Comments on: Ad Blitz, Part 2.

By: M. Spurling

M. Spurling — Thu, 14 Feb 2008 15:21:36 +0000

Very nice to see fresh new games coming out, that goes back tothe old school days when games were more than just pretty graphs. I’m an avid gamer, manager in retail and love telling people about the small companies. We even have a free magazine(our own underground mag) we hand out to customers on a weekly bases, about what to look out for and what to buy. Very interested in interviewing you all on this game, let me know
Good luck and hope to hear back soon.
M. Spurling

By: Adam Robezzoli

Adam Robezzoli — Fri, 08 Feb 2008 22:53:55 +0000

I want to play the game depicted in city-1d and sandcastle-2e. Not so much the one depicted in the other images.

By: Infininja

Infininja — Fri, 08 Feb 2008 18:25:29 +0000

My favorites are sandcastle 2g and city 3a. I don’t like any of the ones with the white text, with the possible exception of sandcastle 1c. The white either stands out too much or is too sharp and contrasts with the painted style of the game. Good job on these.

By: th15

th15 — Fri, 08 Feb 2008 15:06:22 +0000

Sandcastle 1e and 2c are my favourites. The hourglass sand forming a castle is a neat idea and white looks best and from what I’ve seen of the game, white seems to characterise the game the best.

By: Tom

Tom — Fri, 08 Feb 2008 09:05:37 +0000

city 3a
castle 1c or 1d
if you really want a larger image 2e (but maybe knock the white text back a tiny bit)

I agree that you need to see the architecture of the bridge n city scape.
Btw it does remind me of jasper morello and a little of limbo.
The landscape format inherently implies platforming too and the sense of exploration within a left to right visual space.

I like braid, to me it has connotations of interwoven threads(narrative or otherwise), craft, and friendship. But its defnitely not an immediate slap, like say ULTRAFRAG2008 might be 🙂

By: Sean

Sean — Thu, 07 Feb 2008 16:26:37 +0000

These are all good, although the point about it being hard to deicpher that it’s an hourglass is good… maybe redraw a similar same scene with the broken hourglass toppled on its side (hey, there’s a metaphor for you, too) so it can fit in a banner?

I prefer the text “Braid” being subdued, so the eye takes in the other elements before seeing the name, rather than being drawn to the name first (as I think the white text does), but here we’re into the psychology of advertising that I’m definitely not an expert in.

By: Jonathan Blow

Jonathan Blow — Thu, 07 Feb 2008 11:12:14 +0000

There are reasons why the game is called Braid, but they aren’t in the realm of the logical / verbalizable. There are “hints” as to the name in the game itself, though “hints” probably isn’t such a great way to think of them.

Microsoft does require Achievements for XBLA, but I didn’t have a problem with adding them for this game, mainly because there were natural places to put them in the game already. I am not strictly against rewards — I am just against empty rewards. When a player actually does something interesting to get a reward, then I think a reward is okay (as long as the reward is in proportion to what the player did).

The achievements don’t give you anything tangible in the game — they are mainly just acknowledgement of something you did (like “Hey, you solved all of world 2.”) If I were to make them affect gameplay more, then I would be changing the game to accomodate Achievements, and I didn’t want to do that — the game needs to retain its philosophical core or I am not interested in putting it on whatever platform, and if I have to alter it too much then that core would be lost.

That said, in my ideal world Achievements would not exist on the Xbox 360, because I think they are just sort of a leech (like Frequent Flyer Miles). But, given that they exist, I don’t have a problem using them in this case.

By: Leroy

Leroy — Thu, 07 Feb 2008 10:52:06 +0000

I’ve been following this blog for a while now, and the game seems very promising, but when I look at the ads you placed here, I have to wonder: Why is the game called Braid?

I can’t connect the word braid and a sandcastle in my head somehow. It makes no sense to me. I also don’t think you ever fully explained why the game is called like that. Does it have anything to do with the entire experience or the ending of the game if there is such a thing to it?

Also, to go a bit off-topic:

Since you’re putting your game on XBLA, does Microsoft require you to come up with “achievements”? I would like to know how you would go about handling them as you have expressed yourself a person who is against points and non-actual progression and rewards. might those achievements coincide with actually useful rewards that you can do something with in the game?

Looking forward to playing it and seeing your next projects.

Leroy

By: Jonathan Blow

Jonathan Blow — Thu, 07 Feb 2008 10:10:31 +0000

There’s a way in which I like 3a (and its ilk) a lot, because it is literally the first scene that you walk through in the game, so there is a certain truth to it. This is the first thing we wanted you to experience in the game, and therefore it makes a suitable ad for telling you what the game is like. Also — it has some more complicated details (like the stars behind the title, and the detail in the houses at ther ight) which hint at the parts of the game that are pretty complicated, somehow. Whereas stuff like 1c doesn’t have that high-frequency detail.

I should clarify that the choice isn’t between a big square ad or a wide banner. We have to do both shapes, plus something like 10 other sizes, because things are so ridiculous. But we did these 2 sizes as examples because they are representative of the range of shapes.

By: Casey Muratori

Casey Muratori — Thu, 07 Feb 2008 09:08:38 +0000

No particular comments Jon, just wanted to say that all these ads look much better than the previous round, and I think they all do a much better job of conveying the idea of Braid to the as-yet-uninitiated. Two thumbs up!