Braid

Braid is played by solving physical puzzles in a standard platform game environment. The player controls the protagonist Tim as he runs, jumps, and climbs across the game's levels. Tim jumps and stomps on enemies to defeat them, and can collect keys to unlock doors or operate levers to trigger platforms. A defining game element is the player's unlimited ability to reverse time and "rewind" actions, even after dying. The game is divided into six worlds, which are experienced sequentially and can be entered from different rooms of Tim's house; the player can return to any world previously visited to attempt to solve puzzles they missed.

Each world has its own time-based game mechanic:

Tim is a man searching for a princess who "has been snatched by a horrible and evil monster." His relationship with this princess is vague, but made a mistake which he hopes to reconcile or erase. As one progresses through the six worlds in Braid, storyline text at the beginning of each world provides further insight into Tim's quest for the princess, and alludes to the overarching gameplay mechanic of each level. The themes evoked include forgiveness, desire, and frustration.

The final level, in which everything but Tim moves in reverse, depicts the princess escaping from a knight, and working together with Tim to surpass obstacles and meet at her home. Tim is suddenly locked out of the house, and, as time progresses forward, reversing Tim's actions, the events show the princess running from Tim, setting traps that he is able to evade, until she is rescued by the knight. Tim is revealed to be the "monster" from whom the princess is running. Following completion of the game, the player finds additional texts that expand the story.

Jonathan Blow created Braid as a game that deconstructed current video games trends, "bringing together the abstract parts of a complex puzzle, revealing deep moral and philosophical questions". Blow came up with the concept of Braid in December 2004 while on a trip to Thailand, and started development work on it in April the following year. By December 2005, a version of the game was completed that had the same number of worlds and puzzles as the final version, but lacked the final artwork; this version won the Independent Games Festival game design award at the 2006 Game Developer's Conference. While working on the art direction, Blow tightened the presentation and mechanics of the puzzles to improve their playability. During the game's three years of development, Blow put about US$200,000 of his own money into its development, most going towards hiring David Hellman for artwork and for living expenses.

Originally, Blow had envisioned the game to be broken into several different worlds as in the final game, each exploring facets of space, time, and causality, but with each world having very different high-level mechanics. One mechanic that he could not develop further was a world with no "arrow of time" that would have required the player to traverse the level in a manner that could be repeated in reverse. For example, the player would have been forbidden to jump down from a tall height while moving in forward time, as they would not be able to jump that height in reverse time. While this idea was not used, Blow discovered the rewind feature could be developed further for other aspects.

Upon its release to Xbox Live Arcade, Braid received critical acclaim, with an aggregate review score of 93/100 at Metacritic, making it the top-rated Xbox Live Arcade and the 10th highest-rated Xbox 360 game. Braid was purchased by more than 55,000 people during the first week of release. According to Blow, Braid was the second-largest selling Xbox Live Arcade title in 2008 and sales were "very profitable", making him more money than if he had been working at a high-paying job for the time it took to develop the game. The game had sold 450,000 copies by April 2012. By 2014, Blow had stated that sales of Braid brought in more than $4 million in revenue, much of which he used towards the development of his 2016 game, The Witness.

Braid has been considered a masterpiece, and was highly praised for the unique puzzles it presented. Dan Whitehead of Eurogamer noted the creative variation on time manipulation and the need to understand the non-linearity of his actions made him feel as if "years of gaming blinders have been ripped away." Jason Hill of The Age stated the puzzles were "elaborate and formidable", but "impeccably designed and hugely satisfying to solve", a point reiterated by Sunday Herald Sun's Paddy Reiley. The connection between the puzzles and the overall presentation of the game was favorably received; Tom McShea of GameSpot stated that Braid was "the rare game that will make you rack your brain trying to solve puzzles one minute while challenging you to come to terms with its mature tale the next".

Developers have cited Braid as an influence on their game design. Japanese video game developer Goichi "Suda51" Suda, developer of killer7 and No More Heroes, stated that playing Braid made him want to try making a 2D title. Tim can be unlocked as a playable character in Super Meat Boy, a game designed by independent game developer Edmund McMillen who had previously created Gish and the original character designs for Braid. Braid has also garnered academic interest and acclaim for its complexity, with narratologists saying "Anyone who thinks...

the unique constraints of game play cannot possibly be used to best structure a story has probably not encountered Braid, which marries pure mechanics and story into a philosophical platform." Braid's use of narrative elements and puzzle-making has been compared to similar techniques of "imperative storytelling" in novels such as Life: A User's Manual and Through the Looking-Glass.