Skip to main content

Braid Completed

Just finished Braid.

The last world (perversely named "World 1") sucks a bit unfortunately. Up to then I had more or less ignored the nonsensical storyline and concentrated on the clever puzzles. In the last world the clever puzzles take a back seat and the nonsensical storyline gets rammed down your throat. Well I finished it and I read every word of text in the game and all I can say about the story is: "It's nonsensical".

Its a pity that the game ends on such a downer because it really is a beautiful piece of work.

In the interest of honesty I must admit to having cheated twice. I read hints for two jigsaw pieces. I'm not proud of it but I ran out of patience. One of the times was a head slapping "Aghhh ... I should have known that" moment but the other was one of the trickiest puzzles in the game (the middle puzzle piece in the "elevator action" level). I don't know if I would ever have spotted the trick left to myself.

Edit: I have just read a bit more about the game and I realise that there are a few easter eggs including a secondary ending. Apparently you can only get that if you find some hidden stars before you complete the third world which means that it is completely blocked once you finish game normally. Bizarre game design. I certainly amn't going to replay the game just to see it.
Labels:

Comments

Thallian said…
fascinating... a "un-replayable-by-deisgn game" :) shows the developers had an odd sense of humor, eh?
12:00 am
mbp said…
Hi "Thalian" unrepeatable is not quite correct because you can wipe your game and start over. You would want to be pretty dedicated though.

You are right about the odd sense of humour though. It was only about half way through the game I discovered that there is a "save game" feature. It is quite obtuse and is hidden in a "settings" menu.
7:41 am
Tesh said…
For all the talk about Braid being something special, I'm just not seeing it. I did go ahead and get it when Steam had it for $5, but that's purely for the interesting gameplay. The story is annoying, and there are some dumb design decisions like the "save game" bit that bug me a bit. It's a half decent game, to be sure, but it's not all it's cracked up to be.
6:02 pm
mbp said…
The story and arty bullshit does get annoying Tesh but I really liked the puzzles. Since finishing the game I have read a bit more about the back story. Apparently its all about the Atomic Bomb??????
7:41 pm
Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Android Tip 3: Sharing a Folder between multiple users of an Android device

Android has allowed multiple user logins for quite a while now. This is can be very useful for tablets which are shared by family members. Normally Android erects strict Chinese walls between users preventing them from using each others apps and viewing each others files. This is a useful security feature and ensures your kids don't mess up your work spreadsheets when screwing around on the tablet and should also prevent them from buying €1,000 worth of Clash of Candy coins on your account. Sometimes however you really do want to share stuff with other users and this can prove surprisingly difficult. For example on a recent holiday I realised that I wanted to share a folder full of travel documents with my wife. Here are some ways to achieve this. 1. If you have guaranteed internet access  then you can create a shared folder on either Dropbox or Google drive. Either of these has the great advantage of being able to access the files on any device and the great disadvantage of bein...
52 comments
Read more

Portal 2 two screen coop on one PC.

I mentioned before that I intended to try Portal 2 in "unofficial split screen co-op mode. Well split screen on a small computer monitor is a recipe for a headache especially when the game defies gravity as much as portal. However a minor bit of extra fiddling allowed us to drive two seperate screens from one PC. The Steam forums describes a complicated method of doing this that I couldn't get working so this simpler method which worked for me might be of use to someone. 1. First I followed the instructions in this post to get split screen multi-player working: http://forums.steampowered.com/forums/showthread.php?t=1847904 A minor issue not mentioned is that you need to enable the console from the keyboard/mouse options menu I am using keyboard and one wired Xbox360 controller as suggested. Getting the controller to switch to channel 2 was tricky at first but as Chameleon8 mentions plugging it out and in again during loading works. The trick for me was to do the plug / p...
1 comment
Read more

Lotro: The Forgotten Treasury

Throg joined a Kinship group for the Forgotten Treasury instance last night. It was an enjoyable change from the solo questing that the now level 55 dwarf champion has been mostly doing so far in Moria. Some members of the group had tried and failed to clear the Treasury before so we knew it would be challenging but we were lucky enough to have a well balanced group with Guardian, Minstrel, Lore Master, Hunter, Burglar and Champion (Throg). Throg (level 55) and the minstrel (53) were both below the 56ish level of the instance but the others were all higher so it more or less balanced out. [SPOILERs ahead] It is a well designed enjoyable instance set in a circular chamber with balcony around. As you enter, a boss absconds to a locked side chamber with his treasure leaving the fellowship to clear trash ringed around the balcony. Once the trash are cleared you have access to a puzzle which must be solved in order to open the locked door. Clearing the (including six mini bosses) also get...
14 comments
Read more