Comments on: Braid is now available on PartnerNet.

By: Casey

Casey — Sun, 15 Mar 2009 23:27:05 +0000

Hi,
I just finished this excellent game.
I was a little disappointed that there was a bug in the Elevator Action section where I didn’t need to get the second puzzle piece. The one next to the dropped ladder (which bounces twice).
I shut down my game after many attempts, then when I started again, this piece had moved to another spot which I had already done and I didn’t need to work out this puzzle.
I haven’t seen this reported anywhere on the internet. I managed to work out the ladder solution, because I didn’t want to not solve it.

By: Jonathan Blow

Jonathan Blow — Thu, 12 Jun 2008 23:44:56 +0000

Indeed they did not accept the reasoning. It sucks, but I have got the new stuff fully implemented — we’ll see what problems they manage to find with it.

My MS liaison had at first been convinced that the autosaves in Braid would not be a problem, but apparently that turned out not to be the case. I think there was a big discussion.

By: Mark

Mark — Thu, 12 Jun 2008 23:30:01 +0000

Hmm…so they didn’t consider the period from puzzle piece to puzzle piece to fall under the heading of a “single interactive game session”? We had some very short levels in the game that I was developing, and as a consequence had the potential to perform stats writes for leaderboards as frequently as once every few seconds, but since they were distinct levels–each its own “single interactive game session”–the five-minute requirement of this TCR didn’t apply. I asked our liaison at MS whether auto-save for our future titles would be governed by the same standard that our stats writes were for our last one, and he indicated they would be. I’d be surprised if you couldn’t plead your case on those grounds–I assume that the “interactive game session” is such a lawyerly phrase precisely because MS wanted to give itself some wriggle room on what exactly constituted a level.

It’s a significant question because of exactly what you say: the edge cases regarding device removal, insufficient space, corrupt data, and untimely signouts are monstrous. I feel like a human version of the sign on the gates to hell: abandon all hope ye who enter here. 🙂 It’s not that you avoid all of them with profile-based saves, but you avoid a whole bunch, and being able to skip the device-selection thing all by itself is more in keeping with the clean flow that you’ve implemented so well elsewhere in the game.

Best of luck, and feel free to email with any questions; you’re doing great!

By: Jonathan Blow

Jonathan Blow — Wed, 11 Jun 2008 03:49:17 +0000

The problem is that someone at MS was strictly objecting to the fact that the game, in order to autosave whenever the player solves a puzzle, may sometimes write to the profile more often than once every 5 minutes. It didn’t matter to them that the total number of such saves is bounded (by the number of puzzles in the game, which isn’t all that high considering the total playtime).

I have switched to using XContent instead of the profile already. It only took a couple of days to program, but man, it is a mess once you combine it with switching devices and asynchronous signins and signouts, and giving people the option to continue without saving if they have a problem, but to also recover from that later, etc, etc. So there is undoubtedly some further debugging to be done.

By: Mark

Mark — Wed, 11 Jun 2008 01:15:55 +0000

Yeah, I’ve found MS in general to be a lot more flexible than the language of their TCRs implies. For our last title, we did most of our leaderboard design before we recognized their flexibility, however, and so it ended up pretty cluttered, much to the irritation of the guy who designed it–like you say, their terminology isn’t always the clearest. _Braid_ doesn’t have a MP aspect, does it? MS’s terminology surrounding networked MP–ranked versus player matches, quick match versus join and create–nearly drove him around the bend with its obscurity.

Save/load, however, was my department. For the game we were working on, our saved profile was too large to fit in the title-specific profile settings, so we put it on devices from the beginning. You definitely don’t want to go there if you can avoid it; I think you’d find the time you spent longer than a week, for no real gain provided the profile settings are a viable alternative. What is it that you’re trying to do and that MS objects to?

By: Jonathan Blow

Jonathan Blow — Wed, 04 Jun 2008 05:16:40 +0000

Thanks!

I tried to keep the leaderboard very clean, because I think it’s ridiculous how many confusing labels are usually on XBLA leaderboard screens. Nobody seems to have had a problem with it yet (except for making me change the names of the views to comply with standards, which is annoying, because the standards are much less clear and meaningful than my original labels… but “overall” that is not a big deal.)

There is one problem that we are having an argument with Microsoft about before going into cert… autosave. The same problem that N+ had, and that forced the developers to break the game and cause frustration for many players. I am hoping that the example of N+ helps me convince them that time-restricting autosave is a horrible idea. If they won’t budge, then I need to take some more time and make the game save to disk instead of the profile, which is probably at least a week-long endeavor, bleah, bleah.

MS has been pretty cool about most things, though. They permitted the game to not show an XBLA splash screen (provided there was no developer splash screen too) which is part of why it can launch right into the game.

By: Mark

Mark — Wed, 04 Jun 2008 02:20:45 +0000

I started playing this and stopped a minute later; I want to pay for and play this game at home. It remains to be seen if I can restrain myself. 🙂

I did want to say: that’s the best-looking leaderboard I’ve seen on any 360 title. MS has a lot of stipulations, and you’ve nailed them. I’ll be anxious to see if it makes it through cert like that, but I’m betting it will. Grats.

By: David Pittman

David Pittman — Sat, 26 Apr 2008 00:47:16 +0000

Just finished Braid (the first PartnerNet version) this evening. I’ll be looking forward to playing it again (and recommending it to everyone) when the final version is released on XBLA. You guys have made a great game. Very challenging at parts (but always logical) and absolutely beautiful.

The wording at the end of the epilogue made me feel like there was content in the game I had not yet completed, although I’m pretty sure that’s not true. Coupled with some other elements in the epilogue (the green books and the lever/platform in the second to last screen), it left me a little bit confused and feeling like I missed something.

By: Jonathan Blow

Jonathan Blow — Thu, 24 Apr 2008 18:02:46 +0000

Yeah, thanks for the feedback on that. The timing in that area has been relaxed a little bit in the newest build. Not necessarily to make the game better for more casual gamers (though that is a side benefit), but really because it’s not important for that area to be super-hard. It should be a reasonable level of challenge, but also shouldn’t stall the flow of play for too long.

By: Branden Bean

Branden Bean — Thu, 24 Apr 2008 17:44:16 +0000

I finally beat Braid yesterday, and it was great. I’ve since been reading these posts a bit, and I’ve noticed that the developers are trying to make Braid a game that anyone can play through and enjoy. I think that is a wonderful goal.

With that in mind, there is a part in the ending that might be too difficult for your average gamer. I found it to be a perfect challenge, but I know my girlfriend would not feel the same way. 🙂

It’s the part in the final room where you need to jump on enemies multiple times to get to the switch, then make it through the small tunnel at the perfect time to not get hit by the enemies wandering through it. Hope that doesn’t spoil anything for anyone.

Anyway, this part is a pretty hefty challenge that anyone hoping to beat the game will need to overcome. I think the most difficult part of it is that it requires a bit of a streak of perfection; you have to be on top of things as you jump over the spike pit, perfectly bounce on the guy to get up to the next level, then keep bouncing and move right at the perfect time to make sure you can get to the switch and drop into the tunnel at the perfect time to just narrowly miss the tunnel being clogged by enemies.

Like I said, I loved it and thought it was a perfect challenge, but I can imagine it would be pretty frustrating for casual gamers.