03/06/2007 - Preview - Braid

 

I'll be honest, I really don't know how to start this preview of Braid. I suppose saying thanks would be a nice way to do it, so thanks to Jonathan Blow for letting me play his game. The problem is that I either start with some pseudo-intellectual faff about the nature of time, or I just dive right in and start heaping effusive praise on the game. Given that I'm precisely one wheelchair and a dribble-bib short of being Stephen Hawkings I suppose I'll have to opt for the latter.

But before I do... I'm sure that anyone reading this is a fan of platform games. Like me you've probably played a lot of them over the years and you've come recognise all the key mechanics which are used and reused. I imagine that if you were to play a new platformer tomorrow you'd have no trouble in describing it purely in terms of other games you've played previously. Even if it was a harrowing game revolving around abduction and sexual abuse, you could probably just shrug it off as "Mario meets Custer's Revenge".

Ooh, that's pretty. Bit smoggy, mind.
It'd play merry hell with my asthma.

Braid is different, because although you could start by saying "It's Mario meets...", you'd have to look to the real world to complete the sentance with "...a video recorder?". And even then that's a gross over-simplification which only really applies to the first of Braid's 6 worlds. Braid is all about the manipulation of time to complete puzzles. Yes, it contains keys and doors and enemies you can jump on, but the way you will make use of and interact with these elements is what sets it apart. It's the most original and fresh platform game I've played in at least ten years, and almost every single puzzle in it will make you grin with happiness and clap with appreciation at the cleverness of it.

As I said, comparing it to Mario meets a video recorder only really describes the first world - oddly called world 2 - in which you learn that holding down a button will rewind time. There's no limitation on your usage of this ability and there's no game-over in Braid. If you die you just hold down the rewind button until you're out of trouble and then try again. It's very liberating as for the most part it allows you to skip from platform to platform without a care in the world as any missteps don't result in tedious backtracking, merely a few moments of rewinding.

As you unlock worlds the rooms light up. Lets see how far I appear to have got... Aw, shit.

If that's all the game had, though, then it might as well just be a 2D version of the recent Prince Of Persia titles or Blinx The Time Sweeper. But Braid is so much more than those games as on each subsequent world either the rules of time are changed, or some new element is introduced into the gameplay which reacts to time in a different manner. As Jason Rohrer kindly spilled the beans on the nature of the levels on his blog I don't feel so bad about mentioning them here, but you'll have to wait to play the game to really appreciate the potential of the twists to the gameplay. If you want to avoid hearing any spoilers then skip past the grey text.

So, once you get to level three your ability to rewind is complicated by objects and enemies in the game world which are unaffected by your tampering with time, and these are denoted by purple sparkles. As such you can drop down an inescapable pit to grab a purple sparkley key and when you rewind time it will stick with you, instead of being dropped again as a normal key would. Similarly purple sparkley enemies will stay killed when you rewind time instead of rising from their grave like their normal brethren. It's such a simple twist to the formula and yet it creates a huge number of impressively clever puzzles.

On the next level the passage of time is connected to your horizontal movement so time goes forward as you move to the right and goes backwards as you move to the left. It makes for some baffling looking levels full of ingenious and fun puzzles.

Later levels mix things up with your rewinding of time leading to divergent realities splitting off from the main one, and although that sounds complex it's a very simple concept to understand when you see it in action and again it leads to many brilliant puzzles and then world 6 features an object you can pick up and drop which acts like a black-hole for time and the final level... Well, I don't want to give away everything.

It's a bit blurry but those are bunnies with flowers on their backs which make noises like cats and try to kill you. Talk about your mixed messages.

Braid is almost like a series of 6 different games, each of which has a uniquely excellent and original gameplay mechanic except you're getting it all in a single package.

But despite the fact that this game contains more ideas in it than a dozen other games, it's also quite a short game. Now, I don't mean that in a bad way at all, quite the opposite. Whereas many games belabour their points via needless repetition, Braid has been designed to not waste the player's time. Every puzzle in it is different in some way, and while you'll occasionally see a room repeated across several worlds, the change in the rules of time will mean completing them will be a very different experience.

Braid's balancing of difficulty and enjoyment is also masterful. I was always challenged by the puzzles in the game, but I never felt frustrated by them. Unusually the challenges aren't really used to obstruct your progress, as you can freely walk through almost every one of the levels. The reward for completing puzzles is literally pieces of a larger puzzle which you then assemble to unlock access to the final level. As a result you're never stuck for something to do, and it's almost as if the whole of game world is a hub, with the puzzles hovering above you, always within reach if you want to have a go at them.

Ooh, one key and two doors. I'll warrant there's some kind of time-travel related solution to this... (rubs chin)

But the game isn't perfect at the moment. There are a few puzzles in it which feel a little fuzzy, as if you've only completed them because of a quirk of the collision allowing you to squeeze through a gap, sometimes there are a even puzzles which can be completed in multiple ways and I occasionally found the wrong one. There's also an unfortunate reliance on the mouse for rearranging the puzzles in an otherwise keyboard or controller based game. But Braid has been in the works for two years, and I'm sure Jonathan won't release it until it's completely perfect.

Graphically the game is a bit odd. The platforms and backgrounds are beautifully painted, with many levels of detailed parallax and subtle transparency effects to make the world look alive. The particle effects are decent enough and there are nice visual distortion effects to show the passage of time. But the sprites are strangely mundane and drab in comparison. I'm sure this was a very deliberate decision, though, because you don't accidentally make your lead character look like a dad on his daughter's wedding day. There's also the possible issue of the game having very self-consciously arty elements, with each world preceded by unobtrusive paragraphs of text which tell a story or indicate the nature of time on that world. They're very well written, but they create an oddly melancholy atmosphere.

Like the graphics, the music in Braid is also beautiful, and on a technical level the sound very cleverly matches the passage of time in the game, so as you rewind, so does the music and any sound effects, pitching up as you increase the rate which time passes. That might sound like something simple, but you'll really appreciate the synchronisation when you play.

This is me jumping near a lovely magical castle. But what's in the castle? I hope it's a unicorn! Or some pixies! Or a leprechaun!
No, wait, a leprepixicorn!

There have been a number fresh feeling platform games in the last few years - largely due to everyone figuring out how easy it is to write a physics engine. But while titles like Gish and Loco Roco had their gameplay undoubtedly driven by their engines, in Braid it's the original and clever design which dictates the nature of the game. It might seem like a small thing, but with so much design being technology-led, it's nice to see something which has was born of original thought instead, and ignoring the aesthetics, there's really nothing about this game which technically couldn't have been done ten years ago - it's basically something new.

Braid will be released for PC, hopefully at some point this year. In the mean time I will be dining off getting to preview it and acting as if I'm somehow better than everyone else...

NOW KNEEL BEFORE ME!

Graham