All posts by Jonathan Blow

Braid Previews

Braid Previews in Magazines

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Last month’s issue of Xbox World 360 magazine has a great preview of Braid. It’s 4 pages long, and you can tell they put a lot of effort into it. Indies are lucky to get even meager press attention for their games, so I’d like to thank these guys for running such a huge and good-looking feature. It’s risky for a magazine to do something like this; readers are not exactly clamoring to know about Braid; they probably want to know about Fallout 3 or Oblivion 2 or something.

I am a little embarrassed by the “play up the personality of the designer and talk about how cool he is” angle; I would rather people just write about the game itself.

Braid and its visuals also came up, quite favorably, in the discussion column they print on the last page of the magazine.

The editors gave me permission to reproduce the preview here for anyone who’s interested… so here it is. (Click on the small images for hopefully-readable bigger ones.)

Xbox World 360 preview

Xbox World 360 preview

Xbox World 360 preview

 

Play magazine had a really cool 2-page feature; and in the past, PC Gamer (UK) has printed a very positive preview, and Edge has printed a preview that they tell me is positive, though I don’t quite see it.

(Since we haven’t quite finalized the PC version of the game, we’re not in too much contact with PC game magazines yet.)

Other Games, Tangential

Nicewrench, a new game prototype, has been posted.

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Nicewrench Screenshot

In 2007, the indie developer messhof created FLYWRENCH, which I felt was a very interesting game. I recommend that all game designers play it. You can download FLYWRENCH here.

In February 2008, I created a game prototype called Nicewrench, which was about experimenting with FLYWRENCH’s design: what happens if you take a game that is about mercilessly killing the player, and remove the possibility for player death?

You can download Nicewrench on my game prototypes page, here.

Both FLYWRENCH and Nicewrench were shown (and played by a room full of attendees) in my presentation at Nuances of Design 2008.

There’s more in the way of design musing in the README, which is also copied here, after the fold.

Continue reading Nicewrench, a new game prototype, has been posted. →

Game Criticism, Games as Art

The Kotaku Game Club is back.

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I first mentioned the Kotaku Game Club here a year ago. After being active for a short time, the game club went on a long hiatus. But now, Brian Crecente has revived it. This week they will be playing Beyond Good and Evil, a highly-acclaimed game that you can download from Steam for $10.

Beyond Good & Evil

If you’re interested in participating, you’ll want to download and play the game soon; they’re discussing the game in four parts, and the first discussion happens on July 7.

In case I didn’t make it obvious enough, the Kotaku link introducing the new Game Club assignment is here.

Continue reading The Kotaku Game Club is back. →

Braid Development

An Update

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It’s been a while since the blog was updated. I’m not dead — we’ve just been very busy finishing the game.

VMC Sign-off

(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.)