The game that was a book
April 20, 2009
One common criticism of Braid is that its story, infamously delivered through enigmatic and overwritten text, is largely independent of the gameplay. The ending is well done, they argue, but there are too few moments with such an effective synthesis.
I think that’s the wrong approach here. In my eyes, Braid doesn’t attempt to integrate a narrative into the gameplay; rather, it integrates the gameplay into a narrative, subverting the expectation that interactivity will be its primary language. In fact, I’d say that Braid evokes the experience of reading more than playing.
How is that? The most common way to progress through a game is to experiment. Are there any hidden goodies on this level? Let’s explore. What’s this boss’s weakness? Try the available weapons and see what works. Can I gather enough momentum to reach that ledge? Only one way to find out.
Braid, though, doesn’t tend to reward experimentation. Because of the time-bending mechanics, it’s difficult to get feedback from your mistakes and refine your solutions. Indeed, it rarely makes sense to “almost” solve a puzzle; they’re so precisely constructed that coming close can be as useless as heading down the wrong path entirely.
So instead of solving Braid’s puzzles by experimenting, I solved them by thinking: staring through the screen like it was a Magic Eye, absentmindedly tapping Shift, struggling to intuit Jonathan Blow’s intentions. To anyone watching there was little indication I was doing anything at all, let alone “playing” — but after I had absorbed everything, I could usually complete the puzzle in one fell swoop, with minimal frustration.
That is also, in effect, how I read. Interpreting literature is not a fundamentally experimental process. I don’t break off halfway through a paragraph to try out my dozen half-baked theories; I try to hold everything in my head at once and deduce meaning from the whole. It’s part reading comprehension and part sitting around allowing ideas to percolate.
As I tried to unravel Braid’s interstitial text I realized that solving the puzzles and understanding the text required very similar approaches. Their concealed machinations and thematic ambiguities are teased out using the same mental processes, and are part of the same overarching search for meaning. In a way, I was “reading” everything in the game. It’s not the unification of narrative and gameplay that we’ve come to expect, but it’s a refreshing and effective one.
6 comments
Very interesting. What you described is practically the exact opposite of how I approached Braid. I described my experience with Braid as feeling akin to programming. Experimenting with different solutions, each of which failed spectacularly, be revealed more details about the problem. This would continue until the correct solution was reached, at which point everything would just work. I never felt particularly frustrated by any of the levels (except for one in world 4 that nearly everyone I’ve spoken also ran up against).
Some other games have a somewhat related vibe, but Braid felt more “procedural” than almost any other I’ve played.
by Nels Anderson on April 20, 2009 at 4:50 pm #
Nels: Was the frustrating level 4-4 (the second “Hunt!” puzzle)? That was the hardest one in the game for me by an order of magnitude. I thought maybe it was just that I personally couldn’t wrap my brain around it, but if that’s been a common experience maybe it actually wasn’t as intuitive as it could have been.
It’s interesting how different our approaches were. Maybe it’s because I don’t have a programmer’s mind, but I rarely felt like there were more details revealed by my failed solutions; I had a hard time seeing the connection between what I did wrong and what I saw on the screen. I much preferred to devise a whole solution at once, and start from scratch when I screwed up.
That said, I didn’t find Braid to be particularly difficult (aside from that one puzzle); I never felt like I was grasping at shadows as with, say, Grim Fandango. With one or two exceptions, the solutions felt fair and logical.
Not gonna lie, though — those secret stars that I’ve been reading about sound like total bullshit.
by Dan Bruno on April 20, 2009 at 7:53 pm #
Great post. I didn’t think about it, but my experience with Braid was very similar to programming like Nel mentioned. The first stages were easy enough, but as the difficulty ramped up I found myself becoming very intimidated by the stages. I then also took a similar approach to solving the puzzles by throwing myself at them with different approaches until one stuck. I also got quite stuck at one point in the game and didn’t go back to finish it until several months later while showing the game to a friend. This experience felt similar to pair programming, where his fresh perspective and ideas helped lift me out of my rut. Then the resolution of each puzzle felt similarly satisfying, with the puzzle piece displayed as a piece of the painting.
As far as integrating the gameplay into the narrative, I fully agree that this is really how Braid’s approach to narrative should be viewed. I remember hearing an interview with John Blow where he talked about how the gameplay was there for you to have an interaction with, and then formulate your own emotional narrative that complements the written portions of the game. This does sound a little lofty, but I feel that to some small extent this is the experience that I had with the game and I wish more games would aspire to creating that feeling.
On another note, have you played Judith? I had a really enjoyed the game and felt the use of music/noise in the game really interesting. http://distractionware.com/blog/?p=759
by Benedict on April 21, 2009 at 2:37 pm #
Sorry, my mistake. It was World 5, Stage 4 (Crossing the Gap) that was my stumbling block. I was completely stuck and then someone in the comments of one of Michael Abbott’s Braid posts made a vague comment about that stage and then things finally clicked. And I definitely didn’t feel cheated either. It always did seem like, “Oh yea, I should have thought of that.”
I did have a similar reaction to the secret stars thing though. I heard about them after I finished the game and didn’t bother going back to seek them out. It’s possible the bullshit-ness is some tongue-in-cheek thing by Blow (akin to the “score” table in The Path). More likely it’s just sorta lame though.
by Nels Anderson on April 21, 2009 at 5:04 pm #
I couldn’t help but think of the comparison to “the literary approach” that Tom Armitage of Infovore described in his piece Africa Wins Again. Okay, so it’s about Far Cry 2, but Armitage compares it to the novel specifically, saying that
“The real magic of novels is in the way they tell stories, and that’s the same of Far Cry 2. Whilst its plot emerges through a series of key beats, and a traditional three-act structure, it’s the richness of the tales told in between the plot beats that helps fill out the emotional core of the game.”
And he makes lots of much more interesting points. I couldn’t help but notice the similarity in that he compares it to literature, however it seems quite different from your own conception. Something to think about, anyway.
by Ben Abraham on April 27, 2009 at 7:24 am #
Very interesting. I appreciate the perspective. Having not read much on the game (not typical for me) for fear of ruining any element of mystery or surprise, I’ve became stumped on a particular puzzle about a month ago. So frustrated, in fact, that I never picked up the game again. This “reading” perspective is a novel approach though, I think, and you’ve inspired me to give it another go!
by Gordie Howe on November 5, 2009 at 3:37 pm #