Steve, its a fair point that has come up with certain art games so I have put some amount of thought into it.
My answer is that I have zero problem with Jons or others articulation of the intent adding to or even being required, to appreciate those aspects. I regard commentary, artist statements and the like as enjoyable parts of the work. Several of my arty friends verhemently disagree and think explanation = fail so opinion is divided but I am on the strong case for explanation side.
I also like context, so yes I think a branch laid out in an art gallery is more worthy of my attention than one fallen in a wood. Because of its location and the artists intent. I like that, I am into it, I also unashamedly wholly embrace the modern art movement with its concrete houses, 40ft high flower puppies and cut up sharks. I appreciate it, love it and think its very important in the history of art. I am a true believer sir :)
Now as it happens I dont think Braid does require this at all for anyone familiar with platformers as it has a pretty overt plot to guide you through it.
As for the rep of Braid being a big arty game and getting attention based on it, would that be so bad? Are there not a lot of books or movies that have pre release anticiapation based on the potential of the creators that gets folks excited?
yay…finally something to use those 800 points, left over from the CoD4 map pack, on. Between this and Eden dowloadable games are looking pretty sweet these days.
How many dollars is a point usually, $1 = 100 points? If not, someone should die, and then another someone should start a trend putting the dollar value in parenthesis like the metric system.
Having heard none of the hype, I played Braid at an art game venue in 2007. As I was playing it, a smile crept across my face. And I rarely ever smile.
As soon as I buy an Xbox 360, the first game I play on it will be Braid. Because it made me smile.
I don’t disagree with any of this, but I guess I’m interested in it from the other side. I mean, let’s say Braid just appeared one day out of the blue from some random developer; would you have the same reaction? If not, is the game really “all that,” or are you wrapped up in what its author says it’s doing more than what it’s really doing? I could wax all poetic and pretentious about the shittiest game on the planet, but that doesn’t magically make it less shitty.
I guess my own feeling is that I’m more like the people who say that requiring out-of-game/installation/art gallery context = fail. But I suppose the gallery provides some context for the art; is a blog or speech the equivalent for a game? If so, I’m going to go with “fail” again. I’ve no issue if something requires a greater understanding on the part of the viewer/player/whatever in order to “get” the work. But I still want that understanding and meaning to come from the work alone, not from something the creator says in an interview.
Which makes it sound like I’m bashing Braid or something, and I’m not; I tested it for a bit, sent in a bug, and had a genuinely great time with it and will probably buy it tomorrow. Its best feature is that it presents you with problems that you think you can’t solve, but you inevitably discover something later on that gives you an incredibly gratifying “a ha!” moment as you return to that previously unsolvable problem and proceed to easily solve it. That it does this without forcing you to unlock things is very clever.
As for the rep of Braid being a big arty game and getting attention based on it, would that be so bad? Are there not a lot of books or movies that have pre release anticiapation based on the potential of the creators that gets folks excited?
Oh, I don’t think it’s bad at all. I just wonder if people are seeing things in the game because they’re actually in the game, or they’re sort of buying it on faith that there are these amazing incredible things with big giant thoughts behind them because its creator says they’re there.
And on the flipside, I might have those same big giant thoughts and use them in my own products but choose not to articulate them publicly; does that make my own products lesser art, and would you see those big giant thoughts without me telling you they’re there?
Really…thats a drag, probably won’t bother then since I can’t just buy 400 points and I never know what to do with my leftover points. There just isn’t much on XBLA that I want.
I believe it was discussed in the Braid playtesting topic that the version of Braid that was beta’d by Qt3 folk wasn’t a “production” game, but rather a port of the 360 version for playtesting purposes.
The implication was that a PC version is likely, but not like, next week. More dev work to be done.
(Either that, or I’m dreaming Qt3 threads again.)
Blue Guyute, you can’t buy 400 points, but you can buy 500… That still leaves you with 100 points, so it’s whether Braid’s worth having $1.20 sitting around with nothing to spend it on to you. :)
You seem to be saying one of two things, or maybe both?
Some games get more PR than other games, sometimes through buying advertisements and regular marketing, sometimes through more grass roots channels. Jon has done a good job at the latter, with integrity, so yes, it’s a bummer if somebody else makes a game that is just as good but the author doesn’t have Jon’s flair for getting press, but that’s just a fundamental fact about capitalism and selling stuff, isn’t it? Reviewers and critics are supposed to help with this sort of thing, but the person with the clue about PR is going to have an advantage. One of the cool things about games (and entertainment in general) is that works are rarely actually competing with each other, so you can have the hyped-favorite and the cult-favorite and they can coexist peacefully.
The game has a lot of PR in art-game circles, and you’re not sure it is all that on the art front. That’s fine, I’m not sure it is either (and Jon’s one of my best friends), but if it’s a good game and you like playing it, and some people want to read all sorts of stuff into it, and Jon wants to claim there’s all sorts of stuff in it (sometimes in concert with #1 above), who cares? The game, the artifact you download, is either good or bad according to your sensibilities, whether aesthetic or purely “is it worth N points”. The rest is just noise. You can be annoyed that it gets press for being arty that you don’t think it deserves, but you’re probably not going to convince Rod or another thoughtful believer that it’s not actually arty.
I’m one of the people Rod’s talking about in the “anti-intent” camp, so for me, it comes down to “is the game itself good?” and I don’t care about what the author says about it. Braid is a good game (or was when I last played it, gotta buy it soon), and so to me it’s not such a bad thing that it’s getting all sorts of press and whatnot. Better than people hyping some random reanimated classic game on xbla, I think. Not saying you shouldn’t call it out if you think it’s BS, I’m just saying there are way more heinous examples of badness every day in this industry.
I knew nothing about Jon and very little about Braid when I first played it, and had never heard the former talk about the latter. Its appeal is immediate and obvious. I guess I don’t know which specific big ideas you’re suggesting needed external explaination, but everything I love about Braid the game itself explained to me directly.
I don’t think the connection between the game mechanics and the story is part of the appeal, but even that is shoved in your face by the game. It does everything but have a pop-up window saying “Hey, check out how the story of this chapter is about the new mechanic it introduces!”
I’m sure its true that fewer people would have played Braid without Jon’s talks, that’s presumably the point of them. But I think anyone who plays the game and still needs a Power Point presentation to tell them why it’s special is just fundamentally a bit slow.
It doesn’t feel to me like the hype for the game is coming from Blow’s long talks at developer conferences, it just seems like a lot of journalists have played it and almost all of them were amazed and they said so on their sites.
Anyway, can’t wait. Although it’s going to be sad playing without Bloopi.
Cool…thought you had to buy them in increments of 1000…shows how much I get of XBLA. 100 extra points is less annoying then 600, I still wish I could just buy what I want like on PSN though.
Braid is beautiful, entertaining and inspiring. It stretches both intellect and emotion, and these elements dovetail beautifully rather than chaffing against each other. Still wondering if games can be art? Here’s your answer.
