Damn You, Jonathan Blow

Game Title: Braid

Genre: Puzzle Platformer

Players: 1

Platforms: PC, Mac, XBOX 360

Good For: Bending your mind, Depth, Brain busting puzzles

Bad For:  Casual Gaming

I have seen enough interviews, both written and filmed, and enough press releases from the man himself to know that - in my opinion - when it comes to public image, Jon Blow gives the impression that he is a bit... scrap that, very arrogant.

But be that as he may, I have come to the conclusion that he could well be a creative genius.

I was well aware of the premise of his one release, Braid, well before it was announced for PC. It's a puzzle platformer based on time manipulation, following the journey of the character - known only as Tim - as he searched for his Princess. Its pretty textbook stuff on paper. Time manipulation has been done before many times (not least in the sixth generation Prince of Persia games) and the "lead character looking for his princess" story in video games is as old as the original Mario.

So when I grabbed the demo, I was a little shocked to find that while both of these game play mechanics are present, neither of them are how I expected. If anything, it redefines these classic elements in its own way, and the experience is quite frankly hard to put on paper.

You have an unlimited ability to reverse time - well, unlimited in that you can go all the way to where and when you first entered the level. That seems like an easy route, as you can't die. True, however other factors come in to play that start to twist your mind.

You see Braid tells a story, it doesn't matter that you can't die, its up to you to discover what that story is. The idea behind the main portion of the game is to collect puzzle pieces - 12 per world - and then to put them together to make up a single image from Tim's past. A picture paints a thousand words indeed.

Any extra narrative is told by short paragraphs found in the what I call "world cloud" - the first part of any world you see. You wont miss them, as you walk past the indicators while heading to the first world level, which is a nice touch I feel.

Each world has its own way of manipulating time. An example would be the fourth world, where the time goes forward or backwards depending on which direction you are running. This means that while you are hunting puzzle pieces, using keys and dodging walking heads (which I can only assume, due to the short narrative between levels, are the faces of Tim's mother), you also have to learn how to use the time you have.

I say "hunting" but in reality, you can see almost every piece's location with one quick run through of a level. The hunt comes from finding a way to get to that piece, and this is where Braid really shines.

The puzzles are constructed in a way that results in multiple styles of thinking. A piece that looks hard to get to could well be the easiest in that level, while at the same time the most obvious piece could be the hardest. They are hard, but not frustrating even when you think you know the answer but just can't get there.

Basically the core game play, while based on established ideas, twists said ideas enough to give a thoroughly thought provoking experience - and that is before we come to the art style.

Braid's graphics consist entirely of the work of David Hellman, a man I have no limit of my respect towards. This hand painted look gives the game a strong storybook feel, something akin to the fairytale books I saw a lot when I was a child.

Musically, I have to give big credit to Cheryl Ann Fulton, Shira Kammen and Jami Sieber. Somehow, these artists managed to create music that sounds just as fantastic backwards as well as forwards. The audio effects are also of top quality - you don't see or hear it until the sixth world, but once you see how that particular time manipulation mechanic works, you get an appreciation for the engine the game is running on.

Add this all up and you realise that Braid it not all it seems, even when at the end of the worlds you have a little stuffed dinosaur telling you the Princess is in another castle. Hell, the ending scene is so deep and ingenius that it is quite possibly the greatest level in history. I love it!

But, frankly, this love I have for it annoys me.

You see, I was willing to hate Braid. While I do believe in the "give everything a go" idea, I really really wanted to dislike this game simply based on my perceived arrogance of the designer. 

But now I have played the demo (and subsequently bought the full game) and given it the chance, I am in awe. There is no way in hell I could be as creative as Blow in designing such a game - I don't know how he managed it, but he somehow put more depth, game play and fun into Braid than pretty much any release in the past couple of years, and for that I have to bow to him.

Damn you, Jonathan Blow, damn you for creating the greatest game I have played in the last five years. But no, I still find you arrogant. Trying to charge PC users more than Live users for Braid was a bad stunt to pull, good man for changing your idea on that, even if it did take an outcry.

Braid is available for $15/£10 on Steam and various other pay-for-download sites, as well as the Xbox Live Arcade. A demo is available for both PC and Xbox 360.