Chris Remo
Member
Haha, well done. Indeed, I was owned!Jtyettis said:See post 1875 we've been had by the notorious Mike Works.
On another note, here are my impressions of Braid that I wrote up the other day after completing it:
http://chrisremo.com/bloggin/2008/08/09/braid-a-game-by-jonathan-blow/
I wasn't crazy about (most of) the narrative, but I did love the game enormously on balance. Here's an excerpt:
In Portal, as in many games, the player is taught gameplay building blocks, small solutions which can eventually be chained together to perform more impressive solutions to more impressive puzzles. Once you have internalized a fun mechanic, you can usually expect to be able to deploy it a number of additional times over the course of the game.
Braid essentially eschews that entire design philosophy. It does not so much feature a difficulty curve as much as it forces your brain into a competency curve. You arent being taught basic gameplay concepts one at a time, then asked to combine them, you are expected to figure out a new type of solution for just about every puzzle, because each puzzle is unique.
Thats not to say there isnt internal consistency. Particularly within each world, stages all share the same laws of time, and learning those laws does indeed provide necessary context for solving that worlds puzzles. But the game weaves quickly between easily-digested tasks and counfoundingly brutal challenges.