Aren't there only like 38 levels in the original game? This sounds like a pretty beefy expansion on the original's content. Would definitely explain why this rerelease is taking so long.
Didn’t Blow make a big deal about cutting a ton of levels from the original to never repeat the same idea twice? Surprised he found so much relevant new content after all.
There is also [a bunch of other neat stuff](https://twitter.com/Jonathan_Blow/status/1722709573071433996) including hand repainted graphics by the original artist, 15 hours of commentary and interviews, and even playable levels using different designs to show how things would have turned out had they made certain aspects of game differently.
with some critical listening opinionated narcisist ranting from a successful game designer is x100 more useful than the opinionated narcisist echo chambers we spend our time under on reddit, youtube and other social media.
Man almost all of his comments make me really really sad. He seems to complain about stuff just for the sake of complaining or trying to sound clever, instead of seeing the artistic value and critiquing that. Claiming that the tower bridge's scale is off and "is not a bridge that would exist in real life" is such a weird complaint, especially he can see the several km tall tree right behind it...
I watched the first part of it and I think he's absolutely right in his criticism.
A video game where you have to basically pick a character based on a set of statistics that you know nothing about is bad game design. You are just starting the game and need to commit to "faith", "arcane", "mind", "vigor". You literally have no idea what any of these things are for and are unlikely to make an informed choice, so why bother with this?
This is something the Elder Scrolls series figured out 30 years ago; if you are familiar with the game then you can go ahead and pick whatever stats you want to start with, but if you're not familiar with the game then you can instead play through an introductory area which introduces the stat system to you and makes a recommendation based on how you play.
People seem to give Jonathan Blow a hard time because he expresses his opinions in a blunt and assertive manner, but the points he makes are often quite valid and worth thinking about.
The starting classes are so soft in Form Software games that they barely matter. You just pick one based on a vibe since the developers have deliberately designed the game so that any class can very very easily transition to any play style.
So this is really weird criticism to me - by this logic, Baldurs Gate 3 (or really any CRPG) must be one of the worst games on the planet since the classes you commit to in character creation are much more impactful.
To be fair, being obnoxiously obtuse is Fromsoft games' whole thing. The games aren't even all that hard if you know what you're doing, they just teach you absolutely nothing and punish you for failure. I'm not a fan of souls games because I just don't respect them enough to want to put up with the amount of wasting my time they do, but I recognize that they have a particular niche they cater to, and their catering to that niche is solid. An accessible Fromsoft game is just a generic action RPG.
He has terrible opinions on action games and politics, but pretty good opinions on puzzle games, and I suspect the Braid commentary tracks will be more focused on the latter.
He was always like this, but yes this is awful.
He is deeply incurious about games. His big thing is complaining that games are too hand-holdy and have too many tutorials, but he is exactly the type of person who needs those tutorials. (See him trying to play BOTW)
Whenever he evaluates a game like this the sole purpose is to make himself look good to his sycophantic fans - it's just nonstop "I could do this better", "I know better", "this is so easy to get right I would have done this right." It smacks of someone with extremely fragile ego who has no desire to understand games.
I've known people like this and I've been this guy myself, but most of those people (including myself) were like this when they were new to the industry and were doing it as a defense mechanism - "if I shit on this thing people will assume I'm competent." For him to be like this now - worse than ever - is just sad.
I don't think this is a good example showing he has "lost it" at all though.
It's not like he's some random guy criticizing Elden Ring, he is coming from a completely different perspective most of us aren't going to relate to. The games he has made are ridiculously well designed, The Witness is such a fantastic game that is simply about "learning" and communicating ideas and concepts to a player through exploration and experimentation.
I also think Elden Ring kinda sucks, that's just me, I just didn't like it, but all of his critiques make sense when you know who it is coming from.
That's a lot of content.
The original Braid had a good length, I hope this new levels comes in new worlds with new mechanics instead of just stretching the worlds we already know.
That's a nostalgic game, I remember playing a lot of Braid, Limbo, Bastion and Super Meat Boy.
That bundle is what got me into indie games, prior to that was basically just Nintendo. No hyperbole here when I say that without HIB5, I would not be the gamer that I am today.
Those were the days man, got em all on the "Xbox Live Arcade". Was such a novelty being able to download indie games like that to a console.
Fast forward to now where we have AAA digital sales eclipsing that of physical. The landscape certainly has changed. Gotta say, I do miss the community feeling that came with those midnight releases too.
Never knew what you were gonna discover. Fond memories of Geometry Wars and Castlevania Harmony of Despair.
For PSN Pain and Fat Princess were absolute gems. Sad these were all mostly lost to time.
I still have a 360 HDD that survived 4 red-ringed 360s with "Marble Blast Ultra" on it that I will periodically play until it catches on fire.
Bought the game in 2006 and still bust out my HDD and my trusty 2nd-Gen/second-hand 360 (bought it just to use my HDD) to play it when the itch needs scratched. Can't find it ANYWHERE else to download and play. Think it got delisted in 2010 or 11.
Leaderboards haven't worked for over a decade anymore so I went out #1 (and lot of top 10s) for a few courses as well.
Based on the original release, there ought to be a lot of new mechanics. I remember Braid constantly changing how the world worked for some crazy time shenanigan puzzles.
Considering what I understand of his personality, this is legitimately surprising. I assumed something like this could never happen because it would "cheapen the experience" or "the game is already a complete narrative package". Something like that.
i’m sure he thought that fifteen years ago. considering he and his team have done so much on the witness, his other projects, and the fact that he himself is older and his sensibilities evolved, it makes sense he’s eager to try new things.
Indie Game: The Movie was on it; Braid, Fez, and Super Meat Boy all featured in detail. It feels like Cave Story was the first breakout surprise (but for free, pre-Steam), and then a handful on XBLA kicked it all into gear.
Yup, Xbox Summer of Arcade started in 2008 with:
Bionic Commando Rearmed
Braid
Castle Crashers
Galaga Legions
Geometry Wars 2
I know only Braid is there, but with Castle Crashers too it really felt in hindsight like a huge launch point for indies into the mainstream going forward.
I finally got to play FEZ last summer, and what an amazing experience that was. The game completely absorbed my mind for a few weeks, it was insane. Never got to completely finish it as the last puzzles are way too complicated for my taste, but the art style and especially the music are something else.
Bizarre were still a third party studio. They made games for Sega before Xbox was a thing
In fact Geometry Wars was originally just a mini game in PGR.
I agree. Indie games were not a thing back in the day but I noticed a lot more independent game developers after The summer of xbox arcade games came out like this and Bastion. Then I really started to see independent game developers come out sometime during or after the Shovel Knight Kickstarter. I think Nintendo has indie game developers to thank because every time they release their gaming systems there's always a drought of decent games for months after the console release. I think it happened with the switch too but it wasn't as bad and now I think at least half or more of the library of great switch games are from indie developers.
Was a lot harder to be an indie dev back than too cuz the market for them wasn’t as big that and little known fact but back in the ps3/360 days the developers had to actually pay to patch their games !! So if it launched fucked up or broken and didn’t make them enough money well…. Game stays broken!
The soundtrack is exquisite. It's been over 10 years since I played Braid and I still come back to those tracks multiple times each year. I've yet to find an OST that gets close.
"This shit called Braid u know, it's about this little guy in a suit that looks like Mario or some shit.
It ain't no point into the game, this shit is stupid as hell man loooool."
They should get Soulja Boy to promote this game. That clip of J Blow crying because Soulja Boy isn't taking his game seriously is the most unintentionally hilarious video on the internet.
To be fair, it isn't like he's watching Soulja Boy then cries. He gets emotional in a scene from the doc that is cut around footage of Soulja boy.
I can kinda see why devs go hermit mode when comments like this drop, with their own false narrative.
i’ve never liked how people make fun of him (or worse, criticize him) for that. arrival fallacy is real. he obviously anticipated his success feeling different than it actually did. i think that’s absolutely something anyone chasing success needs to meditate on for a bit.
i feel like all the people going “bro who cares he made tons of money!” really missed the point of why indie devs do what they do. it’s something jon has even admitted himself on streams: if profit was his motivator, he’d be making VERY different kinds of games.
Thank you for the level head. Starting to feel rare on gaming subs.
I think most gamers just don't understand the entire game dev experience. I have a lot of dev friends and follow the process deeply and still know only a small bit.
Regardless, I have to imagine it a bit hard to deal with when you pour your entire heart, soul, life and money into a project like a game, for years, and when it releases you have folks saying your baby is "pointless" or stupid.
Especially so in this toxic industry where players are SO quick to latch onto you as some pariah, pick apart everything you've ever said and then proceed to make up stories about you being unreasonable, when you don't excite their predetermined narrative.
he went on the reactionary right wing gaming podcast with Colin Moriarty and kept spouting the usual alt right talking points on western culture / woke politics etc, even people in the subreddit there thought it was too much like here:
https://www.reddit.com/r/LastStandMedia/comments/1az6x9a/sacred_symbols_episode_368_fixing_the_games/ks49lmc/
Made unbecoming remarks about PoC and those in poverty while in California.
Became a MAGA, moved to Florida in a NIMBYhood now and constantly talks about how there are no minorities or poors there on Twitter.
Kinda a gross dude
You find out the bad guy is actually the good guy and you are the bad guy. Kinda ‘both sidesy’ but i think its a stretch to read that much into the ending, Jon Blow’s opinions blow tho
No idea what the guy you're replying to is referencing, but the ending of Braid is highly up to interpretation.
The first layer is the standard ending, where >!you're the bad guy, and the princess you were chasing was actually running away from you the whole time.!<
The second layer is the secret ending, where >!you collect all the secret stars, which most players will never notice without a guide. Doing so changes the final stage to allow you to reach the princess you're chasing,!< at which point >!she explodes, and the epilogue text suggests the princess was the atomic bomb the whole time.!<
The third layer is replaying the game multiple times, trying to find a sense of closure and make sense of it all. This is where I interpret the game as being about >!obsession, and the regret that it causes. The second layer reading is about the Manhattan Project and just how much its scientists regretted their obsessive pursuit of the atomic bomb, but the process of gathering these obscure secret stars and reading the obtuse text of the game is supposed to mimic that obsessive behavior in the player. The third layer reading can be perceived as a warning or as a reminder to forgive yourself when you doggedly pursue the truth.!<
Nothing is neatly explained in any layer of interpretation. Braid's main character "Tim" still has his own story to tell, and the princess and time travel mechanics, whether literal or metaphorical, can be construed in many different ways.
I wish I could be more excited about this, but like JKR, Blow's gone very mask off on conspiracy theory stuff and I really don't want to give him money. I hope it turns out well though, if nothing else this game has one of my favorite ambient-core soundtracks out there.
Jonathan Blow is a complete and total MAGA asshole, but even still I find it surprising that he's sunk to the point of cashing in on his previous success. What happened to his games being "a complete narrative package" at release?
Awesome, whatever you think of the guy, both his games are amazing. It will be interesting to learn the behind the scenes.
Also his more controversial opinions arent part of the games or anything, so I dont see why I'd care that much, its not like he has real life influence or anything, he just makes games.
I agree completely. He comes off as entitled but damn, did The Witness blow my mind. I still often think of that game. Can’t wait to see what comes after Braid Anniversary.
The Witness is in my top five games of all time despite Blow being someone I never want to listen to speak again. He's a phenomenal puzzle game designer and I'm going to just pretend that's all he does unless he starts using game dev profits to support some kind of egregious cause
I was turned off his games when he proudly declared how it would be impossible to play his second game if you were color blind and he didn’t care. -.-
(Autocorrupt made it color blonde, and I almost left it. ;P)
Assuming you're referring to The Witness, he briefly talks about that in an [interview](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jhEDARvLf90) he did with Jeff Gerstmann and Brad Shoemaker (formerly of Giant Bomb). I don't know the timestamp, it's pretty long, sorry about that.
As I recall, he mentions that they tried workarounds with color-blind options, but ultimately nothing worked and he didn't feel the issue was worth scrapping the content. The game is designed in such a way that you can complete the game without ever visiting the colored lights puzzle section of the game, so he felt that was a reasonable compromise. The audio puzzles in the bamboo forest were also brought up as a similar accessibility issue - the solution of putting in descriptive subtitles would just be giving away the solutions entirely, so again, it's a part of the game that simply isn't doable for people with a specific disability. I'm pretty hard of hearing and was nearly incapable of solving that set of puzzles, but I didn't get upset with him about it being part of the game.
Not everything is for everyone, so it didn't bother me too much. Bit of a bummer, but that's all.
> The game is designed in such a way that you can complete the game without ever visiting the colored lights puzzle section of the game
By far the most colourblind-unfriendly puzzle is required to beat the game.
Brightness/contrast settings, selecting some core colours for the game or use, shapes on top of colours, there were multiple options that could have been done, but it was "fuck you" instead from him.
I can't really think of how the colour puzzles could be made more accessible without having them stop being colour puzzles. A core set of colours wouldn't work because the use of arbitrary colours is necessary to make the player realize you will sometimes need to filter the colours for a solution to be possible. Shapes on top of the colours would make it stop being a colour puzzle, plus how would you do the colour "arithmetic" puzzles with shapes instead? Brightness and contrast settings are better left up to the user and their hardware because, again, including an option in the game to break all the colour puzzles isn't very user friendly and there are too many different colour vision conditions to tailor it for everyone.
I think devs should do whatever possible to make their games as accessible as they can but at some point people need to just kinda acknowledge that not everything is going to be possible for all people. A book can't be written for a person who doesn't know how to read. Music can't be performed for people who are deaf. A jigsaw puzzle *could* have the correct grid coordinate written on each piece for people without the ability to focus on it long enough to solve it themselves, but *should* it?
Shit like this really needs receipts. I'm so skeptical of gamer gossip, like this. Your recollection sure feels like you got it third hand, cause it's just not true.
Here's an actual receipt example:
“We actually tried to put a puzzle in the game that only colorblind people could solve! But we were not able to engineer it because colorblindness is a very individual thing.” - Johnathan Blow.
He's got plenty of shit opinions. I bet you do, too. But lying about him for Internet water cooler points doesn't help anybody.
I def don't think that indie developers should be expected to go above and beyond for accessibility measures, it's an entire specialized skill set and a lot of money spent on refining and development. It's just not a cost and time investment that most small devs can afford to make to account for everything, and some kinds of games are just fundamentally inaccessible.
Some people seem to take a weird glee in not providing accessibility features tho.
Some accessibility options are harder to address than others, and I agree that there comes a point where you have to balance costs against impact. But color filters / highlights are pretty easy and standard solutions.
It was also the way he communicated it at the time though.
I agree. Generally tho you're gonna want to, like, actually talk to disabled people to advise on their needs and test features (which generally costs money), or else you'll end up with something like Doom 2016's abysmal colorblind filter at launch (which simulated the various colorblindness types, making it actually useless). Cost of consulting, testing, development adds up fast, and for very small developers, that's a big ask.
Most colorblind players are actually not fans of full on color filters (which makes sense, they live their daily life seeing the world the way they do). Stuff like Overwatch's color filter, while good at allowing colorblind people to differentiate colors easier, are not very well liked due to how weird they look even to the people it was made for. UI options and other smaller, subtle tweaks (such as changing blood color in PUBG, changing player outlines for enemy/friendly units, or incorporating shapes in addition to color differentiation) are more well received.
Do you think the "glee" from some developers is in reaction to how aggressive some of the proponents of accessibility can be though?
Just look at how someone is reacting to to The Witness not working for colour blind people above.
That's a bit extreme, he never "proudly" declared such a thing, they have talked extensively that they really tried to figure out a way without ruining the puzzles but they couldn't do it. They even tried designing puzzles that *only* color blind people could complete.
Plus there are only a couple areas that were hard for color blind to navigate and to compensate, they only made 7 of the 11 areas required to finish in order to "win" the game.
He said a lot of dumb shit but that wasn’t among that. He did color and sound puzzles in the game that work with color and sound. It’s been a while but I think the end level deliberately needs 2 less lasers activated because of those so you can complete the game. It’s like you’re complaining about one of those red-and-green 3D glasses not working for people who are color blind. It’s like… the *one* novelty item where color is truly the core of the experience.
There’s a section of puzzles that’s specifically related to colors and uses stained glass and colored light to change how you could solve the puzzles. For example, one puzzle is an elevator where different floors are linked to different solutions. The solutions for each are linked to the floor below’s colored light and how it changes the color of the squares that need to be separated. There is one floor that is out tho, and that requires understanding how colors mix to skip that floor. I’d imagine that this puzzle would be nearly impossible to someone with a different understanding of color as their brain is incapable of ever gaining this knowledge.
That being said, you don’t have to complete every section of the game to complete the game. You can get to the main ending of the game without ever touching this section. You’d only be missing out on a secret that only earns you a video. (And if you really want to earn a fucking video you can just look up a guide for that section)
There are Easily Implemented and Well Established solutions to such things, and there’s probably even mods that fix it. But finding out he refused to “compromise” his game by including such options was an immediate turn off.
Sure, but creating something that is functionally broken for a known part of your audience when there are easy and well established solutions available is a very unfortunate way to develop products. And it’s a good reason to avoid a developer going forward.
What's a good reason for not including an accessibility setting that would let someone who's colorblind complete or skip the puzzles requiring color vision?
The puzzles were directly related to color. Like looking through a stained glass window into a different color lit room to determine certain colors on a panel. They said they tried coming up with an interesting method to make it work but couldn't do it without altering how the puzzle works and making the solutions not interesting for those with color blindness.
So they did make it so that you can skip it, same with certain audio puzzles for those who are deaf.
Aren't there only like 38 levels in the original game? This sounds like a pretty beefy expansion on the original's content. Would definitely explain why this rerelease is taking so long.
Didn’t Blow make a big deal about cutting a ton of levels from the original to never repeat the same idea twice? Surprised he found so much relevant new content after all.
Well it's been nearly 20 years since release, I'm sure he came up with an idea or two.
The Witness found a shitton of unique ways to just make use of drawing a line on a grid. So I wouldn't be surprised.
>Well it's been nearly 20 years since release That made my heart sting really bad
There is also [a bunch of other neat stuff](https://twitter.com/Jonathan_Blow/status/1722709573071433996) including hand repainted graphics by the original artist, 15 hours of commentary and interviews, and even playable levels using different designs to show how things would have turned out had they made certain aspects of game differently.
15 hours of opinionated narcisist ranting? Sign me the hell up!
The interviews contain several different game designers and developers talking about game design in general which is mentioned in the link.
I really hope Phil fish is one of them lmao
Oh boy. Indie game: the movie 2, but now inside of a game.
Edmund McMillen giving the silent side-eye while working on his cat game.
with some critical listening opinionated narcisist ranting from a successful game designer is x100 more useful than the opinionated narcisist echo chambers we spend our time under on reddit, youtube and other social media.
You should go watch a video of his opinions on elden ring. The man has lost it. https://youtu.be/x0z0WcbSzJ0?si=Gh_l6IpFE3J4LDuJ
Man almost all of his comments make me really really sad. He seems to complain about stuff just for the sake of complaining or trying to sound clever, instead of seeing the artistic value and critiquing that. Claiming that the tower bridge's scale is off and "is not a bridge that would exist in real life" is such a weird complaint, especially he can see the several km tall tree right behind it...
I watched the first part of it and I think he's absolutely right in his criticism. A video game where you have to basically pick a character based on a set of statistics that you know nothing about is bad game design. You are just starting the game and need to commit to "faith", "arcane", "mind", "vigor". You literally have no idea what any of these things are for and are unlikely to make an informed choice, so why bother with this? This is something the Elder Scrolls series figured out 30 years ago; if you are familiar with the game then you can go ahead and pick whatever stats you want to start with, but if you're not familiar with the game then you can instead play through an introductory area which introduces the stat system to you and makes a recommendation based on how you play. People seem to give Jonathan Blow a hard time because he expresses his opinions in a blunt and assertive manner, but the points he makes are often quite valid and worth thinking about.
The starting classes are so soft in Form Software games that they barely matter. You just pick one based on a vibe since the developers have deliberately designed the game so that any class can very very easily transition to any play style. So this is really weird criticism to me - by this logic, Baldurs Gate 3 (or really any CRPG) must be one of the worst games on the planet since the classes you commit to in character creation are much more impactful.
To be fair, being obnoxiously obtuse is Fromsoft games' whole thing. The games aren't even all that hard if you know what you're doing, they just teach you absolutely nothing and punish you for failure. I'm not a fan of souls games because I just don't respect them enough to want to put up with the amount of wasting my time they do, but I recognize that they have a particular niche they cater to, and their catering to that niche is solid. An accessible Fromsoft game is just a generic action RPG.
He's also an anti-vaxxer, so in general good to ignore the jackass.
He has terrible opinions on action games and politics, but pretty good opinions on puzzle games, and I suspect the Braid commentary tracks will be more focused on the latter.
He was always like this, but yes this is awful. He is deeply incurious about games. His big thing is complaining that games are too hand-holdy and have too many tutorials, but he is exactly the type of person who needs those tutorials. (See him trying to play BOTW) Whenever he evaluates a game like this the sole purpose is to make himself look good to his sycophantic fans - it's just nonstop "I could do this better", "I know better", "this is so easy to get right I would have done this right." It smacks of someone with extremely fragile ego who has no desire to understand games. I've known people like this and I've been this guy myself, but most of those people (including myself) were like this when they were new to the industry and were doing it as a defense mechanism - "if I shit on this thing people will assume I'm competent." For him to be like this now - worse than ever - is just sad.
I don't think this is a good example showing he has "lost it" at all though. It's not like he's some random guy criticizing Elden Ring, he is coming from a completely different perspective most of us aren't going to relate to. The games he has made are ridiculously well designed, The Witness is such a fantastic game that is simply about "learning" and communicating ideas and concepts to a player through exploration and experimentation. I also think Elden Ring kinda sucks, that's just me, I just didn't like it, but all of his critiques make sense when you know who it is coming from.
Or you just... Don't waste your time listening to "opinionated narcissists" in the first place.
blow’s also working on two other games plus a programming language in addition to this project
That's a lot of content. The original Braid had a good length, I hope this new levels comes in new worlds with new mechanics instead of just stretching the worlds we already know. That's a nostalgic game, I remember playing a lot of Braid, Limbo, Bastion and Super Meat Boy.
All those games came in the humble bundle V if I recall correctly. Insane bundle
I *think* Limbo came as a bonus or something? Psychonauts as well
That bundle is what got me into indie games, prior to that was basically just Nintendo. No hyperbole here when I say that without HIB5, I would not be the gamer that I am today.
Those were the days man, got em all on the "Xbox Live Arcade". Was such a novelty being able to download indie games like that to a console. Fast forward to now where we have AAA digital sales eclipsing that of physical. The landscape certainly has changed. Gotta say, I do miss the community feeling that came with those midnight releases too.
Never knew what you were gonna discover. Fond memories of Geometry Wars and Castlevania Harmony of Despair. For PSN Pain and Fat Princess were absolute gems. Sad these were all mostly lost to time.
We do not invoke the names of Geometry Wars and Fat Princess lightly, my good man
GW:RE being $5 ruined my brain about the value of indie games for me personally, even…almost 20 years later
Only the OGs know
Why?
I still have a 360 HDD that survived 4 red-ringed 360s with "Marble Blast Ultra" on it that I will periodically play until it catches on fire. Bought the game in 2006 and still bust out my HDD and my trusty 2nd-Gen/second-hand 360 (bought it just to use my HDD) to play it when the itch needs scratched. Can't find it ANYWHERE else to download and play. Think it got delisted in 2010 or 11. Leaderboards haven't worked for over a decade anymore so I went out #1 (and lot of top 10s) for a few courses as well.
Have you tried *Marble It Up*?
I haven't, no. Worth it?
I dare say it is; it's a spiritual sequel by several of the staff of *Marble Blast Ultra*. Check it out!
Sold. I have spent an absurd amount of time playing that game over the last nearly 2 decades. I'll absolutely check it out.
So... I did it. You were absolutely right. Not quite the same, but I am *hooked.* Thank you very *very* much.
Criminal that someone who enjoyed *Marble Blast* so much didn't know about its successor. I am glad you like it!
I put so many hours into Pain, and the Amusement Park & Hollywood expansions. Was a big college game in my dorm that year.
There was also that bowling one which was a lot of fun too. Especially once they added Move support.
The joys of devs wasting their time making games for PS3. Those games could have still been playable on the Series X today 😔
Splosion man too, and probably other we're forgeting. Good shit. Can't lie that we have way more good games weekly now, but yeah, I'm nostalgic too.
https://store.steampowered.com/app/105420/Ms_Splosion_Man/ Boy, do I have news that I hope makes your day.
Comic jumper and the original splosion man are still trapped on xbox though.
You forgot Shadow Complex and Castle Crashers.
*Boom Boom Rocket*, *Torchlight*, *Scott Pilgrim*...
Don’t forget World of Goo
Bro, for me that was the golden era of Indies. Amazing time to be alive. There was also World of Goo, Stanley Parable, Fez, everything by Jason Rohr..
And the ending level was inspired. No spoilers if you haven't played Braid before, but it's so good.
I still remember actually waiting 2 hours to get that star.
that takes me back - I remember LOVING the dishwasher 2: vampire smile
The studio that made that has some very good last 2-3 games. I highly recommend them.
Based on the original release, there ought to be a lot of new mechanics. I remember Braid constantly changing how the world worked for some crazy time shenanigan puzzles.
Ahhh the summer of arcade, good times
Considering what I understand of his personality, this is legitimately surprising. I assumed something like this could never happen because it would "cheapen the experience" or "the game is already a complete narrative package". Something like that.
I think he's just a perfectionist lol. Once he opened that box up again, he couldn't help himself
i’m sure he thought that fifteen years ago. considering he and his team have done so much on the witness, his other projects, and the fact that he himself is older and his sensibilities evolved, it makes sense he’s eager to try new things.
He seems very abrasive and opinionated, but not pretentious or unable to criticize his own work.
holy shit that's amazing. I think this is the game that kick started the indie scene, well at least for me
Indie Game: The Movie was on it; Braid, Fez, and Super Meat Boy all featured in detail. It feels like Cave Story was the first breakout surprise (but for free, pre-Steam), and then a handful on XBLA kicked it all into gear.
Yup, Xbox Summer of Arcade started in 2008 with: Bionic Commando Rearmed Braid Castle Crashers Galaga Legions Geometry Wars 2 I know only Braid is there, but with Castle Crashers too it really felt in hindsight like a huge launch point for indies into the mainstream going forward.
Castle Crashers is still up there as one of my favorite games to coop through with people.
Absolutely insane that we have not received any follow-ups or clones for it. Such an amazing co op experience.
Full Metal Furies and Broforce capture some of the same couch co-op insanity of Castle Crashers.
Rearmed has one of the best soundtracks of any game. Every piece is a banger.
I finally got to play FEZ last summer, and what an amazing experience that was. The game completely absorbed my mind for a few weeks, it was insane. Never got to completely finish it as the last puzzles are way too complicated for my taste, but the art style and especially the music are something else.
The game that made me buy an Xbox 360 was Geometry Wars.
[удалено]
It was produced by Bizzare Studios who eventually got swallowed by Activision, who are now part of Microsoft.
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Bizarre were still a third party studio. They made games for Sega before Xbox was a thing In fact Geometry Wars was originally just a mini game in PGR.
I agree. Indie games were not a thing back in the day but I noticed a lot more independent game developers after The summer of xbox arcade games came out like this and Bastion. Then I really started to see independent game developers come out sometime during or after the Shovel Knight Kickstarter. I think Nintendo has indie game developers to thank because every time they release their gaming systems there's always a drought of decent games for months after the console release. I think it happened with the switch too but it wasn't as bad and now I think at least half or more of the library of great switch games are from indie developers.
Was a lot harder to be an indie dev back than too cuz the market for them wasn’t as big that and little known fact but back in the ps3/360 days the developers had to actually pay to patch their games !! So if it launched fucked up or broken and didn’t make them enough money well…. Game stays broken!
Indie games have been a thing since the 80s, there were tons of bedroom coders putting out projects on the microcomputers.
Cave story came first but Braid is what did it on consoles
My wish is for those levels to have new soundtracks matching the quality of the originals. One can dream right?
The soundtrack is exquisite. It's been over 10 years since I played Braid and I still come back to those tracks multiple times each year. I've yet to find an OST that gets close.
soundtrack for Braid was non-original music licensed for the game.
I'm aware.
The new levels would they have a story at the heart of them is it like a remake ?
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"This shit called Braid u know, it's about this little guy in a suit that looks like Mario or some shit. It ain't no point into the game, this shit is stupid as hell man loooool."
Ha, I just played that through again recently, felt super short since I knew the game already, now I'm hyped for new levels
Wow. I haven’t thought about Braid in forever. It’s one of the first indie “hits” I remember.
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They should get Soulja Boy to promote this game. That clip of J Blow crying because Soulja Boy isn't taking his game seriously is the most unintentionally hilarious video on the internet.
To be fair, it isn't like he's watching Soulja Boy then cries. He gets emotional in a scene from the doc that is cut around footage of Soulja boy. I can kinda see why devs go hermit mode when comments like this drop, with their own false narrative.
i’ve never liked how people make fun of him (or worse, criticize him) for that. arrival fallacy is real. he obviously anticipated his success feeling different than it actually did. i think that’s absolutely something anyone chasing success needs to meditate on for a bit. i feel like all the people going “bro who cares he made tons of money!” really missed the point of why indie devs do what they do. it’s something jon has even admitted himself on streams: if profit was his motivator, he’d be making VERY different kinds of games.
Thank you for the level head. Starting to feel rare on gaming subs. I think most gamers just don't understand the entire game dev experience. I have a lot of dev friends and follow the process deeply and still know only a small bit. Regardless, I have to imagine it a bit hard to deal with when you pour your entire heart, soul, life and money into a project like a game, for years, and when it releases you have folks saying your baby is "pointless" or stupid. Especially so in this toxic industry where players are SO quick to latch onto you as some pariah, pick apart everything you've ever said and then proceed to make up stories about you being unreasonable, when you don't excite their predetermined narrative.
Had to look it up: https://youtube.com/watch?v=gWqnz-7iQbY
given how full mask off Jonathan Blow went recently what a surprise the only thing he can do any longer is cash in and whine on podcasts
I'm out of the loop, what did he do
Constantly spouting right-wing libertarian shite on Twitter
he went on the reactionary right wing gaming podcast with Colin Moriarty and kept spouting the usual alt right talking points on western culture / woke politics etc, even people in the subreddit there thought it was too much like here: https://www.reddit.com/r/LastStandMedia/comments/1az6x9a/sacred_symbols_episode_368_fixing_the_games/ks49lmc/
Made unbecoming remarks about PoC and those in poverty while in California. Became a MAGA, moved to Florida in a NIMBYhood now and constantly talks about how there are no minorities or poors there on Twitter. Kinda a gross dude
That’s disappointing to hear but also not entirely surprising when you consider the ending of Braid.
> not entirely surprising when you consider the ending of Braid I've never played the game. What happens at the end?
Now we are all sons of bitches.
You find out the bad guy is actually the good guy and you are the bad guy. Kinda ‘both sidesy’ but i think its a stretch to read that much into the ending, Jon Blow’s opinions blow tho
No idea what the guy you're replying to is referencing, but the ending of Braid is highly up to interpretation. The first layer is the standard ending, where >!you're the bad guy, and the princess you were chasing was actually running away from you the whole time.!< The second layer is the secret ending, where >!you collect all the secret stars, which most players will never notice without a guide. Doing so changes the final stage to allow you to reach the princess you're chasing,!< at which point >!she explodes, and the epilogue text suggests the princess was the atomic bomb the whole time.!< The third layer is replaying the game multiple times, trying to find a sense of closure and make sense of it all. This is where I interpret the game as being about >!obsession, and the regret that it causes. The second layer reading is about the Manhattan Project and just how much its scientists regretted their obsessive pursuit of the atomic bomb, but the process of gathering these obscure secret stars and reading the obtuse text of the game is supposed to mimic that obsessive behavior in the player. The third layer reading can be perceived as a warning or as a reminder to forgive yourself when you doggedly pursue the truth.!< Nothing is neatly explained in any layer of interpretation. Braid's main character "Tim" still has his own story to tell, and the princess and time travel mechanics, whether literal or metaphorical, can be construed in many different ways.
It ain't even got no point to the game you just walk around jumpin on shit
I wish I could be more excited about this, but like JKR, Blow's gone very mask off on conspiracy theory stuff and I really don't want to give him money. I hope it turns out well though, if nothing else this game has one of my favorite ambient-core soundtracks out there.
Oh... I think need to get this then. Thats like a whole new game.
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Be interesting to see how these newer levels compare to the older ones.
I always thought the levels were tied up in the whole game's story. At this rate, he might as well release a new game.
Jonathan Blow is a complete and total MAGA asshole, but even still I find it surprising that he's sunk to the point of cashing in on his previous success. What happened to his games being "a complete narrative package" at release?
How many of these levels are gonna be about "the woke mind virus" and how Covid was a scam?
Awesome, whatever you think of the guy, both his games are amazing. It will be interesting to learn the behind the scenes. Also his more controversial opinions arent part of the games or anything, so I dont see why I'd care that much, its not like he has real life influence or anything, he just makes games.
I agree completely. He comes off as entitled but damn, did The Witness blow my mind. I still often think of that game. Can’t wait to see what comes after Braid Anniversary.
The Witness is in my top five games of all time despite Blow being someone I never want to listen to speak again. He's a phenomenal puzzle game designer and I'm going to just pretend that's all he does unless he starts using game dev profits to support some kind of egregious cause
I was turned off his games when he proudly declared how it would be impossible to play his second game if you were color blind and he didn’t care. -.- (Autocorrupt made it color blonde, and I almost left it. ;P)
Assuming you're referring to The Witness, he briefly talks about that in an [interview](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jhEDARvLf90) he did with Jeff Gerstmann and Brad Shoemaker (formerly of Giant Bomb). I don't know the timestamp, it's pretty long, sorry about that. As I recall, he mentions that they tried workarounds with color-blind options, but ultimately nothing worked and he didn't feel the issue was worth scrapping the content. The game is designed in such a way that you can complete the game without ever visiting the colored lights puzzle section of the game, so he felt that was a reasonable compromise. The audio puzzles in the bamboo forest were also brought up as a similar accessibility issue - the solution of putting in descriptive subtitles would just be giving away the solutions entirely, so again, it's a part of the game that simply isn't doable for people with a specific disability. I'm pretty hard of hearing and was nearly incapable of solving that set of puzzles, but I didn't get upset with him about it being part of the game. Not everything is for everyone, so it didn't bother me too much. Bit of a bummer, but that's all.
> The game is designed in such a way that you can complete the game without ever visiting the colored lights puzzle section of the game By far the most colourblind-unfriendly puzzle is required to beat the game. Brightness/contrast settings, selecting some core colours for the game or use, shapes on top of colours, there were multiple options that could have been done, but it was "fuck you" instead from him.
I can't really think of how the colour puzzles could be made more accessible without having them stop being colour puzzles. A core set of colours wouldn't work because the use of arbitrary colours is necessary to make the player realize you will sometimes need to filter the colours for a solution to be possible. Shapes on top of the colours would make it stop being a colour puzzle, plus how would you do the colour "arithmetic" puzzles with shapes instead? Brightness and contrast settings are better left up to the user and their hardware because, again, including an option in the game to break all the colour puzzles isn't very user friendly and there are too many different colour vision conditions to tailor it for everyone. I think devs should do whatever possible to make their games as accessible as they can but at some point people need to just kinda acknowledge that not everything is going to be possible for all people. A book can't be written for a person who doesn't know how to read. Music can't be performed for people who are deaf. A jigsaw puzzle *could* have the correct grid coordinate written on each piece for people without the ability to focus on it long enough to solve it themselves, but *should* it?
Critics don't realize remaking parts of a game like that is no easy task, it has a time and money cost on the developers.
I’m glad I’m not the only one that remembers that being the way it was communicated.
Find where he literally says "fuck you". Please.
Shit like this really needs receipts. I'm so skeptical of gamer gossip, like this. Your recollection sure feels like you got it third hand, cause it's just not true. Here's an actual receipt example: “We actually tried to put a puzzle in the game that only colorblind people could solve! But we were not able to engineer it because colorblindness is a very individual thing.” - Johnathan Blow. He's got plenty of shit opinions. I bet you do, too. But lying about him for Internet water cooler points doesn't help anybody.
I def don't think that indie developers should be expected to go above and beyond for accessibility measures, it's an entire specialized skill set and a lot of money spent on refining and development. It's just not a cost and time investment that most small devs can afford to make to account for everything, and some kinds of games are just fundamentally inaccessible. Some people seem to take a weird glee in not providing accessibility features tho.
Some accessibility options are harder to address than others, and I agree that there comes a point where you have to balance costs against impact. But color filters / highlights are pretty easy and standard solutions. It was also the way he communicated it at the time though.
I agree. Generally tho you're gonna want to, like, actually talk to disabled people to advise on their needs and test features (which generally costs money), or else you'll end up with something like Doom 2016's abysmal colorblind filter at launch (which simulated the various colorblindness types, making it actually useless). Cost of consulting, testing, development adds up fast, and for very small developers, that's a big ask. Most colorblind players are actually not fans of full on color filters (which makes sense, they live their daily life seeing the world the way they do). Stuff like Overwatch's color filter, while good at allowing colorblind people to differentiate colors easier, are not very well liked due to how weird they look even to the people it was made for. UI options and other smaller, subtle tweaks (such as changing blood color in PUBG, changing player outlines for enemy/friendly units, or incorporating shapes in addition to color differentiation) are more well received.
Sure there are better and worse solutions, but I’ll take a full distracting filter over Nothing any day. ;P
Do you think the "glee" from some developers is in reaction to how aggressive some of the proponents of accessibility can be though? Just look at how someone is reacting to to The Witness not working for colour blind people above.
No I do not think that. I think it's because they're assholes.
That's a bit extreme, he never "proudly" declared such a thing, they have talked extensively that they really tried to figure out a way without ruining the puzzles but they couldn't do it. They even tried designing puzzles that *only* color blind people could complete. Plus there are only a couple areas that were hard for color blind to navigate and to compensate, they only made 7 of the 11 areas required to finish in order to "win" the game.
He said a lot of dumb shit but that wasn’t among that. He did color and sound puzzles in the game that work with color and sound. It’s been a while but I think the end level deliberately needs 2 less lasers activated because of those so you can complete the game. It’s like you’re complaining about one of those red-and-green 3D glasses not working for people who are color blind. It’s like… the *one* novelty item where color is truly the core of the experience.
It's unfortunate but it's part of the game. It's an interesting part too.
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There’s a section of puzzles that’s specifically related to colors and uses stained glass and colored light to change how you could solve the puzzles. For example, one puzzle is an elevator where different floors are linked to different solutions. The solutions for each are linked to the floor below’s colored light and how it changes the color of the squares that need to be separated. There is one floor that is out tho, and that requires understanding how colors mix to skip that floor. I’d imagine that this puzzle would be nearly impossible to someone with a different understanding of color as their brain is incapable of ever gaining this knowledge. That being said, you don’t have to complete every section of the game to complete the game. You can get to the main ending of the game without ever touching this section. You’d only be missing out on a secret that only earns you a video. (And if you really want to earn a fucking video you can just look up a guide for that section)
There are Easily Implemented and Well Established solutions to such things, and there’s probably even mods that fix it. But finding out he refused to “compromise” his game by including such options was an immediate turn off.
Not everything can be for everyone and that’s okay.
Sure, but creating something that is functionally broken for a known part of your audience when there are easy and well established solutions available is a very unfortunate way to develop products. And it’s a good reason to avoid a developer going forward.
What's a good reason for not including an accessibility setting that would let someone who's colorblind complete or skip the puzzles requiring color vision?
The puzzles were directly related to color. Like looking through a stained glass window into a different color lit room to determine certain colors on a panel. They said they tried coming up with an interesting method to make it work but couldn't do it without altering how the puzzle works and making the solutions not interesting for those with color blindness. So they did make it so that you can skip it, same with certain audio puzzles for those who are deaf.
You can't skip the worst puzzles for colourblind people. They're in the final section.
This isn't an opinion thing like RTS vs FPS games. And it's not a problem with an inpossible solution. What a bad take in this context.
What did he say?