Braid Forum

"I did not know that. Awesome director. Serves me right for not viewing them (which I'm about to).

As for the bomb theory, the Oppenheimer quote was what hit me in the nose and sent me down that path. I'm curious to read other interpretations if anyone out there has them."

To answer your last question in the first post: Yes you did miss the thread, it is here: http://www.giantbomb.com/braid/61-20716/so-what-is-this-game-about-anyway-spoiltastic/35-9941/#3 But maybe the title was misleading and there is nothing going on in there, so we can use this thread I guess, I'll just repost what I wrote in there:

"So, I played through the game in one go. Haven't done a speed-run yet and have not collected any stars, but I'm not sure if this will add anything to the story any way. After I had read the books in the Epilogue last night, I couldn't stop thinking about what this game actually means to say. It's just like the dude from Eurogamer said, you keep thinking about it, even dreaming about it.
I have basically found to interpretations: 

• Tim is a psycho-maniac who stalks this poor girl and justifies this by his weird princess story, all of this probably because his Mom was mean to him and he could never get what he wanted (the candy store thing). Most of the game is just in his mind and actually only the last scene before the Epilogue is "real".

• Tim is some sort of scientist who manipulates time to find his princess, but he is not even sure if she exists, he might also be crazy like above.

My interpretation while playing the game was a less psycho, more desperate Tim. One book said that even if he found his princess, the world would not allow him to have her, it would actually break the world, because you can't have the perfect "special someone". This is mirrored by her running away and Tim trying to (desperately) fight for his dream of the princess, but she runs away with another man (who might also just symbolize the cruel reality). The core message would be something like: There is no perfect princess. That's why leaving his girl for the search for some princess was the biggest mistake Tim ever made.

Upon reading the other opinions though (which all make just as much sense, I think), I am just even more excited about the game and want to play it again as soon as possible. This is the first game I have ever seen a discussion about interpretations of its story. This is frackin art. Yes it's weird and maybe it doesn't really make any sense, but maybe that's what it's supposed to be. It reminds me of the stream of consciousness ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stream_of_consciousness_writing) technique found in literature, especially Finnegan's Wake ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Finnegans_Wake_(novel) ) by James Joyce or Naked Lunch ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Naked_Lunch ) by William S. Burroughs. It's just this crazy mess, shifting perspective, flowing back and forth through time, making no sense at times and than clicking together. Just like the actual gameplay. I would dare to say, this is the first stream of consciousness game, at least a modernist game. It's even less traditional than stream of consciousness in its free flowing narrative and gameplay. It makes even more sense that the game actually has no beginning or end. The Epilogue could be the Prologue, you start in World 2 and end up in World 1 (in which you actually go backwards in time (the flower image) and then find yourself at what you thought was the beginning). It doesn't matter where you start, you always come back to where you were, which is just like Finnigan's Wake works, I think. It also fits the theme of "This is the world, or snapshots of it, go and do what you can with it"

So, my final interpretation would be, that this game is supposed to just get you to make your own interpretation. Find what you think is meaningful, create your own story. Don't listen to what others say, each bit you take and put together is just there because it is significant to you. The strongest story part of the entire game and something that has already really had an impact on me is the last screen of the Epilogue. The castle built from the icons of the levels you passed through. What the books on this screen say is just so true and brilliant. This is also a moment where Blow breaks the foruth wall, the way I see it, "he does not understand" (or something like that), this is not Tim. It's you, the player. This is what you should take away from this. Now go. Build your own castle.

On a side note: If you want to know who the quote (the one marked with the footnote 1 in the epilogue) is from, watch the credits. That was another piece of brilliance in this game, just a subtle, but brilliant touch. Oh and yould you also please post the name, I can't watch the credits right now and forgot who it was and I'd really like to know exactly where the quote is from. Thanks ;)"

There was also a blogpost linked in that thread, that also supports the interpretation of Tim being part of the Manhattan Project: http://www.giantbomb.com/profile/MaSuTa/what-i-think-braid-is-about/30-7261/

One thing I wanted to add is how much I love the fact, that this game even starts such thoughts and discussions. More games should be like that.

"

Incase you haven't played them, DerBonk, I suggest checking out Bioshock (for it's passive story-telling/social commentary using the environment) and Silent Hill 2. SH2 has one of the best stories and soundtracks in the history of gaming, IMO. It'll also leave you going back and playing over and over trying to get more and more meaning and clairity out of things.

"

I have played Bioshock, SH2 I haven't played yet. While I agree that Bioshock is a great game with a great story, where I see the difference is what Shawn Elliot describes in his blogpost at: "Unraveling Braid: http://tinyurl.com/5lujyq "

Bioshock is still pretty straight forward, somewhat "realistic", imitating life. Braid is a metaphor through and through. I haven't seen many games, let alone commercial ones, that are like Braid. Especially concerning the stream of consciousness technique.

Regarding the atom bomb thing:

I think the only really direct references are the texts on the fourth red book. But there is another quote in there as well, the italic one, by some dude who is named in the credits, I would really like to know what that quote is about. Is it also concerning the atom bomb? In my opinion, the atom bomb is not meant that literally, but as I said, I think the core meaning is that everybody should (and actually automatically does, while playing) construct his/her own interpretation, so in my opinion your interpretation is very much correct ;)

@Matt

I also agree, time is important to what the game has to say. Shawn has something in his blog that I haven't realized yet and I love, love, love if it's true (can't test right now): Just try and keep rewinding at the start of World 2. ;) THis also ties in with your interpretation of Jonathan's view on the player <-> designer relationship, which your interpretation is very, very interesting and I think might actually be very true.

@nutter

Whoa, I haven't seen the headless part, I gotta check that out, do other worlds have similar visual metaphors? I so need to play Braid again, I'll finally be able once I get home later today.

"By the way, there's also an alternate ending to the game if you collect all the stars. ;)

Anyone seen it?"

I definitely thought of freud with the whole mother thing. He wants the candy so badly and is really upset and depressed even, that he is not allowed to get it. Why the heck does his mother lead him to the candy store every day then?!?! It's just like the princess, you always see it and even taste it in your mind, but never ever touch it. His mother and the princess have one thing in common: Braids... (I think we had that before). So, he is looking for a girl, that looks like his mother and he wants to make her buy him candy ;) No, seriously, I think this would support the whole stalker thing, when taken literally. Metaphorically speaking, there are loads possibilities of course ;)

Now, I need to find all the stars to find that secret ending. Do we need a Spoiler-Thread for the secret ending as well ? I mean, is everyone even willing to go through finding all the stars, they are very hard to get to, I hear.

On a side note:I totally agree with Matt, this thread ROCKS!

"I think the whole thing with Tim as a child is to show that the mentality of perpetual desire for what we do not have is with us from a very young age.  When we were 8 it was the candy in the store.  When we were 16 it was the pretty girl in school.  When we were 25 it was the big house & family.  The princess is always in another castle.

As for the thread rocking, I think it's great. :)

One of the definitive aspects of postmodern art is it being left intentionally vague and giving the participants free reign over their own interpretations, much like an aforementioned David Lynch film.  Just look at all the different ideas in this thread.  Given that videogames have come into existence after the start of the postmodern era, it seems really fitting that they embrace this kind of art form.  I hate to jump on the "games are art" bandwagon, because I feel that ever since there's been pixel sprites in NES games they have been "art", but this is something on a different level entirely, and I wholeheartedly embrace it."

I'm in the totally opposite camp as you, Vaxadrin. Despite how much I wanted to embrace gaming as a legitimate art form(if only to prove the medium had some intellectual value to my parents), I'd come to think that almost all games aspire to be entertainment and nothing else. Rarely does this medium offer anything up simply for edification, instead hoping to bedazzle us with sights and sounds before walking away. The reason so few games have strived to be something greater than entertainment isn't, as one might think, because of the very early corporatization of the industry (though that certainly plays a factor). Rather, I think that creating a working, relatively bug-free game is such a technical challenge that even getting a program running requires a team of genius programmers to make it go. To finish a game, you need the technical people first and foremost, so very few games ever have the opportunity to aspire to more.

The few other "Art" games over the past 10 years always succeed by putting an increased focus on unique art design, or unconventional mechanics and a great aesthetic, but those almost always comes at the expense of some technical facet of the game design. Rez is an amazing experience that makes your heart swell the second you realize what’s going on, but, from the gameplay perspective, it’s a on-rails shooter in the vein of Panzer Dragoon, Bland at best and boring at worst. It's amazing, but players to look past the gameplay to enjoy it.

Same goes for Shadow of the Colossus": few people would deny that game's incredible scope, wonderful design, and dark ending rank among the finest the medium has produced. Again, however, that increased creativity caused other aspects of the game to suffer: the framerate is atrocious throughout, rarely above 20 FPS and in a constant state of flux. The gameplay mechanics are interesting and different from any other "platformer" or any game to feature climbing period. But the controls are wonky, awkward to adjust to, and are even more difficult to manage thanks to the game's unhelpful camera. Its one of the greatest game's of all time....but, really, that could very well occur once you stop playing it.

That’s what makes Braid so remarkable: no one aspect of the game in anyway intrudes or detracts from any other aspect. The luscious art design in Braid doesn't in any way hurt the gameplay: on the contrary, it enhances it, makes the player enjoy exploring each individual environment in the game while never fooling them into thinking that some part of the background is important to solving a puzzle. The gameplay is wonderful, starting with rock-solid platforming mechanics and the time control ability, but slowly evolves and meditates on the gameplay over time, so it never becomes stale. The music is almost too wonderful sometimes, always enhancing the levels while never distracting the player too much. And the story is dark, hallucinatory, laden with more metaphor in a single paragraph than most games dare have in the entirety of the product, leaving the player with masterful, iconic imagery that can, pretty easily, connect to their own lives and play styles. But the story never "interferes" with the gameplay, never gets in the way of solving the puzzle and, indeed, helps the player to understand why the time mechanic changes from level to level.

And, of course, there's that ending, that moment when the world seems to stop, just for an instant, and, in one brilliant flash, the story becomes perfectly clear. But it doesn't become perfectly clear: we know what the ending is, but the player is still left to guess what it means, to try and find some nugget of wisdom, some truth to take with them.

Braid is our medium's Citizen Kane, a remarkable gem that may never reveal every single one of its secrets. The game's ending is the iconic Rosebud from that film: a moment of remarkable clarity, soon superceeded by a million more questions.

Braid doesn't pander to the audience. It trusts players, trusts them to complete the puzzles, to listen to the soundtrack, to enjoy the visuals, to find the deeper meaning in the game. A legion of  360 users, writing the game off as a "bad Mario clone" to go play more Soul Calibur, will never understand that final irony. How quickly they leave a worth wild opportunity, a monumental achievement in the medium, to go play something that doesn't have a shred of intellectual depth, for fear of "insulting" the player.

Braid is a balence between gameplay and expierience that is unmatched by any product released to date.

....boy, that post got out of hand fast. I just like that game so much that I start writing and can't stop, even if I make a leap of logic that might seem insane!