First, the soundtrack, songs by Jami Sieber and Shira Kamman, were phenomenal. The gorgeous cello and violin are so atmospheric, and they also sound good backwards and sped up -- necessary for a game like Braid, and chosen for that reason.
Secondly, the artwork - that naive 2D platformer style but combined with gorgeous and subtle shading and depth that really showed it was something special. We're used to games doing this now, maybe.
Thirdly, the structure of the game itself as a critique of the traditional Mario-style platformer with its jumps, princesses and castles. It was like playing a postmodern game.
Then there's the relationship between the level's gameplay theme and the lesson it's trying to teach. This was something I saw Elizabeth Sandifer point out. The first level is all about being able to undo the mistakes of the past. But then we learn some mistakes are too big to undo. We learn about how a ring can change things in a relationship...
And then there's the two levels of twist ending and how they relate to games and gaming, especially a decade ago when it was much more a male pursuit.
Few games trigger that “wow” reaction. For me it was like the bullet time moment in the Matrix; an almost hallucinatory experience that changes your perception of what a medium can be.
This was something new — something different — something great.
If you loved Braid and are looking for a similar feeling from more recent games, I highly recommend Inside and Limbo from Playdead:
I argue against both of those recommendations. Braid is a strong puzzle game with finely crafted puzzles that can leave you bewildered for ages. Both Inside and Limbo are obvious on-the-rails platformers with no puzzles to speak of. I've played all three to 100% and, of them, only recommend Braid.
For good puzzles, look to Stephen's Sausage Roll, English Country Garden, HexCells. Also, many recommend The Witness, made by the creator of Braid.
I agree that Inside and Limbo are easier as puzzlers.
“On-the-rails” could describe any non-open-world game. But Limbo, in particular, is not just a linear “forward forevermore” puzzler — it requires backtracking to solve some of the puzzles, which gives it a Braid-like quality.
To me they both capture the feeling I got playing Braid. Those reading shouldn't discount them for being less hard.
I haven't played your other recommendations — thank you for those!
Inside and Limbo do have puzzles, but they're fairly predictable, mostly just variations on things that have been seen before. They're nice diversions, and have a pleasing graphical style, but the general sentiment of your comment is pretty much correct.
What made Braid so special was that it introduced an entirely new mechanic, explored the entire possible space of puzzles for that mechanic, and explored a bunch of complimentary orthogonal mechanics at the same time.
On the one hand I can't disagree too much with that because Lavelle admitted it introduced too many concepts, but on the other hand I thought it was a good way to challenge the player to overcome their initial intimidation, and wasn't nearly as hard as people make it out to be.
Puzzles in Limbo are definitely simpler and more straightforward than in Braid, but Braid is also more than just a puzzle game.
To me, the feeling OP is describing when it comes to the first rewind in Braid is similar to the first few bizarre deaths in Limbo: Surprising, and it leads me to re-evaluate the way I approach the game.
I agree with that, a big part of the "puzzle" aspect is that it shoudl get _HARD_. There are plenty of platform puzzle games (trine comes to mind) which are fun, but they aren't really hard. As a child of the 80's games I really find game reviewers that complain about how hard games are to be silly. That was a time when the idea of saving your progress was foreign. There is nothing like having to play a game for an hour to get back to the point where you died.
I think a good recommendation might be FEZ for a game with physical puzzles that get incredibly difficult.
Although, even machinarium (which was in humble bundle2 with braid) has some pretty fun puzzles in the form of a point and click adventure.
> As a child of the 80's games I really find game reviewers that complain about how hard games are to be silly. That was a time when the idea of saving your progress was foreign. There is nothing like having to play a game for an hour to get back to the point where you died.
Fuck that shit. There are many ways to make a game challenging, but forcing you to replay long segments over and over again is the laziest way of making a game challenging.
I'm not saying that lack of save games is a good idea, rather that people complaining because it takes them 10 minutes to solve a puzzle in a game are maybe whining about it to much.
Seconded. It was a great game, albeit with not so much replay value.
There is a great interview with Blow on the technicalities of the warping effects in Braid:
https://youtu.be/8dinUbg2h70
In addition to Limbo and Inside, may I also recommend:
Portal 1&2
Antichamber
VVVVVV
increpare.com
In particular Stephen Lavelle (@increpare) makes games with much darker and more interesting social implications. Although, Braid accurately predicted the "nice guys" trope.
I'm surprised nobody is recommending Fez, which was around the same era. I gather there was some drama involving the developer, or maybe people think it hasn't aged well, but I'd personally highly recommend it to anyone who enjoyed Braid.
Fez is an interesting game, and obviously put together with a lot of passion, but the base game is a pretty straight-forward platformer (aside from the gimmick, obviously) and the puzzles are incredibly obtuse.
It was pleasant, but failed to engage me, personally, as a player.
It has a nice relaxing atmosphere as well; something not a lot of games manage. No gritty military facilities or anything flashy and overly distracting, just grass-covered medieval/Roman/Egyptian ruins outside in the sun.
Just take your time and figure the puzzle out — the game doesn't get in your way.
The second part of Radiator1 "Handle with Care" by Robert Yang uses gameplay as narrative, in this case a 3D environment (original release was a half-life mod). I recommend it and "Polaris", haven't played the final part.
The first rewind moment in Braid is stunning, but I was _blown away_ when I had my 'a ha' moment about the perspective-based puzzles in The Witness. We all know—intellectually—that games have a creator, but this was one hell of a wake-up call that everything around me was meticulously placed by someone who came before.
For me, it was the first level when time move backwards as you went left. I literally couldn't stop smiling, I was so excited at the cleverness of the mechanic and the possibilities resulting from it; the music going along with it was such a cool detail.
> The way it plays with the time dynamics and weaves it into it's story is brilliant.
This deserves expanding upon. Where most games interweave interactive game sections with non-interactive storytelling sections that mostly use the tools of movies to tell stories, Braid and the first Bioshock are my two go-to examples for games that effectively use the game as a narrative medium distinct from film, where the story is told in a way that actively benefits from being built as a game.
I would add another often forgotten game: Spec Ops: the Line.
My go to example when I want to convince people games are art, and furthermore that games are a medium that offers unique possibilities. It's a reimagining of Apocalypse Now, but the interactivity adds a whole new layer of meaning and opportunity for reflection. You're not on the outside, watching characters do horrible things, you are the character, and you did those horrible things. It absolutely shows, in a way understandable even to someone who hasn't ever played a game, that the medium affords completely new possibilities.
Then the absolutely sublime way in which this this title -- from its marketing to its presentation to its first hours -- creates an expectation of being yet another utterly generic "modern military buddy-soldier shooter" to then shatter those expectations and deliver a deep and thought provoking story to tell... Well I could write pages about it. It just adds layers to your interpretation of the story, and more to reflect on.
Bioshock is one of those "BRB, reinstalling" games along with STALKER and and Deus Ex. I wonder how many people will be starting it again this weekend thanks to your comment? I'm certainly seriously thinking about it...
I think there are particular topics and arguments that he finds tiresome, like people demanding that he explain Braid's point in words, or claiming that he doesn't like Linux development because he just doesn't understand how it works (and not because he's legitimately flabbergasted that the UX can be described as a time warp to the '80s, if one is feeling generous).
Some remarkable recommendations of "similar" games appeared in this thread. I'd like add The Company of Myself [0] and its perhaps even better prequel Fixation [1]: I think it neatly fits this "philosophical indie platformer" niche. If you haven't yet, try them while you can (yup, Flash based).
The importance of Braid is primarily that it was the first game which was intended to be a piece of art, rather than a toy for children, which had any kind of mass market appeal.
It was the way people engaged with it seriously, in terms of gameplay and narrative and how the two interacted that made it important.
I think Amnesia and Portal were two other games that came out around the same time that were also similarly important.
> the first game which was intended to be a piece of art
There have to be earlier contenders than this, surely? Yes it's the ancestor of the modern wave of artistically-aspiring games but game development dates back to the 1970s.
I dunno. I’ve been playing video games since the Atari 2600 and I don’t think I recall any mainstream games that interacted with the ‘art’ world in a serious way. There were rpgs and such with serious stories, but I don’t think they were taken seriously by art critics in the way that Braid was.
Given the primitiveness of the medium as one goes farther back in time, I think it is unfair to say that none of them really attempted to communicate artistically with the player. Notably Missile Command was made to be unbeatable as a statement about the futility of nuclear war, and Donkey Kong was designed by an artist who injected thematic elements not previously utilized in the medium. That the "art world" didn't really engage with them doesn't mean much because art, like all communication, requires shared understanding to have meaning, and very few people would have been exposed to the (still in its infancy) culture necessary to understand artistic expression in the medium.
Right but I’m suggesting that it’s not important because it was the first game that was made as art, but because it was the first mainstream game that was intended to be presented as ‘art’ and was engaged with as critics _as_ art.
You cut out the "had any kind of mass market appeal" part, which makes the claim much more plausible (though I couldn't rule out there being earlier examples too).
are there any games like for the mobile (especially android) ? I always though the mechanics of Braid would have been better adapted for a mobile touchscreen
First, the soundtrack, songs by Jami Sieber and Shira Kamman, were phenomenal. The gorgeous cello and violin are so atmospheric, and they also sound good backwards and sped up -- necessary for a game like Braid, and chosen for that reason.
Secondly, the artwork - that naive 2D platformer style but combined with gorgeous and subtle shading and depth that really showed it was something special. We're used to games doing this now, maybe.
Thirdly, the structure of the game itself as a critique of the traditional Mario-style platformer with its jumps, princesses and castles. It was like playing a postmodern game.
Then there's the relationship between the level's gameplay theme and the lesson it's trying to teach. This was something I saw Elizabeth Sandifer point out. The first level is all about being able to undo the mistakes of the past. But then we learn some mistakes are too big to undo. We learn about how a ring can change things in a relationship...
And then there's the two levels of twist ending and how they relate to games and gaming, especially a decade ago when it was much more a male pursuit.
Honestly I could talk about Braid for hours.