Ever since reading my first review of the game Braid I’ve looked forward to eventually trying it out and seeing if all the hype was true regarding the “little game that could”. The premise seemed amazing and some of the adjectives thrown around describing the game seemed out of place for a contemporary XBOX 360 game; a fact that really captivated my attention. Words like philosophical, artsy and thought-provoking were common place amongst the slew of positive reviews I came across. Braid was released about a year ago yet the logistics of a move to a new country prevented me from seeing for myself if the hype was true or not. As I mentioned in a recent post, this has now been rectified and the lovely philosophical, artsy game called Braid has recently been bested by myself. Even though the game has been available for quite some time, and reviewed extensively, I still find it pertinent to share thoughts on my experience with the game in hopes that I might be able to offer some unique insight into exactly why Braid is deserving of such high praise.
A description of the game is relatively straightforward but at the same time somewhat complex. Braid is a 2-d platformer, much like Mario Brothers or Donkey Kong, made by Jonathan Blow for around 200,000 dollars; relatively cheap for a modern game that has been met with a great deal of both critical and commercial success. Blow is a former video game consultant and some things are immediately apparent about Blow’s inspiration and interests pertaining to the medium when one begins to play through Braid. First and foremost the pure aesthetics of Braid’s characters and game world are like a moving impressionist painting. As a fan of Van Gogh’s Starry Night I have to say I fell in love with the game the first time I glanced a screen shot. I am hazarding a guess at calling the game post-impressionistic and maybe postmodern-impressionistic if such a thing can indeed be classified as such. Beyond the artistic touch of the renderings there is also an interesting technique known as parallax effect that is used in Braid to make the 2-d platformer literally pop out and come to life. The technique and aesthetic succeed in breathing life into a very classic genre, the platformer, proving that a game does not have to be 3-d and based upon massive amounts of polygons in order to achieve success. To this effect, it supports some reasoning being currently debated pertaining to the fact that some believe there is no need to improve upon the hardware specs of this current generation of consoles, that is beyond the potential monetary awards for the companies that produce them. Instead the focus should be returned to innovative game play and story telling.
Braid’s game play one ups its aesthetics by making use of the codes us “gamers” have developed over the evolution of video games. These codes are to some extent comparable to throwing or hitting a baseball. We learn to do things with one hand or from one side of the plate, while Braid forces a gamer to essentially become a switch hitter, or in my own case as a “righty” to pitch left-handed. A great deal of the difficulty and challenge in Braid is directly linked to being forced to think outside of the box in order to solve a puzzle. Illustrative of this fact is one very simple puzzle found early on in the game dealing specifically with a very Donkey Kong-esque set of variables and iconography. In effort to not to give away the solution I will simply state that, at least in my own case, the puzzle was solved simply by thinking what perhaps any frustrated gamer has thought while playing classic Donkey Kong or games made in its likeness, that is, why can’t the rules be broken? Braid is a game much like a great film in the fact that it tunes into the essences of its genre and medium, it makes use of things not directly represented and in the case of a video game directly programmed. The answers are often not found in the details. To this extent I would state that Braid perhaps rests as the pinnacle of postmodern gaming, its solutions sometimes found in the memories and experiences of play sessions past.
However, all of these previously mentioned qualities pale in comparison to perhaps Braid’s shiniest of shiny, achievements, and that is simply put the philosophy of the game. Braid beyond its entertainment value functions alone as a “text” that critiques linearity. It therefore has academic value in calling into question just what is possible in a video game and furthermore in society when we are forced to think outside the box. Being a fan of Philip K. Dick I am immediately reminded of his non-fictional writings on cosmonology by the dynamics of Braid’s game play. Dick alludes to an idea that our lives are in a perpetual state of re-analysis or re-living, producing an ever increasing perfect reality. The comparison Dick makes is with a tape that is rewound, analyzed and reformated in real time; manipulated to produce a product or life of higher quality. This is precisely what Braid represents from top to bottom, apparent when one completes the game, but in effort to allow my readers to enjoy the ending for themselves, you’ll have to take my word for it.
Braid proves that success is achievable via much simpler means then the over use of flashy bells and whistles. Jonathan Blow has in fact admitted that his vision was created in order to critique contemporary trends in video games. To this effect, the discussion about contemporary video games or the video game industry as a whole is comparable to that of the film industry and blockbuster films. What I don’t understand, growing up as a part of the original Nintendo generation, is what happened to having a decent innovative, immersive story line in a game, or the development of completely new genres coupled with new mechanics? With its limited “on screen” resources and budget Braid succeeds where its complete polar opposites, multi-million-dollar MMO’s as an example, typically fall short. It is not only a lesson for an individual gamer as to what is possible in their own skill set and problem solving ability but also a direct critique as to how the video game industry and its producers have, as a whole, begun to blindly follow and become limited by the game industries older, ginger-headed step brother the film industry. An analysis of Braid contains within it a simple lesson in game construction and resource management.
Both of these mediums mentioned, games and film, and the people who create within them must realize that an individual can still be successful by breaking the pre-established codes of a genre and medium, inevitably creating entirely new ones as a result. As I alluded to in a post a few months back, pertaining to the arts in general, this type of innovation becomes more and more obtainable and realized as individuals begin to retain and execute greater control over their original creative vision. The streamlining of the production system and return to interdisciplinary skill sets are a large reason why a game like Braid exists as it does. To me, universalism has always been readily apparent as the solution to a great many of society’s serious ailments and disputes, however it’s even more fascinating that it also can provide astonishing levels of entertainment and enjoyment when used effectively in cinema and now video games.
