The Braid Level Creation Thread
I know that people are starting level creation threads in some places like the Steam forums, but I thought I would post some initial editor information in a very public place like this… people can ask questions here and I will answer them.
To get started, download this file:
And unpack it into your Braid folder. So in the same folder where braid.exe lives, you should now have a folder called “universes”. Inside that there should be one subfolder, “sample”.
Now you can run Braid with the following command-line option:
-universe sample
When the game starts up, everything should look normal, because this sample universe doesn’t replace the starting world, and anything you don’t replace will get pulled from the regular game assets. You’ll start at the beginning of the game, though, because universes have their own save files.
If you walk into the world 2 story screen, instead of what you would normally, you ought to see a very minimal place with one monster in it. This is because world0-2.entities has been overridden by the version in this sample universe. You may also notice that when Tim jumps, he can leap forward very quickly. This is because his jump speed has been changed in the file Mod.variables.
There are only two doors in this new world0-2.entities, because the doors in these story-worlds just off the main hub are generated in order to match the levels present in the game, and the file level_config now says that there are only 2 levels in world 2.
If you collect world 2 puzzle pieces, you’ll notice that they actually look like the world 4 puzzle… this is because I overloaded puzzle2.pi_set with the world 4 version. You could put any image in the puzzles, but you need Photoshop and an extra tool to generate the puzzle pieces; I will talk later about how to do this.
The people inside the new 0-2.entities are from rpgobj.pi_set (also drawn by David Hellman). You can see everything in rpgobj if you go into the editor (by pressing F11), go to a New Universe, press Add Piece Config, and type “rpgobj” into the box. From there you can copy and paste these objects into a level.
Now, if you try to change any levels and save out the results, you’ll notice that next time you play the game, the changes don’t take effect. This is because Braid is not actually reading from the loose files during gameplay. As an efficiency measure, for normal play, Braid files are bundled up into non-compressed .zip files (the same way package.zip and package0.zip are, if you look in your standard Braid file tree). To package up your levels for end-users, you similarly put them into an uncompressed zip file. This is what universes/sample/package.zip is. (For normal play, the “data” directory in universes doesn’t need to be there; I just included both the packed and unpacked versions for this example).
In order to play what you save out, you need to be able to run Braid with the
-no_package
option on the command-line. However, in order to do this, you need to have all the loose files available — not just the ones for your modifications, but all the standard Braid files as well. So to do this, go into the Braid data folder (not the one for your universe, but the standard one that is in the same folder as braid.exe). Copy package.zip and package0.zip one level up (into the same folder where braid.exe is). Then unzip both of these files into that directory. It should add a whole bunch of new, loose files into your Braid data directory that already existed.
Once you do this, you ought to be able to run with -no_package and make your own modifications, then package them up and other people can run them with -universe.
Let me know how it goes!
April 14th, 2009 at 8:48 pm
This is awesome! One question though; can the hidden stars be added to levels?
April 14th, 2009 at 9:14 pm
hey Jonathan, thanks so much for taking the time to put together this tutorial!
it all seems to work fine, but i can’t change any of the images used in the game, as any attempt results in a dark red box. specifically, i’m trying to change ‘inputicons-xbox_page_0.jpg’, so that the buttons match my controller. is there a trick to this?
April 14th, 2009 at 9:27 pm
Gemedet: If you change the dimensions of the jpg it won’t work… all the textures have to be powers of 2 in order to work on your video card. Also note that jpegs don’t have alpha channels, so if you fill in any extra space it has to be filled in tn the texture with the same name in the “alpha” folder. Hopefully if you take a look you will see what I mean.
Are you able to replace any other files besides images?
April 14th, 2009 at 9:45 pm
yeah, i successfully changed the music and text. but i still can\’t change any graphics. i\’m not changing the dimensions of the jpg; i literally just opened the file in photoshop, changed nothing, saved it as new jpg, and then renamed them. still shows up as a red block. maybe it\’s a setting in photoshop?
April 14th, 2009 at 9:54 pm
It doesn’t work for me for some reason. The game briefly gives me a black screen and quits.
April 14th, 2009 at 9:57 pm
Archagon: That will happen if you try to load a universe and it can’t find it… if you are launching it from Steam make sure to put the files in the proper Steam folder (Which is different from where the demo is, if you downloaded the demo from Greenhouse, Impulse, etc).
April 14th, 2009 at 10:02 pm
Strange! I put it under common/braid, where braid.exe is.
April 14th, 2009 at 10:09 pm
Ah! I got it working by using -universe test instead of -universe sample. The name inside package.zip is “test”, not “sample”.
April 14th, 2009 at 10:15 pm
Also, FYI, there’s no Mod.variables in package.zip.
April 14th, 2009 at 10:26 pm
Whoops! Thanks for pointing it out, I renamed the files and forgot to change the zip. I will fix the copy on the server.
April 14th, 2009 at 10:40 pm
I had the same problem as Archagon when getting it to work. I had to unpack the Braid files and run it with the -no_package parameter.
When we create new levels or modify older levels we basically just need to package up the files we’ve modified? Everything else will default to the ones Braid has?
That must mean we can change the files Braid uses by default?
April 14th, 2009 at 10:56 pm
I’ve fixed the version of the sample universe on the server, so hopefully nobody else will have this problem.
Yes, any file you put in the universe folder will override anything that Braid uses by default. So you could make a universe that is just, say, a replacement for the main character sprite / animations, and have people play through the whole game with a different character. Or whatever.
April 14th, 2009 at 11:14 pm
Bleh. Got it to work. Apparently WinRAR hid the universes directory and just showed me the sample directory. Fixing the path to be steamapps\common\braid\universes\sample works great.
This is very cool, Jonathan. Thanks for including all of this stuff in the PC version. I loved the xbox version, but the PC version is much more extensible.
April 14th, 2009 at 11:31 pm
i think it’s also worth noting that it won’t run if the “data” folder is empty; that is, it won’t just default to the normal game. it seems to require having at least the “level_config” file.
also, changes in the “strings” folder won’t override the default text. i tried changing “use left stick to move” to something else, but it kept using the default.
and i figured out the image problem. photoshop automatically saves them with the sRGB color profile. and i guess the game won’t use any images unless they have no profile. also, you can’t just override the image itself, and use the default alpha image, you need to have both in the universe’s directory.
April 14th, 2009 at 11:50 pm
Great!!! Thanks Jonathan
I didn’t understand how to connect a switch to a platform.
Can we connect a switch to other objects (e.g. a cannon) ?
April 15th, 2009 at 12:21 am
Ok, this is working now. I guess there’s certain files required by Braid to not crash when using a universe.
Thanks man, this should keep me entertained for a while.
April 15th, 2009 at 4:49 am
Thanks for this wonderful game. I’ve been looking forward for the PC version for quite a while, so I can play this game. I have a question: I’ve been looking into this and had the idea of making every level in the game slightly harder. Are we allowed to distribute modified versions of the original levels?
April 15th, 2009 at 6:49 am
To connect a switch to a platform, make sure they have the same thing in the “label” slot. This can be any string.
You can’t connect a switch to a cannon, directly, but you might do other things (connect it do a door that blocks the cannon shots, or whatever).
April 15th, 2009 at 6:55 am
I would prefer if people just make their own levels from scratch, rather than making slight modifications of the original levels. I don’t want there to be confusion about what the actual main game is, you know?
But, I am willing to talk to people on a case-by-case basis about this kind of thing.
April 15th, 2009 at 7:03 am
I am very impressed by how professionally you have treated the PC release of Braid. In a very short time you have given users everything they wanted, and now a level editor!
I’m really excited by the prospect of playing user-made levels. Do you have any ideas for a repository for custom Braid levels?
Portal has several map sites run by third parties (see http://portalmaps.net/, http://www.myaperturelabs.com/, and http://www.portalgamemaps.com/).
Meanwhile, Crayon Physics Deluxe has a “Playground” created by it’s developer, Petri Purho (see http://pg.crayonphysics.com/).
Lastly, Knytt Stories had levels posted on Nifflas’s forums but they are now stored on a separate site (see http://www.knyttlevels.com/).
Any thoughts?
April 15th, 2009 at 8:06 am
Bubble, I’m interested in founding a Braid repository, not just for maps, but forum, wiki and media sharing. I’m sort of trying to get something like this going… just because Braid is awesome =).
Check out contact links on my site if you have any ideas and wish to email, or catch us on the Steam forum for Braid: http://forums.steampowered.com/forums/forumdisplay.php?f=560, my name’s Slyke there.
April 15th, 2009 at 8:16 am
Is it possible to print a custom string on the screen? Like in your game?
April 15th, 2009 at 8:35 am
Jonathan, I have one stupid question. Why “moonwalking” at the last level? It looks… kind of illogically. Especially for this game.
April 15th, 2009 at 8:59 am
Right now most of the text objects in the game use handles that get looked up in the strings database files (for internationalization).
The -universe command doesn’t load new strings files, but anywhere that one of those handles gets used in the game, you ought to be able to just type in an actual string and have it work. This means it would be a lot harder to translate a user-made universe into a lot of languages, but hey.
April 15th, 2009 at 9:28 am
Jonathon, you wouldn’t mind giving a quick explanation on how level_config works, could you? I looked at it and couldn’t get my head around most of it. Thanks.
I think that’s about it in terms of my difficulties with the editor. Well, except of course everything in the world where time moves backwards. I think I’ll avoid all that stuff for now.
Da Werecat, in case you didn’t notice, at that moment in time you were moving backwards in time. While you were holding right, Tim was actually moving left, and time was flowing backwards.
April 15th, 2009 at 10:01 am
RabidZombie, I understand. But his legs moved as if time was flowing forward.
Ah, whatever. Sorry for offtop.
April 15th, 2009 at 10:35 am
Oh, was the animation not reversed? :S
I have to say, I didn’t notice this. I think that might be a bug.
April 15th, 2009 at 11:01 am
RabidZombie, for example, world three:
level_config:
8 – number of levels in the world
0 – number of elements in the world 3-1 (mosaic)
3-1 – the address of level world 3-1
1 – number of elements in the world 3-2 (mosaic)
3-2 – the address of world 3-2
…
2 – number of elements in the world 3-8 (mosaic)
3-8 – the address of world 3-8
all elements must be 12!
//sorry, bad english =0)
April 15th, 2009 at 12:13 pm
I’m a bit confused. I’ve got -universe sample working. I can get to the modified world2-0 story level and see all the changes that are mentioned above. But I cannot get the editor to open. F11 does nothing and niether does any logical combination of buttons with F11. the version I have is from Gamersgate.com and I don’t believe they’ve uploaded the patched version of the game. I’m hoping that is not the issue. But I can’t figure out where I’m going wrong or how to amend this problem. Any suggestions?
April 15th, 2009 at 12:20 pm
Oh, yeah, seems quite obvious all of a sudden. :S
Thanks. That should be helpful.
April 15th, 2009 at 12:31 pm
For F11 to work, -editor needs to be on the command-line. -universe is just to play a universe, not to edit one.
April 15th, 2009 at 12:53 pm
Where do you press F11 to enter the editor? I’ve tried pressing it in a few different areas and couldn’t get it to work.
April 15th, 2009 at 12:54 pm
Is it possible a streamlined version could make its way to the XBLA version… Ever; in the future of the universe? Just to make custom levels?
Please?
(I know it won’t, but it’s worth a shot to ask!
)
April 15th, 2009 at 12:54 pm
Ah, never mind, Jonathan. Your comment popped up after I submitted mine.
April 15th, 2009 at 1:38 pm
Can you explain us some entities?
Booster
Debris
Icon_Block
Killer_Pan
Rainmaker
Reverse_effect
Ring
Rumble
Shine
Special_Item
Surface
And I see in other levels that the entity Marker is used to enable various camera, with the labels “:enable_cam” and “:disable_cam”
Are there other functions in Maker? For example is it possible to activate a platform with a marker instead of a switch?
Thanks for your paticence
April 15th, 2009 at 1:48 pm
To those who can’t get to the editor with F11, I belive you need the “r3″ version of the game for that to work. I was trying it using the version I had downloaded originally from Greenhouse which was “r2″ and it wasn’t working. I’m downloading “r3″ at the moment, hoping that will work.
April 15th, 2009 at 1:54 pm
Oh, I feel dumb now. I just saw that Jonathan already addressed the F11 problem. Has nothing to do with what version, just need to use the -editor argument to the command line. :-S
April 15th, 2009 at 6:33 pm
Having some truble making a reverse level… I noticed that monsters would “un-die” with the use of boosters, but I can’t seem to get a monster to make it past the first one, it just shoots a monster up (from below the floor), which appears dead, and it just falls back down (through the floor). I already know to label the booster that ‘creates’ the monster with the same label as the cannon, but the rest of the boosters I put in don’t do anything…
April 15th, 2009 at 6:50 pm
One odd thing is that the zip files appear to have 0 byte files with identical names to the directories (Vista, Greenhouse version). This makes it complain if you unzip everything at once.
Still, amazingly awesome game and even more awesome to have an editor out for it.
April 15th, 2009 at 7:16 pm
I don’t have time to explain all of those, but…
Icon_Block is one of the blocks used in the castle in the Epilogue.
Killer_Pan is the wall of flames.
Debris is any broken piece of something that bounces and spins (like the pieces of the Chandelier).
Ring is the ring that you drop in world 6.
Surface is used to make a walkable surface or a wall out of a series of points, so that you can adjust the path by moving individual points later (which is often easier than making things out of a bunch of blocks). You use the TAB key to make new points in a surface, and the delete key to delete them.
Booster and Reverse_Effect are for the reverse time levels. However, rather than placing them manually, there are some function keys that I used to make Boosters. I would go into a world with reversed time, and press (I think) F9 which makes time go forward, and then F10 which causes Boosters to be automatically created every time a monster hits the ground or dies. Then I go into the editor and press Ctrl-i. This is like shift-spacebar, except it loads the exact state of the mid-game world into the editor, instead of the fresh level as it would be loaded. Then I select all the Boosters and Ctrl-C to copy them, then shift-space to reload the fresh level, and shift-ctrl-V to paste the Boosters in exactly the same places. (Ctrl-V pastes things near the cursor; Ctrl-Shift-V pastes things at exactly the coordinates they were when you copied them). The Boosters still tend to be a little bit off and need some manual adjustment which is an error-prone process but you get it done eventually.
April 16th, 2009 at 1:21 am
Can do the marker other actions?
Can do a marker activate a platform?
And a switch can change an entity property? e.g. a switch that can rewind exempt a platform?
April 16th, 2009 at 2:22 am
Jonathan Blow, explain please how to enable, disable, toggle through the Marker? And what kind of special characters like ‘:’ and ‘#’ in names? And also, what is more special characters and what they are doing?
April 16th, 2009 at 4:41 am
Alexey, there’s a thread on the steam forums where this has been answered. Here’s the link for you: http://forums.steampowered.com/forums/showthread.php?t=839459
There’s also loads of other stuff in there you may find useful.
April 16th, 2009 at 4:44 am
Sorry, where some of those questions have been answered (Such as the keys for the editor).
April 16th, 2009 at 5:27 am
Hey, great game, finished it a couple of days ago. Just one small technical question: when I was playing on my computer, I didn’t get that cool time manipulation effect (you know, the wavy effect when you rewind time). I was watching my brother play on his computer and he had the effect. I have a pretty powerful computer (Macbook Pro) so I was wondering if this was a bug or something else. Thanks.
April 16th, 2009 at 7:28 am
Matt: It depends on your graphics card. It’s not surprising that a laptop would run with the effects off. In a future update you’ll be able to turn them on or off…
April 16th, 2009 at 10:06 am
Hi Jonathan Blow,
Congratulations for this masterpiece! Gameplay, graphisme, music, story everything is perfect. I have few points where your opinion would be appreciated:
1- Wouldn’t it be better to countdown instead of a chronometer for the speed runs?
2- During the full Game challenge, the command to leave a world doesn’t leave the world but leave the challenge instead! Is that normal?
Thx for your answers
Touriste
April 16th, 2009 at 5:09 pm
This is neat. I hope the Mac version will come with have an editor.
There’s a disproportionately large number of Myst fans here. Have you noticed any correlation between the two fan bases?
April 16th, 2009 at 6:43 pm
If you want to enable post-processing now, set the fps manually to either -60fps or -30fps using the command line. This worked for me and may work for you. Press the “0″ key to see if it’s on.
To automate this, you can create a .bat file with the following contents:
cd “C:\Program Files\Steam\steamapps\common\braid\”
braid.exe -30fps
or, 64-bit Windows:
cd “C:\Program Files (x86)\Steam\steamapps\common\braid\”
braid.exe -30fps
April 16th, 2009 at 6:48 pm
I notice in a previous post (http://braid-game.com/news/?p=260) that you’ve mentioned you “don’t have the rights to redistribute the music”. I presume this doesn’t include your distribution together with the game, because someone following your instructions here can get access to the music files by downloading the demo version of your game.
Anyway, this looks like a great game. I’m just waiting for Linux / Wine to catch up so that I can play it. I presume if there isn’t a shader 1.x version as alluded to in the error message (I have Intel/945 graphics), some form of software emulation for 2.0 shaders will crop up in Wine sometime soon. I tried on a different system with an ATI card, but ended up with a completely black screen (although that may be due to a slightly older version of Wine).
April 16th, 2009 at 7:22 pm
Hey, I just ran Braid with the command-line option 60fps, which turned the post-processing effects back on. I guess all I had to do was read the Read-me. Thanks.
April 16th, 2009 at 11:24 pm
I just saw some footage from the editor. That must be fun … I guess I have to buy my second Braid!
April 17th, 2009 at 5:14 am
I released the first custom level for Braid
Enjoy it
http://forums.steampowered.com/forums/showthread.php?t=842815
April 17th, 2009 at 6:05 am
Just created a braid modding site: Braid-Mods.com. Still designing it, but it’s got the forum up and running, so a central place for people to talk and discuss. Link above goes to the forum. Need some designers (Artistically inclinded =))!
April 17th, 2009 at 12:13 pm
dear Jonathan,
Just want to thank you here for the great experience Braid has brought to me and my girlfriend. We just completed the game, and we are still in awe of the great story and the brilliant end level. Each and every piece of the puzzels we solved made us smile.
You really made a masterpiece, thanks for sharing it with us.
love from the netherlands
April 17th, 2009 at 5:32 pm
It’ll be interesting to see what kinds of extensions people attempt to make to tie in with the story thematically. I’m certain that with a game like this, some people will take up the mantle of explaining the finale, just as certainly as some people will attempt to outdo the difficulty of the star levels.
I don’t feel like it’s my place to criticize, because I’ve never made anything as extraordinary as Braid, but the story disappointed me. I’m actually heading off to write a long critique of that, since as a writer, the way you handled the finale sort of pissed me off. That said: with one exception, the gameplay was possibly the most brilliant and polished that I’ve come across in any game. Absolute kudos. You’ve made a masterpiece.
April 18th, 2009 at 5:06 am
Great Game, fantastic.
Pretty good now that we can make our own level.
Im just curious about one thing, the storyline is so great, I want more though, There needs to be a book ‘Braid’ or even an Ebook.
April 18th, 2009 at 7:19 am
Jonathan: I know this is not really related to level creation and it may also be a both too personal and/or too common question but I have to ask: were there a princess in your life that you wished you could have rescued, and at the same time have rescued yourself?
April 19th, 2009 at 12:01 pm
If you have created a level or are creating a level or just need help in braid go to braid-mods.com. We have the first 2 downloadable mods for braid and we are always there to help.
April 19th, 2009 at 12:35 pm
What the hell kind of question is that oO
Nice guide, thanks a lot
April 19th, 2009 at 7:05 pm
I was wondering, I downloaded the game via steam, how would I manage to get a folder with an exe file and not a steam exe file?
April 20th, 2009 at 5:00 am
I loved Braid since the first version was launched for the Xbox 360!
Today, on the “O Globo”, one of the most popular newspaper on Brazil, a article about the version for PC was published. WOW!
Here’s the link do the article:
http://oglobo.globo.com/tecnologia/mat/2009/04/20/braid-chega-finalmente-aos-pcs-755350621.asp
Jonathan, your game is fabulous! Please, make a sequel!
April 20th, 2009 at 7:22 am
i have no question but one suggestion.
If you take 1 hours to create quicky a complete map.
You launch FRAPS (or any equivalent video recorder)
and record what you make.
you started braid , you put door create the sublevel with a dialog, and
one level (dont forget puzzle). use the .JPG already done.
I think one movie will be better than a long dialogue to begin.
best regards
April 20th, 2009 at 3:21 pm
How do you set an object to be there/not be there depending on which door was entered? This happens in world3-4, so I know it’s possible. This also happens with a mimic at the end of world 3-6.
April 20th, 2009 at 5:23 pm
Still not pot-files for custom translations?
Why?
April 20th, 2009 at 8:00 pm
Quick, someone make a mod on 2-2 so that the slow moving cloud moves faster.
April 20th, 2009 at 9:03 pm
already did that (along with many other changes that make the game incredibly hard). Get it at
http://braid-mods.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=12&t=22
the cloud is now time reverse immune though…
Please not that the story may contain spoilers if you haven’t gotten all of the stars yet.
April 21st, 2009 at 4:52 am
sadly, an unforseen bug causes the stars to not correctly appear for some reason
April 21st, 2009 at 8:55 am
I cant add pieced-image in the universe world (there are empty list). The same feature, when i try to create a new world, i cant add grass fo example. But, in other worlds (2-2…) there are full lists. How to add some images in new world for example. How it works. Help me please.
April 21st, 2009 at 3:20 pm
Jonathan, please, release Braid’s POT-files
April 22nd, 2009 at 5:02 am
Hey Jon, huge fan of Braid – when I first played it, it was like a breath of fresh air and honestly renewed my faith in the whole ‘games as art’ debate, inspiring me in ways that not many games have done in recent times…
I’m wondering, is it possible with the editor to allow a player to ‘return’ a puzzle piece? (ie. have the opposite effect of collecting a piece)
Thanks, and I’m very much looking forward to seeing your next project.
April 22nd, 2009 at 6:37 am
Jordan, I can’t think of a way in which that’s possible. There might be some crazy way to do it, but I don’t think so.
April 22nd, 2009 at 2:44 pm
Thanks anyway, I just had a crazy idea and wanted to know if it was possible to make a mod where Tim tries to undo his mistakes (again), this time by returning the puzzle pieces, only when he revisits his past he finds that things aren’t quite the same as he remembered them.
April 22nd, 2009 at 6:02 pm
Sorry, I’m a little off-topic. Jonathan, thank you for an incredible game. I have been a time travel buff for many years and my friends recomended Braid to me and I am glad they did. Your perception of time is amazing. I saw elements I have never thought of.
I have written and published a RPG manual on time travel and I would like to give you a copy so I could share my thoughts on time with you, if you are interested. (It’s a PDF availible through RPGnow.)
April 23rd, 2009 at 9:34 am
Can’t wait to get my hands on this, haha! I am having one issue, however, that is really starting to bug me. When I try and run braid with -editor or -universe sample in the properties menu, I am given the message saying that Braid is open in another folder. This is clearly not true, and I’m very curious as to why this is happening. Any help would be greatly appreciated.
Duncan
April 26th, 2009 at 8:30 am
[...] The PC version has the same content as the xbox version, except that you can play with a keyboard or an Xbox 360 controller. (Finally those blocks in the bathroom mean something.) Also, it has the level editing tools used by Jon and me. So you can make your own Braid levels and stuff. Jon wrote a little about that here. [...]
April 26th, 2009 at 4:13 pm
I’m having a serious issue… I’ve decided to try changing the player_gravity variable to something lower in the all.variables file within the archive, just to test and see if it worked.
This caused the game to crash, so I reverted the all.variables file to a backup… but the game still crashes every single time I try and start it. I can’t figure out how to fix it.
Help? :\
April 26th, 2009 at 6:26 pm
KorJax: The safest thing is to reinstall.
If the game is crashing, though, the most likely reason is that the archive is compressed now (or some file is compressed, for example your all.variables). The .zip files have to be completely uncompressed.
The safer way to play around with this stuff is to make your own universe and set the values in Mod.variables.
April 27th, 2009 at 2:17 pm
but how do you reticulate the splines? :p yukyuk
April 30th, 2009 at 5:21 am
Yeah you were right, and it was because the archive that the files sit in are not compressed, but when I replaced it, I didn’t realize this and I ended up compressing the archive by default (which caused the crash).
Works great now
April 30th, 2009 at 4:54 pm
I already have Braid for xbox 360. I would love to be able to play peoples creations, but I’m not going to buy the game again just for this feature.
It would be cool if a version of the level editor/engine were made available separately from the game, so people could use the level editor or play other peoples creations.
May 2nd, 2009 at 9:01 am
I’m really having trouble setting this thing up properly. I’ve copied the content of the two .zip files into the braid directory and added -no_package to the executable. I can edit the cloud hub replacement in the sample, but i am unable to access any other levels from within the editor. It seems that the only way to access the levels is by actually going there in the game, but the editor either stays in the hub level, or gives me an empty screen.
How do i access and edit the other levels from the editor?
May 3rd, 2009 at 10:00 am
Hey, is there any way to activate a platform without a switch? Specifically, can the action of unlocking a door cause a platform to move? I tried giving the door and the platform the same label, but that didin’t work.
May 3rd, 2009 at 4:24 pm
Gemedet: I can’t think of a way to rig that up. Depending on exactly what you’re trying to do, maybe you can think of a workaround.
Niels: I dunno, it should just work. Other people have gotten it working fine so maybe you can talk to folks on braid-mods.com, or something like that…
May 4th, 2009 at 4:09 pm
@niels: You need to copy all of the levels you want to edit into the directory. Otherwise, the editor can’t find them.
May 6th, 2009 at 4:14 pm
Say, why is it that the stars do not appear when using your sample universe? In my mod too, the stars fail to appear.
May 9th, 2009 at 4:26 am
@notgreat: Thanks, that did the trick!
May 13th, 2009 at 7:17 pm
What’s the extra utility to generate the puzzle pieces?
May 14th, 2009 at 11:23 am
I’ve read most of the info available and am I right to assume that making new “powers” is impossible? For example a world where you can stop time for a while (and tim still moves) or a world where tim is always exempt from time and he can scrub time forward and backwards (I guess dying would be a problem then though)
May 14th, 2009 at 11:58 am
Yeah, there isn’t a way to do extra time powers… that would basically require rewriting large parts of the game.
Steve: I haven’t released it as yet… the thing is, not that many people are even making custom levels, so it’s unclear if the effort would amount to much.
May 14th, 2009 at 2:10 pm
Puran: Well, you can stop time by enabling the world 4 mechanic and setting the effect to 0, or by making everything give Tim time-immunity and making the ring have 9999999 range with 0 speed multiplier.
May 14th, 2009 at 4:17 pm
Hello. I’ve done exactly what this guide says. I’ve extracted the universe file into where the Braid.exe is in, I put on the command line -universe sample, I clicked on the shortcut, and went into the World 2 door. I see no changes, neither does on the stages. I tried to start a new game, and then re-enter that door, but I still see no changes. Any help, please? =(
May 16th, 2009 at 2:03 pm
Nevermind what I said…but I have another problem. I extracted all of the data…into the data folder, that is with the braid.exe, and when I try to start it up, it shows a black screen for a second and it turns off. I try it without packages, but without -no_package, and it doesn’t work. I try with -no_package, and with the packages, doesn’t work. -no_package, no packages, not working. They don’t seem to work. Any idea how to get it started? =(
May 16th, 2009 at 9:03 pm
Jonathan, if you want more people making more mods and levels for braid, you need to release more tools and documentation for it. The docs right now are all over the place (some info here, some info on the braid-mods site and some on the steam forum page).
Also, I tried doing something completely from scratch today, and manually writing those pi_set files is a pain. There should be some kind of tool to generate those.
I’m intending to make a complete mod, using as little of the original content as I can but I’m kind of having a hard time.
May 21st, 2009 at 3:11 am
How I can change my custom level image? (Not just the bitmap, because then all the ‘Hunt’ level indexes will have the same image)
May 21st, 2009 at 6:53 am
The name for the level image is specified in the level_config file (these are the lines that say, for example, “3-1″)… and it looks up the bitmap name by concatenating this with the names of the bitmap sets listed on lines 2 and 3.
So, for example, in the standard level_config, line 2 is “icons” and line 3 is “smallicons”, so if you go into the 4th door on world 2, the string listed there is “2-4″, so the icon will be the bitmap named “icons2-4″ (or smallicons2-4 on one of the castle blocks).
May 21st, 2009 at 8:52 am
There is no bitmap named icons2-4 in my Braid directory! Or I didn’t understand right… BTW did you have any image piecing software. Seems a bit hard to modify the ‘pi_set’ files manually…
May 21st, 2009 at 2:45 pm
Well, those bitmaps are in the ‘pieces’ folder, and they are packed together; icons.pi_set is the index and then icons_page_0.jpg and alpha/icons_page_0.jpg control what they look like. There is a tool that builds these packed bitmap sets but I haven’t released it… for now if you wanted to make new ones, you can copy those files to, say, icons2.pi_set, icons2_page_0.jpg, and alpha/icons2_page_0.jpg; then edit icons.pi_set, and every time it says icons_page_0, change it to icons2_page_0; then you can paint over alpha/icons2_page_0.jpg and put new icons in place over the old ones, and then use those in your level_config.
May 21st, 2009 at 11:33 pm
But when I change the ‘pit’ or ‘hunt’ image wouldn’t it affect many levels?
May 22nd, 2009 at 8:21 am
Ran into another problem! When I include the ‘icons.pi_set’ and ‘icons_page_0.jpg’ and even the alpha folder with icon alpha data! All files modified. I don’t want to my work to be useless…
May 22nd, 2009 at 5:33 pm
Mac users: please note that the Mac version has the editor as well, and that the universes folder belongs in the Resources folder nestled within Braid.app. (By right-clicking Braid.app and choosing “Show package contents”, you should be able to look inside Braid.app for the Resources folder.)
And thank you for including the editor in the Mac version!
May 23rd, 2009 at 1:01 pm
Ok, here are a couple of questions:
1) How do you change what the game saves? I added another world with puzzle pieces, but it isn’t saving.
2) How do you add another puzzle level background? I added a puzzle7.entities file, but it just showed a black background on the puzzle screen.
3) Is there any way to get the stars back into the game? The “shine”s are missing in the sample mod.
Thanks in advance.
May 23rd, 2009 at 1:26 pm
The game probably won’t save anything after world 6. This was done for file size reasons, generally. Similarly for loading stuff like puzzle backgrounds, I don’t particularly think that the game is going to do that properly if you go to world 7 or beyond.
This mod stuff is not really meant for you to add things to the base game, it’s meant for you to replace what’s there with your own thing.
May 27th, 2009 at 2:59 pm
Thanks for answering, but do you know anything about the missing stars?
Also, looking at world 1-1, the rotating platforms don’t seem to have the rotatable box checked. Is there any way to make rotating platforms in our levels?
May 27th, 2009 at 3:05 pm
Third, is there any way to change what the dino says? I edited the .mo file, but it didn’t change in my universe.
Thanks again.
May 27th, 2009 at 7:51 pm
I don’t think there is a way to change the strings in the .mo file. However, you can type what you want the dinosaur to say directly into the slots in the editor (instead of the labels of things in the .mo file) and he will say what you typed there instead.
May 27th, 2009 at 7:52 pm
As for rotating platforms, the ones in 1-1 are kind of a hack. If you do them exactly the way they are done there, then they’ll work, otherwise, possibly not.
May 27th, 2009 at 8:13 pm
About the dino: I didn’t see any of labels in the greeter’s properties. I saw a string1, string2, and string3, but they all had (null) and wouldn’t let me change them.
rotating platforms: I copy+pasted the switches and platforms, but they didn’t work… wait (goes & checks) that drawbridge marker must have something to do with it. I’ll look into it.
about stars: I’ll take it that there just isn’t anything I can do. I’ll stop bugging you about them now.
Thank you, and great job on this excellent game.
May 29th, 2009 at 4:39 am
string1, string2, and string3 are the right things. You should be able to change them just like anything else. What happens when you try?
Yeah, for the rotating platforms to work, there has to be a Marker present that makes them work. It probably is the drawbridge one.
May 29th, 2009 at 1:09 pm
Whenever I try to change string1, string2, or string3, the editor always seems to reject my change and put it back to (null). So, I can change it, but when I try to confirm my change (hitting enter, clicking somewhere else, etc), it always becomes (null) again. It does record the event in the undo panel, but it doesn’t change anything trying to undo/redo the event.
I found that if I replace greeter_id with a string (possible!), he says: greeter(whatever text I put)_0
Could this have something to do with it?
May 30th, 2009 at 1:17 pm
Hmm, I will take a look at this. Maybe I changed the Greeter at some point to never use those strings any more…
June 2nd, 2009 at 6:17 pm
Once you finish with the dinosaur, I have another question for you:
How do you change the speedrun times for levels? I found the page, but all it is is a marker…
Sorry for asking so many questions
June 2nd, 2009 at 6:50 pm
Hello! I have one question – how do you finish last level of every world? Where aren’t any doors or markers, here is only greeter. Maybe greeter ends level? If it’s true, how can I make it on custom level? If it’s false, who ends level?
June 3rd, 2009 at 8:26 am
The last level wants there to be a Flagpole and a Greeter. When you cross the Flagpole, it activates the Greeter to come over. When the Greeter is done talking, the level ends.
June 3rd, 2009 at 8:26 am
I don’t think there is a way to change the speed run times. Hmm, it didn’t occur to me that people would want to do that.
June 4th, 2009 at 7:39 am
Yes, it works. But flag snaps into action at once after start of level and greeter starts speak. After it level ends. I set all attributes as in original levels, but it’s always one result.
June 4th, 2009 at 10:07 am
Sorry, I’m not really sure what you are saying here.
If you are trying to start the player out on the right side of a Flagpole, you can’t do that.
June 4th, 2009 at 6:33 pm
And last question. My level is vertical (I starts on top and go deeper). When I go across flag (but flag is much deeper than me) level ends! Can I change height of flag-zone (zone that alarms to end level) and make it smaller? Changing of yellow borders of flag don’t help.
June 4th, 2009 at 8:07 pm
I tried using the editor on the Mac (Macbook Pro, Geforce 8600) but it looks like it’s not working right. It looks like it’s not using the right textures on things.
June 5th, 2009 at 6:38 am
I don’t think there’s a way to shrink the flag zone like you want. It is made just for horizontal levels. I think the best you can do is have a little area at the end of the level that goes farther right than the rest of the level, and put the flag there.
June 8th, 2009 at 4:55 am
Quick question, can music and visual effects be edited with the editor, or just layout of objects? I don’t have a copy of Braid on this computer.
Sam.
June 8th, 2009 at 7:30 am
Yes, music and visual effects can be added / changed.
June 9th, 2009 at 10:27 am
Hello Mr. Blow, would you be so kind as to tell me how to open your sample level in os x? I’ve put it in the resources folder like somebody else said but when I go into the door I just get the normal story room. Could it be that I am using the demo? P.S. don’t think me some kind of cheapskate, I’ve got the XBLA version.
Thanks, and lots of love. Sorry if this is a double post, something’s wrong.
June 9th, 2009 at 8:07 pm
The demo does ignore the -universe option; only the full version will load levels when you use it.
June 10th, 2009 at 5:53 am
Ok, thank you.
June 10th, 2009 at 6:38 pm
Hello! Thanks for helping with greeter! I have another question: There is marker’s label :lightswitch that makes objects visible. Are there any labels that make object impenetrable/intangible or immobile/mobile?
June 12th, 2009 at 1:26 pm
Jonathan, we need a gathering place for exchanging new levels.
June 12th, 2009 at 5:13 pm
check out the braid mod forums at http://braid-mods.com/forum/
specifically, the level forum. We have a good number of mods there now.
June 12th, 2009 at 5:17 pm
Also, anything about the greeter’s text? Even a “Nothing you can do, tough luck” would be fine. I just dislike having the word greeter at the start and a _0 at the end…
June 13th, 2009 at 2:28 am
You could try to mask it like: “greeter says: [message here] o_0″. It will not be the best solution, but that is one way to make it look a bit better than “greeter[message here]_0″ because it’s a bit hard to read…
June 13th, 2009 at 5:34 am
Yeah, the thing is, if I patch this, then it won’t work right for anyone who has an unpatched copy.
June 13th, 2009 at 9:15 am
@ZramuliZ: Yeah, that’s what I currently have going
@Jonathan Blow: You’re saying that for anyone with an unpatched copy, the mod won’t work, right? If so, I don’t think that’s a big deal, because I can just have a message on the download page for my mod saying “You need Braid 1.015 or higher in order to run this mod.”
June 13th, 2009 at 12:02 pm
Jonathan, if you are going to make a patch, please include the stars in custom universes…
August 7th, 2009 at 7:29 am
there is some good universes now, i hope you have try some of them.
Mine is “silverbraid”
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ABum7iA0Ggk
August 13th, 2009 at 12:46 am
how can i save the edited file by me as i’m not native english user i can not understand what you say. please teach me the way to save braid map file very easy word. for example ‘step 1 what. step 2 what. step 3 …. etc’
February 8th, 2010 at 6:22 pm
Just bought the game, and completed it in one night. Have to say that the level designs were quite ingenious. Game seemed a bit short though, but I am definately glad to hear that there is an editor. Can’t wait to try out player created levels and se what challenges they have in store for me.
I am a bit unclear as to the storyline though I plan to see if there’s some info somewhere that places all the parts in one place and in order. It also may be it’s because I tend to have troubles retaining written material for very long. I did like the hidden story parts in the epilogue as well.
All in all a great game.
April 29th, 2010 at 1:36 pm
I have just bought the PC version after being an avid XBL player, i have beaten the game many times collected the 8 stars and am very highly ranked in alot of the speed trials (equal 3rd for leap of faith and 12th on Jumpman) and decided i wanted to try some of the mods for braid, unfortunately now the braid-mods.com site is down and i cannot get a hold of mods such as “silverbraid” “stone” etc… if anyone could perhaps upload some of the custom universes to rapidshare and give me the link i will be very grateful. Just reply here and i will receive it thank you.
April 29th, 2010 at 8:17 pm
Last I checked, the guy who ran braid-mods.com was active on the Steam forum for Braid… you might want to check there.
July 23rd, 2010 at 9:26 am
I have just finish a new version of silverbraid :
world 4 is complete
http://host-a.net/nspc69/nspc-silverbraid-2.0.zip
I hope a new site as braid-mods.com will be up
August 2nd, 2010 at 4:26 pm
edit :
an update :
( bug correction of level 4-6 )
http://host-a.net/nspc69/nspc-silverbraid-2.1.zip
You can see some video of “yosniper”, a youtube user who makes video of hard mods ( often mario )
and here silverbraid : (one of the video)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pnaCq7LEbgI
some chinesse people love and play some mods too in a chinesse youtube
for exemple postepilogue :
http://v.youku.com/v_show/id_XMTA5OTQ5MTY4.html
August 18th, 2010 at 5:58 pm
Hello! I love Braid. I’m trying to create my own braid level, but I can’t understand the tutorial, because I don’t speak english. Can someone translate it to spanish? Thank you very much. By te way I played the mods PostEpilogue and I’m playing Silverbraid
August 20th, 2010 at 1:43 am
@nspc great that you\’re continuing working on silverbraid!
Now that braid-mods is gone there was no place to talk about braid mods.
I hope you\’ll finish silverbraid; I really want to see how the world 1 of silverbraid might look like.
January 22nd, 2011 at 2:39 pm
I tried running braid with -universe sample but braid just quits unexpectedely. Im on a mac and i put universes folder in the resources folder….
January 27th, 2011 at 8:02 pm
I also tried running braid with -universe sample but it just quits unexpectedely. Im on a mac and I bought it on the app store.
February 20th, 2011 at 5:47 pm
david the folder is called “universes sample” not universe sample
im on a mac too and braid starts but the mods dont work anyway
what im doing wrong ???
August 30th, 2011 at 5:45 am
Hi Jonathan, I want to make a mod and I want to modify the visual style. I’ve modified much of it now, but there are images that are not in the folders, like the bridge of the begining, right down Tim. Would you tell me please where is it?
August 30th, 2011 at 8:03 am
Oh, I didn’t realized about the zero-general-black .dds files. But now the problem is, is there a way I can change the size of the textures?
I know, power of 2, but is there a way of making another dds files with more textures so I can compose them in-game?
I know how to make dds files with PS and the nVidia tools, but how to tell Braid the rectangles of every piece and to load the file?
October 19th, 2011 at 2:25 pm
I don’t know if anyone still kicks around here, but how do I install and play these mods? I’ve tried unpacking the file on this blog, as well as the stone and post epilogue mods in a series of steam folders but no success. I’ve also spent some good time googling, but that only turns up half life 2 mod instructions (which haven’t helped).
Is there any setting that have to be changed, etc? I followed the instructions, but nothing works.
Appreciate any helpful tips.
December 4th, 2011 at 8:13 am
But so far there is no documentation about the level editor. It depresses me. There are too many questions. Without documentation to make fully mode is difficult. Jonathan Blow, spare us..
December 27th, 2011 at 3:24 am
my braid just quits like that.
December 29th, 2011 at 6:28 am
When complete it just gives a great amount of satisfaction. Totally mind-compelling game. Thanx for such a great game Jonathan may The Witness be even greater a mind-compelling one
. Would like to know opinions for amatuer game programming in c++ using object programming. Have thought of a game with its design, etc but don’t know how to start it with…Thanx
March 18th, 2012 at 3:50 am
Help! my braid quits unexpectedly every time i use the sample or any other universe
January 8th, 2013 at 10:44 pm
Hello,
I am unable to run the sample universe (or any custom universe) in the Mac version of Braid obtained from Steam. I believe part of the issue may be that package.zip and package0.zip are replaced by package.hba and package0.hba, so likely the custom universe is also expected to have package.hba instead of package.zip.
Since I have Braid on Steam, I obtained the package.zip and package0.zip files by installing it on a Windows machine, and copied them over, extracting them as instructed into the data folder so that I could try running the universe in -no_package mode. However, this still doesn’t quite work; at least it doesn’t crash, but I’m presented with a black screen. Sounds work (for example I can hear the intro music), but no images. Maybe I’m doing something wrong?
Long story short, I’m unsure the Mac version is even capable of playing custom universes, which is a little disappointing.
January 28th, 2013 at 9:10 am
Yeah, when Hothead did this Mac port they didn’t necessarily preserve everything necessary for the editor. Sorry about this, but I don’t think you can edit things there. Not completely sure though.
February 5th, 2013 at 12:55 pm
I have no question Yet But I want to Thank Mr Blow for Answering these to many questions, It’s just amazing that u care so much for your audience.
Thanks again.