David Hellman

Time magazine has included Braid in its list of the top 10 games of 2008, slotting it into the high-ish position of 2. In his blurb, Lev Grossman strongly implies that Braid offers “near-infinite entertainment.”

Grossman’s list favors big-budget, well-marketed heavies like Grand Theft Auto IV, Little Big Planet and Rock Band 2, although it notably includes three exceptions. Besides Braid, those are Hunted Forever, a graphically spartan yet evocative Flash platformer at #8, and Fieldrunners, a tower defense title for iPhone at #9.

Here’s a segment from Spike’s recent indie games feature where Geoff Keighley talks to me about Braid. Will Wright also appears. This video is actually part 4 of 4.

The music is very dramatic!

You’ll notice I’m shy at first because Geoff was sitting very close to me for a man.

Below are parts 1 through 3, which feature Dylan Cuthbert (Pixeljunk Eden), Dylan Fitterer (Audiosurf), and Kyle Gabler and Ron Carmel (World of Goo).

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Spike has nominated Braid for Best Independent Game, alongside World of Goo, PixelJunk Eden, and Audiosurf.

If you’d like to vote for your favorite, go here.

There’s something about “fuel,” which I don’t really agree with.

Earlier this month, a Spike TV crew came to my apartment to shoot an interview which is going to run close to (or perhaps immediately before?) the awards. I’m told it will be part of a half-hour feature on indie games of 2008. The crew left a huge number of Capri Sun juice pouches and Odwalla bars in my fridge.

Well … A Braid Song. Wouldn’t want to prohibit the possibility of future Braid songs. This is a nice one, though! It’s by The Ex Box Boys. Their other songs are about things like Call of Duty 4, Gears of War, and Rock Band.

Here’s a statement from The Ex Box Boys about Braid - Counting You Up:

This song we wrote about a game that I am absolutely addicted too. It’s called Braid. I just got the game a few days ago and we ran into Robert Lang Studios in Shoreline and tracked what I think is our best song. I thought the story line was really cool and the game is filled with little puzzles and he needs to save the princess. Perfect back-drop for a love/pop song. We spent alot of time on this one and I hope that you like it.

The song can be heard on the band’s web site.

Steve Napierski of Dueling Analogs riffs on the implications of time travel.

The Braid Graphics Briefcase has some new additions!

• Animated GIFs! As seen above, these can be highly creepy. And very annoying as forum avatars!

• Animation Stacks! These are the original Photoshop files for all the characters, exactly as I delivered them to Jon for importing into the game! Every frame of every character.

• Level Icons! The black-and-white woodblock-looking icons that introduce every level are also available.

There have been a lot of calls for different-sized wallpapers, and I still intend to get around to that. Although if anyone wants to take the wallpapers that are already available and modify them to satisfy those requests, that would help me!

Check it all out here.

“They got this game, right, for people who smoke, or people who drink, like if you drink beer and you get drunk, or you smoke weed and you get high … anything, like if you just be getting fucked up. They got this game, right … this shit called Braid. Watch this shit! It about this little guy in a suit, and he walk around. Ain’t even got no point to the game, you just walk around jumping on shit. It look like Mario in the future.”
- Soulja Boy

Greatest game review of all time?

Thanks to Nick Suttner and Matt Chandronait for the tip!

Last time, we looked at Tim’s house, full of doors to time-warping worlds. Each of those doors leads to a place in the clouds, called the “world and story screen.” It has two main features: 1. podiums presenting books with pieces of story, and 2. doors to the various puzzles of each world.

The way the story is presented in Braid is rather unique. As Tim runs across the screen, he passes a series of podiums. As he arrives at each one, it glows and its fragment of story appears overhead. Because the podiums lie in a path the player must necessarily cross, it’s assured that all players will be aware of the prose, although it’s easily skipped simply by declining to linger before any podium.

Beyond the podiums sits a row of doors. Initially only the first one is accessible; in time, all provide entry to their respective domains. Each door leads to a small area containing a handful of puzzles embodying the unique theme and time mechanic of their world.

Here is the world and story screen for World 2, from some time in 2006. (Pardon the low-quality jpeg.) All of these graphics are placeholder. The doors and podiums and cloudy floor were all created by Jonathan Blow. The background is a photograph which he either took himself or stole from flickr (just guessing). The Tim sprite is by Edmund Mcmillen.

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Gary Hodges of Joystick Division called me over the weekend with some questions. This week he’s publishing the results in three installments. I was very impressed and flattered by the amount of research he’d apparently done.

Part 1 is here, and concerns my upbringing.

Part 2 is here, and concerns Braid.

Part 3 is here, and is of grave concern to all.

Great googly-moogly, will you look at this.

Check out more incredible work by the Etch-A-Sketchist!