Mark Goetz

So, I may be the last person on the planet to try out Jonathan Blow’s excellent indie game Braid, but hey, better late than never!  I’ve only tried the demo thus far, but from what I’ve seen I like it.  I’ve been wanting to highlight some indie games that I think are really good (I’m way overdue on Dyson and Iji), so this is a good place to start.

Anyway, the basic idea of Braid is that it’s a platform puzzle game, like Super Mario Brothers, only your character has the ability to move backwards in time.  In other words, if you make a mistake, you can reverse time, go back to where you were before, and try again.  It sounds pretty gimmicky, and that’s exactly what I thought when I first heard of it.  Indeed, in the hands of a lesser designer, a game with the same feature might’ve been a complete add-on.  But the way that this game mechanic is handled in Braid is nothing short of brilliant. The puzzles seem intimidating and even impassible at first, but as you study the level you begin to get a vague idea of how you might solve them, then start working through the details and finally, you get it right.  The ease of reversing your actions makes it possible to test out so many broad ideas, and to such a great level of precision (as Jakob Nielsen would tell you).  Contrast that with typical platform games, where the slightest failure is punished by forcing you to repeat the entire sequence – you could not do most of these puzzles without the ability to try again so easily.

On top of that, the game is wrapped in a story about regret for one’s past actions.  Having not played the full game, I don’t know how it ends, but it’s keyed on such a human emotion – knowing that you did the wrong thing and wanting to be able to go back and do the right thing instead.  In this game, you can do exactly that, but is it really enough?  I think it’s a great example of what I talked about with my last post, in that the game mechanics are such that they naturally bring out a strong feeling in the player, rather than relying on plot devices and the like.  The graphics are beautifully detailed as well, giving the game a pastoral feel that you don’t often see.

So, in short – if you haven’t given Braid a try, do it!  And be on the lookout for more posts like this.  Really.