Braid

The Basics: Platformer (and Indie darling with something to say about time/regret/relationships)

Previous Time Spent: 15 minutes

Expectation of learning Curve: low

Why I bought this: Mostly on the strength of positive reviews and other press

First Impressions: Braid is gorgeous, between the hand painted backgrounds and the soothing quasi-classical music, and my first impression gave me a sense of a relaxing, thoughtful experience.

My 3 hours: I began with a relaxing run through a few simple worlds, which overall felt very mario-esque, however. There were puzzle pieces to collect, and this suit-clad man needed to collect them by traveling through rolling hills, jumping on the heads of his foes, and solving jumping puzzles. Then, things got a bit more interesting, as the puzzles escalated in difficulty, and began to rely on the game's primary innovation, the ability to reverse time. It was at this point that I was fairly hooked, and found myself obsessively trying bits over and over and over again (in a very Next or Edge of Tomorrow-ish way) which was a nice contrast from the extremely beautiful and relaxing intro bits.

I explored 6 "worlds," throughout the course of my playthrough, involving a number of puzzles which escalated in difficulty, and were based around interesting exceptions and additions to the fairly simple rules that the game established. Some of these were far more challenging than others, but there was almost always the sense that I could keep moving and try other things, so I never felt terribly bogged down or frustrated. In my last half hour or so of playing, I reached a couple of worlds where the basic rules of play, especially regarding time, shifted greatly, matching the story the game was piecing together about a relationship. (which I'm not going to spoil, nor did I 100% follow). 

My Highlight: For me, the highlight of my playthrough was mastering the first fairly challenging jumping puzzle through crazy repetition. This involved having to time a jump exactly right so that I would land on the top of one of the many hapless hairy guys traveling these picturesque landscapes, and bounce from the top of his head to a nearby ledge, where a puzzle piece awaited me. I had to rewind and redo this bit some 30+ times, probably due to my inexperience with  timing heavy platformers, but reaching that ledge felt incredible.

  

My Verdict: Braid is a thoughtfully put together and intellectually stimulating experience, and the puzzles involved are well worth experiencing. Definitely worth picking up on a steam sale at some point.

My next post will come in roughly 2 weeks, where I'll be covering the presumably scary (and maybe problematic, Call of Cthulhu: Dark Corners of the Earth)