200,000 of his own money into its development, most going towards hiring of David Hellman for artwork and for living expenses.
Originally, Blow had envisioned the game to be broken into several different worlds as in the final game, each exploring facets of space, time, and causality, but with each world having very different high-level mechanics. One mechanic that he could not develop further was a world with no "arrow of time
Arrow of time
The arrow of time, or time’s arrow, is a term coined in 1927 by the British astronomer Arthur Eddington to describe the "one-way direction" or "asymmetry" of time...
" that would have required the player to traverse the level in a manner that could be repeated in reverse. For example, the player would have been forbidden to jump down from a tall height while moving in forward time, as they would not be able to jump that height in reverse time. While this idea was not used, Blow discovered the rewind feature could be developed further for other aspects. Another game mechanic that Blow considered was to show the player the expected result of an action they would take; while this concept was informative, he did not find it to be an entertaining game mechanic. Blow had previously explored this in a prototype game called "Oracle Billiards", the game predicting each billiards
Billiards
Cue sports , also known as billiard sports, are a wide variety of games of skill generally played with a cue stick which is used to strike billiard balls, moving them around a cloth-covered billiards table bounded by rubber .Historically, the umbrella term was billiards...
shot before it was made. He had found the billiards setting too chaotic for this idea and this led him to try out similar ideas in a simpler "Mario-style" setting. After selecting the game mechanics he wanted, he began adding puzzles that made philosophical points on his views on game design in general. After brainstorming more puzzles and concepts, Blow dropped the least interesting puzzles and worlds from the game. Blow wanted to include significant consequences of rewinding time, not found in games such as Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time
Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time
Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time is a third-person action-adventure computer and video game published by Ubisoft. It was released on November 21, 2003 and is a reboot of the landmark video game series Prince of Persia, created by Jordan Mechner in 1989.The Sands of Time, developed internally at...
, Blinx: the Time Sweeper
Blinx: The Time Sweeper
Blinx: The Time Sweeper is a platform game developed by Artoon and published by Microsoft Game Studios. It was released for the Xbox on October 7, 2002...
, and Timeshift
TimeShift
TimeShift is a sci-fi first-person shooter developed by Saber Interactive and published by Sierra Entertainment for Microsoft Windows, Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3. It was developed using the Saber 3D engine, v.S-3 and Havok. On August 31, 2007 a demo of TimeShift was released on Xbox Live Marketplace...
in which rewinding time creates few or no changes to the game's world. While these games immerse the player with these time-shifting effects using a first- or third-person perspective, he decided to use a 2D
2D computer graphics
2D computer graphics is the computer-based generation of digital images—mostly from two-dimensional models and by techniques specific to them...
presentation. Blow noted that some of the puzzles in Braid would have been more difficult or impossible to solve in any other perspective.
One of Blow's design goals was to achieve gameplay innovation naturally through the artistic expression of the game. He used Rod Humble
Rod Humble
Rod Humble is the Chief Executive Officer of Second Life creator Linden Lab, and former Executive Vice President for the EA Play label of the video game company Electronic Arts. He has been contributing to the development of games since 1990, and is recently best known for his work on the...
's The Marriage as an example, in which Humble set out to make a game that related his feelings of being in a marriage, instead of developing game concepts first and adding the story later. As such, Blow noted that while there were no new gameplay mechanics, the game play felt different from any other game. Another concept that he used for Braids development related to the game's presentation to the player. Blow recognized that many games present a complex interface to the player that get in the way of understanding the game, but at times are needed to explain the game's rules to draw in players. Blow referenced Jeff Minter
Jeff Minter
Jeff 'Yak' Minter is a British computer/video game designer and programmer. He is the founder of software house Llamasoft and his recent works include Neon , a non-game music visualization program that has been built into the Xbox 360 console, and the video games Space Giraffe , and Space Invaders...
's Space Giraffe
Space Giraffe
Space Giraffe is an action arcade video game by Jeff Minter and Ivan Zorzin of Llamasoft. Space Giraffe visually resembles the arcade classic Tempest, an arcade game by Atari Inc. released in October, 1981, though Minter claims that it is not a clone of this game. The game was released on August...
, pointing out that the game never communicated the purpose of playing the game upfront to the player, citing that as one of the reasons for the game's poor reception. Braid was developed to promote this non-verbal communication to the player, explaining the fundamental rule of each world at its start and allow the player to interact with that rule throughout the world. Commenting during the development of his following game, The Witness
The Witness (2011 video game)
The Witness is an upcoming three-dimensional puzzle video game by Jonathan Blow, an independent developer and the creator of Braid...
, Blow noted that he would run into difficulty in demonstrating the game only through video footage, as it would not show "what happens in the player's mind during the puzzle-solving process", a problem that he has also encountered with The Witness.
Blow recognized that the puzzles in Braid had a range of difficulties, with some puzzles being more difficult for certain players than others, and did not have any set difficulty curve
Learning curve
A learning curve is a graphical representation of the changing rate of learning for a given activity or tool. Typically, the increase in retention of information is sharpest after the initial attempts, and then gradually evens out, meaning that less and less new information is retained after each...
. He designed most of the game's levels to let the player bypass the puzzles, allowing them to experience the rest of the game even if they could not solve a difficult puzzle. Only certain boss fights require the player to defeat the enemy character before continuing on, using a combination of the time mechanics. Blow hoped that players would be able to find solutions to puzzles they had skipped by completing puzzles later in the game. Blow felt that "unearned rewards are false and meaningless", and thus included collectibles earned only after solving a puzzle. He strongly discouraged players from using a walkthrough
Strategy guide
Strategy guides are instruction books that contain hints or complete solutions to specific video games. The line between strategy guides and walkthroughs is somewhat blurred, with the former often containing or being written around the latter. Strategy guides are often published in print, both in...
to work their way through Braid, instead encouraging players to solve them on their own so that they "will feel very good about" completing the puzzles without help; Blow created his own official "walkthrough" that teases that it will guide the player but instead restates his insistence that the player work through the puzzles on their own. Some puzzles pay homage to other video games; one level features a Donkey Kong
Donkey Kong (video game)
is an arcade game released by Nintendo in 1981. It is an early example of the platform game genre, as the gameplay focuses on maneuvering the main character across a series of platforms while dodging and jumping over obstacles. In the game, Jumpman must rescue a damsel in distress, Lady, from a...
-inspired puzzle, and the ending of most worlds tells the player that "the princess is in another castle", similar to the end of each world in Super Mario Bros.
The game's story was influenced by such works as Italo Calvino
Italo Calvino
Italo Calvino was an Italian journalist and writer of short stories and novels. His best known works include the Our Ancestors trilogy , the Cosmicomics collection of short stories , and the novels Invisible Cities and If on a winter's night a traveler .Lionised in Britain and the United States,...
's Invisible Cities
Invisible Cities
Invisible Cities is a novel by Italian writer Italo Calvino. It was published in Italy in 1972 by Giulio Einaudi Editore.-Description:The book explores imagination and the imaginable through the descriptions of cities by an explorer, Marco Polo...
, Alan Lightman
Alan Lightman
Alan Lightman is an American physicist, writer, and social entrepreneur. He is a professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and the author of the international bestseller Einstein's Dreams. He was the first professor at MIT to receive a joint appointment in the sciences and the...
's Einstein's Dreams
Einstein's Dreams
Einstein's Dreams is a 1992 novel by Alan Lightman that was an international bestseller and has been translated into thirty languages. It was runner up for the 1994 L. L. Winship/PEN New England Award. Einstein's Dreams was also the March 1998 selection for National Public Radio's "Talk of the...
, Robert A. Heinlein
Robert A. Heinlein
Robert Anson Heinlein was an American science fiction writer. Often called the "dean of science fiction writers", he was one of the most influential and controversial authors of the genre. He set a standard for science and engineering plausibility and helped to raise the genre's standards of...
's The Cat Who Walks Through Walls
The Cat Who Walks Through Walls
The Cat Who Walks Through Walls: A Comedy of Manners is a science fiction novel by Robert A. Heinlein published in 1985. Like many of his later novels, it features Lazarus Long and Jubal Harshaw as supporting characters.-Plot summary:...
, and David Lynch
David Lynch
David Keith Lynch is an American filmmaker, television director, visual artist, musician and occasional actor. Known for his surrealist films, he has developed his own unique cinematic style, which has been dubbed "Lynchian", and which is characterized by its dream imagery and meticulous sound...
's Mulholland Drive
Mulholland Drive (film)
Mulholland Drive is a 2001 American neo-noir psychological thriller written and directed by David Lynch, starring Justin Theroux, Naomi Watts, and Laura Harring. The surrealist film was highly acclaimed by many critics and earned Lynch the Prix de la mise en scène at the 2001 Cannes Film Festival...
. Specifically, while Blow took the unique narrative model of Invisible Cities, he did not like the homage to it in Einstein's Dreams, and thus avoided taking the story in that direction. Blow's goal was that Braid would "be mind-expanding" and that "people [would] get experiences from it that they [had] not gotten from anything else". Blow opted to present his story through on-screen text instead of in-game cutscenes, asserting, against criticism of the lack of such cut-scenes, that Braid was "conceived as a videogame with its story presented in the tradition of a few books that I respect".
Artwork
The game's art took more than a year to complete. Background artwork for the game was created by David Hellman, artist of the critically acclaimed webcomic A Lesson Is Learned but the Damage Is IrreversibleA Lesson Is Learned But The Damage Is Irreversible
A Lesson Is Learned But The Damage Is Irreversible is a webcomic drawn by David Hellman and written by Dale Beran. Ted Rall describes the comic as "explor[ing] the limits of pessimism and fatal consequence in a universe that would be difficult to imagine on the printed page." The comic has been...
. Blow gave Hellman rough images of the level's layout and told him to draw over it. Hellman and Blow iterated through several styles before settling on final versions. Through these changes, the two worked to identify and remove elements of the art that could confuse the player, while retaining aesthetic elements that would be generalized by the player as non-functional parts of the level. Once the game's overall artwork was created, Blow and Hellman broke out functional pieces that could be used in Braids level editor. As each world was built up using these pieces, Blow suggested more changes that reflected the tone of each world and avoided art that distracted from the gameplay. "Time and Forgiveness", the first world the player encounters, was drawn to create a feel of exploration and forgiveness, while artwork for "Time and Decision" used a mix of "luxurious domestic objects (nice furniture and fabrics) with rugged outdoor objects (swampy water, rotting piers and nautical rope)" to create an intentionally "incongruous" look to convey aspects of alternate realities. Several variations on the game's backgrounds were done until they arrived at the concept of blurring the background elements to make them appear out of focus, while keeping the foreground elements sharply in focus and clear to the player. Particle effects were applied to both background and foreground elements to add apparent motion to them, such as the waving of grass blades or the movement of clouds. The character visuals were originally created by Edmund McMillen
Edmund McMillen
Edmund McMillen is an American video game designer who is known for his unique visual style and innovative gameplay design, as well as his emphasis on the importance of careful level design and rewarding difficulty curves.-Early life:...
, but were later redrawn by Hellman "to better match the now-predominant style of the backgrounds".
Soundtrack
Braid features licensed music from MagnatuneMagnatune
Magnatune is an American independent record label based in Berkeley, California, founded in spring 2003 by John Buckman, then-CEO of e-mail software company Lyris. It aims at treating both its musicians and its customers fairly—its tagline is "We are not evil"...
artists Cheryl Ann Fulton
Cheryl Ann Fulton
Cheryl Ann Fulton is an American harpist. Fulton performs, records, teaches, and researches the harp. She is performer of historical harps, and one of the few harpists to play triple harp, medieval harp, and lever harps....
, Shira Kammen
Shira Kammen
Multi-instrumentalist and vocalist Shira Kammen received her degree in music from the University of California, Berkeley and studied vielle with Margriet Tindemans. She has performed and taught throughout the world and has played on several television and movie soundtracks, including "O", a modern...
and Jami Sieber
Jami Sieber
Jami Sieber is an English acoustic and electric cellist, vocalist and composer, recognized internationally for her "unique style". She has received several positive reviews for her work.-History:...
. Part of Blow's decision to use licensed music was to reduce development costs. He also felt that those who regularly compose video game music did not have the necessary skills needed to create the mood he wanted for the game. He ultimately selected eight tracks that were sufficiently long to avoid notable looping while a player attempted to solve a difficult puzzle, and that provided a "different and interesting" sound when played in reverse to match the reverse time mechanic of the gameplay. Blow also selected songs that were "organic and complex" as to help set the game's mood and aimed "to present something that isn't necessarily clear-cut". The selection of the music influenced the creation of the background artwork for the game. Both Kammen and Sieber received favorable feedback from listeners as a result of their works' inclusion in Braid. Magnatune released a soundtrack of the game's music on April 9, 2009, which includes two additional song remix
Remix
A remix is an alternative version of a recorded song, made from an original version. This term is also used for any alterations of media other than song ....
es that incorporate some of the time-shifting elements from the game. The songs included in Braid are:
- "Maenam" by Jami Sieber, from Hidden Sky
- "Undercurrent" by Jami Sieber, from Lush Mechanique
- "The Darkening Ground" by Jami Sieber, from Lush Mechanique
- "Tell It by Heart" by Jami Sieber, from Second Sight
- "Long Past Gone" by Jami Sieber, from Second Sight
- "Downstream" by Shira Kammen, from Music of Waters
- "Lullaby Set" by Shira Kammen and Swan, from Wild Wood
- "Romanesca" by Cheryl Ann Fulton, from The Once and Future Harp
Release
Prior to release, Blow withdrew Braid from the 2007 Slamdance Guerrilla Games Competition in protest after the controversial Super Columbine Massacre RPG!Super Columbine Massacre RPG!
Super Columbine Massacre RPG!, abbreviated SCMRPG!, is a role-playing video game created by Danny Ledonne and released in April 2005. The game recreates the 1999 Columbine High School shootings near Littleton, Colorado...
was dropped from the competition despite being one of six finalists. Several other developers followed suit and later withdrew their games, including thatgamecompany
Thatgamecompany
Thatgamecompany, stylized as thatgamecompany, is an American independent video game developer co-founded by University of Southern California students Kellee Santiago and Jenova Chen. The studio is currently a second-party developer for Sony Computer Entertainment, and is under contract to create...
's flOw
FlOw
Flow is an indie video game created by Jenova Chen and Nicholas Clark. Originally released as a free Flash game in 2006 to accompany Chen's master's thesis, it was reworked into a 2007 PlayStation 3 game by his development studio, Thatgamecompany. SuperVillain Studios released a PlayStation...
and The Behemoth
The Behemoth
The Behemoth is a video game development company that was created in 2002 by John Baez, artist Dan Paladin , and programmers Tom Fulp , Brandon LaCava, and Nick Dryburgh. Dryburgh later left the company. The Behemoth development studio is located in San Diego, California...
's Castle Crashers
Castle Crashers
Castle Crashers is a beat 'em up console video game independently developed by The Behemoth and published by Microsoft Game Studios. It features music created by members of Newgrounds. The Xbox 360 version was released on August 27, 2008 via Xbox Live Arcade as part of the Xbox Live Summer of Arcade...
.
Braid was originally developed as a Windows title with possible console versions, though Blow was not committed to releasing either a PC or console version first. Blow signed up with Microsoft to release the game on Xbox Live in mid-2007, with that version officially announced at the 2007 Tokyo Game Show
Tokyo Game Show
The , commonly known as TGS, is a video game expo / convention held annually in the Makuhari Messe, in Chiba, Japan. It is presented by the Computer Entertainment Supplier's Association and the Nikkei Business Publications, Inc...
. Blow was critical of the Xbox Live certification process, as he believed the effort to meet all the requirements could have been better spent on polishing the game. At the same time, the certification team allowed him to retain certain aspects of his vision for the game that were otherwise contrary to the process, including giving the player immediate control of the game instead of requiring a start-up title screen. Microsoft also requested that Blow include some additional hints to the player based on results of playtesting, but Blow held his ground, refusing to release the game if he was forced to add these. He said he would likely not release a game again on the Xbox Live service under the same business model. Blow later released a Braid theme
Theme (computing)
In computing, a theme is a preset package containing graphical appearance details, used to customize the look and feel of an operating system, widget set or window manager....
for Xbox Live; though he wanted to release this theme for free, Microsoft required the theme to be priced at a nominal level.
The Windows version was originally slated for a late 2008 release but slipped to at least October 2008. Blow decided to prevent Braid being overwhelmed by a number of large titles that were scheduled for release in late 2008 and pushed the release to early 2009. The PC version benefited from the work by Blow to create Braid on a standardized platform like the Xbox 360 in order to finish the core game before dealing with various compatibility issues inherent in PC development. Prior to the game's release for Microsoft Windows, Blow had priced the game at US$
United States dollar
The United States dollar , also referred to as the American dollar, is the official currency of the United States of America. It is divided into 100 smaller units called cents or pennies....
20, using pricing models for other games such as World of Goo
World of Goo
World of Goo is a physics-based puzzle game by 2D Boy, an independent game developer consisting of Kyle Gabler and Ron Carmel, both former Electronic Arts employees, released for Microsoft Windows, Mac OS X, Linux, iOS, Android and WiiWare...
and Crayon Physics Deluxe. However, this was priced $5 more than the Xbox Live version, leading many to criticize his pricing choice. Due to this response, Blow reduced the price to meet the Xbox Live cost, stating that he would "rather have people talking about the game itself" than complaining about its cost. Hothead Games
Hothead Games
Hothead Games is an independent video game developer and publisher based in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada. Hothead is best known for its role-playing/adventure video game series, On the Rain-Slick Precipice of Darkness, based on the Penny Arcade webcomic...
ported Braid to both the PlayStation 3
PlayStation 3
The is the third home video game console produced by Sony Computer Entertainment and the successor to the PlayStation 2 as part of the PlayStation series. The PlayStation 3 competes with Microsoft's Xbox 360 and Nintendo's Wii as part of the seventh generation of video game consoles...
and Macintosh
Macintosh
The Macintosh , or Mac, is a series of several lines of personal computers designed, developed, and marketed by Apple Inc. The first Macintosh was introduced by Apple's then-chairman Steve Jobs on January 24, 1984; it was the first commercially successful personal computer to feature a mouse and a...
platforms. A Linux
Linux
Linux is a Unix-like computer operating system assembled under the model of free and open source software development and distribution. The defining component of any Linux system is the Linux kernel, an operating system kernel first released October 5, 1991 by Linus Torvalds...
port was done by Ryan C. Gordon
Ryan C. Gordon
Ryan C. Gordon is a former Loki Software employee who is now responsible for icculus.org, which hosts many Loki Software projects as well as several new projects created by himself and others...
and released in December 2010 as part of the second Humble Indie Bundle
Humble Indie Bundle
The Humble Indie Bundles or Humble Bundles are a series of game bundles, that are sold and distributed online at a price determined by the purchaser. The games are multi-platform, DRM-free, and independently developed, and buyers can set the revenue split between the developers, charities and...
alongside the Windows and Mac version. Blow said that a WiiWare
WiiWare
WiiWare is a service that allows Wii users to download games and applications specifically designed and developed for the Wii video game console made by Nintendo. These games and applications can only be purchased and downloaded from the Wii Shop Channel under the WiiWare section...
version would not be possible under Nintendo's current size restrictions.
Blow has expressed that he has no current plans to release more levels or make a sequel; however, he specified that "if another developer out there really likes the time mechanics and wants to make a game that uses them, and perhaps some new ones, with their own new level designs, then hey, awesome." Shortly after the PC release, Blow released resources for a level editor for Braid that allow users to import new graphics into the game.
Reception
Upon its release to Xbox Live Arcade, Braid was met with unanimously positive reviews, with an aggregate review score of 93% at MetacriticMetacritic
Metacritic.com is a website that collates reviews of music albums, games, movies, TV shows and DVDs. For each product, a numerical score from each review is obtained and the total is averaged. An excerpt of each review is provided along with a hyperlink to the source. Three colour codes of Green,...
, making it the top-rated Xbox Live Arcade game and the 10th highest-rated Xbox 360 game. Braid was purchased by more than 55,000 people during the first week of release. According to Blow, Braid was the second-largest selling Xbox Live Arcade title in 2008 and sales were "very profitable", making him more money than if he had been working at a high-paying job for the time it took to develop the game.
Braid has been considered a masterpiece, and was highly praised for the unique puzzles it presented. Dan Whitehead of Eurogamer
Eurogamer
Eurogamer is a Brighton-based website focused on video games news, reviews, previews and interviews. It is operated by Eurogamer Network Ltd., which was formed in 1999 by brothers Rupert and Nick Loman. Eurogamer has grown to become one of the most important European-based websites focused on...
noted the creative variation on time manipulation and the need to understand the non-linearity of his actions made him feel as if "years of gaming blinders have been ripped away." Jason Hill of The Age
The Age
The Age is a daily broadsheet newspaper, which has been published in Melbourne, Australia since 1854. Owned and published by Fairfax Media, The Age primarily serves Victoria, but is also available for purchase in Tasmania, the Australian Capital Territory and border regions of South Australia and...
stated the puzzles were "elaborate and formidable", but "impeccably designed and hugely satisfying to solve", a point reiterated by Sunday Herald Suns Paddy Reiley. The connection between the puzzles and the overall presentation of the game was favorably received; Tom McShea of GameSpot
GameSpot
GameSpot is a video gaming website that provides news, reviews, previews, downloads, and other information. The site was launched in May 1, 1996 by Pete Deemer, Vince Broady and Jon Epstein. It was purchased by ZDNet, a brand which was later purchased by CNET Networks. CBS Interactive, which...
stated that Braid was "the rare game that will make you rack your brain trying to solve puzzles one minute while challenging you to come to terms with its mature tale the next". Sam Roberts, game director for the Slamdance Film Festival Guerilla Gamemaking Competition, was impressed that Braid did not "feel immature" as it "expects much" of the player as any other form of media and "doesn't short you in any respect". Braids artwork and presentation were given high regards. Nick Suttner of 1UP.com
1UP.com
1UP.com is a video game website owned by IGN Entertainment, a division of News Corporation. Previously, the site was owned by Ziff Davis before being sold to UGO Entertainment in 2009....
commented that Braids artwork "juxtapose old-school design sensibilities with impressionist backdrops and lovingly hand-painted environments", while McShea stated that the game's visuals were "eye-catching but never distracting". Wired
Wired (magazine)
Wired is a full-color monthly American magazine and on-line periodical, published since January 1993, that reports on how new and developing technology affects culture, the economy, and politics...
s Jean Snow wrote that Braids "beautiful symphonic melodies contribute to what is already an impressive and unique vision", and that "the soothing tunes are probably the reason you never really lose it when facing particularly tough puzzles". Arthouse Games' Jason Rohrer interpreted the ability to rewind time indefinitely as a commentary about traditional platform game design: the fact the player is not forced to restart the level when they die gives greater emphasis to the game's "core challenges".
The game was primarily criticized for its short length. IGN
IGN
IGN is an entertainment website that focuses on video games, films, music and other media. IGN's main website comprises several specialty sites or "channels", each occupying a subdomain and covering a specific area of entertainment...
's Hilary Goldstein stated that the game offers "no reason to come back" once you've completed all the puzzles. However, others compared Braids short experience to similar criticisms with Portal in that its length "can be disregarded in the face of its unique approach to storytelling and expansive ideas". The game's price was also seen as a negative for the game, though McShea wrote that "Braid is worth every penny". Edge
Edge (magazine)
Edge is a multi-format computer and video game magazine published by Future Publishing in the United Kingdom. It is known for its industry contacts, editorial stance, distinctive anonymous third-person writing style, yearly awards and longevity....
also noted that while Blow had tried to integrate the story and gameplay throughout the game, this only worked well in the final world, and otherwise the story was "a little trite in its self-conscious obscurity". However, others — including new media
New media
New media is a broad term in media studies that emerged in the latter part of the 20th century. For example, new media holds out a possibility of on-demand access to content any time, anywhere, on any digital device, as well as interactive user feedback, creative participation and community...
academics — have disagreed, praising the philosophical complexity of the game, saying "Jonathan Blow’s Braid is the sort of ontological labyrinth that Jorge Luis Borges might have made. Embedded in the simple gameplay design are genuinely huge concepts."
The PC version of the game was considered to be "faithful" to the Xbox 360 version of the game, retaining the same content without adding any new features. Reviewers commented that Braid benefited from keyboard controls. However, as a port of the Xbox 360 version, the lack of initial support for optimizing the graphics display for one's computer, either through larger screen resolutions or turning off certain game effects, was seen as a drawback, though it is expected that patches will be released to add these options. Both the PlayStation 3 and Macintosh ports of the game by Hothead Games were found to be easily accessible on the system and retained all the innovation and challenge of the original Xbox Live game.
Awards
In addition to winning the Independent Games Festival award in 2006 during its design, Braid was selected by GameSpotGameSpot
GameSpot is a video gaming website that provides news, reviews, previews, downloads, and other information. The site was launched in May 1, 1996 by Pete Deemer, Vince Broady and Jon Epstein. It was purchased by ZDNet, a brand which was later purchased by CNET Networks. CBS Interactive, which...
for their 2008 awards in "Best Original Downloadable Console Game", "Best Platformer", and "Best Licensed Music", and by Official Xbox Magazine
Official Xbox Magazine
Official Xbox Magazine is a monthly video game magazine which started in November 2001 around the launch of the original Xbox. A preview issue was released for E3 2001, with another preview issue for November 2001. The magazine is bundled with a disc that includes game demos, preview videos and...
for their 2008 awards of "Xbox Live Arcade Game of the Year", "Best Soundtrack", and "Best Ending" and one of their "Indisputably Incredible Runners-ups to Game of the Year". Braid was awarded the "Casual Game of the Year" at the 12th Annual Academy of Interactive Arts & Sciences
Academy of Interactive Arts & Sciences
The Academy of Interactive Arts & Sciences , founded in 1996, is a non-profit organization that promotes computer and video game entertainment with the annual D.I.C.E. Summit event, where its Interactive Achievement Awards ceremony has been held annually since 1998...
Awards. Braid was nominated for five Xbox Live Arcade 2008 awards, winning one award in the category of "Best Innovation". MacWorld
Macworld
Macworld is a web site and monthly computer magazine dedicated to Apple Macintosh products. It is published by Mac Publishing, which is headquartered in San Francisco, California...
included Braid in its 2009 Game Hall of Fame. IGN
IGN
IGN is an entertainment website that focuses on video games, films, music and other media. IGN's main website comprises several specialty sites or "channels", each occupying a subdomain and covering a specific area of entertainment...
named Braid the 8th best Xbox Live Arcade game in a September 2010 listing.
Legacy
Developers have cited Braid as an influence on their game design; The GuardianThe Guardian
The Guardian, formerly known as The Manchester Guardian , is a British national daily newspaper in the Berliner format...
considered the game as the "Sex, Lies and Videotape of indie gaming, a potent symbol for the saleable potential of non-mainstream productions". Goichi Suda
Goichi Suda
, is the CEO of Grasshopper Manufacture. The "51" in his nickname, Suda51, is a pun on his given name. In Japanese, "Go" means 5 and "ichi" means 1. His works include Moonlight Syndrome, The Silver Case, Flower, Sun and Rain, Michigan, killer7, the No More Heroes series, and most recently, Shadows...
, developer for killer7
Killer7
is an action-adventure video game for the Nintendo GameCube and PlayStation 2. It was developed by Grasshopper Manufacture and published by Capcom. The game was written and directed by Goichi Suda, also known by the nickname Suda51, and produced by Hiroyuki Kobayashi...
and No More Heroes
No More Heroes (video game)
, is an action video game for the Wii video game system. It was directed by Goichi Suda , developed by Grasshopper Manufacture and published by Marvelous Entertainment Inc., Ubisoft and Rising Star Games...
, stated that playing Braid made him want to try making a 2D title. Tim can be unlocked as a playable character in Super Meat Boy
Super Meat Boy
Super Meat Boy is an independent video game designed by Edmund McMillen and Tommy Refenes and developed by Team Meat. It is the successor to McMillen and Jonathan McEntee's October 2008 flash game Meat Boy. Super Meat Boy was released on the Xbox 360 through Xbox Live Arcade in October 2010, on...
, a game designed by independent game developer Edmund McMillen who had previously created Gish
Gish (video game)
Gish is a 2D PC platform game developed by Alex Austin, Edmund McMillen and Josiah Pisciotta and distributed by Chronic Logic, Stardock and other distributors. A sequel was announced, but subsequently canceled in late 2009 when Edmund left Cryptic Sea....
and the original character designs for Braid. Fans of the game have created papercraft of Tim and other characters from the game. Braid has also garnered academic interest and acclaim for its complexity, with narratologists saying 'Anyone who thinks... the unique constraints of game play cannot possibly be used to best structure a story has probably not encountered Braid, which marries pure mechanics and story into a philosophical platform.'
External links
- Official Braid website
- David Hellman's Braid page
- Footage of Jonathan Blow playing Braid with commentary from the 2010 GameCityGamecityGameCity is an independent, annual videogame festival in Nottingham, England. The festival is aimed at the general public, and many events allow members of the public to participate freely. The festival receives little funding from the commercial video game industry, and is concerned instead with...
convention