Braid Released For Mac

**@Glaiel:** Oh man, I’m in the same boat. Experienced some HEARTBREAK last week when I (misguidedly) thought I could hook my Xbox into my laptop. Was -so- looking forward to playing through Braid again in HD, but, alas, it was not to be. :(

I don’t think Braid is worth $20. Some people think like me. Some people don’t believe MGS4 is worth any $$. I think the story alone in MGS4 is worth an infinite amount more than Braid.

If we’re making these kinds of discrepancies, of course.

Probably because video games are subjective 8) :coolguy:

ps your “this is the first generation blah blah” statement is inane. There were many PS2 games that were under $40 that were both quality and fun. I’m pretty sure Katamari Damacy was $20. What about DS and PSP games?

Remember when new blockbuster games didn’t debut at $60? Hm?

I did not mean to come off as defensive. It was just a comment I wanted to reply to. :) Video games are one of the things I genuinely enjoy talking about. If I can flaunt some nerdiness to the world I will.

I do remember cartridges though! That was a factor when I was writing that comment. But, really, those days were quite a long time ago. Maybe two generations depending on when you consider the N64 relevant. But, then I started thinking about PSX games, GBA games, Gamecube games, and xbox games; systems of which I’m sure have had quality releases for under $40.

**@Kenzya:** Ah yes, true enough! :)

**@Anarkex:** But I feel like they were tied into the gameplay quite well! At the very least, they gave some sort of significance to the way time was handled in each world, and something more to think about as I played. And the ending… Anyway! I thought it was great, but that’s just my opinion. It’s pretty cool that, for folks (like you) who don’t care for the story, it’s handled in a completely unobtrusive way (books you can choose to read or run past). Which is another thing that sets it apart from, like, *every* modern game.

I dunno, I felt that the book stuff was deliberately obscure, as opposed to something that’s obscure because it’s beautiful. I understood the book stuff, but I just felt it was quite pretentious and felt forced.

The other thing I disliked about braid was the hit detection, which seemed more than a little dodgy sometimes.

Also, to all those complaining about the price tag? Spare a thought for those of us who live in countries other than the US; we pay so much more than you do for basicially no reason for most other games.

Also, your “unified” comment is a total straw man, gimme a break.

Braid books are not pretentious at all, they just serve as a cool intro to what you will find in the game world, for example the books when he talks about the marriage introduce the world where you have the ring and so on. They are part of the game, and they can be enjoyed as little nice phrases beetween a world and another one, they’re pretentious only if you take them that way

Anarkex: agreed!

I agree that the books were nearly entirely distinct from the actual gameplay, but at the same time I also agree that they added ‘heft’ to the gameplay by giving it context. I think this is particularly true for the last level.

In my opinion, the last level was brilliant because it takes everything from all the story bits and all the gameplay bits, then builds upon both while simultaneously inverting them.

Of course, Story vs. Gameplay is a whole ‘nother can o’ beans… I’m just trying to put it as plainly as possible, not write a thesis here. :P

**@johhny:** Oh, also! From a pure gameplay standpoint, Braid’s time mechanics go *far* beyond Prince of Persia. In PoP, you have a finite amount of “back in time potion,” but in Braid you can undo absolutely everything you’ve done in the stage, straight back to the start. But time reversal is only the first, most basic mechanic — each world handles time in a different way. (For example, in one world, time is linked to Tim’s horizontal position, and in another you can place a ring which slows time for objects/enemies the closer they are in proximity to it.)

This is all linked to the philosophies of the game’s story, but, again, it’s brilliantly designed on its own! The puzzles toward the end seem almost impossible at first, but once they click, they all have logical, easy-to-execute solutions. If you like thinking in multiple dimensions at once, you’ll love this game. ;)

Connor, believe you me I thought long and hard about my use of the word “pretentious”. I hate the word as much as you do, but in this case I firmly believe it applies. I don’t mind if people disagree with me, I don’t exactly expect people on an indie game site to accept that ANY indie game could have been improved in any way. However, when you say that all I’m doing is dismissing things I don’t understand, I find that extremely insulting.

The books don’t affect the game at all. Maybe they make you think one thing or another about the game, but they don’t assist you in completing the game nor do they give you any knowledge about the game that you couldn’t figure out in the first area of the world. That’s not what I call “unification of story and game”. In fact, I call that the exact opposite of unity.

Which reminds me, BMcC, I’d love to know why Some Guy’s comment was a straw man, considering it’s a counterargument to something you said verbatim.

Not to mention, Some Guy didn’t say “Half Life 2” at all. He said “Half Life”. The 2 isn’t part of the title like in “Rainbow Six”. I’m only saying this because I’ve expected Some Guy to come back and say it himself all day now, so, apologies to him if I’m getting this wrong.

“As I said, the game can be enjoyed without them, but nobody can tell me they didn’t add to my experience.”

Well, they have absolutely nothing to do with the game, they’re a completely separate thing slapped on, and I found them tedious to read (to the point where I just stopped reading them since really, they make NO difference to the game).

The fact that you can avoid reading them and still enjoy the **game** perfectly well should suggest that they weren’t necessary to the game. All they really add is the ability to claim that the game has some sort of deep meaning.

Maybe this is a pet peeve of mine, but no one criticizes architecture for not having a “Story”, and if an architect scattered prose throughout their building they would rightly be derided for conflating two separate media which are complex enough in their own right to stand alone.

Then again I skip all text in all games and skip/ignore all cutscenes, even in RPGs, since really.. it’s pure filler, it’s just writing that’s trying to appeal to the human desired for narrative and identification, all I want is to play a game, not get wrapped up in someone’s stupid life story.

Like, I enjoy reading fiction, but that’s because it’s typically interesting or well-written or whatever, not just lame archetypal tales/fables recast in various ways. MAYBE if writing in games was at the level of Phil K Dick, then I would be interested in reading it. But even then — what would the point of that be?! It would be better digested in BOOK FORM, not as a game.

Paintings don’t have written “stories” that accompany them for no good reason, and neither should games.

Unless the text actually has some meaning in the game — like in IF games or Facade, where the game itself has an understanding of the meaning of the text — then it’s useless, and more than likely an attempt to make the game more appealing by pandering to our natural propensity towards narrative, and/or to hook people by interesting them in the story as a crutch because the game itself is tedious/boring.

Of course obviously HUD text is meaningful in a game, by “text” I meant the typical story crap that’s draped over everything these days, even puzzle games. UGH!!

The level of story that should exist in most games is SMB3 at most: games need a premise or a metaphor through which to understand the game elements, not a load of literary baggage.

I agree with you, raigan, for the most part! Except I do feel Braid is a step in the right direction. This in particular is interesting:

> “Paintings don’t have written “stories” that accompany them for no good reason, and neither should games.”

Exactly! But don’t paintings often tell a story, have a message, explore ideas, and so on? The difference is that they do so through the mechanics of a painting (instead of tacking on a piece of writing), while we haven’t quite figured out how to do that with the mechanics of games yet.

This is closer to what I mean about Braid moving toward unifying story and gameplay — *the mechanics of the gameplay* explore certain ideas. They do this no matter what text is added in. I don’t consider the books in Braid to be “the story” in and of themselves, but the player *can* use them (if they choose) to guide their thoughts as they play.

Kobel makes a good point, as well. :)

Also, locusts.

Hey guys, Pretentious here. Uhh just want to say that I don’t fucking know any of you, so stop talking about me like you know me.

I should point out that I do think Braid is a historically important game, and one of the games I’ve most enjoyed, because of how mind-blowing it is to experience the time-as-puzzle-mechanic thing. It’s an experience as novel and transformative as first playing NES.

I just wish that this is what people got out of it, not some fragmented poetry.

@BMcC: I agree completely, but I guess I just think that games ought to “tell” their story via the game itself, _not_ through text. Just as paintings tell their story through paint — adding words is a lame, awkward cop-out.

Some music “tells a story” abstractly in purely musical terms, and other music (the kind with lyrics) is often more explicitly narrative — the story is more of a “story” proper and not a story in the sense of paintings-tell-stories.

I just wish more people focused on painting or architecture as a model, rather than movies.

The belief that storytelling or the communication of a narrative or “meaning” by the author to the audience is the ultimate artistic apex to which all media should strive is really the problem.

No one discusses the role of narrative in skateboarding, because it’s quite obviously a stupid and meaningless concern — as it should be for games.

I just feel like Braid is conservative in that it validates the idea that you need some sort of explicit text or narrative content in the game. Yes, the literary style is different than that used in in GTA4 or whatever, but both cling to the contrivance of a narrative or story as a necessary part of a game.

I think the story aspects of Braid are overrated, certainly. Braid is a very clever puzzle game, but the game is clearly built around the mechanics and the story comes across as a post-hoc metaphorical interpretation.

I feel like I can’t really comment fully though, since I haven’t actually finished Braid yet (I really do appreciate it, but also found it a bit annoying to play) – and everybody keeps saying that the ending is the best bit. So I really need to get around to that, especially before I fire off any criticism. But what the hell.

When Jason Rohrer says that Braid is the height of artistic expression in games, the best example we have of the melding of meaning and mechanics… nah, I don’t buy that. At least not from the parts of the game I’ve seen. I’m not thinking about loss and regret when trying to solve the puzzles, I don’t believe they were constructed with that in mind.

In fact the story in Braid seems a lot like the thread in the forums about writing an artist statement for a pre-existing game. Interpret Pac Man as a metaphor for life, put a page of text at the start of the game explaining it, and there you go.

The guy who made this game is a platformer maker! He has been exposed!

**@raigan:** Yes! That’s what I’m talking about. :)

I agree, re: Braid relying on the text, but I think it’s at least *closer* to the ideal than GTA and other games. I’m glad Jon and a number of other developers are pushing these limits, that they’re trying new things, cuz I can hardly imagine what such a game might be like.

**@Anthony:** I doubt the story was thrown in like this. Jon spent a *long* time making this game, and clearly thinks a lot about what he does. This is a first attempt, yes, maybe rough around the edges (Anarkex sure thinks so!), but I wouldn’t dare say it’s not genuine.

I watched a presentation by Jon Blow where he talked about the thought processes behind the development, and it was very mechanics and ludology-oriented. Which is not a bad thing – I think it’s a very good thing. And I think the game reflects this approach – it’s a very clever twist on platform game mechanics and should be applauded as such.

And at some point he wrote some prose/poetry inspired by the game’s mechanics and put that in there as well. And he took out stuff like the tributes to old platformers, reimagined in time-bending style, because those whimsical elements no longer fitted the more reflective mood. All well and good.

If you wanted to, you could look at it as two companion pieces – Jon Blow made a game and bundled it with a book of poetry he wrote about the game. But it doesn’t change the fact that you could do that to any game if you wanted. Perhaps the mechanics of Braid were kind of ripe to be exploited in this way, but I don’t see that as being especially remarkable.

Apart from that, I basically agree with everything raigan said.

TL;DR but nothing.

@!CE-9
Wow, I had no idea that Greenhouse offers all ports of a game for free when you buy just one of them. That’s awesome. :D

i need to do more work and less tigsource.. ugh :(

Tried the demo.
Was happy.
Sell me a DRM-free copy and I will buy it right now.
Was victim of DRMs in the past and will never buy anything with DRM again.