Source: videogamesblogger.com

This week on Zero Punctuation: Yahtzee takes on Braid, the long-awaited indie darling finally available on Xbox Live Arcade (so far exclusively). Coarse language and suggestive imagery ahead.

Source: videogamesblogger.com

Braid is a puzzle-platformer, drawn in a painterly style, where the player manipulates the flow of time in strange and unusual ways. From a house in the city, journey to a series of worlds and solve puzzles to rescue an abducted princess. In each world, you have a different power to affect the way time behaves, and it is time’s strangeness that creates the puzzles. The time behaviors include: the ability to rewind, objects that are immune to being rewound, time that is tied to space, parallel realities, time dilation, and perhaps more. Braid treats your time and attention as precious; there is no filler in this game. Every puzzle shows you something new and interesting about the game world.

Braid is a 2-D platform game where you can never die and never lose. Despite this, Braid is challenging, but the challenge is about solving puzzles, rather than forcing you to replay tricky jumps. Travel through a series of worlds searching for puzzle pieces, then solving puzzles by manipulating time: rewinding, creating parallel universes, setting up pockets of dilated time. The gameplay feels fresh and new; the puzzles are meant to inspire new ways of thinking.

More than just a video review, it’s also an interview with Jonathan Blow and David Hellman about their Xbox Live Arcade title. Developer Number None Inc. brings the action platform title Braid to the Xbox 360 on Xbox Live.

Click on the bottom-right corner arrow to view it fullscreen.

To quote the video review: “Braid isn’t afraid to make you feel like an idiot with its puzzles, but the eventual solutions are all the more satisfying for it. The designs are both head-slappingly simple and astonishingly complex; the more devious puzzles flex rarely used mental muscles, with straightforward platforming as a canvas to work from. Aesthetically inseparable from its time and place, Braid’s good looks juxtapose old-school design sensibilities with impressionist backdrops and lovingly hand-painted environments. The surreal watercolor worlds evoke simple joys and disconsolate dreams as they change palettes and shift in tone, complemented in kind by a soothing score of classical and folk arrangements.

Like Portal, Braid’s short length can be disregarded in the face of its unique approach to storytelling and expansive ideas. Excellent but intellectually limited as a puzzle-platformer, Braid is made truly divine with emotional depth and a bittersweet humanity.”

Overall — 10

Source: videogamesblogger.com

Since Braid has no cheat codes a walkthrough will definitely come in handy in case your brain can’t handle all the time-manipulating madness that you will encounter in the new Xbox Live Arcade masterpiece from independent developer Jonathan Blow’s “Number None Inc.” and publisher Microsoft. And in case you don’t own a 360, the game will also be heading to PC “sometime in 2008″ according to the official Braid web-site.

Skip down to watch the Braid walkthrough videos!

Braid is an ingenious platformer staring a pudgy boy named Tim who’s on a quest to “rescue the princess”. Although it sounds simple, the game is anything but. Using an absolutely beautiful, drop-dead gorgeous hand-drawn/watercolor-like graphical style, the game pops out at you like a painting that has come to life. The game then bends your brain and shatters it to pieces by giving you the ability to rewind time to a multiple of 8 (both forwards and backwards) and using it to solve increasingly complex puzzles that test the very foundation of reality and shatter the notion that the game is “just another platformer”.

If you haven’t played the Braid demo then you are doing yourself a disservice. I can guarantee that once you give the game a try, you will have no qualms with it’s $15 price point. The game is quite simply a work of art that begs to be played by anyone that considers them a fan of video games. Not only does the game parody classic Nintendo games and poke fun at itself and the cliche gaming conventions we’re all used to, it wraps itself up with an intelligent, touching and poetic story and music that belongs in a motion picture of The Lord of the Rings-calibur, managing to whisk you away to a strange whimsical land where anything is possible.

Although Braid was built from the ground as a game where players learn from their mistakes until they achieve their goal (thus you can never die or fail, you just rewind and try again!) it can still test that noggin to the Nth degree and as such, you may want a visual aid to help you out in your adventure through this strange and wonderful land.

Give a look at these walkthrough videos from Earthbound12, MorrowJ, EatMoreHippo’s & SoulblitzJ below to help you out. Just keep in mind to only use them once you’ve given it your all in trying to solve a specific puzzle.

Braid Video Introduction

Braid Level 2 & 3 “Time & Mystery” Walkthrough


Braid Level 4 “Time & Place” Walkthrough

Braid Level 5 “Time & Decision” Walkthrough Part 1


Braid Level 5 “Time & Decision” Walkthrough Part 2


Braid Level 6 “Hesistance” Walkthrough Part 1

Braid Level 6 “Hesistance” Walkthrough Part 2

Key features of Braid:

* Forgiving yet challenging gameplay: Braid is a 2-D platform game where you can never die and never lose. Despite this, Braid is challenging—but the challenge is about solving puzzles, rather than forcing you to replay tricky jumps.
* Rich puzzle environment: Travel through a series of worlds searching for puzzle pieces, then solving puzzles by manipulating time: rewinding, creating parallel universes, setting up pockets of dilated time. The gameplay feels fresh and new; the puzzles are meant to inspire new ways of thinking.
* Aesthetic design: A painterly art style and lush, organic soundtrack complement the unique gameplay.
* Nonlinear story: A nonlinear fiction links the various worlds and provides real-world metaphors for your time manipulations; in turn, your time manipulations are projections of the real-world themes into playful “what-if” universes where consequences can be explored.
* Nonlinear gameplay: The game doesn’t force you to solve puzzles in order to proceed. If you can’t figure something out, just play onward and return to that puzzle later.

Source: videogamesblogger.com

From today, at 9AM GMT (2AM PDT), you can play Number None’s Braid on Xbox Live Arcade for Xbox 360. Braid will be available worldwide for 1200 Microsoft Points (that’s US$15 / €14.40 / £10.20 / CAN$18.60 / AU$19.80).

Manipulate the flow of time. Rescue the Princess. Contemplate the world; save yourself. Braid allows you to visit all the worlds, and thus use all the time-manipulation powers. Perhaps you will find the Princess and rescue her.

Key game features include:
* Forgiving yet challenging gameplay: Braid is a 2-D platform game where you can never die and never lose. Despite this, Braid is challenging—but the challenge is about solving puzzles, rather than forcing you to replay tricky jumps.
* Rich puzzle environment: Travel through a series of worlds searching for puzzle pieces, then solving puzzles by manipulating time: rewinding, creating parallel universes, setting up pockets of dilated time. The gameplay feels fresh and new; the puzzles are meant to inspire new ways of thinking.
* Aesthetic design: A painterly art style and lush, organic soundtrack complement the unique gameplay.
* Nonlinear story: A nonlinear fiction links the various worlds and provides real-world metaphors for your time manipulations; in turn, your time manipulations are projections of the real-world themes into playful “what-if” universes where consequences can be explored.
* Nonlinear gameplay: The game doesn’t force you to solve puzzles in order to proceed. If you can’t figure something out, just play onward and return to that puzzle later.

Like every week, there were also various downloadable Rock Band tracks released for the Xbox 360 version of the game in addition to 2007’s downloadable Rock Band content. Below’s listing shows the new tracks.

Content: Crüe Fest Pack 02
Price: 240 Microsoft Points
Availability: Not available in Asia , Australia and New Zealand
Dash Text: [ESRB: T (Teen) LYRICS,MILD SUGGESTIVE THEMES] Build your Rock Band library by purchasing this song game track pack: Crüe Fest Pack 02. This pack includes “Rescue Me” by Buckcherry, “Life is Beautiful” by Sixx:A.M., and “Face Down in the Dirt” by Mötley Crüe.

Content: “Rescue Me”
Price: 80 Microsoft Points
Availability: Not available in Asia , Australia and New Zealand
Dash Text: [ESRB: T (Teen) LYRICS,MILD SUGGESTIVE THEMES] Build your Rock Band library by purchasing this song game track: “Rescue Me”–Buckcherry.

Content: “Toxicity”
Price: 160 Microsoft Points
Availability: Not available in Asia , Australia and New Zealand
Dash Text: [ESRB: T (Teen) LYRICS,MILD SUGGESTIVE THEMES] Build your Rock Band library by purchasing this song game track: “Toxicity”–System of a Down.

Content: “B.Y.O.B.”
Price: 160 Microsoft Points
Availability: Not available in Asia , Australia and New Zealand
Dash Text: [ESRB: T (Teen) LYRICS,MILD SUGGESTIVE THEMES] Build your Rock Band library by purchasing this song game track: “B.Y.O.B.”–System of a Down.

Content: “Life is Beautiful”
Price: 80 Microsoft Points
Availability: Not available in Asia , Australia and New Zealand
Dash Text: [ESRB: T (Teen) LYRICS,MILD SUGGESTIVE THEMES] Build your Rock Band library by purchasing this song game track: “Life is Beautiful”–Sixx:A.M.

Content: “Face Down in the Dirt”
Price: 80 Microsoft Points
Availability: Not available in Asia , Australia and New Zealand
Dash Text: [ESRB: T (Teen) LYRICS,MILD SUGGESTIVE THEMES] Build your Rock Band library by purchasing this song game track: “Face Down in the Dirt”–Mötley Crüe.

* PLEASE NOTE: Many Rock Band song game tracks are available as both a multipack and as a single game track. These song game tracks are exactly the same (unless expressly noted as a special version or remix). Be aware that it is possible to download the same song game track twice so please carefully consider your purchases. For music credits, visit www.RockBand.com.