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Developer Praises Complexity of Time-Based Puzzles In "Braid"
Raven Software game developer Manveer Heir takes a look at the design mechanics of Braid, a recently released puzzle game for Xbox Live Arcade (a review is available at Gamespot). Heir commends Braid's focus on taking an interesting mechanic and exploring it fully through level design, rather than generating complexity with the interaction of many different mechanics.
"One of my favorite worlds has time move forward as the player moves to the right, and rewind as the player moves left; Time is being controlled spatially. Another world has the player make a recording of themselves that can interact with certain objects, similar to Cursor*10. ... What is amazing is how complex and devilish some of the puzzles can still be, even though they revolve around the single mechanic for that world. ... Feeling like you have to guess what the designer was thinking is how many old adventure games played out, and it was rarely fun. Feeling like you just made a discovery on your own is what makes this game and games like Portal work so well."
Well, they didn't really say it didn't require trial and error, they said it didn't require guessing. Which is true: you have to try different methods to solve a puzzle sometimes, but you're never reduced to pure guesswork--you always have an inkling to go on, you just need to figure out how to develop it.
"16MB (fuck off, MiB fascists)" - The Mighty Buzzard
answer: when we stop letting the big companies and their bigger budget projects make millions off of cheap, subpar work.