Coming from a fine arts background, I feel like the one thing I’m actually capable of discussing thoroughly (or at least intelligently) is the visual arts. And the fine ones at that. See, back in college I was routinely brutalized by my colleagues through these things we called critiques. You may be familiar with the idea. Basically, someone presents their work, everyone tears it apart, and then it’s reworked in time for the next critique. This process is repeated until the presentation is considered flawless or the idea is exhausted (usually the latter). The whole thing is somewhat similar to a typical review process, with the obvious difference being that reviews are considered a final judgment. The point of a critique is to properly inform the artist where their work needs improvement… because, let’s be honest, no one is perfect.

I often think about how the critique process for, say, a painter or a filmmaker differs from that of a game designer. The concept of iterative design is not really comparable because it most often relies on input from those who have been working on the title since it’s conception. Games can be play-tested thoroughly or have open betas, but that’s to dig out technical issues. There doesn’t seem to be any external critique process for games aside from focus groups, and those are there to ensure the game will profit, not to test a title’s emotional resonance or thematic effectiveness. Do the ‘hands-on previews’ that we find on blogs and in magazines really play a part is shaping the overall game? Doubtful. Most of that stuff is just to drum up publicity and anticipation; I’d be very surprised if developers ever read those things. Besides, the majority of previews equate to little more than “this looks awesome.”

I’d like to critique games myself, but I’m not even sure if I know how. By the time I play a game, it’s done. It’ll never be reworked aside from a stray patch or shortsighted Special Edition (oh, and expansions, if you’re into that sort of gaming). Is there room for such a dialog when dealing with works that have been declared finished by their creators?

All that being said, I’d like to present some impressions from the video game Braid. Not neccesarily a critque, just some impressions.

The marketing focus with this title seems to be its atmosphere and unified art direction (which is, indeed, the only bit of information I knew about it for quite some time). This visual design is, as my girlfriend remarked, like being trapped in a Thomas Kinkade painting. Everything is so garishly super-saturated that it becomes impossible to focus on specific elements. The adjective ‘painterly’ is interpreted here as a mess of brush-strokes, unable to convey any proper composition and instead trying to leave an mark of classical technique if for no other reason than to affect an uneducated player. The background and character designs seem inspired by the staples of Impressionism but seem to ignore the techniques that defined the movement; light sources are undefined, edges are hard, and there is an abundance of black in place of the expected complementary contrast.

Maybe this art style is what draws people in. Thomas Kinkade, after all, makes millions hocking his paintings to the every-man. I bought the game because it received mountains of praise from just about every review outlet there is. But what does it actually consist of, aside from a rather distracting painted motif? Let’s take to the streets and find out!

What is Braid? One may as well ask what life is. It is art, it is love, it is
pain, it is a journey. It is itself. I don’t mean to sound pretentious. It’s
just impossible to define this game as one thing. This is mainly because I may
get something different out of it than you will.

Actually, Braid is a platforming puzzle game for the Xbox 360. Was that so hard? And what I got out of it was an overwhelming sense of frustration. Both due to the mechanics and because the game is such a missed opportunity.

The main problem is that Braid falls into the same curse had by many of the adventure games from my youth. You’re given a puzzle and, instead of solving it logically, you solve it by using an FAQ. Who honestly thinks “I should try combining the clothesline, the clamp, and the rubber duck with a hole in it” when trying to grab a key from a subway track? Ugh. Braid contains many of these moments, where you’re trying to figure out what the hell the developer had in mind when he designed the level. It’s not a simple matter of considering your skillset and figuring out how to approach the problem at hand as with most games. For example…

First, grab the key and jump over the pit. Climb the next ladder you come to,
and continue to a lever. Pull the lever, and drop down to a square block. A
time-immune enemy is moving around down here. Kill him, and watch for his
replacement to come flying out of the cannon up above. What you need to do is
get him to land on the platform, then run left so that the platform moves back
to its original position with the enemy on it. Once he is up there, keep
running left, to the ladder. Climb it quickly, and if you’re moving fast
enough, you will be to the left of the enemy as he walks towards you.

At some point along the line, he will have picked up the key. Don’t worry, we
wanted that to happen. One he has moved to the left of ladder that leads to
the door and the puzzle piece, bounce on him and grab the key. Be careful to
bounce on him with enough momentum to grab the key and move right so that it
remains in your grasp. If it teleports down to the ground, you’ll have to try
again.

Now that you have the key, climb the ladder, open the door, and grab the piece.

Does that even count as a puzzle? When I finally figure out some of these situations, I don’t feel like I’m solving anything. It’s as if I’m merely stumbling across the solution.

This is even worse than the average adventure game because everything is solved through platforming. Instructing a character to “use CARDKEY with RUBBER CHIKEN” is a lot different than split-second precision pouncing off of enemies in order to springboard to the puzzle piece you need. That sort of platforming only works when the game controls well. And Braid is, most definitely, a puzzle game with platforming mechanics tacked on. The player character is sluggish, collision detection is poor, and response time is inconsistent. I do not enjoy the primary input methods, the ones that enable me to interact with the environment.

And the story, the thing that normally drives you to complete the game? That’s hidden behind the puzzles. You can run from left to right, ignoring the collectible items, completing the game in about an hour. All narrative is told through optional text at the beginning of every ‘world,’ and that text is sparse. I’ve heard (and I haven’t come close to getting all the loot, so I can’t verify) that more story is revealed once all the collectibles are found. But what is the point of going back and finding all these puzzle pieces if the nuts-and-bolts of the game are not enjoyable and the story is almost non-existent at this point?

The thing that really bothers me is the developer’s stance on all this. There’s a walkthrough posted on the Braid website that’s nothing more than a rant against walkthroughs.

All the puzzles in Braid are reasonable. They don’t require you to do anything random; they don’t require guessing. They don’t require trial and error. The solutions tend to be simple and natural.

When I solve some of the puzzles, I don’t feel rewarded. I feel like I wasted a lot of time trying to figure out what mindset the developer wanted me to be in. There is a lot of trial and error, and things aren’t always simple and natural. To have the developer go out of his way to tell me that I’m wrong for feeling this way… that just reminds me of the arrogant art school freshman who refused to listen to critiques of his work lest they label it as anything other than perfect.

Is this okay? Am I allowed to have this opinion? Talking about video games is much different than talking about art. Part of me thinks I should hide it away and not tell anyone until the hype eventually dies down. But I don’t criticize it because I hate the game, I criticize it because I want it to be better.

This past week I finally completed all fifty of Fay’s Puzzles in Shiren the Wanderer. These puzzles are prefabricated single floor dungeons that serve as something of an introduction to the more advanced rules and techniques in the game. They start off fairly simple and then get quite difficult. For example, the first puzzle teaches you that arrows can shoot diagonally across entryways, while later ones have you juggling different scrolls and staves against multiple monsters, eating meats to temporarily transform, and trying to figure out the exact path required to make it towards the exit. I had been getting my ass kicked on the one titled “Shopping Battle” until I realized that I didn’t need to steal from the merchant… I could just lure the Thief monsters in to the shop, slaughter them using the Mastersword that’s for sale, put the sword down and pick up the gitans they dropped, then buy a sleep scroll and use it on the monsters by the exit. The title led me to believe that the solution involved making use of the various offensive (and expensive) items available in the shop to defeat the merchant, who is ridiculously overpowered (and also says “thank you!” and “come again!” with every swing).

Anyway, I cleared all of Mr. Fay’s puzzles and am awarded with a “Huzzah!” and three Blank Scrolls. Pretty nice. Blank Scrolls let you inscribe the name of any other scroll on them, then when they’re read that take the effect of that scroll. They will certainly come in handy. Fay said that he’d get to work on a doozy of a puzzle for next time I’m in town. Which, as it turned out, was about ten minutes later because I stupidly forgot to bring a riceball on my next climb up Table Mountain and starved to death on the seventh floor. When I stopped by to see what Fay’s been up to, he’s in a panic. Apparently he dug too deep while trying to create his next puzzle and ended up with a single massive labyrinth. And, of course, I have to option to explore it. He gives me the usual jazz of losing all items and money upon entering, then I’m greeted by the ominous display of “1 Final Puzzle.”

And, holy shit, this thing is brutal. What I didn’t initially realize is that, because the entrance to the dungeon is located in Canyon Hamlet (which resets your experience whenever you enter it), you pretty much have no choice but to start from level one. You could do things like eating a stash of Herbs of Strength you have in your warehouse or something before entering, but they honestly won’t make that much of a difference beyond the first few floors. And unlike Table Mountain, the enemies in this dungeon get vicious fast. I haven’t made it further than the eighth floor after twenty or so attempts just because the difficulty ramps up so quickly.

Part of this is because the identity of everything is scrambled in the dungeon. Not just staves and jars like in the rest of the game, I mean everything. The only item that’s not is the trusty riceball, because you start the dungeon with one in your inventory. Herbs are now named by color and scrolls after arbitrary animals. Not too much of a big deal, right? Well, the Final Puzzle includes more than just beneficial scrolls and herbs. There are now herbs that may decrease your fullness, cause you to fall asleep, or even reset your level to one. Sometimes the Donkey Scroll you read won’t be a Power Up Scroll or a Scroll of Light, instead it might be a Scroll of Silence or a Scroll of Explosion. Guess what a Scroll of Explosion does? Go on, guess. I’ll give you a hint: when you read it you fucking explode. Granted, it does do a lot of damage to anything adjacent to you, but you most likely will not be around to take advantage of that.

Evil Soldiers are also a problem. See, when Evil Soldiers are defeated they become Dead Soldiers, which run away from you whenever you get near them. If a Dead Soldier sees another enemy (even another Dead Soldier), it will ‘leap’ into it… allowing it to level up. On Table Mountain this isn’t much of a problem because whenever I’ve encountered Evil Soldiers the only other monsters on the floor have been Rice Changers and Field Bandits. They’re pretty weak, and even if they manage to overpower me I’ve probably got a staff or an herb stashed away that I can use to my advantage. Not so in the Final Puzzle. Here there are Ironheads and Floor Dragons to worry about leveling up, and that’s just on the fifth floor. Combine that with the fact that using anything in my inventory without having it identified first may cause me an embarrassing death and most floors end up being a mad dash for the exit.

Here are a few embarrassing deaths, by the way.

1. While reading scrolls and eating herbs just to get them identified, one turned out to be a Monster Scroll, which turns the current room into a monster house. The next one was a Sleeping Herb, which causes the player to fall asleep.
2. Fending off a couple Pit Mamels at the start of the first floor, then turning around and tripping over a stumble trap before I could recover my health. Yes, that’s right… I fell on my face and died.
3. Accidentally broke a jar in a shop. I didn’t have enough gitans to pay for it, so the merchant beat the living shit out of me.
4. Fell into a monster house and read the only scroll I had, hoping it would be a Blastwave Scroll or something. It was a Scroll of Haste, which made all the enemies in the room much more efficient killing machines.
5. Threw a Pale Herb at a Floor Dragon. It turned out to be a Kingy Seed, which causes the target to go into a blind rage, murdering anything around it. The Floor Dragon killed the three Bowboys adjacent to it, leveled up into an Earth Dragon, then took me out like the garbage.

So, right now I’m terrified of this dungeon. But I used to be scared of Table Mountain when I first attempted it and now I can tackle it pretty easily. I just need more experience with it, figuring out the various tricks and tactics I need to survive for more than eight floors.

One neat trick I’ve stumbled across: it’s possible to ‘farm’ Fay’s Final Puzzle for items that can be useful for tackling Table Mountain and the Tainted Path. You see, once most of the post game dungeons are opened the option to adventure while waiting to be rescued opens up. Normally if you fall and send out a rescue request you’re stuck at the menu screen waiting for someone to save your sorry ass. When you adventure while waiting, you start in your warehouse and can choose to explore any of the dungeons. There are a few limitations, however: you can’t save, you can’t go past the highest floor you’ve reached in that dungeon, and you can’t go past the floor you died on. If you try, the game just boots you back to the warehouse… with your inventory intact. So, if I were to attempt the Final Puzzle, die on the third floor, and adventure while waiting to be rescued… every time I reached the second floor exit I’d be kicked back to the warehouse with all the items I picked up prior to that, free to store anything valuable before trying again. I haven’t really exploited it much, but I did score some sweet armbands and a Kingy Seed that I threw at some little kid in a village. He totally killed all the other villagers. It was awesome.