While I am trying to get one star that simply takes time to get, I just wanted to chime in and say two things:
1. Let's be careful not to drift off topic and discuss if games are art too much, I'd hate to see this thread go away. If games are art comes down to what art actually is and that basically lies in the eye of the beyholder, I guess ;) I do think, most games can be seen as art. But I can also see, why people would say, that they are not art. It's just not really an important discussion imho, in the end art is just a label.
2. I agree with Matt on the importance of Braid. I do think there are some games, that have tried similar things, you mentioned Rez and SotC. Especially Rez, which also has a deeper storyline than you might expect. I also agree that Braid is one of the very few games that get it right. I do think Portal is another example, but it is much more geared towards entertainment than Braid. Especially getting the stars right now is rather tedious and VERY difficult, it is rewarding, but entertaining....I don't know. This is, of course, also Jonathan Blow telling us how stupid collecting arbitrary stars/coins/rings/pieces of underwear in games really can be. A lot of games don't even really reward you with anything besides the number 100 before %. We should also talk about all the gameplay metaphors in Braid. There obviously is a lot of Mario Bros in there. I also saw some Ico, when you are helping the Princess (of course that gets reversed, but still), I felt so emtionally attached to the princess in that scene, which made the twist to come even harder and more devastating. The general structure, as I have said, reminds me of Rez, where there is one (hidden) world which actually is the most important one. You can't say you played Rez, if you have never played the fifth world. I am sure that there are WAY more references, I can't think of any right now, but it'd be nice to collect a list somewhere, could go in the actual article.
On a different side note: David Hellman (the creator of all the visual art) wrote a great series on his blog about the art of Braid, I hope you have all read it already, it's really interesting. He also hints that there might be something up with the flags in front of the castle. So, I looked at them and they do look like those signal flags you can see on some ships. Looked that up on Wikipedia ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_maritime_signal_flags ) and here is the result:
- World 2 (blue/white small checkered) means "N - Negative"
- World 3 (red/white checkered) means "U - You are running into danger"
- World 4 (yellow/black checkered) means "L - In harbor: The ship is under Quarantine/At sea: You should stop your vessel instantly/With four numerals, latitude/Inport: Radiological Hazard"
- World 5 (blue cross on white) means "X - Stop carrying out your intentions and watch for my signals"
- World 6 (yellow and blue thick stripes) means "K - I wish to communicate with you. With one numeral, I wish to communicate with you by; 1) Morse signalling by hand-flags or arms; 2) Loud hailer (megaphone); 3) Morse signalling lamp; 4) Sound signals. Inport: Man Aloft."
I hope I got them all right, but it looks like they fit. Especially interesting is "Radiological Hazard", of course, fits Nutter's interpretation VERY well. I think it is VERY interesting that 5 and 6 go towards someone trying to communicate, to tell the player about something. Of course after that, there is no world, there is just World 1 going back to the beginning. I do think that Blow communicates with the player directly through these flags, breaking the fourth wall (after all I looked it up on Wikipedia, so the wall was not only broken, but freakin' blown to bits ;) ) and he either wants you to pay attention during World 1 and the Epilogue or there is something else. I don't know. It could also just be intricate foreshadowing, which woudl also make sense and be very impressive as well. This game is just crazy.
Posted 1 year, 3 months ago
