Warning: There will be no discussion of stars in this review.
On a base level, an obvious comparison between videogames is available: Braid is to time as Portal is to space. It is capable of—no, it actively changes the player’s perspective and fosters new ways of thinking about the world. For this experience alone, Braid is well worth playing, but it further reveals itself to be intricately more (or, you may feel, less) than the sum of its parts. I reacted, as I find myself doing with most any work that so requires interpretation, on an intellectual more than an emotional level, and yet Braid is a very emotional work. It may take time to see it, as it did for me, but I believe this to be an earnest and sincere expression.
Upon first experiencing the final action-puzzle event, I was inspired with the presumably intended awe and horror but also rage. If it weren’t for that meddlesome, distracting text framing the gameplay, this lovely, clever, unassuming platformer could have accomplished a simple and elegant feat of storytelling. Instead, I felt, it is wrapped in convoluted, analytical prose that stinks of pretense (and I am not one to use that word lightly). Let me describe the changes necessary to create my ideal version of Braid: No cloud rooms. That’s it. No cloud rooms with text (or alt-text) about Tim leaving his woman to see a movie and then invent nuclear weapons. Just get rid of it.
What’s left?
Each “world” introduces a new mechanic whose symbolic value is sufficiently self-evident. You can rewind time; there are some things that cannot be undone; time and space are horizontally intertwined; intentionality projects into the future; a wedding ring slows time with proximal projection; and time moves in reverse. Then comes the climax of the game with its brilliant use of time manipulation to set up a helpless rescue attempt that, when rewound, reveals the villain of the scenario to be the true rescuer… and vice versa.
That’s all I wanted the game to be, once I had seen it all. I wanted less than there was. Braid takes the eternal Super Mario Bros. meme “sorry, but the princess is in another castle” as vague metaphor and mantra for (endlessly?) seeking the meaning or purpose in our lives—or so went my initial interpretation. I enjoyed the literal understanding that I just played the role of a guy who left his wife because she was too comfortable and followed an idealized stranger home to stand outside her bedroom and watch her sleep. Anything else seemed to be trying too hard. The text seemed to be trying too hard.
I left the game alone for a month and came back to review the text. It hadn’t changed, but I came to realize that staring directly at either the framework or the gameplay was less interesting than blurring my vision between the two. There is something vague but rewarding to be found there. It reminds me of my long-lost idealistic and melancholy youth. Or whatever.
Tim is exceedingly self-centered and delusional. Within a society of people, he is a kind of monster—borderline sociopathic; almost evil. But he is also merely a sympathetic and somewhat adolescent romantic searching for… well, not a girl exactly, nor a hydrogen bomb. He is not building a castle of memories as a summer home for his mother. To try to pinpoint this impressionistic story would ruin it. Of course, it’s entirely possible (likely, even) that I just don’t get it. That’s okay; you probably don’t, either.
Braid is contemplative and a little nebulous. I still think it pretentious and inelegant, and I am still a little angry with it as a missed opportunity for exemplifying storytelling through the mode of gameplay; it succeeds in this, but that it also presents framing text implies uncertainty over whether the gameplay is tenable on its own as a story, which undermines the achievement.
But it would be hard to pretend myself righteous in taking such a view; we must entertain the possibility that the framework is intended not as a compromise but as a valuable addition. Given the confidence of David Hellman’s art and the revelatory, nonsequential structure with which Jonathan Blow presents Braid’s thematic “worlds,” it would be irresponsible to dismiss the prose so easily. Braid’s narrative, whatever we think that may be, wholly involves at least four layers: the aesthetic, the textual, the mechanical, and the structural; plus one hell of a final set piece. Not all of its design may be to my taste, but I am pretty sure that this is the first true videogame poem.
I think we can all make time for that.
Jon
on May 30th, 2009
@ 5:10 pm:
Skye,
This is a perfect review.
TV's Adam
on Jun 1st, 2009
@ 11:24 am:
Your final paragraph (apart from your one-sentence closer, I mean) sums it up for me pretty well. Except the bit about it being a “videogame poem,” which is not a real thing. I actually quite liked the text and not only appreciated that it was there, but appreciated how non-essential it was for people who didn’t.
I think that if Blow felt the need to “compromise” the narrative implied by the gameplay by more or less handing it over to you in text form, he would’ve done it in a less obtuse manner. The text is dense and wordy and seems to sit pretty far apart from the actual gameplay, even as it serves to introduce new elements of play in each world, like the most pretentious instruction manual ever. It almost begs NOT to be read, as you can zip right through the cloud rooms without stopping if you just want to get to the next level.
Besides, as you point out yourself, Tim ends up being a bit more monster than man, which is part of what makes that final sequence – whether taken at face value or on the other, “h-bomb” level – work as well as it does. The text provides a slow buildup to that moment; without it the scene would just occur, and while it would still be interesting and prompt a reconsideration of the standard “dude rescues princess” story, there’d be little to base it on other than the fact that it happened.
I was thinking of the pre-level text as a rough equivalent to the aftermath of slaying a colossus in Shadow of the Colossus: a gradually increasing indicator of unease, or at least of something going on beyond – or contrary to – what was immediately apparent. Though an in-game representation would’ve been more palpable, I’m glad at least that it’s there in some form.
extralife
on Jun 2nd, 2009
@ 6:29 pm:
Hmmmm
I was generally ok with the text, but the argument for simply removing it is striking me as immediately compelling and superior.
Toph Stuart
on Jun 4th, 2009
@ 2:13 pm:
“Videogame poem” is utter bullshit.
The more I think about what could possibly be done with the text, the more I realize that taking it out altogether is clearly the only and best choice. I have a sneaking suspicion, however, that the textual “story” came first and everything other than the basic mechanic (which is nothing new) came after, so that Blow was both married to the text as such and also couldn’t conceptualize his game outside of the text’s boundaries. Which of course makes all his “you just don’t understand how SMART my game is” media commentary all the more ridiculous. Better to shut up and be thought a fool, etc.