Braid - Initial Thoughts

About the Game (From the Steam Store Page)

 Braid is a puzzle-platformer, drawn in a painterly style, where you can manipulate the flow of time in strange and unusual ways. From a house in the city, journey to a series of worlds and solve puzzles to rescue an abducted princess. In each world, you have a different power to affect the way time behaves, and it is time's strangeness that creates the puzzles. The time behaviors include: the ability to rewind, objects that are immune to being rewound, time that is tied to space, parallel realities, time dilation, and perhaps more.

Braid treats your time and attention as precious; there is no filler in this game. Every puzzle shows you something new and interesting about the game world.

What Was I Thinking When I Bought This

Like many games on my list, I first became aware of Braid through cultural osmosis. In the various internet haunts I frequent, it was repeatedly mentioned as a game to look out for. When I saw it was on sale, I did a little research, and the time manipulation element looked like it could make for intriguing puzzles, so I thought I'd give it a try (despite the fact that I had no concrete plans for when I would actually get around to playing it, because if there's anything this blog has proved, it's that I don't always consider the long-term consequences of my actions)

Previous Playtime

0 hours

Expectations and Prior Experience

If this is another "emotional journey" I am going to lose my shit. I'm still reeling from Brothers and  Never Alone did its part to weaken my resolve (that damned Manslayer). Luckily, this is a time-travel themed puzzle platformer. I expect it to be exceedingly cerebral and frustrating enough that my primary emotion will be rage. Nice, simple rage that has no chance of making me cry or contemplate the death of a beloved pet. Plus, the plot, according to the store page, is to rescue a kidnapped princess, which is more or less video game code for "we didn't bother coming up with a plot."

Yet that 90% metacritic score is taunting me. My hope is that Braid is exceedingly clever, and the critical response is a measure of admiration for its craft. After all, the Mario games frequently score that high, and they never made me feel a damned thing, except possibly joy (and, yes, the occasional bout of rage). However, with the way my luck has been going . . .