Braid. This game is an amazing work of art.

Please read this, even if you don't care for video games.

Tim is off on a search to rescue the Princess. She has been snatched by a horrible and evil monster.

This happened because Tim made a mistake.

Not just one. He made many mistakes during the time they spent together, all those years ago. Memories of their relationship have become muddled, replaced wholesale, but one remains clear: the Princess turning sharply away, her braid lashing him with contempt.

In August, a game was released on the Xbox Live Arcade and received much praise and top reviews. I didn't give the game much thought. If you plan on playing thought this game, stop reading after the excerpt from Gamesradar.com. This is really a game you should experience without spoilers, and this journal contains spoilers.

Since then, I have moved to Germany as an exchange student, and consequentially lost my amazing girlfriend, who i still love and care for very much. As a result of the latter part of the pervious sentence, I've been enduring some emotional ups and downs.

While browsing through Gamesradar.com, I came across this article: Mature games that are actually mature.. I suggest you read it. The first game mentioned happens to be one of my all time favorite games, and an amazing experience playing.

Here is what that article has to say about Braid:

Some of the most mature games aren't even rated “Mature." Braid is legally appropriate for anyone over the age of 10, as the fairytale visuals, soothing music and bouncing pint-sized hero give the impression of an old-school Nintendo platformer. The subtext of this seemingly innocent quest, on the other hand, requires a bit of life experience to appreciate.

In a kids’ game, for instance, the ability to time travel might nab an extra life or bop an extra enemy. In Braid, reversing the clock solves a series of mind-melting puzzles and, at the same time, symbolizes the haunting power of regret. If the protagonist could try everything over again - correct his past mistakes - would the Princess return? Would she ever have left? If he could slow down the world, or lead two lives at once, would that somehow help reclaim her?

We all wish we could erase our errors, or go back and try a different path in life, with the simple press of a button. Braid capitalizes on this universal longing and, without spoiling the end, also preys on it.

END EXCERPT

After i read that i thought about going back and giving this game a shot. So i bought it and started playing. For an idea of the gameplay, think old school Mario, but you have the ability to rewind time. And each world has different tricks to it. For example one world plays time forward when you walk to the right, and backwards when you go left. Its really trippy and requires a lot of thought.

But what really drew me into this game was the story, and the narrative.

Check this:



If you pause while he is on each book, you can read the first part of the story. Its intriguing.

And also, did you notice that it stars on world two and not world one? This is for a very good reason, a reason i couldn't figure out until i got to the final level; world one. I'll get to that in a second.

This is the text that really hit home for me: the text for world 6.

“Perhaps in a perfect world, the ring would be a symbol of happiness. It’s a sign of ceaseless devotion: even if he will never find the Princess, he will always be trying. He still will wear the ring.”

“But the ring makes its presence known. It shines out to others like a beacon of warning. It makes people slow to approach. Suspicion, distrust. Interactions are torpedoed before Tim can open his mouth.”

“In time he learns to deal with others carefully. He matches their hesitant pace, tracing a soft path through their defenses. But this exhausts him, and it only works to a limited degree. It doesn’t get him what he needs.”

“Tim begins to hide the ring in his pocket. But he can hardly bear it – too long tucked away, that part of him might suffocate.”

Before I left for Germany she bought me a ring. I wore it all the time. It reminded me of her, it pushed me on. After our relationship ended, I continued to wear the ring for a while. I couldn't bear to take it off, my finger felt wrong without it. But i eventually stoped wearing it because others would see it and get the impression that i was taken, or ask questions that i didn't want to answer. This game is deep.

This also feels as if it were writtenn for me:

"All those years ago, Tim had left the Princess behind. He had kissed her on the neck, picked up his travel bag, and walked out the door. He regrets this, to a degree. Now he’s journeying to find her again, to show he knows how sad it was, but also to tell her how it was good"

Back to when i mentioned that the last world you get to play is actually world one. As with all of the worlds, this one has a unique trick, or gimick to it. It happens to be that time runs in reverse. After clearing a few puzzles you finally make it to the last level, the ending.

The ending shows Tim, the main character, in a small underground tunnel while above him, a knight descends with the Princess in his arms. "I got you!" the knight shouts and when he reaches the bottom, the Princess leaps to the ledge above. "Get down here!" he yells as she shouts "help!"

The Princess then runs away to the right while you run after her in the tunnel below chased by a wall of flames. The Princess hits switches to let you through the obstacles, while you hit switches to open doors to let her through. Eventually, she reaches her room and when you climb up the fence to the outside of the window, there's a bang and the Princess is asleep. There's no way for you to get inside to reach her.

At this point i remembered something very important. Everything was in reverse. Time was going backwards. This is the beginning of the story.

When you rewind time, you see the level for what it really is - you're the one chasing the Princess, who is trying to get away from you. She's actually hitting switches to set off traps trying to kill you and block off the ladders out of the underground tunnel, while you're hitting switches trying to trap her.

At the end of the level, she shouts out "help!" to the knight, who shouts "get down here!" She jumps down into his arms and he then carries her away on a rope while telling her "I've got you." In Tim's mind, the knight is the monster at the start of the level. In reality, Tim is the monster the Princess is running away from.

I was very impressed by the design of this game. The concepts are deep and gameplay very clever. I don't have enough space to put in all of the text from the game, so if you check out my stories, all of the text from the game is in a new story called Braid.

This game was a peice of art, I hope i conveyed how amazing this game is...

I'd also like to point out that the creator of the game says that its not necessarily autobiographical, just of ideas hes had. And some people theorize that it has to do with the Atomic Bomb and Robert (?) Oppenheimer (the father of the atomic bomb). Here is an explanation of how the game is about the Atomic Bomb and what not. I find this very credible. You should definitely read this one. Although this interpretation is only supported though the epilogue, and harder to draw these lines thoughout the rest of the text.

Go read all of the text in the new story i posted and try and interpretit for yourself. I posted the chapters in the order you get them in the game. And it should be noted thatin the epilogue, each segment has two viewpoints, hence the italics when you read the story i posted.

Our world, with its rules of causality, has trained us to be miserly with forgiveness. By forgiving too readily, we can be badly hurt. But if we’ve learned from a mistake and become better for it, shouldn’t we be rewarded for the learning, rather than punished for the mistake?