Braid

Great indie from the golden age of indies

Uma obra de arte em formato de jogo, tanto em jogabilidade diferenciada, como em storytelling. Um clássico que todos deveriam jogar.

Playable

5 hours for solving puzzles, 2 hours for reading comprehension

I'd like to say that I don't think Braid respects your time. For a game where the main mechanic is rewinding time if you make a mistake instead of starting over, there sure are a lot of things that require you to start over. I frequently, in my short experience with the game, had to waste a lot of time restarting and trying multiple times to get the execution of a puzzle just right, after I'd already solved it. That's puzzle design 101, Jonathan Blow, that feels awful. But what's probably more accurate to say is that I'm not smart enough for Braid. After getting frustratingly stuck on an optional puzzle in a stage, I decided to just move on and complete the levels. And then I completed the entire next world in 2 minutes. I realized that just getting to the end of the stage is not a puzzle in Braid, and when these optional puzzle pieces whose function hasn't been explained to me are the only real gameplay, I feel ridiculed by the game for not being able to solve them. I think my real issue with Braid is that the game expects you to view it as a masterpiece. It's almost a foregone conclusion for the game that you think its an artistic achievement, and thus it can do no wrong. That's bold, and from the general consensus, it seems like it worked. But maybe I'm just not smart enough to see its genius.

I loved everything from the aesthetics, the implied story that you can try to piece together yourself, and the puzzle design. Almost went insane trying to collect all the secret puzzle pieces, but it felt fulfilling when I saw the constellation complete.

Braid appears to be a work best appreciated under altered states of consciousness, perhaps by those indulging in alcohol or cannabis. Its protagonist resembles a peculiar, postmodern reinterpretation of Mario: a small, orange-haired gentleman dressed in formal business attire, complete with suit and tie, wandering through an abstract platforming world. At first glance, the game presents itself as a simple exercise in traversal — one moves, jumps, and interacts with the environment — yet its purpose is not immediately evident. The most notable mechanic is its manipulation of time: the player may reverse events, undo mistakes, and repeatedly revisit prior moments. This temporal reversal is undeniably amusing and unusual. Nevertheless, despite this clever gimmick, the overall experience strikes one as profoundly absurd. The game’s structure seems obscure, its objective unclear, and its meaning elusive. In more direct terms: while the rewind mechanic is entertaining, the game itself appears nonsensical, perhaps even “stupid as hell,” with no immediately discernible point.

С самого своего выхода игра мозолила мне глаза: то в "инди-гейм зы муви", то в центре приложений "убунты", то в стиме, то ещё где-то. И вот, почти двадцать лет спустя, я решил всё-таки с ней ознакомиться. Очень некислая такая пазл-игра: я думал там можно только отматывать время в обратную сторону, но оказалось что там довольно много очень хитрых головоломок связанных со временем: время может двигаться вперёд-назад в зависимости от положения игрока; может замедляться в одной области уровня, но идти с нормальной скоростью в другой; можно взаимодействовать с объектами из параллельной временной линии; на некоторые объекты изменение времени не действует. В общем, много чего интересного придумали. Вживую игра оказалась гораздо красивее чем на скриншотах. Мне никогда не нравилось как она выглядит визуально, но вживую она оказалась очень красочной и красивой. Насколько я понимаю, очень помогает анимация фонов. Сюжет немного смутный. Рассказана история очень абстрактно, поэтому мне сложно окрестить главного героя злодеем, не зная что там где и почему (остаётся только принять это как должное). В центре внимания здесь скорее мысль о том, что изменяя прошлое мы пытаемся спрятать свои ошибки. Главный герой делает это буквально - искажая время, но и мы - обычные люди, делаем это путём обмана и самообмана. Искажая былые события мы рисуем более красивую картинку чем есть на самом деле, и из-за этого, незаметно для себя, можем оказаться на месте злодея, несмотря на то что сами себя мы видим героями, В общем, не врали - хорошая игра. Можно брать, если ещё не.

great puzzles for your brain!

Braid is a typical platformer that ends up surprising you thanks to a very particular mechanic: Pressing a button rewinds time, and there are mechanics surrounding this (In some levels you rewind yourself but not certain elements in the background, in others only you rewind, in others everything, etc). I'm sure you already know all of this, TLDR: it's a game I highly recommend. The only thing I can't stand, but which is outside the scope of the game itself, is the pretentiousness surrounding it. The game and its fans reek of the edgiest and weirdest things from the early 2010s, for better or for worse. I feel that sometimes a game exists with a grat mechanic and that's it; the curiosities behind it are just that—curious. I say this in case you play it and don't like it, so you know that even today you'll still get flak for saying so out loud.