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: Ironic Hipster Mario Brothers
Been a while since I did a game review. Then again, most games aren't that noteworthy, or the people who are into this stuff already know about them, so there's no point in reviewing them.
Take one part French Impressionist artwork, take a sort of classical soundtrack, add it to a traditional 2D platform game, gently fold in time manipulation and bake. Maybe you should get baked too in the meantime.
The game is called Braid, an artsy hipster version of that old Nintendo classic. Sort of. One guy wrote all the code for it, the other guy drew all the art assets. The music was licensed from various musicians who probably didn't think that their music would ever end up in a game.
Unlike Mario Brothers, which you will find ironic references to throughout the game, this is not some twichfest with eye candy. There are real puzzles to solve, although certain parts will call on your traditional eye-hand coordination. All of the puzzles involve manipulating time in one way or another. There are no bonus lives in this game, because if you die, you can always rewind your way back out of it.
In fact to solve some puzzles, you have to "die" and then rewind, which is a very counter intuitive thing for a gamer to do. Almost all games you play of this genre, they drill it in, live live live, do whatever it takes to live. This is the first game I've seen, where in order to solve the level, you have to die.
The object of the game is to traverse sets of mazes and collect puzzle pieces. Collect enough puzzle pieces, and you can form an impressionist painting to hang in your house. Collect enough paintings and you can visit the final level.
The final level is something of a commentary on the whole "save the princess" theme in Mario Brothers. A sort of snide commentary. But the level is well designed and challenging to play without causing too much frustration. There was only one spot in the level I thought had more to do with luck than skill, but otherwise was fun to play.
One of the stated goals of the game from the official website (http://www.braid-game.com) is to respect the player's time and attention and I would agree. This is a game that can be left off and picked up whenever you want. This is not a game that requires you to spend 4 hours playing it to get anything out of it.
I won't say it's entirely innovative. Strip away the time manipulation and the impressionist artwork and you have a 2D platform game, and they're pretty much all the same. But it's more innovation than I've seen in most games in quite a long while. It's definitely worth playing.
Been a while since I did a game review. Then again, most games aren't that noteworthy, or the people who are into this stuff already know about them, so there's no point in reviewing them.
Take one part French Impressionist artwork, take a sort of classical soundtrack, add it to a traditional 2D platform game, gently fold in time manipulation and bake. Maybe you should get baked too in the meantime.
The game is called Braid, an artsy hipster version of that old Nintendo classic. Sort of. One guy wrote all the code for it, the other guy drew all the art assets. The music was licensed from various musicians who probably didn't think that their music would ever end up in a game.
Unlike Mario Brothers, which you will find ironic references to throughout the game, this is not some twichfest with eye candy. There are real puzzles to solve, although certain parts will call on your traditional eye-hand coordination. All of the puzzles involve manipulating time in one way or another. There are no bonus lives in this game, because if you die, you can always rewind your way back out of it.
In fact to solve some puzzles, you have to "die" and then rewind, which is a very counter intuitive thing for a gamer to do. Almost all games you play of this genre, they drill it in, live live live, do whatever it takes to live. This is the first game I've seen, where in order to solve the level, you have to die.
The object of the game is to traverse sets of mazes and collect puzzle pieces. Collect enough puzzle pieces, and you can form an impressionist painting to hang in your house. Collect enough paintings and you can visit the final level.
The final level is something of a commentary on the whole "save the princess" theme in Mario Brothers. A sort of snide commentary. But the level is well designed and challenging to play without causing too much frustration. There was only one spot in the level I thought had more to do with luck than skill, but otherwise was fun to play.
One of the stated goals of the game from the official website (http://www.braid-game.com) is to respect the player's time and attention and I would agree. This is a game that can be left off and picked up whenever you want. This is not a game that requires you to spend 4 hours playing it to get anything out of it.
I won't say it's entirely innovative. Strip away the time manipulation and the impressionist artwork and you have a 2D platform game, and they're pretty much all the same. But it's more innovation than I've seen in most games in quite a long while. It's definitely worth playing.