You play as Tim, a man who has lost the love of his life, the Princess, through his own callous actions. We start the game before a burning city, moving into a small house. The first door we enter starts us at chapter 2 in the story, directly after Tim has lost his beloved Princess. He will seek her out in an attempt to make amends with her. He wishes painfully that he could undo his mistakes, and throughout the game, that's what the player does.
The controls are fairly simple, where you can only run and jump, but adding the time manipulation can be disorienting at first. Press a button, and time plays in reverse. If you make a mistake, reverse time and the damage is undone. Things become more complicated at you progress. In one chapter, there are objects which cannot be affected by time reversal. In another chapter, time moves with your horizontal position. Move to the right, and time goes forward. Move to the left, and time reverses. Each puzzle is intricately designed, and requires much thought and experimentation. Collecting all of the puzzle pieces is no easy task (and is necessary to see the game's ending), and harder still is collecting the eight hidden stars. What do all of these mean?
When all of the puzzle pieces are collected, you put them together to see vignettes from Tim's past. It is here that I should mention Braid's strikingly beautiful visuals, all hand drawn and animated. Each scene of the game looks and feels like an oil painting, with subtly orchestrated music to enhance the mood. Nothing is added for effect or to distract, it all feels natural. The only real complaint I have for this game is that I would have liked there to be more, but I suppose that's not such a bad complaint.
WARNING! THE FOLLOWING CONTAINS PLOT SPOILERS FOR BRAID!
After collecting all of the puzzle pieces, Tim gains access to the attic, where he finds chapter 1. In this chapter, time flows backward, and as he reaches the deepest part of the chapter, he finds himself in a cave, and above is the Princess, fighting to escape from a brutal knight. As she runs from him, Tim and the Princess must work together to get to her home, but once Tim finds himself at her window, something strange happens. Time stops, and only moves again once the player realizes they must press the time reverse button. That's when a sickening truth reveals itself: the events you just played through were happening in reverse. The Princess was not trying to escape the knight, but Tim. The Knight was her savior, and Tim is the real villain.
The stars offer an opportunity to change the past. Collecting all of these and returning to chapter 1 offers you the chance to catch up to the Princess and touch her. But then, a more unsettling thing occurs. The Princess detonates into an nuclear explosion. That's when it occurred to me that this game is an allegory for the atomic bomb. Tim represents the scientists who developed it, and after witnessing its destruction, probably wished they had never given birth to it (the game's epilogue quotes one of these men: "Now we are all sons of bitches"). Tim is trying to undo the damage, not learn from his mistakes. By finding a means, he creates a paradox which destroys everything. This paradox is that chronologically, Tim finds the stars after he catches the princess, but cannot catch her until he finds the stars.I have not yet come to fully comprehend all of the symbols and meanings of this game, but oftentimes, the questions are more interesting than the answers. An ending that raises good questions is more satisfying than one that bores with answers.
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