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[Corpus]

Beware spoilers. Only read if you've finished the world with the time-slowing ring.

Re: pixel-perfect timing, there was one puzzle where it did seem required. It's the one on the world with the ring where the puzzle piece is floating high up in the air above a platform which can be raised and lowered. The switch to raise or lower the platform is inside a room which can only be accessed by a corridor down which fireballs are constantly fired, meaning that it's possible to get in, but not to get out.

I solved it as follows. Underneath the puzzle piece and on top of the room with the lever/switch, there's a cannon firing goombas in an arc into a pit of spikes. I placed the time-slowing ring just to the left of the spike pit so that the falling goombas became closer together, allowing me to jump up them as if they were a moving staircase to reach the high platform to the right of the puzzle piece. This required me to get the timing exactly right - jump too late, and you go over the head of the first goomba, jump too early and it kills you or you fall into the spikes, etc. - so I'm guessing that wasn't the most elegant solution.

How did you do it?

[Nathaniel607]

MOAR SPOILERS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
only read if youve beat the game!!

A beat that last one a even harder way. I used the time slowing ring to get TWO goombas down one after another YOU WONT BELIEVE HOW HARD THAT WAS!!!

Also, for me the following three where too 'cheap';

1. The one in the first world with the painting, grrrr....

2. (worldd 5?) The one when you had to let the goomba fall onto your shadow, which made the goomba CATAPULT up in the air so you could jump on it.

3. The one in world 6 when you had to slow one platform down so the other one whent under it.

[Tobasco Panda]

How did you do it?

That was pretty much how I did it too, though a bit closer to the cannon. I think that was the last piece I got actually.

Nathaniel607: Yeah those were pretty tough ones. Especially the world 5 piece you brought up.

[team_q]

MOAR SPOILERS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
only read if youve beat the game!!

A beat that last one a even harder way. I used the time slowing ring to get TWO goombas down one after another YOU WONT BELIEVE HOW HARD THAT WAS!!!

Also, for me the following three where too 'cheap';

1. The one in the first world with the painting, grrrr....

2. (worldd 5?) The one when you had to let the goomba fall onto your shadow, which made the goomba CATAPULT up in the air so you could jump on it.

3. The one in world 6 when you had to slow one platform down so the other one whent under it.

1- I thought that was really clever, I really appreciated that a puzzle like that was in it, I kinda wish there were more.
2- This one took me the longest to figure out, but after about half an hour, I got it.
3- I figured this one out pretty quick, but yeah, this is one of the more elaborate puzzles in the game.


The other one that gave me some real trouble was world two, the one with the slowly falling door. I stopped and told myself, hey dummy, use everything. Then I figured out that the platform had timekiller dust, and finished it.

[Corpus]

1 - I liked this puzzle, but I don't think it's "reasonable" or whatever Blow claims them all to be. Its solution had no grounding in the mechanics of the game. It relied on trickery and was an entirely visual puzzle.

2 - Shagmats, I hadn't worked that one out yet. Better stop reading -_-' ...

[Valter]

Beware spoilers. Only read if you've finished the world with the time-slowing ring.

Re: pixel-perfect timing, there was one puzzle where it did seem required. It's the one on the world with the ring where the puzzle piece is floating high up in the air above a platform which can be raised and lowered. The switch to raise or lower the platform is inside a room which can only be accessed by a corridor down which fireballs are constantly fired, meaning that it's possible to get in, but not to get out.

I solved it as follows. Underneath the puzzle piece and on top of the room with the lever/switch, there's a cannon firing goombas in an arc into a pit of spikes. I placed the time-slowing ring just to the left of the spike pit so that the falling goombas became closer together, allowing me to jump up them as if they were a moving staircase to reach the high platform to the right of the puzzle piece. This required me to get the timing exactly right - jump too late, and you go over the head of the first goomba, jump too early and it kills you or you fall into the spikes, etc. - so I'm guessing that wasn't the most elegant solution.

How did you do it?

OMG I spoiler it

I'm actually not talking about that one. I'm talking about a later puzzle in world six, with the ladders that fall down when you pull a switch, and two platforms which can be moved and give you time-invincibility. It was the hardest puzzle in the game, if only because the time-proof platforms make it so that you have to start over whenever you mess up.

The other one that annoyed me was in the world where going back in time creates a copy of you. There was a puzzle that required you to bounce a fuzzle off of shadow-you's head, to give it extra height. This strikes me as freakishly counter-intuitive, given that you shouldn't know about this trick at all if you play well. It stuck out like a sore, blistery thumb from all the other, decently made puzzles.

[Hayden Scott-Baron]

Thinking about the look of this some more, I think the muddy black ambience is one of the reasons why people have problems with the character artwork in Braid.  The way that many of the colours on the characters drop off to black in a linear fashion, whereas most appealing 2D art introduces warm or cool tones into the shading. Same with the highlights going straight to white rather than passing through some attractive hue shifts. It's part of what makes it look slightly grotesque.

[shinygerbil]

Braid is frickin' excellent. I done finished it and everything. (tomorrow comes the speedrun..)

@dock: yeah, that sounds about right, but I'm sure Mr Blow would say that it is intentional

[Tanner]

I'm sure Mr Blow would say that it is intentional

You would know.  :D

[ஒழுக்கின்மை (Paul Eres)]

What Braid used to look like:

http://www.davidhellman.net/blog/wp-content/uploads/2008/03/shot_1_01.jpg

That became this (same area):

http://www.davidhellman.net/blog/wp-content/uploads/2008/03/shot_1_final.jpg

[ஒழுக்கின்மை (Paul Eres)]

I suppose I killed the thread?

Anyway, I was thinking today that the infinite reversing time mechanism could work for other genres too -- imagine it with shmups, etc.

I think part of the point of Braid is the distinction between challenges which are made easy if you can continuously try again, and challenges which are still hard even if you can continuously try again. Some genres would be very easy with time reversal, whereas others wouldn't be affected all that much.

[Hideous]

Having a NES emulator with infinite reversal, I can agree with you.

[Zaphos]

Having a NES emulator with infinite reversal, I can agree with you.

That exists?  Awesome!

[Hideous]

NEStopia 

You just have to activate it first.

[arrogancy]

I suppose I killed the thread?

Anyway, I was thinking today that the infinite reversing time mechanism could work for other genres too -- imagine it with shmups, etc.

There is a shump with that design to some degree; one of the indie designers entering Dream Build Play this year created one.

[Tanner]

I know that the Duke3D port to the 360 (which was released yesterday) has it.