Braid Analysis (Spoiler-Filled!)

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Before we begin, who wants to participate in this thread? Is there anyone else here who both finished the game and who has any interest in discussing it?

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Well, I guess maybe it's just me, so I'll keep this brief.

















--- SPACE FOR PEOPLE WHO DIDN'T UNDERSTAND THAT THIS IS A SPOILER THREAD BUT NOW REALIZE IT AND WANT TO ESCAPE BEFORE BEING SPOILEDED ---










After playing the game, ruminating on it a bit, and also surfin' 'round the net reading other threads which were what I would have wanted this one to be if this BBS wasn't completely empty except for hateful youngsters and blind people, here are the possible things Braid could be about:

1. Tim is a spouse-abusing alcoholic.

2. Tim is a stalker.

3. Tim/Jonathan Blow is a whiny nerd who never fit in, always got rejected by women, and thinks life is just sooo unfaaair, emo emo emo.

4. The ultimately destructive craving and desire for an imagined ideal which so defines the human condition.

5. The ultimately destructive desire for control which so defines the MALE human condition, and how the inability to control women drove men to invent nuclear bombs.

6. Women are manipulative bitches (see #3).

As of this writing, I am going with a combination of #4 and #5, though there are a few things which may not fit. The whole game is driven by craving, often for control, and at the end, we see that Tim's obsessive controlling tendencies had driven off the Princess in the first place. Then he turned to craving finding her/getting her back.

Then in the epilogue, the themes of desire and control repeat each other in scenes of a young boy wanting candy (and Ethical Calculus? Huh?), a man yanking his broad around, and scientists struggling to perfect the atom bomb.

Desire is instilled young and persists as the power of the mind grows in the individual. Now this reminds me of the song Handlebars by Flobots. The same desire for control, but magnified as the boy grows to a man. Or something.

And nobody in the grip of this desire, this suffering, ever finds happiness in their search for the ideal, because the Princess is always in another castle. That is a great title for a Buddhist book, which I think I will write in between starting new threads about Braid.

Ah, fuck it. Maybe he's just a stalker.

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Thread cancelled!

This analysis and the comments thereafter seem convincing enough that all other analyses seem lacking in contrast.

So it's decided -- it's about the creation of the atom bomb, using a soured romantic relationship as metaphor!

Have a nice day!

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OR he's a wife-beating drunk.

One of those!

[Roody_Yogurt]

I thought it was #3 (and how dude uses videogames to escape reality... hence the Super Mario references).

edit: Ok, I read that link, and sure, I guess it's about the atomic bomb. Sure came off as #3, though.

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I've changed my mind about the link. The link intimates that the "she" in the epilogue (and maybe the level text) refers to the bomb. I believe now that it refers to peace, or mother nature (which at its heart is always peaceful).

To wit, see the alt text in screen three of the epilogue, after the bomb goes of, it says:

She stood tall and majestic. She radiated fury. She shouted: “Who has disturbed me?” But then, anger expelled, she felt the sadness beneath; she let her breath fall softly, like a sigh, like ashes floating gently on the wind.

She couldn’t understand why he chose to flirt so closely with the death of the world."

This is not a bomb talking, this is the whole of nature, the Earth, Gaia, the one life, the one intelligence which comprises the entire universe. The peace is disturbed, and then seeing the disturbance, She returns to her original state.

Likewise, the alt-text on the first screen... "You are going the wrong way and pulling me with you."

And even more telling, the alt-text on the second screen...

Ghostly, she stood in front of him and looked into his eyes. “I am here,” she said. “I am here. I want to touch you.” She pleaded: “Look at me! But he would not see her; he only knew how to look at the outside of things.

The bomb designers did the work seeking peace, when peace was there the entire time if they had only stopped trying so hard to find it. This is a good analogy for our own lives. We only suffer when we search for happiness. When the search stops, happiness appears.

This is echoed in the final screen of the epilogue. Tim gives up the search, and finds he has enough to build his own castle. It is a very peaceful screen.

Likewise, I think this metaphor works for the rest of the game itself, and why I think so much time was spent on making the artwork and music so terribly lovely to behold. It is a puzzle game, and the player is trying very hard to attain his/her goal, going so far as to manipulate time and space in all sorts of crazy ways to try to get there, all the while the flags on the castles are (secretly, I'll admit) warning you to stop.

And while playing the game, if you ever happen to stop, you find a very peaceful existence.

In essence, the game exists to teach you that the only way to win is not to play.

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Also, I was gonna spend some time trying to find the stars and the secret ending, but after seeing walkthroughs for three of the stars, I have no idea how anybody could ever possibly figure out how to get ONE of them, much less eight.

So I just watched the "alternate ending" on YouTube.

[Worm]

Some of the time mechanics feel down right retarded, like level four unfaithful companion. Why doesn't the little man carrying it in a time nullified state eliminate it's rewind? Oh because I need to view gamefaqs for the solution? okay.

Thanks for making me waste fifteen bucks everyone. I don't think I'll be posting here or instant messaging any of you ever again.

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I don't think I'll be posting here or instant messaging any of you ever again.

BEST GAME EVER!

[Worm]

fuk u

[Worm]

The puzzles were way too passive. You didn't solve them as much as you saw the solutions. I saw the solutions rather fucking quickly so I guess it wasn't supposed to impress me?

The whole final level was really disappointing up until the very end which was pretty sweet (apart from the one fucking part where you can't get past unless your timing was right). I wish the puzzles were less linear, I wish the time gimmicks were explored further, and mainly I wish everyone wasn't lactating over what is a okay game that happens to be very clever.

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The puzzles were way too passive. You didn't solve them as much as you saw the solutions.

I know, right? When I play a puzzle game, the LAST thing I want to do is figure out the solution! IS THIS WHAT I PAID MY FIFTEEN DOLLARS FOR? TO FIGURE OUT SOLUTIONS TO PUZZLES??!?!!?!!!!?!

IDIOT!

The whole final level was really disappointing up until the very end which was pretty sweet

Yeah, those 30 seconds where you had to actually DO something were kinda lame, because as we've read already in this thread, you prefer PASSIVE games where you just SIT AROUND FINDING THE SOLUTION.

IDIOT!!!

I wish everyone wasn't lactating over what is a okay game that happens to be very clever.

Right! Other than being very, VERY clever, what else is this PUZZLE game offering me? I see no blowjobs here!!

IDIOT!!!!!!!!

[Worm]

Haha you idiot. I meant the presentation was clever. The game? I could have fucking beaten it in my sleep.

The thirty seconds where you need to do something in that end level is just realizing that you were too slow to get past that part and have to just redo it until you get to the first goomba. Much like in the fickle companion you just need to remember you can only carry the key forward, and then you see the one possible way to solve the puzzle.

[Ice Cream Jonsey]

Spoil this for me: I have it, I am playing it... where the fuck is the save button?

[Worm]

I don't see why the game's story needs to be muted up until for a couple seconds where it gets interesting. Even seeing your character lose his princess was a pretty proud tradition in at least the 16 bit era, so I really just don't understand the books at all.

I guess the books are to represent that these are Tim's memories or he's going about some endless quest, but if the end represents an awakening or realization, what's it explained with? More fucking books.

I guess much like the puzzles providing structure for the story would have ruined how fucking indie the game is.

[radical]

I like how worm tries to be funny by bringing senseless attention to himself

[Worm]

I like how people like more about me than they do about themselves.

Also way to wait until I dragged Tim screaming and pleading out of his oil paint world and curb stomped him publicly.

EDIT: and yes that is exactly the kind of stuff you expect me to say, you stupid maggot cunt

[Ice Cream Jonsey]

I had to use a Youtube walkthrough for World 4. Sorry, but I felt the whole mechanic was retarded and unfun. I "got" what they were going for with it and it was just stupid.

World 4 had the same thing I hated about portions of Portal: knowing exactly what to do, and then having to go through the arduous task of buttong pushing and controller wrangling to get it done. Each puzzle on world 4 is precisely what you'd implement if you thought of the reversing-goomba mechanic, more or less in order. Where the boss fight involving dropping the glass lights on the fucker was amazing, brilliant and awesome, this shit going on in world four is retarded. I don't feel any sense of accomplishment at any point, because within seconds I "get" what needs to be done, and then spend hours trying to mash the buttons correctly to "do" it.

As good as the first couple of levels were, it's equally unfun in world 4.

And I did play ahead, and I see that we have a shadow person for the next board. Hooray! I'll have to go do stuff, and then have my shadow do stuff that I can't do because of arbitrary restrictions (and if the goomba-moves-as-I-move thing is in world 5, I probably won't bother to finish the game). This... just isn't any fun.

And once again, game reviewers seemingly play the first hour of a given game and review it on that. Every. Single. FUCKING. Person. working as a game reviewer or (haha) "journalist" (haha) is a loathesome creature worthy only of scorn.

[Ice Cream Jonsey]

OK, I am looking at what I have to do to finish world 4.



This is just retarded. You win Braid. Way to go! Hope the ending was a real tear-jerker. I can't play this shit, IT IS RETARDED. The key drops! No it doesn't! It behaves different than any/every other object in the game ALL OF A SUDDEN! JUST BECAUSE!

What a fucking waste of time.

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Well, it is a fickle companion.