Impressionistic Frustration
Let’s say I bake you a tray full of cookies. You can see them, smell them and almost taste them. Only, I’ve decided you’re too dumb to have any. This is Braid, in a nutshell. Every level introduces a new way to make the player feel insanely stupid. The learning curve accelerates extremely fast. Once you think you understand how the game works, it turns out you really don’t and you’re stuck once again.
Here’s this key you need, only you can’t jump high enough and there’s no ladder, but you can rewind time and watch your character move backwards through the same lack of clues… and oh well, how about the exit instead?
I wanted to like this game from the get go. It started with interesting impressionistic backgrounds, a soothing soundtrack (that even cleverly plays backwards when you rewind time) and the promise of new twists on some of the oldest conventions in videogames. While in some ways, it delivers on this new experience, it doesn’t bring one that I enjoy.
I’ve found that games that make me feel dumber and dumber, make me less and less likely to want to continue through the game. Only rarely do I seem to have the right amount of clues to snag all the puzzle pieces, and the rest of the areas are pure frustration. Some may argue it’s this very frustration that leads to a greater sense of accomplishment when you figure things out. However, this happened so rarely, I find myself grasping eagerly for other games instead.
