This week I sampled and completed Braid. It was a game I’ve been meaning to play after reading an article on its creator (Jonathan Blow) nearly a year ago. I’ve been hesitant to play the game for reasons unknown to me but perhaps I just needed to be in the right mindset. Braid is an excellent game and the level design is definitely something to be appreciated. However, while it is a bit of a puzzler, some skill is required and may not be for the impatient and unskilled.

I won’t go into the detailed analysis of Braid that a lot of others have gone through trying to decipher its meaning as a work of art. Rather, I will appreciate the simple mechanic of the rewind which plays a large role in the game (and the story itself, but again, I won’t discuss that in detail).

The game is a 2D puzzler-platformer. It is divided into 6 worlds, each containing a set of levels where the entrance and exit to each world is easily reachable, but the real goal is to collect puzzle pieces scattered throughout these maps. The worlds are themed with sub-mechanics, such as moving to the right moves time forward whereas moving left moves time backward. These sub-mechanics, coupled with the main rewind mechanic, become crucial in solving the puzzles in order to obtain the puzzle pieces required to open up the next world. As you might expect, some skill is required in manipulating time for some of these puzzles and it can get frustrating. Luckily, the game is easy to put down for another day and another try.

You play as Tim, a guy who is dreaming about his princess – so much so that he chases after her. If you are reminded of the Mario games, you’ll find Braid has a more “mature”/adult take on it. Each world concludes with a flag on a flag pole, much as the older Mario games used to have (although they were per level). The levels are labeled according to World-Level (e.g., 1-1). There is also the familiar, “Our princess is in another castle” that also makes its appearance here. The “boss” that you encounter in some of the worlds has a resemblance to Bowser, spitting fireballs and generally stomping around.

The artwork makes heavy use of parallax scrolling for its background. The painted scenery gives a very relaxed feel to the game and I found it was fun to just watch, both in forward time and backwards/rewind time. I think what might have put me off from playing the game was the sprite for Tim. He seemed very out of place in an otherwise fantasy-like world. Other character sprites also seemed out of place, but not so much as Tim. It was hard to “like” him on that aesthetic level, but perhaps he was not meant to be pleasant to look at because of his actual role in the game. Maybe he was meant to strike a discord with the player, purposely making you uncomfortable.

The music was also a relaxing ambient soundtrack. Rewinding the game also plays the music in reverse and if you speed up the rewind, you’ll even get that scratchy record effect. It sort of adds to the charm of the game. I want to say there are some intense moments where the soundtrack takes on a more ominous tone to denote the seriousness or gravity of the situation, but for the most part it is pleasant.

The controls were not difficult. For a game that was made for XBLA, it was also quite keyboard friendly (typical WASD movement, spacebar to jump). It was a little hard to adjust to the up button at first because I always wanted to use it to jump as well as the spacebar. I always used the up button in addition to the jump button to try to make Mario jump higher on the GameBoy. It was more of a psychological thing. Once I got over the up button not actually jumping in Braid, I made less mistakes, but some of the skill-based puzzles did have me ready to scratch something up. It wasn’t that they were particularly hard as I did finish the game, but it did require some patience and a small amount of luck. Oh, and a lot of rewinds – the really nice aspect of the game – you never actually die as you can rewind time (Shift key) to try again.

I would recommend Braid to players who enjoy platformers like Mario. Each level is quick. I want to say at most 10 minutes to solve unless it involves some tricky time manipulation and skill, but it’s really easy to put down and pick back up. Maybe average is 3 or so minutes? I don’t think I invested that much time in playing this game, maybe an hour or less per day (I even skipped a day or two). It’s a short game and even if the story isn’t something you’d want to play for, just exploring the world of Braid and its mechanics is worth finishing the game for. You’ll really appreciate the level design and how well the puzzles come together with the rewind mechanic and the world’s sub-mechanic.