Braid : using time in new ways

I discovered the game Braid yesterday while I was reading some other blogs.

I really liked Jonathan Blow's lecture at the FreePlay conference.

The main topics were "how (to do a great game) ? " and "why?". He talked about prototyping gameplay before implementing anything else (ok most designers do that now ...but some studios just wont allow any time for that).

Before taking the decision to pursue the game development further you should always make sure the prototype was really awesome by itself and that there isnt any other idea that you could think of that would make a better game.

At this point you should finish the game you started not matter what (most games in developement dont even come out).

Anyway the point of this post was about Braid so lets talk about it.

That game, http://braid-game.com/news/, looks awesome when he demoed it on screen.
It uses Time as its main gameplay feature set in different kind of worlds (a la Mario Bros.) where Time and objects act differently than before.

So unlike POP:Sands of Time you can rewind time or fastforward it for any amount of time. if you have played for an hour...you can rewind time until minute zero and everything will be placed as it all started.
So you cant die in this game, but the point of the game is more about how to find a way to finish the level using Time as the main element of play. So you have to manipulate Time to get through the different puzzles depending of the world in which you are.

I really liked the ideas used in the game and i'll play that when its out in Q1 2008 on XBL.

check it out!