Braid

Story

Tim is a man who is on a quest to find a princess who has been "kidnapped by a terrible and evil monster." His relationship with this princess is vague at best, and the only clear part of that relationship is that Tim has made some sort of mistake that he wants to make amends for or, if possible, erase. As you make your way through the six worlds in Braid, the text at the beginning of each world provides further insight into Tim's quest for the princess and alludes to the overarching gameplay mechanics of each level. Themes addressed include forgiveness, longing, and frustration. In the final level, where everything but Tim moves backwards, the princess flees from a knight and works with Tim to overcome obstacles and get to her house. Tim is suddenly locked out of the house, and as time moves forward, undoing Tim's actions, events show the princess running away from Tim and setting traps for him to avoid until she is rescued by the knight. Tim turns out to be the "monster" from whom the princess is running. After completing the game, the player will find additional texts that expand the story. The ending of the game is intentionally ambiguous and has been interpreted several times. One theory, based on a hidden event and Kenneth Bainbridge's famous quote after the detonation of the first atomic bomb-"Now we're all sons of bitches"-states that the princess represents the atomic bomb and Tim is a scientist involved in its development.[20] Some also refer to the game's name as a reference to the princess's braid of hair that Tim is looking for, as well as the intertwining of time represented by the various time mechanisms in the game. Journalists believe that the plot of Braid is interwoven with the game itself, much like the book Dictionary of the Khazars and the films Memento and Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind weave narrative into the construction of the work. In this sense, some have considered the game as a simple credo, such as "you must look back to move forward," according to Eurogamer's Dan Whitehead. Others have compared Braid to punk rock, designed (as Blow explicitly stated) as a statement against the status quo of the industry. It is believed to deconstruct traditional game concepts such as jumping on enemies or rescuing a princess from a castle, as borrowed from Super Mario Bros, and rebuild them in-game to force the player to rethink current game design. Blow has stated that there is more than one interpretation of the story; he would "not be able" to explain the entire story of the game in words, saying that the central idea is "something big and subtle that resists being looked at directly." For Blow, Braid is "about the journey, not the destination." He intentionally designed the plot so that it is not fully revealed to the player until they complete the game, to give them a "longer-term challenge."