Braid

K. Fields
2020-07-12T17:32:40-04:00
Video Games

As a follow-up to And Yet It Moves, I chose another puzzle platform game to play. The game was Braid, an acclaimed indie title. In typical fashion, you control your character by running and jumping. Like And Yet It Moves, Braid also features a unique game mechanic. Instead of rotating the game world, you can control the flow of time. At first, I thought this was primarily for undoing actions to prevent the character's death. However, I quickly discovered that it was much more than that. Most levels require the time flow action to complete them. I made it through world 1 into world 2. Unfortunately, my frustration grew as I got deeper into the game. Some of the puzzles were a bit too finicky for my taste. The quirky timing of jumps, the precise order of gathering objects, and other frustrations started to make Braid more of a chore than a pleasure. The "Irreversible" level was the last straw for me. After getting two keys in the wrong order, the level was unsolvable and needed to be restarted.

Braid is a quality game with cute graphics, nice music, and some creative level design. However, I had my fill of it and am ready to move on to something else.