Braid: How the heck do you play this game?

[Kabob]

So I decided to give into the hype and download Braid sight unseen yesterday since it's on sale. My first impression is that I really like the art direction of the game and the music could put me to sleep (a good thing), but I have no clue what the heck I am doing.

I started off on world 2 (don't know where world 1 even is) and started going through the motions of the game. A is for jump, great. X rewinds time, ok Prince of Persia, LB and RB slow down/speed up how fast time is rewound/fast forwarded...got it.

So what's the purpose of the game? Collect puzzle pieces? And how the heck do I get some of 'em. I keep wondering if there's some sort of power that I'm supposed to have that I don't have yet but I get the feeling there isn't, it's just a jump/rewind game, correct?

I'd love some insight on how to approach the game. On world 2 I have all but 2 of the puzzle pieces and no clue how to get those...

 

[Anubis]

im in the same boat as you are

 

[Pheran]

Braid is rather subtle in that it throws you right in and expects you to discover the game mechanics by watching how things work in the game. Each world has some different mechanics; I recall that one of the early ones has special items that aren't affected by time rewind, which is a key to solving the puzzles. If you are thinking that time rewind will be like PoP (which mainly just saved you from death once in a while), you are in for a whole different experience.

So, pay attention to how the game reacts to your movements and rewinds and you may have a light bulb moment. Or, check out one of the many YouTube walkthrough videos, though that takes some of the fun out of the discovery.

If you can tell me more about where the pieces you are missing are, I could give you a more specific hint.

 

[R Nilla]

Also, I wouldn't necessarily worry about trying to get all of the puzzle pieces right away. If you get stuck on one of them just move on and come back later. At least one of the pieces in World 2 I didn't figure out how to get until the end of the game. It's actually pretty easy and I felt dumb for missing it.

It's funny that this game is listed as "on sale" because the price was recently lowered to 800 points permanently.

 

[Kabob]

IIRC the two I am missing are:

-The "hunting" room with all the bad guys walking casually across three different levels. I can kill the first 4 but can't get across the gap to get the last guy on the second level and the guy on the top level.

-The room with the puzzle portrait that you can move all over. I think there's a puzzle piece right above the edit door.

I'm going off memory of playing last night, those may not be quite right although I know the hunting room is the right room.

 

[Anubis]

in the Hunting room kill the first dude and then the 3rd and 4th, leave 2nd alive because you jump down from where 4 was and bounce off him to get up to 5 and 6

IDK about the puzzle room either, and in world 3 there are a lot of them that you cant jump and get but theirs nothing around for you to jump off of to get to them

 

[Kabob]

So the higher you are when you fall onto a bad guy the higher you bounce back up?

 

[Anubis]

pretty much

 

[Kabob]

That I did not realize.

 

[Pheran]

-The room with the puzzle portrait that you can move all over. I think there's a puzzle piece right above the edit door.

That one is tricky. First, you can't get it right away because you need a puzzle piece from the next level. Second, the solution involves actually manipulating that puzzle. (I can give more hints if you like.)

 

[Kabob]

Well, I got the one up high that you have to move the puzzle around to get. IIRC there is one like literally on top of the door, just out of jumping range.

 

[Pheran]

Well, I got the one up high that you have to move the puzzle around to get. IIRC there is one like literally on top of the door, just out of jumping range.

Yes, well keep in mind what things in the game allow you to jump higher.

And it still involves mucking with the puzzle.

 

[Tristicus]

Me too...I had no idea how to play it and gave up. PB Winterbottom on the other hand was easy to get, but hard to do...good game.

 

[Anubis]

gonna play some more tonight see if i can figure more of this out. I was annoyed last night, and then got even more annoyed when all the help section said was " jump on enemies & collect puzzle pieces"

 

[Pheran]

gonna play some more tonight see if i can figure more of this out. I was annoyed last night, and then got even more annoyed when all the help section said was " jump on enemies & collect puzzle pieces"

Well, hey, that's what you're supposed to do.

It does take a little time initially, but I definitely progressed from a state of "This is weird, what the heck am I doing here" to "OMG this game is absolute genius" after some playing time. The world that sends out a shadow copy of yourself when you rewind time is amazing.

One thing to keep in mind is that you can get your level into a "broken" state such that it can't be finished by doing the wrong thing (such as killing an enemy you needed to jump on), but this is easily remedied by either time rewind or by exiting/reentering the screen.

 

[artemicion]

I remember being pretty underwhelmed when I played the demo of Braid. It gets more rewarding as you figure out more about the physics of the game. The lack of instruction was deliberate on the part of the developers. I read on wikipedia or somewhere that Microsoft asked the dev to put more instructions in the game and the dev refused.

Part of the fun of the game is figuring out the physics of the game. Honestly, I don't think the game would be fun if you just went to gamefaqs and looked up the solution to all the puzzles.

I've only played through the first two worlds. The only thing I would tell you is that, as far as I know, you don't get any new upgrades or powers as you go through the game. In other words, you have everything that you need to collect every puzzle piece in each level. It took me awhile to figure that one out becuase I passed by some pieces that I initially dismissed as ones I'd have to come back for, but you don't get anything later in the game that enables you to get older pieces. It may look impossible, but there's a way.

 

[gorcorps]

Huh... sounds like a good time. Now to decide on what system to buy it for. I should have gotten it on Steam when they had it for $5.

 

[JoPh]

braid was a fantastic game with a lot of "oooooohhh thats how you do it" moments.

its was rather short though. but i loved it.

 

[acheron]

I played the PC version, but yeah, I loved it. Some of the pieces are really tough, but they're definitely all possible, and you always go "oh yeah" when you figure it out.