<body><script type="text/javascript"> function setAttributeOnload(object, attribute, val) { if(window.addEventListener) { window.addEventListener('load', function(){ object[attribute] = val; }, false); } else { window.attachEvent('onload', function(){ object[attribute] = val; }); } } </script> <div id="navbar-iframe-container"></div> <script type="text/javascript" src="https://apis.google.com/js/platform.js"></script> <script type="text/javascript"> gapi.load("gapi.iframes:gapi.iframes.style.bubble", function() { if (gapi.iframes && gapi.iframes.getContext) { gapi.iframes.getContext().openChild({ url: 'https://www.blogger.com/navbar.g?targetBlogID\x3d7830471551481180855\x26blogName\x3dl.a.+legal+pad\x26publishMode\x3dPUBLISH_MODE_BLOGSPOT\x26navbarType\x3dBLACK\x26layoutType\x3dCLASSIC\x26searchRoot\x3dhttps://reauxbot.blogspot.com/search\x26blogLocale\x3den_US\x26v\x3d2\x26homepageUrl\x3dhttp://reauxbot.blogspot.com/\x26vt\x3d113073442401933269', where: document.getElementById("navbar-iframe-container"), id: "navbar-iframe" }); } }); </script>

l.a. legal pad

Thoughts on Braid



On its face, it’s mechanically just a platformer: think the original 3 side-scrolling Mario Brothers games where you callously jumped on turtles and went down pipes in pursuit of a princess. Braid manages to graft novelty onto the oldest of video game forms by simply adding a rewind button. So instead of falling into a bottomless oblivion and starting over at the left-most pane of your environment, you simply hit the rewind button and do it again. In between worlds, you get vignettes of your protagonist’s story: he’s trying to find a woman he lost. Maybe it was his fault, maybe it wasn’t, but he’s consumed. He’s slowly becoming aware of what he can do with time, and there’s talk of how he did/would/will use his chrono-ambiguities to make things right with her. The text is brief, but coupled with loping string arrangements and surrealist pastel art direction, it rings heavier than a 2-dimensional narrative should. Gaps in the story are filled in by joining puzzle pieces you find along the way, but these images provide more questions than answers.

Nothing special so far. Except, then you start to encounter door keys and items that are impervious to your time slipping. You rewind and they don’t, or vice-versa. You’re trying to solve puzzles and navigate ladders in the negative, in backwards order, so that when you rewind, you complete the puzzle correctly. You’re trying to execute jumps and bounces of off enemies while manipulating time with the slimmest room for error. If you’re getting lost, that’s alright. You should be. There were times the game got so difficult, it did begin to wear on me and I started to disengage from Tim’s pursuit and story. I started to get angry. But here’s the rub: more so than the obtuse retelling of a princess chase, the story is about you: in your role as the gamer. At least that’s what I read somewhere, but it makes sense to me.

Maybe you have to be a staunch gamer to slug through these puzzles. That type of loner-persistence is a trait you developed in your own early 8-bit days, that’s what’s being tapped into here. Tim’s loneliness, his Ahab-ian chase for closure is your own chase. Instead of video games, some people get this way with books or films. The notch you put on your belt when you put the game up on the shelf can be as good as the game itself. Sweet, albeit fleeting, satisfaction.

The difficulty of the game itself is almost itself a narrative device. This game is really hard. The jumping combinations and puzzle-solving skills you’ve honed from years of controller-wielding are your vocabulary that let you access this tale. As a result, the story and the experience is kind of inaccessible for non-gamers. Which makes it kind of a bummer. You want to share this with other people, but the novelty doesn’t penetrate.

It’s like when I watch Olympic gymnastics. I know what I’m seeing is difficult, but I can’t comprehend why one routine is worth more than the next. I lack the visual lexicon and I don’t have the hours of experience in the bank to draw from. I’m impressed as a dog would be with a really complex dinner. I know it smells good, but don’t expect my frontal lobe to access how or why.

So with Braid, if you haven’t lost yourself in the mindless repetition of a video game at some point, does the rewinding reflect anything more than a do-over? I don’t think it can. You aren’t taken back to when you yourself were lost in time, engrossed in pixels that moved with you or even moved you, that caused you grief and frustration and elation.

Mechanically, the story on the screen is linear. You can only pass the worlds one way, by figuring out what the developer wants you to do. Some research on the game has revealed that there may be alternate endings or vignettes, depending on how you complete the worlds, but the end-game I believe is the same. The character that varies is the gamer himself. If you’re the type who throws controllers, if you’re a grinder, if you’re a cheater, if you’re a hobbyist… the story plays out differently to each of you in your response. At least I think it does.

In any case, for $10, it deserves a spin in what is likely only second to Portal in the most innovative game I’ve played in the last 5 years.

Epilogue: Just to make things that much more complex, after googling for some explanations about the ending, the predominant interpretation is that the story is an allegory for man’s discovery and eventual use of the atomic bomb. Damn.

Labels: , ,