Poll: Lets talk about Braid.

[Impluse_101]

Yes, Braid, that little Indie Game involving Tim and the manipulation of time. Yes, that's the one. I was wanting to see what all anyone liked about the game and/or what they liked from what spawned from it.

I start this thread because I remembered long ago in a galaxy far far away...
The escapist put up a vid involving The Chaparral High School Alumni Theatre's production of Braid: A Movement Piece.

I quite enjoyed it, it was odd but I like it quite a bit. I'll post the first video into a spoiler down below.

And when I say what spawned from the release of Braid, I mean.
The soundtrack, The art, Art that other people did, any remixes (though I've yet to see), plays, as well as all the weird theories and interpretations of what other people thought of it.

(And yes, I have my stakes solid in the interpretation that it's about the development of the atomic bomb.)


The First part in Braid: A Movement Piece.

 

[Scrustle]

I love Braid. The first indie game I'd ever properly gotten in to and still possibly my favourite. It's just seeping with beauty.

 

[Impluse_101]

I love Braid. The first indie game I'd ever properly gotten in to and still possibly my favourite. It's just seeping with beauty.

I suppose you managed to beat it haven't you?

 

[Scrustle]

I love Braid. The first indie game I'd ever properly gotten in to and still possibly my favourite. It's just seeping with beauty.

I suppose you managed to beat it haven't you?

Yes I have, but not with the secret stars.

 

[Kahunaburger]

I like the mechanic, but never finished it. The "couch banal observation in vague language, throw at wall and see what sticks" style of storytelling is a bit obnoxious, but doesn't detract much because Braid has a strong focus on gameplay.

 

[SpaceBat]

I very much liked braid. I enjoyed its music, its visuals and even its story. I do not view it as one of my favorite indie games however. I find that it isolated the story too much from the gameplay (you can add meanings to certain items and whatnot, but it is far too abstract and too big of a reach for it to be effective) and find that the use of textbooks undermined its powerful story (whereas the final level nailed it). Due to the cryptic nature of most of the textbooks, I had forgotten most of their contents from the first few levels by the time the actual story started appearing during the final parts of the game.

And I'm not sure whether I like or dislike the secret stars. While it does fit within the narrative, I would have missed out on it without the Internet. I had trouble fully understanding it at first, but that's probably an issue on my end. But still, I can watch David Lynch movies and "get" them after putting some thought into them, but Braid stumped me at first.

So basically, it's a really good indie game, but I still prefer Journey and Bastion.

 

[Goofguy]

I definitely enjoyed Braid. It was well worth the purchase and had some interesting game mechanics to it.

That being said, I don't consider Jon Blow to be some sort of messiah to the gaming industry.

 

[Scrustle]

That being said, I don't consider Jon Blow to be some sort of messiah to the gaming industry.

I think the only one who thinks that is Blow himself.

 

[ohnoitsabear]

I liked it. I thought it had a good central game mechanic, great art, well designed puzzles, and a very nice soundtrack. It's not perfect, and its certainty not as great as some people make it out to be, but it is worth playing.

 

[Daystar Clarion]

It was a decent platformer, but the storytelling was terrible.

Little text blurbs, with no context, a good story does not make.

The whole atomic bomb reference wasn't subtle, it was contrived.

Also, the creator is a massive tool.

 

[Smooth Operator]

I really liked the mechanics because they twist your brain severely, the writing is decent if you squint a little, but the guy who makes these is a right twat... so fucking full of himself.

 

[Dirty Apple]

I appreciate what Braid was striving for, but platformers like this should really be played with a gamepad or joystick. I found both Braid and Super Meatboy pretty tight but nigh unplayable once they started getting into the tougher levels. K&B for FPS and RTS, gamepads for platformers and fighters.

 

[DEAD34345]

I did a chapter or two, but never got around to finishing it. I wouldn't rate it above "acceptable", because I didn't really feel like it did enough to make it stand out from other games. To me it was just another platformer + gimmick, so I've never really understood why it became such a big deal. Oh, and I thought the story was just vague. "Vague" being something completely different to "deep"...

 

[peruvianskys]

I loved the game and frankly I didn't find the story pretentious at all. I think the video game community is really used to stories that lay everything out for you with no ambiguity, but Blow's subtle, open-ended approach really leaned more towards literature and less towards pulp - and that's something we definitely need more of in games.

 

[Grygor]

It was a decent platformer, but the storytelling was terrible.

Little text blurbs, with no context, a good story does not make.

The whole atomic bomb reference wasn't subtle, it was contrived.

Also, the creator is a massive tool.

I'm 100% convinced that the "atomic bomb" interpretation is utter bullshit, conceived by people who are desperate to have the game story, as such, seem deeper than it actually is.

 

[Daystar Clarion]

It was a decent platformer, but the storytelling was terrible.

Little text blurbs, with no context, a good story does not make.

The whole atomic bomb reference wasn't subtle, it was contrived.

Also, the creator is a massive tool.

I'm 100% convinced that the "atomic bomb" interpretation is utter bullshit, conceived by people who are desperate to have the game story, as such, seem deeper than it actually is.

I was perfectly happy with the whole 'oh, it turns out you're a stalker, not a hero', but there's a lot of evidence to suggest otherwise.

http://www.cracked.com/article_19172_8-creepy-video-game-urban-legends-that-happen-to-be-true_p2.html

 

[Hungry Donner]

I agree 100% with Daystar Clarion.

It had good puzzles, and I really enjoyed playing it. The variety of abilities was nice, although its a shame we never really mixed them.

As for the story . . . the twist in the last level was fun, but otherwise I found it dull and it was trying way to hard to be something more than what it was. There are games out there that do wonderful things with narratives, but Braid never struck a chord with me.

 

[Grygor]

It was a decent platformer, but the storytelling was terrible.

Little text blurbs, with no context, a good story does not make.

The whole atomic bomb reference wasn't subtle, it was contrived.

Also, the creator is a massive tool.

I'm 100% convinced that the "atomic bomb" interpretation is utter bullshit, conceived by people who are desperate to have the game story, as such, seem deeper than it actually is.

I was perfectly happy with the whole 'oh, it turns out you're a stalker, not a hero', but there's a lot of evidence to suggest otherwise.

http://www.cracked.com/article_19172_8-creepy-video-game-urban-legends-that-happen-to-be-true_p2.html

The way I see it, if the Princess really is a metaphor for the atomic bomb, it's a shitty metaphor that, on reflection, makes no real sense to anyone but the pretentious.

And frankly, if I had to choose between "banality" and "shitty metaphor", "banality" wins every time.

 

[skywolfblue]

The soundtrack and the art are ok.

But I did not like the platforming and the story. One of the chapters has a puzzle where you have to do a double bounce off a goomba that bounced on your shadow or something (been a while since I played it last), no explanation or indication that that is possible but they somehow expect you to figure something THAT obtuse without looking it up? And the story is a bunch of empty nonsense, words strung randomly together in the hopes that the reader will go "aaahh! I didn't understand it, therefore it must be really intelligent".

I wouldn't say I *hate* it. I just think LIMBO was a better game.