Author Topic: Braid (XBLA)  (Read 9233 times)

Offline Cobra951

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Braid (XBLA)
« on: Friday, August 08, 2008, 04:07:22 PM »
I played the trial for this last night and I'm on the verge of buying it with the points I have left on account.  It's wildly original and beautifully done.  What's making me hesitate is the $15 price tag and the reported shortness of the game.  It's gotten quite a bit of positive attention, and you get a good sense of why from the trial.  It's a 2D platformer, but not really.  Time manipulation is everything to solve the devious puzzles, and manipulating time at will negates all platforming challenge.  Anyone who can should try it.  Now I have a hard decision to make.  I hate to encourage higher price points for shorter games.  This one may be worth the risk.

Offline wizall

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Re: Braid (XBLA)
« Reply #1 on: Sunday, August 10, 2008, 10:14:41 AM »
I feel precisely the same.  I enjoyed it quite a bit and I don't generally like platformers.  I'm torn.

Offline Cobra951

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Re: Braid (XBLA)
« Reply #2 on: Monday, August 11, 2008, 11:41:58 AM »
Well, I broke down yesterday and spent 1200 of my remaining 1360 MS points (which won't be getting augmented anytime soon) on this.  As I said, the game is all about time-based puzzles in the guise of a 2D platformer.  I went through 4 of the worlds, though I was only able to complete the jigsaws on the first 2.  I have a few pieces in the others absolutely kicking my ass.

The game is indie all the way.  The graphics look and move sort of like Aquaria's.  Good atmospheric music accompanies them, getting warped appropriately by the time elements in the game.  You do need some platforming skill, and unlike my initial impression, you don't always get infinite redo's.  There are things in the game which are not affected by the reversal of time.  These can be used by the game in maddening ways, forcing you to exit an area and reenter to reset the puzzle, or retry fairly lengthy sequences.  Nothing wrong with that.

Regarding the historically high cost, the author detailed his thoughts and experiences on his page as a reply to a comment.

Quote
#  Jonathan Blow Says:
August 10th, 2008 at 6:06 pm

Electro: Braid took about 3 years and 5 months to make, though there were some breaks in there, so if you condense it down it’s less. I did consulting at some points during Braid to have some income, but I eventually stopped this and got a loan to finish the game, because I felt the consulting was interfering with my ability to work on Braid in a concentrated way, and thought that the quality of the game might suffer (and that it would take too long to be finished).

As for how much money it takes to break even — it’s a lot. When all those people on forums complain about the price of XBLA game, what they don’t realize is that almost everyone is losing money on these games. (It’s just economy of scale; if only 60,000 people buy a game, and it costs $10, not enough money ends up in the developer’s hands to justify anything but making shovelware.)

For me to truly break even (i.e. not be financially punished for choosing to make this game), I would have to earn back:

(1) The testing, localization and ratings board submission advance that was put forth by Microsoft. (This is a significant chunk of money.)
(2) All the money I paid other people to work on the art, sound, and extra programming. (This is A LOT).
(3) Replace the savings I spent for cost-of-living, buying software and hardware, and stuff like that, during the years spent developing Braid.
(4) Pay back other misc debts that accrued during this time due to me being broke and / or focusing money on finishing the game (e.g. the taxes I did not pay last year.. that’s sizable).
(5) If I hadn’t been working on Braid, I would have had a job for those years, so… years worth of income at a reasonable-to-high-end job. (Realistically speaking, this part is just not going to happen — I used to do game technology consulting and bill at a very high hourly rate. So rather than expecting to make that, my attitude is just, to make *something* reasonable).

Now, the kicker is that 1-2 are pre-tax, but 3-5 are post-tax. So any money that doesn’t go directly into paying off the advance or the people who worked on the game, gets automatically divided by 2 (as I get mauled by the IRS and the state where I live).

So the way you figure out how much money Braid is making, is:

Take the total number of copies sold, multiply that by $15.
Multiply that by a fraction higher than .5 but less than .8.
Subtract two big numbers from that.
If the result so far is positive, divide it by two.
Subtract two or three more big numbers.

Right now this comes out to a significantly negative number, but the hopes are that over time it will come out positive.

That all makes sense, but I still think at some point not too far in the future, he needs to drop the price to fall in line with expectations, to get continued sales.  Nothing wrong with grabbing the eager early crowds at the higher price, though.

Offline Cobra951

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Re: Braid (XBLA)
« Reply #3 on: Tuesday, August 12, 2008, 11:09:56 AM »
Finished it last night.  It left me with more questions than it answered.  The story gets increasingly enigmatic toward the end.  I'm left with the impression that it isn't really important to the game, regardless of press to the contrary.  I don't really know what happened, though I have some vague notions.  The game is indeed short and there isn't much reason to replay it.  One speed run should end all my interest.  It's all about the puzzles, each one unique.  My conclusion is that there isn't enough here for the price tag.  Nicely done, but not nearly enough of it.

Edit:  I have one more observation.  How gratuitous it may be I'll leave for others to judge.  This is an ideal reviewer's game.  It is very good and very short.  Reviewers get free copies (as acknowledged by the author, who mentioned thousands of free copies) so bang for the buck is infinite.  And no deadlines are strained, because the whole experience is finished in 2 sittings, 1 if they cheat or they're a lot smarter than I am.

Offline iPPi

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Re: Braid (XBLA)
« Reply #4 on: Sunday, August 17, 2008, 11:11:30 PM »
I tried the trial version and am really impressed.  Very tempted to pick up the full version of this game... but the 1200 point price tag is making me think about it first.

Offline PyroMenace

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Re: Braid (XBLA)
« Reply #5 on: Monday, August 18, 2008, 10:29:51 PM »
Theres alot of over critical analysis of this game which seems silly to me. It looks great and its got of alot of great ideas and conventions going for it but people are getting all these genius vibes coming out of it like theres all these subliminal deep layers hidden within. I havent played it yet so I cant speak to any of it, but I wanna say if perhaps Super Mario Bros. 2 was released now and it didnt include the ending sequence of the game people would be doing the same thing with this.

Offline Cobra951

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Re: Braid (XBLA)
« Reply #6 on: Monday, August 18, 2008, 11:36:13 PM »
Everyone goes on and on about the hidden meanings in Braid, and while it's all interesting, it doesn't change what the game is at all.  The object is to solve unique puzzles in a 2D sidescrolling platformer with several different takes on time manipulation.  It's beautifully drawn, with backgrounds that look alive in a surreal way.  It has some gorgeous music licensed from a few Magnatune artists.  It's inventive and a good way to spend a couple of evenings in deep thought.  Then it ends and there is little reason to go through it again--except for a second layer of secrets that is so obscure that I dare anyone to complete it without reading anything about it.  Without some inkling that it exists, chances are you won't even know it's there.

A lot of care went into it, and it does work on more than one level, story-wise.  Whatever you do, don't look up any answers until after you complete the game once.  Otherwise, you're wasting your money.

Offline iPPi

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Re: Braid (XBLA)
« Reply #7 on: Tuesday, August 19, 2008, 01:15:20 PM »
Bought it yesterday... hoping to spend some time on this sometime this week.

Offline MysterD

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Re: Braid (XBLA)
« Reply #8 on: Saturday, August 30, 2008, 03:56:13 PM »

Offline iPPi

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Re: Braid (XBLA)
« Reply #9 on: Sunday, August 31, 2008, 11:41:53 AM »
I finished this up last week and was blown away.  The story isn't very clear, but the end does reveal some very interesting things.  Apparently, there is still stuff to do once you have acquired all 60 puzzle pieces.  I'm not sure if I'm going to go back and pick those up though. 

Really good game and definitely worth playing.

Offline Cobra951

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Re: Braid (XBLA)
« Reply #10 on: Monday, September 01, 2008, 07:18:44 AM »
I finished this up last week and was blown away.  The story isn't very clear, but the end does reveal some very interesting things.  Apparently, there is still stuff to do once you have acquired all 60 puzzle pieces.  I'm not sure if I'm going to go back and pick those up though. 

I started to, then gave it up.  It's there for obsessive completists.

Offline Quemaqua

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Re: Braid (XBLA)
« Reply #11 on: Tuesday, September 16, 2008, 06:55:44 PM »
You guys really have to watch this, if only so you can immediately want to kill yourself afterward.  No, seriously.  Watch it and laugh.  Or cry.  Or... be completely unaffected.  Whatever.

天才的な閃きと平均以下のテクニックやな。 課長有野

Offline Cobra951

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Re: Braid (XBLA)
« Reply #12 on: Tuesday, September 16, 2008, 09:35:13 PM »
I can't comment about that in a non-racist way.  So I will abstain.

Offline Ghandi

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Re: Braid (XBLA)
« Reply #13 on: Tuesday, September 16, 2008, 09:48:06 PM »
I can. That guy is a fucking idiot. It's not racist. He's just an idiot. Plus his songs suck.

Offline Quemaqua

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Re: Braid (XBLA)
« Reply #14 on: Tuesday, September 16, 2008, 10:00:45 PM »
Yesss.... bring me your hate.  It fuels my powers.

天才的な閃きと平均以下のテクニックやな。 課長有野

Offline MysterD

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Offline sirean_syan

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Re: Braid (XBLA)
« Reply #16 on: Monday, December 22, 2008, 08:11:13 PM »
Thank god. Now I just need to hear that Rez HD is coming to PSN and my life will be complete.

Offline gpw12

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Re: Braid (XBLA)
« Reply #17 on: Monday, December 22, 2008, 10:09:21 PM »
Did I post about REZ in DC emulation?  It works very well.   That aside, REZ HD would probably be the first thing I'd buy off of either PSN or Live!

Offline MysterD

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Re: Braid (XBLA)
« Reply #18 on: Tuesday, February 17, 2009, 02:39:14 PM »

Offline idolminds

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Re: Braid (XBLA)
« Reply #19 on: Tuesday, February 17, 2009, 03:17:38 PM »
On one hand, woo! Great!

On the other hand, an 8 month wait plus a price hike? Seriously?

Offline Xessive

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Re: Braid (XBLA)
« Reply #20 on: Tuesday, February 17, 2009, 06:41:38 PM »
Hmm, why is it more expensive on PC? That's the opposite of.. everything else.

Offline Quemaqua

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Re: Braid (XBLA)
« Reply #21 on: Tuesday, February 17, 2009, 06:47:08 PM »
I'm glad it's on Impulse, but the douchebag that makes that game can go fuck himself.  I'm not paying $20 for that when everyone else got it for half that.

天才的な閃きと平均以下のテクニックやな。 課長有野

Offline MysterD

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Re: Braid (XBLA)
« Reply #22 on: Tuesday, February 17, 2009, 07:23:36 PM »
Is there like any new or extra content?

I guess it'll be worth a buy if it has one of those weekend sales Impulse (or Steam) has for really dirt cheap pricing.

Offline idolminds

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Re: Braid (XBLA)
« Reply #23 on: Wednesday, February 18, 2009, 01:43:12 PM »
They have decided to lower the price to $15, which matches the 360 version. Which is great, but from his explanation it seems like he doesn't understand why people were upset.

Quote
Some people have asked why I picked the $20 price point. The answer is, I just looked at some comparable games on the PC and saw how much they were charging. Crayon Physics Deluxe, World of Goo, and Aquaria, among many others, are all priced at $20. It seemed reasonable not to charge less for Braid than for those games.
That is reasonable logic if this was the initial release of the game on its primary platform. Its not. You already charged less for the game someplace else. Do you think PC gamers are stupid and wouldn't notice?

Offline Cobra951

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Re: Braid (XBLA)
« Reply #24 on: Wednesday, February 18, 2009, 04:42:32 PM »
To be honest, I don't understand it either.  It's worth what people will pay for it, and $5 is hardly a ripoff markup anyway.  (The XBLA price is itself a $5 markup from the previously established $10 for new games.  Now it may become the new norm.)  $20 is a common price for good downloadable independent PC games.

I just read about this on Joystiq.  You beat me to it.

Offline Pugnate

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Re: Braid (XBLA)
« Reply #25 on: Wednesday, February 18, 2009, 04:53:40 PM »
I am glad he came to his senses quickly, well before release... PC gamers love finding excuses to pirate.

"What? HE IS CHARGING $5 EXTRA? HOW DARE HE? THAT'S IT! I AM TAKING THIS FOR FREE!"

:P

edit:

J. Blow responds to a comment on his blog: "I’m not some kind of weird platform loyalist. The PC is not some sports team that is playing the Xbox 360 for the World Cup. "

hahahaha

That made me laugh because that's the sorta thing I've told fanboys countless times before. Some of these people favor their one platform so vehemently, that they believe that developers and company executives carry the same favoritism. :P


Offline Xessive

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Re: Braid (XBLA)
« Reply #26 on: Wednesday, February 18, 2009, 05:52:32 PM »
Sometimes they do *cough*Cliff Bleszinski*cough*

Offline Quemaqua

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Re: Braid (XBLA)
« Reply #27 on: Wednesday, February 18, 2009, 06:02:35 PM »
Yeah, a lot of them do, actually.

I thought the game was originally $10.  From what I've seen, it seems like $15 might even be a bit of a stretch.  No offense to the dude, but the amount of game you get with Braid (at least from what I understand -- I've never owned it) compared to something like Aquaria is laughable, unless you're really stupid and take ten hours to solve each puzzle.

Eh.  Whatever.  It's another one of those games that's been blown up so much I just can't bring myself to care.  Like Portal, which I actually bought, but still find too boring and simplistic to actually complete.

天才的な閃きと平均以下のテクニックやな。 課長有野

Offline idolminds

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Re: Braid (XBLA)
« Reply #28 on: Wednesday, February 18, 2009, 06:08:37 PM »
Heh, yeah. Saying you're going to now go pirate it over $5 is stupid. Wait for a price drop or a sale or something.

Its not so much it was $20. If it launched at that price I'd be cool with that. But you can't expect to charge $5 MORE months after the original release on another platform for what seems like no gain. Ok, well..you *can* charge more, but you shouldn't be surprised that people would bitch.

Jonathan probably wasn't showing favoritism, but I think he underestimated the PC audience. If you decide to pull stuff like this, expect to offer a reason better than "Because the other guys charge more than I initially did."

Offline MysterD

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Re: Braid (XBLA)
« Reply #29 on: Wednesday, February 18, 2009, 06:27:29 PM »
Heh, yeah. Saying you're going to now go pirate it over $5 is stupid. Wait for a price drop or a sale or something.
Exactly.

Quote
Its not so much it was $20. If it launched at that price I'd be cool with that. But you can't expect to charge $5 MORE months after the original release on another platform for what seems like no gain. Ok, well..you *can* charge more, but you shouldn't be surprised that people would bitch.
If you're gonna charge more, then better be some sort of benefit -- i.e. some more NEW extra content.

Quote
Jonathan probably wasn't showing favoritism, but I think he underestimated the PC audience. If you decide to pull stuff like this, expect to offer a reason better than "Because the other guys charge more than I initially did."
PC Gamers ain't mindless sheep.
They got minds of their own.

Offline Xessive

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Re: Braid (XBLA)
« Reply #30 on: Wednesday, February 18, 2009, 06:29:14 PM »
Are they not sheeple?

Offline Quemaqua

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Re: Braid (XBLA)
« Reply #31 on: Wednesday, February 18, 2009, 06:31:35 PM »
Especially when you consider that for most console releases, it's cheaper to buy things on PC.  So if I can buy a new game on 360 for $60, and the same game on PC for $50, he should be charging $10 for his game on PC.  Or $5.  Or, you know, make it freeware like the dozens of deep, lasting, or legendary games we've got already that cost absolutely nothing and which provide more gameplay.  I don't understand why people don't realize that you need to give people a reason to buy your game.  I mean, you need a compelling reason, plain and simple, and you certainly can't expect to jack up your price for absolutely no consumer-centric reason.  Braid's concept may be unique and cool, but it isn't that amazing.  It's just another puzzle game with its own twist, which is fine; but you can only get away with calling a short, mildly clever puzzle game astounding and innovative if you're Valve.

Besides that, when you delay the release as long as he did for one platform you have to expect excitement to be at an all-time low.  Tons of PC gamers haven't played Braid, but we've already seen a lot of what makes it special.  What's to get all worked up about now?  Playing a game everybody else was done being excited about last year?  Of course that's not everything, especially not to anyone who plays games for the experience rather than getting into the mob mentality, but if you don't consider momentum as a game developer or publisher, you're pretty stupid.

EDIT - Er, that was in response to Idol's post.  You other people post stuff faster than I do.

天才的な閃きと平均以下のテクニックやな。 課長有野

Offline MysterD

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Re: Braid (XBLA)
« Reply #32 on: Wednesday, February 18, 2009, 06:35:29 PM »
Especially when you consider that for most console releases, it's cheaper to buy things on PC.  So if I can buy a new game on 360 for $60, and the same game on PC for $50, he should be charging $10 for his game on PC.  Or $5.
Amen.

Quote
 It's just another puzzle game with its own twist, which is fine; but you can only get away with calling a short, mildly clever puzzle game astounding and innovative if you're Valve.
LMAO @ that!

Quote
Besides that, when you delay the release as long as he did for one platform you have to expect excitement to be at an all-time low.  Tons of PC gamers haven't played Braid, but we've already seen a lot of what makes it special.  What's to get all worked up about now?  Playing a game everybody else was done being excited about last year?  Of course that's not everything, especially not to anyone who plays games for the experience rather than getting into the mob mentality, but if you don't consider momentum as a game developer or publisher, you're pretty stupid.
Que hit the nail in the coffin here.

Offline Cobra951

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Re: Braid (XBLA)
« Reply #33 on: Wednesday, February 18, 2009, 09:34:58 PM »
I'm still missing something here.  How has he insulted anyone?  The game is certainly old news to me, but that's because I own a 360.  Those without access to one haven't experienced the game, so it's new to them.  JB is is a force of one, so it only stands to reason that ports wouldn't be in the pipeline simultaneously with the original console release.  That's a lot of work and it takes time.  He was also right on the money, literally.  At $10 a shot it would not have paid the bills.  Some of it undeniably was luck.  He struck a nerve with the critics and public that no one could have predicted.  Braid could have withered on the vine, but it didn't.

The shoe is on the other foot with Flower.  That game intrigues me, but it will remain no more than trailers and conversation until it gets ported to something I have access to.  It will be new to me then.  This doesn't exactly offer dozens of hours of unrepeated gameplay either, does it?

Offline idolminds

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Re: Braid (XBLA)
« Reply #34 on: Wednesday, February 18, 2009, 10:17:40 PM »
Porting cost would be minimal, and if anything porting costs were covered when he made it for 360. The game was originally shown and developed (for quite some time) on PC. So its hard to say if this is actually a port, or just him finally being able to release it on this platform.

Offline Pugnate

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Re: Braid (XBLA)
« Reply #35 on: Thursday, February 19, 2009, 01:00:20 AM »
Sometimes they do *cough*Cliff Bleszinski*cough*

Lol yes. Forgot about him.

Offline Quemaqua

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Re: Braid (XBLA)
« Reply #36 on: Thursday, February 19, 2009, 01:49:02 AM »
The shoe is on the other foot with Flower.  That game intrigues me, but it will remain no more than trailers and conversation until it gets ported to something I have access to.  It will be new to me then.  This doesn't exactly offer dozens of hours of unrepeated gameplay either, does it?

No, but it's genuine art with a deeply emotive core, where Braid is just a puzzle game that tries to be artsy by applying liberal doses of convoluted exposition that don't make sense to anyone.

天才的な閃きと平均以下のテクニックやな。 課長有野

Offline Xessive

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Re: Braid (XBLA)
« Reply #37 on: Thursday, February 19, 2009, 05:36:29 AM »
I think this is essentially the same argument as the delayed release of Gears of War for PC. Epic were baffled at how people just weren't as excited about it, even though it was released a little over a year after the X360 version. They added a chapter too, but a chapter is not a whole game in itself; it was only about an additional 1-2 hours of gameplay anyway.

Offline Cobra951

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Re: Braid (XBLA)
« Reply #38 on: Thursday, February 19, 2009, 08:25:08 AM »
No, but it's genuine art with a deeply emotive core, where Braid is just a puzzle game that tries to be artsy by applying liberal doses of convoluted exposition that don't make sense to anyone.

You can't understand Braid without playing it anymore than I can understand Flower by thinking of Flow (a game that first perplexed me and then bored me).  It's not like you to bash so resolutely an indie game you haven't played, and I wonder why you're so determined.

Offline Quemaqua

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Re: Braid (XBLA)
« Reply #39 on: Thursday, February 19, 2009, 08:37:30 AM »
Well, I've played it a bit, and every review I read said the same thing.  Even most people who really liked the game said the story exposition, while interesting, was sort of incomprehensible and made no real sense.  I'm not saying Braid is a bad game, I'm saying it's not achieving (or even trying to achieve) the same thing as Flower.  They're really not games you can compare to one another, and given my own personal preferences, I place Flower as much more worthy for what it accomplished just because its more resonant with me.

To be honest with you, I just don't like Jonathan Blow.  I've read some of his comments here and there, read interviews, and heard podcasts and stuff at events where he was present, and he just strikes me as an asshat.  That's no reflection on his game, but it doesn't surprise me in the least that he thought it'd be a great idea to charge $20 for his game on PC.  He just seems like that kind of guy.

天才的な閃きと平均以下のテクニックやな。 課長有野