What is time? Does the future arise, become the present, and then disappear into the past? Or are all times equally real, only our view of them changes as we journey towards our destinies? And speaking of that topic, why is that so? many is it time for “Switch 2”? No worries: Braid, Anniversary Edition, with its tricky temporal mechanics, is another exceptional game that makes time just fly by.
Originally released in 2008 and developed by then-indie superstar Jonathan Blow, Braid was the poster boy for the booming Xbox Live Arcade, a highly influential online platform that paved the way for smaller developers to enter the console market. Along with Steam on the PC side of the fence, where Braid also ran gangbusters at launch in 2009, XBLA helped democratize game publishing, and the two showcases allowed Braid – and Blow – to rise to fame.
The 2008 yearbook of indie games includes several cultural highlights, such as the zany knight party Castle Crashers, the foot-coordination athletic simulator QWOP and the sticky physics challenge of World of Goo. Still, looking back, Braid still stands out. Blow’s inclusion in 2012 may have helped IIndie Game: Movie cementing its status as a milestone in the indie gaming boom of the late 00s.
So what was all the fuss about? Braid is a side-scrolling puzzle platformer whose early introduction was “Rewind Mario”. Of course, with the push of a button, and without limits, you can turn back time and undo any mistakes you might make. From that initial premise, nearly every avenue of gameplay has been explored with the concoction of all sorts of trippy puzzles. In addition to all this, the story involves thinking about the nature of time, especially the regret and remorse of the protagonist Tim and his desire to turn back the clock.
To soothe you through the fiendish difficulties, the graphics shine with colorful brushstrokes, and the musical score glides along with folk piano and strings. Both have been generously upgraded for the Anniversary Edition. Visuals have been upscaled from the native 720p to full 1080p for a docked Switch. But it goes beyond that: backgrounds have been redrawn with greater contrast and depth, and more brushstrokes now move smoothly as you play. The music has been remixed by game, film and TV sound experts to bring the violin solos and piano interludes more vividly to life. In the original, the sound effects were supposedly originally purchased for 99 cents each from some online warehouse. In this improved edition, new sounds have been added, while maintaining the general idea of the original.
Graphics, sounds and music can be switched between the new and old versions with a single click of the right stick. The original still looks and sounds nice, if a little blurry on a modern screen, but there’s no doubt that the anniversary updates are welcome and well thought out. In manual mode, where the resolution sticks to 720p, the difference is less significant, but the added graphical detail and improved sound still make it worth playing in the sleek new styles.
While the presentation could have benefited from some tweaking, the gameplay didn’t need to change much and remained as solid as ever. Running and jumping is fun enough and you move at a measured pace, but the Braid experience comes from holding Y and watching and hearing the universe come back straight in front of you. Time be damned, 16 years later, this is still fresh. The magic of correcting your mistakes is utterly amazing. The game doesn’t force you to do it either – it just waits until you make your first mistake, then asks you to press a button and find out what happens. Stepping away from the game, our brains became so attuned to the concept that we expected the real world to rewind at our convenience. Unfortunately, we found ourselves staring at a spilled cup of tea with no Y button in sight.
Puzzles are built in different ways around elements of levels that don’t rewind: enemies can be repurposed as springboards or key carriers, a shadow that Tim will sometimes escape and repeat whatever you rewind… the list goes on. Some are gimmicky, but almost all are delightful, and the underlying mechanics require pixel-perfect split-second timing. Fast-rewinding and fine-tuning the action allows you to feel like a superhuman player performing outrageous feats of skill. We’re told in the accompanying commentary track that it’s like playing speedrun with the help of tools, which is very appropriate.
New to the Anniversary Edition, the commentary track isn’t really just a path: it’s the entire commentary package, which navigates the game through a hub with doors labeled Design, Programming, Visuals, Sound & Music, and Gameplay. Each door leads to a series of other doors, each leading to a playable section of the game covered in conversation between Blow, artist David Hellman, and various gaming figures, including Frank Cifaldi of the Video Game History Foundation and Lucasfilm Games alumnus Brian Moriarty. Additionally, there are monologues where Blow speaks to himself as you play through the various levels of the game: “So you want to design a video game…” he begins. It’s impossible not to be drawn in if you have even a passing interest in game design, programming, art, or production.
Each comment item is triggered by an in-game icon that you have to approach and activate, which encourages discussion on that specific point. The discussions are universally insightful and it seems like an incredible luxury to have so much to listen to. (Blow noted that there are more than 15 hours of commentary — significantly longer than the length of the game.) But as if that weren’t enough — and this is where it goes above and beyond a typical game commentary — speakers highlight certain areas of the level by drawing pink circles around them while you also play by inserting visual examples such as concept art, gameplay videos, etc. This then sits in the corner of the screen, moves around the screen to get out of your way, and can be maximized and minimized by pressing R.
Desperately looking for something to complain about in this cornucopia of comments, we noticed that the frames per second drop when the video is playing on the screen at the same time as the game and we experienced one crash. And to pick another nit, the game’s story feels a bit dated with its self-centered narrator and the lack of attempt to integrate the narrator more fully into the game (which is something Blow did on purpose and is behind). But we admit that we are grasping at straws here.
Conclusion
Braid remains a landmark for the development of indie games and puzzle platformers alike. The time control mechanics are incredibly satisfying to play and the puzzles are wickedly inventive. This Anniversary Edition is an excellent expression of the original concept, with everything refined to perfection. And even at the top that, includes interactive commentary from creators that sets a high watermark for in-game analysis and is a key new text for anyone interested in how games are made. In short: this package is timeless.
