braid

I only cheated twice!

But yeah, I lack patience for that sort of thing.

four to go, haven't cheated once, but I might god-damn have to soon...

A couple of the world 5 pieces brought me to the verge of cheating but, seriously, fuck that. The one nice thing is that it got easier as you went along the last couple of levels (Lair + the last one) were straightforward.

in case you were wondering, I can confirm the first piece in the level before "crossing the gap" is actually possible - I was sure it wasn't for the longest time

I figured that one okay the problem was getting the timing of the shadow down + the placement of the key. The Crossing the Gap one that drove me crazy was the last one up and to left of the door I was actually thinking about it all today finally figured it out like one of those magic eye puzzles I'd been looking at it all wrong and then I refocused and saw the firetruck or the light or w/e.

Which are you stuck on, GM? Decided to give it a rest before I start on World 6.

I had a braid dream last night.

the puzzle for the last piece in "crossing the gap" was definitely a neat trick

I can't see this thread without thinking of all those Jade Tree samplers they sent to my radio station about 8-9 years ago.

Braid was on Polyvinyl, fool.

NARY a difference. I just remember getting handed a stack of samplers to review, and wanting to kill myself from the overload of adenoids by the time i was halfway thru

I don't know the name of the level, but the one that I'm most stuck on (with two to go now) involves a platform high above the exit door, and green goomba guys that aren't affected by the rewind, and a ladder partially blocked by a carpet so that you can't jump from the ...

oh shit I think I just figured it out

some light reading

http://www.gamasutra.com/view/feature/3753/the_art_of_braid_creating_a_.php

http://www.alessonislearned.com/

http://www.davidhellman.net/

http://www.metafilter.com/74031/Braid

Just started playing this today. Love this game. Completed 2 + 3 without any problem. Two more pieces left in 4.

5 pieces total left.

So far only two of the puzzles seem unfair. The fickle key one behaved so poorly that I only solved it by accident, and there was one particular jump that I couldn't make about a dozen times, but didn't require any special solution. You just had to time it correctly.

i am actually listening to this douche's presentation, god help me

The only ones I found unfair were those two in World 2 which seemed to introduce a mechanic into the game without making it clear in any way whatsoever. Maybe I'm just bitter because I had to ask my friend for hints. Maybe it was genius. I still hate it.

Anyone read any of the insane theories about the game's themes? IT's spoilerheavy so I won't talk aobut it here but WOW I just read one that took me kinda aback.

link it so we can read it when we've finished too?

Really satisfying ending. This is ridiculously emo but gets all kinds of bonus points for trying new things. What a great way to get introduced to a new system!

Seems to be drawing the xkcd crowd: "What is Braid? One may as well ask what life is. It is art, it is love, it is pain, it is a journey. It is itself. I don't mean to sound pretentious."

Wanna get a copy of the soundtrack.

I can't be the only one that skipped all the shit about blazer-wearing dude's gf, right? Do not want to hear about it irl either.

Link here, czn: http://www.rllmukforum.com/index.php?showtopic=190136

it might be asshattery, but I think there's something to it.

obviously major spoilers.

No, I think that guy's pretty on point and most of that is actually kind of obvious. The notes on the flags was illuminating, tho'.
It's still awfully emo; complex themes and higher plot points aside.

thanks will, I'll read that when I've had a chance to finish braid

I've beaten the game, so anything below might be spoilers? Just a warning to other readers. I'll italicize it.

It was kinda emo, yeah, but if anything, if vilifies that main character instead of going "oh poor him." Then again maybe that's my own bias, but by then I found myself completely not empathizing with him as much as I felt like a bad guy for getting him that far, and empathizing w/ the princess. If it were all "oh poor tim he didn't get the lady he stalked" then yeah, bad emo, but "hey chasing a princess is kinda creepy yo" is good emo, imo.

The story was kind of ridiculous and "emo", but I liked that you didn't even have to bother with it unless you wanted to. Stop on the books, or don't.

I may be conflating "emo" with twee, precious and affected.

when are the new maps out?

I had braid dreams last night. And then when my alarm went off and I pressed snooze, my still-dreaming brain thought I'd just rewound time. This happened 4 or 5 times, with me constantly believeing it was still only 7am. Ended up getting up 50 minutes late. It was FANTASTIC!

WTF @ "secret stars": http://www.gamefaqs.com/boards/genmessage.php?board=943284&topic=44749717
Anybody confirm this is real?

It certainly explains some of the cloud placement...

yeah, pretty sure it's real.

So I was getting frustrated, & decided to check out the official walkthrough. And the 2nd page of the walkthrough (which is quoted in the first post on this thread) inspired me to go back. And I got through more! Tho there's still 1 piece in Room 2 (just above the door) that I can't figure out. (Don't tell me.)

(Not that you'd be able to tell, given how inadvertently vague I was.)

Ha. I know exactly which piece you're talking about.

Tho there's still 1 piece in Room 2 (just above the door) that I can't figure out. (Don't tell me.)

I will give you the vague hint that if you look at the setup, there really is only one possible way it could happen.

reading through those explanations of how to get the "secret stars" make them seem immeasurably difficult and my suspicion is its a ruse concocted to make you - in trying over and over to nail the precise jumps and configurations necessary - i.hate yourself, ii.hate braid and iii.hate life

OK - so turns out they're real

ngh

I will give you the vague hint that if you look at the setup, there really is only one possible way it could happen.

Yeah, if I swapped in Luigi!

Polyphonic's hint is a hint for the whole game rather than that one particular piece, really.

http://www.cubeecraft.com/character076.html
http://www.cubeecraft.com/character077.html

One of the best things about braid is that reading about it has finally opened up the world of "intelligent game bloggers", people who write about game theory and execution; why we play and what it is that makes the games fun. Finally finding people who can write above the eukaryote level is ace. Here's folks I'm now reading daily:

http://versusclucluland.blogspot.com/
http://www.artfulgamer.com/
http://www.brainygamer.com/
http://sexyvideogameland.blogspot.com/
http://insultswordfighting.blogspot.com/

woah, that's weird

I have been doing the exact same thing since braid came out - including reading those top three blogs and contributing to the brainy gamer's "vintage game club"

uncanny

Hey, dudes like Mitch Krpata been writing since long before Braid! I think. Anyway I love insult swordfighting-- if you haven't read his new taxonomy of gamers article it is vital.

Also, actionbutton.net reviewed the game and I agree with a LOT of what they say.

yeah, the text in Braid is often quite embarrassing. doesn't come close to ruining the game, though. ridiculously pompous, overwritten tripe is no more or less annoying than your typical "cool-guy" youthspeak or poorly translated non sequiturs.

also, that review (and its comments) overstate the misogyny, don't you think?

okay, actually it's far more annoying than poorly translated non sequiturs (one of the reasons to love games in the first place), but you don't see those too often anymore.

Heh, I see there are others here who are always reading those GameSetWatch roundups in the past year... not a bad thing at all, mind you. Those blogs are quite good though, I wish I'd discovered them even earlier. The writing on them is quite good, but since most of them are journalists, they're all constantly on top of all the new releases and such, and it's kind of hard to keep up with sometimes. Kind of off-topic... out!

I dunno, the game's "misogynist" insofar that it's not not misogynist, but that is still a valid point, i think.

OK, done; let's start reading the batshit analyses of the game then

so frustrated: apparently I can't get one of the secret stars because you need the jigsaw pieces for world 3 to be un-sorted... is there no way to detach the jigsaw pieces from one and other when they've been put in place?

how long did it take for that guy in will m.'s link to piece all that stuff together? the mind boggles

OK, so I figured it's not going to spoil the story any and the secret stars are apparently unfathomably difficult to track down so I watched a video of how to do them and all I can say is

WOW

fk tht sht

i like how its mario thats p funny

thank you

all video games shd be mario just spitballin

However, others—including new media academics—have disagreed, praising the philosophical complexity of the game, saying "Jonathan Blow's Braid is the sort of ontological labyrinth that Jorge Luis Borges might have made. Embedded in the simple gameplay design are genuinely huge concepts."[90]

[90] I murdered this guy

Braid has also garnered academic interest and acclaim for its complexity, with narratologists saying "Anyone who thinks... the unique constraints of game play cannot possibly be used to best structure a story has probably not encountered Braid, which marries pure mechanics and story into a philosophical platform." [109] Braid's use of narrative elements and puzzle-making has been compared to similar techniques of "imperative storytelling" in novels such as Life A User's Manual and Through the Looking-Glass.[110]

Barf

Braid barf.

Journalists have considered Braid's plot to be interwoven with the game itself, much as the book Dictionary of the Khazars and the films Memento and Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind interweave the narrative into the work's construction.[23][24]

Others have likened Braid to punk rock,

so these films interweave the narrative right into the whole work v interesting v unusual have to think abt that

you forgot punk rock don't forget punk rock

xkcd: the game

I just started this game I think yesterday? I am at the end of world 5 or 6. I am going to be so sad when this game is over.

I don't think I've gotten as excited on an intellectual level abt a game since EarthBound. Is Portal really this good??

why is david schmimmer sitting in that barn

― Wendy Carlos Williams (jjjusten), Monday, January 20, 2014 12:55 PM (2 months ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

http://arxiv-web3.library.cornell.edu/abs/1412.0784

https://vimeo.com/36579366#t=13m24s

some clever thinking on playing with code to design games using already created templates

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c53fGdK84rc
and xpost to portal and russian doll too i suppose