Braid - 8 Years Later
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It's been about eight or nine years since I finished Braid. It wasn’t my first or second attempt, but maybe my third or fourth. When I found out about it ten years ago and tried it, something didn’t quite add up – what was this strange specimen of a game? Was it a game at all? What was it trying to tell me? It was weird, fantastical, visually beautiful. I couldn’t finish it that time. Maybe it was too hard, maybe I wasn’t at the right place to tame such an odd beast. Though months had passed, where most other games slowly departed my memory into oblivion, a fraction of Braid still echoed within me, almost calling, teasing, saying: "I hold promise within me. I will deliver. Unwrap me and learn my secrets." So I gave in, and sat for a second playthrough, this time saying to myself that no matter what I'm gonna finish this game whatever it takes I'll do it! But no, still no 'luck' that time as well. So I figured maybe it's not written in the stars, for me and Braid, maybe we ought to go our separate ways and forget about each other. A year, maybe two, had gone by without me thinking about the game, its last remnants leaving my system like traces of alcohol from an addict's body. But things like that tend to come back like a boomerang and be all up in your face no matter how far you've thrown them, like a persistent and determined Jehovah's Witness standing on your doorstep holding a sign that says: "Well, maybe you're not good enough?"
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Wasn’t I good enough? Smart enough to finish Braid? Were the puzzles too hard? Almost everybody wants to feel like they're worth something, like they have value, whatever they believe is worth having value in, like physical prowess, intellect, cooking, photography, drawing… My self-worth, at that time, was tightly connected to Braid, as in I had to finish it, or rather conquer it, to feel like I have value. So there I was in front of that gorgeous title screen, a burning city in the background dotted with stars at night, and again I'm entering the house with different rooms that represent time in a way that's unique and interesting. It was about midgame that I realized I approached this whole matter with the wrong attitude – this game wasn’t to be tamed, it could not. Instead it tamed me, not aggressively but harmonically. Every time I found a solution to a puzzle it made me feel smart and worthy. There was nothing grand in return – no in game currency, bonuses, secret levels or hidden boss fights, just the satisfaction of figuring out what to do and allowing Tim the protagonist(/antagonist) to continue his quest to find the princess.
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I heard someone once say that great works of art are ever-giving, not withholding anything from the one who experience them, they're unbelievably generous and open and rich. Layers upon layers of heart and soul poured into them. I agree wholeheartedly. I forgot who said that. For me, Braid definitely falls into that category.
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So, what's Braid about?
That’s an impossible question – like trying to decipher 'Synecdoche, New York' or 'Stalker'. It means different things to different people. Everyone's experiencing it in their own way. Yes, there's some kind of story here about Tim and the princess, albeit not a coherent one, and that’s on purpose. Is the game about relationships? Self-destruction? The atomic bomb? The human condition through infinity? A critique about the gaming industry? Who the fuck knows, really. It may be nothing of those things, it may be everything. Most of all the game is trying to evoke certain emotions, certain memories, a fragment of the game will launch you into your own psyche and stay there with you in a dream-like dance, both of you turning into one and then separating in a never ending cycle.
Ten years had passed since I discovered Braid, and in a way it was like a gateway. It opened a part in me I didn’t even know I had. I still think about it to this day, and probably will as long as I live. I know I can revisit Braid whenever I want.
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That’s just truly, unbelievably comforting.
