David Hellman

Edge magazine has published a somewhat snippy preview of Braid, nevertheless pausing to complement the graphical style. Courtesy of Next-Gen.biz:

Braid is certainly a work of considerable aesthetic success – the praise for which largely goes to artist David Hellman, whose visual endeavors subvert the stereotype of the lo-fi 2D platformer. Instead, layered brushwork forms a luscious, moving painting…

You can read the whole thing here.

Less than a week after publishing an interview with me, GameTap’s editorial division is being closed.

Leigh Alexander reported the story on Kotaku yesterday, passing along a corporate memo full of assurances that it’s all about the games.

Here’s the interview with me on GameTap. Maybe the safe thing to do is reproduce it below…

Indie Games: Braid Interview

We speak with Team Braid’s lead artist on art, first impressions, and games.

By Douglass C. Perry
May 23, 2008

First officially revealed for Xbox Live Arcade at the Tokyo Game Show 2007, the indie-developed game Braid has attracted traditional and not-so-traditional media attention due to its unusual gameplay and distinct art direction. As part of GameTap’s desire to expose the work of independent developers, we spoke with Team Braid’s David Hellman, in charge of the game’s art direction.

GameTap: It’s interesting that you started working on the game partway into the Braid project, mostly because starting with someone else’s work can pose interesting challenges. When you took up the responsibility of the game’s art direction, what aspects did you want to keep and what did you want to do away with?

David Hellman: When I joined Team Braid, most of the game still bore [lead designer] Jonathan Blow’s basic and intermittently charming programmer art – just functional shapes with little adornment. Certain areas had been elaborated upon by an artist who’d since moved on, but in general this art looked dreary and very static and strangely not-to-scale. I wanted to get away from all the art that had come before–not because it was all bad per se, but I wanted to take a fresh look at the possibilities.

The best thing about the programmer art was that it was very clear from a gameplay perspective, so we tried to retain as much as that as possible. Also, certain things had a lot of personality. I liked the original yellow versions of the monsters that I assume Jonathan drew. I’m glad I got to play the game when it was still mostly all Jon’s work, because I got to see his sensibility unfiltered.

Some scenes already had a direction when we started. Jonathan had created a sunset for the title screen and a cloudy backdrop for the story screens, where you read excerpts of a story before each world. We stayed with the original impulse in those cases, but much of the game was reimagined from scratch.

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The latest Team Fremont Live podcast contains an interview with Jonathan Blow and me.

Here’s a direct link to the mp3: Team Fremont Live: 05.18.2008 (The interview starts at 12:27.)

I enjoyed talking with John, Moe and Hilden, and appreciated the implied invitation to drink alone in my apartment. As far as communicating what Braid is about, I think the interview went fairly well, but I would be interested in reactions from you guys. It can be tricky to sum things up sometimes …

This Wired article by John Scott Lewinski on May 7 used one of my lesser-known works, an anatomical modification of global village idiot Karl Pilkington.

Mr. Pilkington famously suggested that mankind would be better off with a toenail on the head and testicles below the ears. “It wouldn’t look weird, ’cause we’d all have it,” he explained. He then went on to say, “When people are sometimes talking, they do sort of mess with their ears, and they’re always saying ‘check for lumps’ … more handy.”

The “Karl Pilkington with Testiclears” image originally appeared in this very blog. Are we in the Media Echo Chamber?

Thanks to Sharon of Baltimore, MD for the tip.

Tim, the protagonist of Braid, visits various imaginative worlds during his journey, but in between excursions, he always returns home. Home serves several functions, and as a result was a complex and interesting area to design. It is the “hub” which links the different worlds, a place of repose and reflection, a “status screen” representing progress within the game, and a reflection of Tim’s character.

Here’s what it looked like when I joined the project. Each door leads towards a different world; within those worlds, Tim grapples with the laws of time and earns jigsaw pieces as tokens of understanding; he brings those jigsaw pieces back home and assembles them on the puzzle boards you see paired with each door.

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More and more indie game artists are sharing behind-the-scenes glimpses. The most recent comes from Kyle Gabler of 2D Boy, creator of the Wii killer app World of Goo.