An Update
It’s been a while since the blog was updated. I’m not dead — we’ve just been very busy finishing the game.
(This doesn’t mean Braid has passed certification yet. It means Braid has been allowed to go into certification. But it does mean we are done with the game. The XBLA version, at least.)
June 26th, 2008 at 4:21 pm
I still need this game in my life. Hopefully before I ship out, too.
June 26th, 2008 at 5:40 pm
Woo-hoo!!! Congrats again, Jonathon. But, not to rain on your parade, just because it’s in certification, does it mean they won’t say something like, “Oh we found this. We can’t have This?” Basically, they can still make you make changes to it, right?
I’m excited again, and it’s good to know you’re not dead.
June 26th, 2008 at 5:45 pm
In theory it is possible, but that’s not really what cert is for — it’s a totally different team from the publishing team, and by the time a title is in cert people don’t want to mess with it, because any changes would require going through cert all over again.
Based on my recent interactions with Microsoft, though, at this point I wouldn’t be surprised. Fingers crossed.
June 26th, 2008 at 5:51 pm
Congrats and good luck! I hate this part of the process.
June 26th, 2008 at 6:02 pm
This is going to be the best thing that’s happened to XBLA since… hmm. I guess it’s actually just the best thing, period!
June 26th, 2008 at 6:31 pm
Hooray, it’s a new beginning of the beginning of the end before the real beginning!
June 26th, 2008 at 7:01 pm
Just wanted to drop a line and say I’m very excited. This is the only XBLA game I’ve been excited about. What I’ve seen looks beautiful.
After the utter disappointment that was Alone in the Dark I need something to get back to the X360 with. Is there an estimated date of release?
Gamespot lists this as coming out next week.
“A lesson is learned…” is also probably my favorite webcomic of all time. If it wasn’t for this site I would never have discovered it, so thanks again.
June 26th, 2008 at 7:02 pm
Well, anyways, congratulations again. I second that best thing since the beginning. Can’t wait to play!
June 26th, 2008 at 7:54 pm
Gamespot’s date was probably a guess or else an estimate that Microsoft gave them a while ago. There’s no way for Braid to come out next week, since certification itself takes longer than that (and if Braid doesn’t pass the first time, release may take correspondingly longer). Also, there are other games queued up to be released.
I don’t know yet what the release date will be… hopefully not too far in the future!
June 26th, 2008 at 10:54 pm
I was actually genuinely thinking that you might have died less than 12 hours ago, since there is usually a pretty steady stream of posts. I’m glad that you didn’t. I hope that the game will pass certification, so you can get to work on the pc version.
June 26th, 2008 at 11:19 pm
Congratulations! I’m sure hitting that milestone feels fantastic. Now good luck to you in dealing with the evil that is VMC.
June 26th, 2008 at 11:37 pm
Finally, an update and good news. Best of luck - and hopefully we all get to play the game soon!
June 27th, 2008 at 1:34 am
My anti-spam word for posting this was “monster”, which is hopefully the kind of hit Braid will be! Congratulations! You poured yourself into it and players will feel that.
Chris
June 27th, 2008 at 6:36 am
I can’t wait to play it all over again–this time with bugs fixed!
June 27th, 2008 at 8:03 am
Congratulations! Unfortunately I’ll have to wait for the PC release, but it’s good to know you’re getting closer
June 27th, 2008 at 4:28 pm
Well done! Definitely looking forward to taking this for a spin soon.
June 28th, 2008 at 12:17 pm
Yes! Sounds like we might still have a little bit of a wait before us, but the fact that you’ve finished the game can only be a good thing. I’ve been waiting for this game for…years now. It was one of the reasons I bought my 360.
I’m just curious, what exactly is the process for certification?
June 28th, 2008 at 12:20 pm
The process is… they run a lot of tests. I don’t know, exactly. What happens though, is, if a test fails, they tell me what the problem is and I have to fix it and give them a new version of the game, which then has to pass all the tests again.
June 28th, 2008 at 2:49 pm
Awesome! The game is great, and I hope it sells a bajillion copies!
June 29th, 2008 at 6:34 am
Hello, Jonathon. I had a few questions, since release is nearing.
1) How much will this cost for Xbox 360 and Windows?
2) What is the estimated date for release for each?
3) How big will it be for both?
4) What do you think was the hardest part of programming and just designing Braid?
June 29th, 2008 at 10:14 am
So certification means that they check for bugs and overall quality, not to see if there is any inappropiate content (like some sort of censorship)?
I second the request for an ETA on the PC version and information on pricing. Will it come out for Linux (or Mac)?
Can you also give an estimate on how long the game will take to complete? And how’s the replay value?
June 29th, 2008 at 2:37 pm
1) We haven’t talked much to Microsoft about the price yet. For Windows I especially don’t know (that version isn’t done yet!)
2) I also don’t have an estimated release date.
3) The download on the Xbox 360 is about 145MB. The Windows download may be smaller (since it could be compressed more effectively).
4) The hardest part was staying motivated and just making myself do the work.
June 29th, 2008 at 2:42 pm
XBLA has a “Content Review” process which is where they would jump in and try to censor something, but we passed that a long time ago (and they had no problems with Braid).
I do plan to release a Linux version, but it will probably come after the Windows version.
Braid is not a game about replay. Some people who really love the game have played it 5 or 6 times, and I could see a lot of people playing it twice (because it’s just interesting to go back and see all the puzzles again). Braid is about providing a strong/compelling/unique experience to you the *first* time you play it.
I think of Braid as being a 5-hour game, but the play-time will vary tremendously based on how a player is at solving “out-of-the-box” kinds of puzzles. A reasonable range might be 4-8 hours.
(The 5 hours is for the main campaign; there are speed runs that an enthusiastic player can do, and those are an extra few hours at least.)
June 29th, 2008 at 3:09 pm
Can you give out osme of the achievements, or does it even have any? Is there a sequel planned if it does good enough, since you’ve already got a bunch of tools and such down. But then again, it might be hard to think of new things to weld onto it without making it gimmicky…
Sorry for the barrage.
June 29th, 2008 at 7:03 pm
The Achievements aren’t important. I don’t like Achievements that much (especially if they are platform requirements as they are for the Xbox 360).
There’s no sequel — it’s just Braid. I am already working on the next game and it is nothing like Braid.
June 30th, 2008 at 12:09 am
I agree that achievements are really silly. I think that playing a game should be its own reward. Also forcing developers to add them will just mean that those developers that don’t like them will add especially meaningless ones.
Is (the PC version of) the game going to contain any editors and tools, so that people might make there own puzzles? I think because the concepts are rather unique, you might be surprised with what others might come up with.
I know you’ve won the Design Innovation award of IGF 2006. But had you submitted the game this year, I think you might have won a few more awards (my guess is that you would have a good chance at winning the visual art and grand prizes). Anyway this might be something to think about on your next project, since the prize money can really help to avoid needing a side-job, which in turn will mean we’ll have to wait shorter for it.
Now a bit of a technical question: what programming languages and tools did you use to code Braid?
June 30th, 2008 at 8:54 am
The level editor for Braid is built into the game. On the Xbox 360, however, it’s not compiled in. On the PC it will be. Originally my plan was to make it easy for people to build and exchange their own levels, but now I’m not so sure. The problem is that a lot of what makes Braid work is hardcoded into the program assuming a very specific structure to the game (the way the house is set up, and the sub-worlds you go to, etc). So that could get messy. It’s something I need to take a look at when the PC versions are released.
It’s true that Braid would win more awards now, but I can’t live my life in order to please awards panels. For example, I submitted an improved version of Braid to the IGF in 2007 (thinking the art would be done in time… which ended up not being the case). It got predominantly negative comments from the judges, who didn’t even realize it had won the design award in 2006. The response was completely different from the prior year, and the judges didn’t even see the merit in the game. If these things are so inconsistent from year to year, then one simply cannot take them seriously.
Then you can look at bigger / more-established awards, like the Motion Picture Academy Awards… ugh. No thanks.
Furthermore, though — David Hellman came to be working on Braid because he was referred to me by someone who became aware of the game through some combination the IGF / showing it at the Experimental Gameplay Sessions / I’m not exactly how. But the point is that if the game had not been exposed to the public like that already, he may not have ended up working on it, and it would be a very different game today. So there is that.
Braid is written in C++. I used Visual Studio 2007 (but I wish I didn’t have to, since Visual Studio just keeps getting worse with every revision).
June 30th, 2008 at 8:55 am
Well, actually, I probably started Braid in Visual Studio 2003 or 2005, since 2007 was not out at the time! But 2007 was required for xbox development.
June 30th, 2008 at 9:42 am
That’s interesting. Sorry I keep bringing this up, but games like N+ have me going back to them repeatedly for the level editor. A level editor in Braid would be amazing, though I realize it’s a very single player focused and driven game. I just can’t help think of how much better it may be though with an editor (for 360). I really hope you consider releasing one for the xbox, but I also know it would be more difficult and limited on 360. (I know, I tried making one; didn’t work…)
C++ is the most widely used and praised language, isn’t it… I wished I’d started using that over Visual C# 2005 + XNA.
June 30th, 2008 at 9:47 am
A level editor will not happen on XBLA because Microsoft does not allow free sharing of user-made content, so there’s no point in putting that much effort into it. If there’s a level editor it will be PC-only.
Braid would simply not work in any language slower than C++; I had to do a lot of optimization to even get it to run at reasonable speeds on the xbox. Also, the thing to realize about XNA is that it locks you into Microsoft platforms. C++ is supported everywhere.
June 30th, 2008 at 9:51 am
Very true about XNA locking. But, it fits my needs right now, for Windows. C++ really is supported on ANY platform?
June 30th, 2008 at 10:01 am
You should throw in some terrible secret Bloopi joke once you beat the game. It would be ‘emotional’.
June 30th, 2008 at 10:23 am
Well, if you are going to very old platforms or small embedded ones, you might have to switch to C. But that is pretty rare (and if you don’t heavily use C++ classes, as I do not, then switching to C would just be a bunch of straightforward busywork anyway).
June 30th, 2008 at 10:36 am
I’ve been wanting to create a game myself for quite some time now, but I never seem to have time for it (I’m still in university). I plan to make a simple one in the summer holiday, which starts next week. The game itself will probably not be a lot of fun to play, but I hope to learn a lot from it.
Despite C++ being the language that is used mostly for games, I’m going to make it in the functional language Haskell. It’s a very interesting language which I’ve enjoyed using instead of imperative languages for about a year now. It will probably take a bit more effort to get it all working, as I’ll have to do everything myself. I hope I’ll regain much of that in the debugging stage though, as Haskell code usually works as intented in one go.
@Jon: It’s a little weird about the IGF, I agree that it would cause me to lose respect for the awards as well.
June 30th, 2008 at 2:59 pm
I wouldn’t say that I don’t respect the IGF — the IGF serves a good role, and it’s a nice way for independent developers to get their work noticed.
I’m just saying, I wouldn’t take any awards system too seriously, whether it be the IGF or anyone else.
June 30th, 2008 at 3:40 pm
Hey Jon, congratulations on getting into certification. Hopefully you will fly through.
- Chris
June 30th, 2008 at 8:42 pm
I got a chance to play braid on PartnerNet at my work. Completing that first jigsaw puzzle really blew my mind. I should say I’ve seen videos of some of your talks about game design so I did know the solutions to a couple of puzzles before I started. The way you’ve embedded instructions on how to play directly into the level art was very nice. I think tutorial levels in games are painful because you feel like you’re being forced to make your way through some trite series of tasks before you can get to the “real” game. Any game which is able to dispense with that entirely has made an excellent first impression with me. Everything looked ready to ship, so I doubt you’d have any trouble getting it through certification.
June 30th, 2008 at 11:08 pm
Interesting stuff. I learned about Braid from gaming blogs like Kotaku and/or 1UP. And having watched some gaming videos I really took quite a liking to the art style immediately. I admit I’m interested in this game mostly because of the art.
Anyway, normally I wouldn’t write anything here into the comments. But reading the bits about the IGF and mandatory tutorials I couldn’t keep my mouth shut, so here goes.
I find it very interesting that Braid got praises 2006 and was completely ignored 2007. And I think that’s entirely appropriate. Because that I in IGF stands for independent, right? I mean what use would have such an event if the judges would always look for the same type of qualities each year? Nothing. Maybe if they had different categories where you could enter your project, like art style, sound design, etc. But that would make it more like the big movie or music awards… probably.
About tutorials. Oh no, I strongly disagree! Every game should have mandatory tutorials. Well, games where you have to learn some basic concepts to play them. Some games obviously don’t need them, because discovering these concepts are part of the game. But for example look at the game Portal. The first two thirds of the game are actually the tutorial. Of course, the secret is to design that tutorial in such a way, that it’s not too strict. After playing through Portal and turning on the comments I was surprised how many different things the designers would ‘explore’ through playtesters. Some comments started like “we had originally a different design for that part when we noticed that players would do this and that instead of such-and-such, so we re-designed it…”
Anyway, that’s my 2 cents. I’m looking forward to Braid.
July 1st, 2008 at 4:25 am
And on that note, I hope Braid won’t suffer from the same problems Portal did - namely, two thirds of an already short game feeling like tutorial levels, and puzzles being far too easy in general.
July 1st, 2008 at 7:34 am
I don’t think you have anything to worry about there.
There are tutorial-like elements in Braid but they are brief and very steep.
July 1st, 2008 at 9:43 am
Arnulf:
I agree completely, i just don’t like it when games put you in a sort of walled garden in the beginning that is disconnected from whatever narrative that the rest of the game has going later on. As you said, Portal teaches you very seamlessly and I think its a great example of how games can be structured. Many real time strategy games can also do this kind of gradual learning process well. Starcraft introduces some new rule or unit in every single level of the game so in a way the entire game is one huge tutorial.
That being said, sometimes its not possible to reduce a complex game into smaller parts which can be learned one by one in a playable environment. I think Defcon is a very good game, but its not structured in such a way that you could have early missions that are just the deployment phase or just the phase where you can use conventional warfare, it has to teach you the entire game all at once. Board games like Monopoly also work this way, you have to read all of the instructions before you can begin.
July 1st, 2008 at 11:30 am
I have mixed feelings about tutorials. I’ve been an avid gamer for over ten years now, so most games don’t really need a tutorial for me, except maybe to know key bindings. On the other hand they are useful for newcomers. I think that the key to good tutorials are that they adjust to the level of experience the player has prior to playing the game. Integrating narrative into it is good as long as it’s not forced in. IIRC Starcraft did actually have a separate tutorial explaining things like selecting and issuing orders.
In the case of Braid, since it’s a puzzle game, it should be more than sufficient to introduce new concepts with a simple puzzle and a few lines of text. Although Portal uses the same basic approach, it’s too much learning and not enough puzzling. There is going to be a Portal 2 though, something which isn’t the case with Braid.
I think the most compelling thing about Braid and Portal/Narbacular Drop is that they offer something new, which is something I’m craving for and not seeing enough. Of course it’s okay to make a solid game based on well-established mechanics (a la Blizzard), but it would be really nice if there was a bigger percentage of projects doing something new. This will also make the tutorial much more meaningful.
July 1st, 2008 at 12:16 pm
Jonathon, have you ever thought of releasing one of the very early concept builds of Braid for people to try? For instance, the one played in this video, if you still have it and as long as some of the puzzles are different from the current puzzles:
http://video.google.com/videosearch?q=Braid%20Game&rls=com.microsoft:en-us:IE-Address&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&sourceid=ie7&rlz=1I7ADBS&um=1&sa=N&tab=wv#
July 1st, 2008 at 2:46 pm
I’ve thought about it as a joke, or a “hey that’s cute” kind of thing, but there isn’t really a reason to play an earlier version, gameplay-wise. The reason the puzzles are set up the way they are now is because they are just a lot better than the old versions. The old versions usually aren’t different enough to provide extra gameplay or anything — you’d just be like, “oh yeah, I know the solution to this one; maybe it’s kind of neat that it’s set up differently here, but whatever.”
July 7th, 2008 at 1:38 pm
I am really looking forward to this game. I’ve always loved scrolling platformers and the visual look is great. I’m eager to experience the gameplay mechanics with all that play on time.
Thanks for making it and good luck with your next project.
In between freelancing, I’m developing a scrolling platform game using hand drawn pencil drawings. Trouble is I’m making it in Director… well at least that’ll be enough to show off a few demo levels, right? (I have got it working - it’s not just a dream)
July 8th, 2008 at 10:32 am
[...] long ago, I posted that Braid had entered final certification. It seems the game has passed cert on the first try, and is now set for release. A release date has [...]
August 17th, 2008 at 6:43 pm
Paul Visschers, let me welcome you to the hell that is Haskell GUI work.