I just tried a little platform game for the PC called Braid.
It was originally released on the Xbox 360 arcade last year, and has just been ported to the PC and released.
It is a very nice traditional style platformer with a few twists. Instead of lives you reverse and forward time whenever you like. So if you make a mistake and die, or miss a jump, you can just reverse back a bit and try again. It is a great game mechanic that works really well.
The main aim of the game levels are to collect puzzle pieces and assemble them, and to work out how to negotiate the levels to reach hard to get to areas with a puzzle piece, or the next door to the next area/level just out of reach.
I've already played through the first world and really enjoyed it. The difficulty doesn't initially seem too high. But then you find yourself looking at a puzzle piece and not knowing how to reach it, then looking at the movement patterns of the enemy (which you kill by jumping on them mario style, and in turn gain more height) to see if you can utilise them to get higher or further across a gap. Using the reverse time feature to keep trying to time a move perfectly is just as frustrating as platformers of old where you had to repeat bits to try again. But it does remove some of the frustration as you don't need to redo a tricky bit you just managed to finally do.
The game artwork is in a very nice hand painted style which is light and colourful and enjoyable to walk through. And the music is a chinese style that is also light and airy and together reminded me of the feel of ICO.
If you like platformers then I highly recommend you take a look. The game works perfectly with an Xbox 360 controller if you have one.
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I downloaded 2 collections of puzzle games from BG, and
Braid is also included in one of them, didn't test it yet though, but I know the game.
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Ah, come on you guys, the game is well worth it!
It's like RodLand meets Mario meets Prince Of Persia Sands of Time, imho. With more puzzles and even more time-based puzzles
And don't care about the "rescuing the Princess" bit, it's not about that, that's just a methaphor for the simple casual player that want's to finish&forget about the game.
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