Fri 8 Aug 2008
Indie Games Rock Socks Off
Posted by Mandrake under Gaming, Pimping
[7] Comments
I played a couple of awesome games this week and I’d like to talk about them (one more than the other, but I promise they are both quite good.) Some of this will be repeated by me when the next episode of the Godcast is released, but I think it’s worth reading/hearing twice. 
On Monday I snagged Petri Purho’s Choke on my Groundhog, YOU BASTARD ROBOTS. It’s a Windows game, and well worth your time. Games like this make me very happy; there are no strict penalties for slow reflexes. It’s an old school shooter with an insanely enjoyable spin. I don’t want to give too much away, because I think the process of figuring out a game like this is almost as much fun as the gameplay itself. My only real complaint is that the game is too short, but in the comments on Petri’s blog you can find information about creating your own levels.
I find it refreshing to play a game that is just all about fun. There is no score. There is no limit to how many lives you have. Actually, being bad at the game makes it more fun. It’s a very clever game that you can play for five or ten minutes and walk away feeling very satisfied that it was time well spent.
On Wednesday, I read a post on Petri’s blog about Braid, which was released on Xbox Live Arcade that day. I have been follwing Petri’s blog since I first saw Crayon Physics last year. I’ve played many of the games he has posted and have come to respect him as a developer and a game designer. So when he said that he was planning to go out and buy an Xbox 360 just so he could play Braid, I figured that I should play it too.
If you own an Xbox 360, I hereby declare that you are obligated to purchase, play, and love Braid. Some people may look at the 1200MSP price tag and cringe. Worry not, fellow gamers, this title is well worth the money.
Braid is a side-scrolling platformer that feels very comfortable. It’s a puzzle game that is all about time manipulation. Since you are free to move back in time, there are no strict penalties for death. If you die at the end of a level, there is no need to start all over. Just rewind a little bit and try that jump again.
There are six worlds and each has its own rules for how time works. Figuring out what the trick is at the start of each world was a lot of fun. The puzzles are all very reasonable, as well. Some are easy and some are really hard, but they’re always reasonable. A lot of care went into the design of this game. If you are having trouble figuring out a particular puzzle, you can move on and come back later. The game isn’t linear.
It didn’t take me long to finish the game, but I think I would still rank it in my top 10 games of all time. It is an experience that will stick with me. Braid is a game with a message. I think I know what it was trying to tell me, but I could easily be wrong. This is a game that cries out, “Please discuss me with your friends!” Jonathan Blow and David Hellman have made a wonderful product and are worthy of our praise.
Now that I mentioned David, I supposed I should also note that the game looks beautiful. Screenshots don’t do it justice. Everything is constantly moving and the backgrounds can get extremely colorful. I’m sure that the painted visual style of the game has something to do with Braid’s overall message. So much thought went into this game that I can’t imagine any design decisions were made just because they would “look cool.”
Thanks to Jonathan and David for making a great game that made me think. Thanks to Petri for making such a strong recommendation and convincing me to buy a game that I otherwise would have probably overlooked. And, most of all, thanks to everybody who buys this game and supports the future development of great independent titles. I could definitely stand to see more of this on XBLA.
Penny Arcade made a comic about Braid today. I plan on trying it over the weekend. But if this game isn’t awesome you are all getting put on notice.
After reading that PA comic, I did a Google search for “braid is too expensive.”
I can’t believe how much people are bitching about paying $15 for a game! Some people have even said that it’s “waaaayyyyyyyy too much” even thought most people said that they’d have happily paid $10 for it. I don’t understand how these jackasses are calculating value.
It makes me mad that so many people are going to pass this game up because they need to hold onto that $5 to buy themselves a double whopper or something. Don’t get me wrong… double whoppers are delicious, they just don’t compare to time-travel-puzzle-solving.
I just made myself really hungry.
people have twisted thoughts about what they will and will not spend money on. I still haven’t bought the PA game, because I downloaded the demo, and it didn’t knock my socks off to the point that it was worth plunking down $20 on.
However, I noticed im up to like ONE HUNDRED AND TWENTY songs in rock band. holy crap man, that’s a lot of bones spent on songs.
The Braid demo was fun, game looks pretty short for the money though
I think you may need to be willing to pay a premium for indie games. It’s like organic food at the supermarket: you can’t produce them in bulk because the infrastructure is different, so expect to pay more than you’re used to. In the end people seem to value what they get for the money.
The PA game got WAY more fun as the game progressed. Combat was simplistic and boring early on, but got to be more interesting when the enemies and items and tactics finally peaked. The humor was good, but you have to enjoy the game to keep playing.
Braid takes somewhere between 3 and 8 hours I’d estimate. Lower if you’re a Timelord or other master of time and space, higher if your brain freaks out when you have to coordinate multiple time lines moving in separate directions. If you use $/hr ratios as your sole entertainment purchasing algorithm then just check if $15/4hr meets your Purchase Threshhold. If you don’t rely on equations to enjoy games then you can’t go wrong with Braid.
PS It’s worth more than $15, regardless of length.
Oh 4 hours isn’t too bad, from the demo it looked like it would take me about an hour cuz I completed the first world pretty quick, but i guess its resonable the game would get tougher.
15 bucks for 4 hours is pretty close to my threshold and all the reviews I’ve read say I need to play the game so maybe I will check it out, if only I had a 360