Braid (PC)

Braid is a platformer/puzzle game with unique elements that aim to provide a mind-expanding, filler-free experience. The player journeys across seven worlds to rescue a princess; in each world, time behaves in its own peculiar way. The player must cleverly manipulate the flow of time to solve puzzles.
The story follows a man, named Tim, who attempts to rescue his princess from a monster. The game features traditional aspects of platform titles; the player runs, jumps, and climbs through a linear set of stages, while solving puzzles and defeating enemies. The player may also control time, allowing actions to be "rewound", even after death. Using these abilities, the player progresses the story by finding and assembling jigsaw puzzle pieces.
Blow designed the game as a personal critique of recent trends in game development efforts. He funded the project with his own money and spent three years creating it. David Hellman drew the artwork, which underwent several iterations until it satisfied Blow's desired vision. A preliminary version of Braid without the final artwork won the "Innovation in Game Design" award at the Independent Games Festival in 2006; the final version received additional accolades. The game received positive reviews from critics, eventually becoming the top-rated title on Xbox Live. The game's price and length were points of criticism.
Upon its release onto the Xbox Live Arcade, Braid was met with very positive responses from critics, with an aggregate review score of 93% at MetaCritic,, making it the top-rated Xbox Live game and the 10th highest rated Xbox 360 game. Braid was purchased by more than 55,000 people during the first week of release.
Braid was highly praised for the unique puzzles it presented. Dan Whitehead of Eurogamer noted the creative variation on time manipulation and the need to understand the non-linearity of his actions made him feel as if "years of gaming blinkers have been ripped away." Furthermore, the connection between the puzzles and the overall presentation of the game was favorably received; Tom McShea of Gamespot stated that Braid was "the rare game that will make you rack your brain trying to solve puzzles one minute while challenging you to come to terms with its mature tale the next". Braid's artwork and presentation were given high regards. Nick Suttner of 1UP.com commented that Braid's artwork "juxtapose old-school design sensibilities with impressionist backdrops and lovingly hand-painted environments", while GameSpot's McShea stated that the game's visuals were "eye-catching but never distracting". Jean Snow of Wired stated that Braid's "beautiful symphonic melodies contribute to what is already an impressive and unique vision", and that "the soothing tunes are probably the reason you never really lose it when facing particularly tough puzzles".
The game was primarily criticized for its short length. IGN's Hilary Goldstein stated that the game offers "no reason to come back" once you've completed all the puzzles. However, others compared Braid's short experience to similar criticisms with Portal in that its length "can be disregarded in the face of its unique approach to storytelling and expansive ideas". The game's price was also seen as a negative for the game, though reviews did state that "Braid is worth every penny". Reviews also noted that while Blow had tried to integrate the story and gameplay throughout the game, this only worked well in the final world, and otherwise the story was "a little trite in its self-conscious obscurity".
In addition to winning the Independent Games Festival award in 2006 during its design, Braid was selected by GameSpot for their 2008 awards in "Best Original Downloadable Console Game", "Best Platformer", and "Best Licensed Music", and by Official Xbox Magazine for their 2008 awards of "XBox Live Arcade Game of the Year", "Best Soundtrack", and "Best Ending" and one of their "Indisputably Incredible Runners-ups to Game of the Year". Braid was awarded the "Casual Game of the Year" at the 12th Annual Academy of Interactive Arts & Sciences Awards. Braid was nominated for five Xbox Live Arcade 2008 awards, winning one award in the category of "Best Innovation".








Minimum System Requirements
OS: Windows XP/Vista/7
Processor: Intel Pentium 4 @ 1.4 GHz
Memory: 768 MB
Hard Drive: 200 MB
Sound Card: DirectX Compatible
DirectX: 9.0c
Keyboard & Mouse

How to play:
Unrar the archive
Run Braid.exe for the English version, or run any of the .bat files for other languages