Jonathan Blow's timebending puzzler is often brought up when on the topic games as art . I myself think it is not. Braid has great art and is really fun , but it comes off as somewhat pretentious. The whole allegory for the manhattan project was unneeded .
Braid
Game » consists of 11 releases. Released Aug 06, 2008
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Manipulate time to complete puzzles in this 2D platform game made by indie developer Jonathan Blow.
What do you think of Braid?
For real though, it's a masterpiece of game design having it's narrative interwoven in it as well as being a damn good game.
The art and music are gorgeous. Most people bitching about it being pretentious haven't seen true pretension.
And personally I liked the nod to the Manhattan Project to put another layer of ambiguity to the very interesting story(ies?)
Possibly my favourite game, or if not, definitely in the top 5.
Also, just out of curiosity, how old are you and why did you just start another thread with the title "eee" with "eee" in the body text? =/
It was an interesting platformer, but with the exception of the very last level it had perhaps the worst executed story in a game I've ever seen. But that last level stands as one of the best examples of storytelling through gameplay.
Are you kidding? Braid was a playable poem. The gameplay was fun and the puzzles were very interesting. To boot, the whole game was a the story in the books turned into gameplay.
Having said that, I say all videogames are art; there was a time when Rap music was not considered music even though, by definition, it is exactly that.
Think of it as it relates to these questions:
There was an artist that had museum displays of shit in a jar.
Did that artist make art?
Yes. He was making a social critisism of how people value art only by who makes it - regardless of artistic value in the product- it would be praised if some famous dude made it.
If Justin Beiber or...say 50 Cent mases an autobiography,
Would a book about Justin Beiber, or Fitty, be art?
Yes. The book would comunicate to the readers and inform them somewhat of what the guy wants to say.
What would you consider more as art, for example:
the God Of War games, the Curious George books, or the Avatar movie?
The answer is all are equally art for what is art is objectibe and can't really be measured.
Even when something might be more successful or ''artistic'' than something else, it does not take away from the fact that both are equal in definition. Both are art.
I could never get into it. I heard all the great things about, so I picked it up on Steam, and I guess it just isn't my thing. I usually like platformers, but Braid was just too hard and I never really felt the pay-off of understanding a hard question.
I liked the game. The other stuff, including the "narrative" were half-baked and silly to the point that I got a bit tired of it. To say it was pretentious is an understatement. It's rare that a game's attempt at adding story actually detracts from my enjoyment, but this was one of those cases. Sure, it's art. In the sense that a five-year-old's fingerpainting is art. Creative, sure. Good? No. The gameplay was interesting, but not particularly as mindblowing as so many seemed to be claiming at the time.
@McGhee_the_Insomniac said:
Or, you know, you could actually take people at their word for what they're saying, rather than making it all about you feeling better about yourself and your taste in games.Every time I see someone throw out the word "pertensious" it seems they are just admitting that they have a hard time keeping up.
@RE_Player92 said:
I'm more of a Flower guy. Got Braid for $3 on a PS Plus sale and didn't think it was all that.
Word. That game was fantastic for $3, but, even though I'm too early into it(World 2 or 3 I think), I really don't see what the big deal is. I hope the puzzles get better.
It's not a bad game, I just don't see the hype yet.
Braid was, and still is, a masterpiece of a game. It impressed the heck out of me. I was a fan 5 minutes into that game, so I'm really interested in seeing what Jonathan comes up with next.
@N7 said:
@RE_Player92 said:
I'm more of a Flower guy. Got Braid for $3 on a PS Plus sale and didn't think it was all that.Word. That game was fantastic for $3, but, even though I'm too early into it(World 2 or 3 I think), I really don't see what the big deal is. I hope the puzzles get better.
It's not a bad game, I just don't see the hype yet.
I didn't even go into it wanting to see the hype. I never really followed Braid or Flower when they were originally released but recently I got both because of a sale and Flower is now bundled with the soundtrack. I played both back to back and even though Flower cost me more and was shorter I thought it was a cooler experience. Braid was fun and the mechanics were cool I just never got to deep in the whole narrative.
@RE_Player92 said:
@N7 said:
@RE_Player92 said:
I'm more of a Flower guy. Got Braid for $3 on a PS Plus sale and didn't think it was all that.Word. That game was fantastic for $3, but, even though I'm too early into it(World 2 or 3 I think), I really don't see what the big deal is. I hope the puzzles get better.
It's not a bad game, I just don't see the hype yet.
I didn't even go into it wanting to see the hype. I never really followed Braid or Flower when they were originally released but recently I got both because of a sale and Flower is now bundled with the soundtrack. I played both back to back and even though Flower cost me more and was shorter I thought it was a cooler experience. Braid was fun and the mechanics were cool I just never got to deep in the whole narrative.
Yeah, Flower is awesome. The final level is one of the most beautiful things I've ever seen in a video game. Like, Jesus. Everything just looked so great in that game, but that final level specifically really made me wish more games would try to go for that artistic surrealism. If an indie studio with only three people working at the company can do it, I'm sure a big time company can do it on an even greater scale.
@N7 said:
If an indie studio with only three people working at the company can do it, I'm sure a big time company can do it on an even greater scale.
Yeah, I'm looking forward to Prestiging after hours of Team Deathmatch and Headquarters Flower. Too bad I'll be using the perks for my petals. :P
@TeflonBilly said:
@N7 said:
If an indie studio with only three people working at the company can do it, I'm sure a big time company can do it on an even greater scale.
Yeah, I'm looking forward to Prestiging after hours of Team Deathmatch and Headquarters Flower. Too bad I'll be using the perks for my petals. :P
You know it bro. I can't wait to get a 7 collect streak and call in a pollen bomb on the enemy petals. It's gonna be so beast.
I really liked it as a game. Puzzle platforming at its finest. Looks good as well.
The story was sort of interesting, but if I ever am going to play it again I'd happily just walk past it. Not because it was bad, but because it is irrelevant to the puzzling at hand. The story is not why I would replay it.
The whole "Can games be art?" "Is this game art?" etc. discussion does nothing for me, so I'll leave it at that.
Love the art style cause it gives me flashbacks from my Amiga gaming days for some reason. But the game it self is way too smart for me, and my dislike for platforming mixed with the puzzles makes for a bad cocktail.
I like Braid for being a puzzle platformer with a sense of style and some well thought out puzzles. However, it is a game with an almost overbearing sense of self-importance, but I guess the same could be said for all "artsy" games like it.
@haggis said:
@McGhee_the_Insomniac said:Or, you know, you could actually take people at their word for what they're saying, rather than making it all about you feeling better about yourself and your taste in games.Every time I see someone throw out the word "pertensious" it seems they are just admitting that they have a hard time keeping up.
If what you said in reply to my joke really made any sense at all, I could reply in kind. But since it kind of doesn't I'll just say, lolwut?
I felt the game tried to hard to express itself and give a moral. It felt like it really wanted to be thought provoking, and in some ways it is but it feels like it wanted to be so much that it kind of pushes it in your face.
Not to be offensive to Jonathan Blower, but this is kind of the way I felt about him on the E3 bombcast as well. He likes to push his agenda, and i guess that's fine. It's awesome he's passionate about his work as well as his beliefs but I'm the type of person that believes that no one has to agree with what I say for me to feel my beliefs are valid. When someone pushes that hard on their beliefs it feels like they may be trying to hard.
So, in a lot of ways the game's story gives off the same impressions to me the developer did. That's just as a story though. As a game (gameplay and mechanics) it was very innovative and I really liked how it always tried to do something different. Every level feels heavily thought out and always tries to push itself to a new level. I found that really enjoyable, and how the game's mechanics were a metaphor unto itself was very clever.
Everything about the game was heavily thought out, some parts too much in my opinion, but overall the game is unique and special. It's a game that challenges you mentally all the way through and is true to itself consistently. I don't find fault in the game as a game, and other then the story pushing certain things in your face I found it to be very clever as well as fun.
It's a game that has a lot of merit.
@Kyreo said:
@RE_Player92 said:
I'm more of a Flower guy. Got Braid for $3 on a PS Plus sale and didn't think it was all that.I surprised that you liked Flower but didn't like Braid. They seem to appeal to the same audiences.
I didn't hate Braid I just enjoyed Flower much more.
I took your comment at face value, not as a comment about misspelling, that's all.@haggis said:
@McGhee_the_Insomniac said:Or, you know, you could actually take people at their word for what they're saying, rather than making it all about you feeling better about yourself and your taste in games.Every time I see someone throw out the word "pertensious" it seems they are just admitting that they have a hard time keeping up.
If what you said in reply to my joke really made any sense at all, I could reply in kind. But since it kind of doesn't I'll just say, lolwut?
The environments were gorgeous, the music was beautiful and the time-warp systems were really cool. Figuring out exactly how the systems worked was fun, but the actual puzzles were for the most part lacking. The story was laughable (even more so than what's usually found in indie games).
Overall a good game, and probably the best Western indie title I've played (not that that's saying much). I wish Blow would make a sequel where the time systems were expanded and the puzzle design advanced, but hey, I guess that's just not indie.
I didn't enjoy Flower, but I loved Braid. The games are very different.@Kyreo said:
@RE_Player92 said:
I'm more of a Flower guy. Got Braid for $3 on a PS Plus sale and didn't think it was all that.I surprised that you liked Flower but didn't like Braid. They seem to appeal to the same audiences.
I didn't hate Braid I just enjoyed Flower much more.
Goes into my list of favourite games of all time. Fantastic and innovative storytelling, and some of the best game design out there.
@Surkov said:
@RE_Player92 said:I didn't enjoy Flower, but I loved Braid. The games are very different.@Kyreo said:
@RE_Player92 said:
I'm more of a Flower guy. Got Braid for $3 on a PS Plus sale and didn't think it was all that.I surprised that you liked Flower but didn't like Braid. They seem to appeal to the same audiences.
I didn't hate Braid I just enjoyed Flower much more.
I enjoyed both, so you are both wrong.
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