Now Playing: Braid

Braid is an indie puzzle/platform game originally released in 2008. It’s wonderfully presented, with a lovely art style and great music. The time manipulation mechanic works flawlessly, and the game regularly introduces new and creative uses of the mechanic which keeps things feeling fresh, interesting and challenging.

However, this is a game that requires a lot of trial and error. While many of the puzzles feel intuitive and well designed, others are almost ridiculously obtuse, with elaborate solutions often involving tricky platforming, very precise timing and sometimes, an element of luck. This can lead to much mashing of the keys in frustration. The much praised story element, whilst certainly amusing how it plays out across the final sequence, seems to try laughably hard to seem deep and meaningful, but in reality is about as deep as a puddle.

Overall, Braid is a pretty good, challenging platform/puzzle game. I wouldn’t say it does anything particularly special or outstanding. It can be almost as irritating as it is enjoyable, but what it does, it does do relatively well, so it’s definitely worth a few quid if you like that sort of thing.

6/10