Braid: Anniversary Edition "sold like dog s***", says creator Jonathan Blow

I bought it and enjoyed it, and appreciated the commentary.

But I was a bit irritated by performance issues I experienced with the time bubble later in the game. They eventually got patched, but considering the amount of rants Blow has about performance (+ the fact the game is not actually new), it kind of soured me on it a bit. I guess his attitude eliminated any sense of good faith I would have to a developer releasing something with bugs.

The market for games is just radically different than it was in 2008. Braid had very high production values and a reasonably low price tag at a time where "quirky indie 2D puzzle platformer with interesting aesthetic and a mystery" wasn't yet a cliche. An indie game that got some traction could be hugely profitable. That doesn't seem to be the case anymore, although that might change if the position of the big studios continues to erode.

Hard to really get a sense of tone from text quotes of a cynical game dev, but I got the feeling that he comes across as entitled to sales. For a remaster of a game from 2008. Sorry, but you cannot expect "a million" sales for a project like that... doesn't this guy have like 2 or 3 games "close to release" for like a year now? Maybe he'd do better to release one of those. I'm not sure you get to feel snobby about "dogshit sales" when you release 2 games in 16 years.

Jonathan made a comment a year or two ago that the studio needed cash to complete their new game and "there's a few obvious things we could do", or something along those lines.

My impression is that Braid: Anniversary Edition was one of those "obvious things" to do in order to generate revenue.

So creatively it feels like it didn't really need to exist, it seems more like it was mainly intended as a revenue raiser.

I think it would have been better to create a real sequel to Braid.

As everyone has said, attention and free time is limited these days. People who loved the original may have little interest in playing it again with minor changes, but might have bought a sequel.

I liked the original and bought it on day 1 (or at least week 1), but I have zero time to play a remaster...

This is the Steam page after skipping over what someone who played the original already knows

> A FRESH COAT OF PAINT This is the game you remember, with all the original challenges and the same haunting, evocative score — but repainted pixel by pixel so that each carefully rendered world comes to life in high resolution. New visual details, animated brushstroke effects and revamped sounds add to the immersive experience.

> GO (DEEP) BEHIND THE SCENES Explore the most extensive developer commentary ever put into a game, with over 15 hours of recorded insight and conversation from developer Jonathan Blow, artist David Hellman and more members of the "Braid" creative team. Navigate it by visiting a new in-game world, which also contains new puzzles and redesigns of classic puzzles.

It doesn't even list how many new puzzles and note that some of the puzzles are redesigns.

It doesn't include a new mechanic or anything just what I would assume are harder puzzles. (The original IMO got into grindy territory due to many rooms being slow to do and requiring resetting if you messed up the platforming at all)

Remakes that have replay value get people to have another go at a game that like and thus can do okay.

But puzzle games don't work like that as everyone who played the first is going to feel the core gameplay loop is a chore since the discovery aspect is dead.

Is Braid really a game that needed an anniversary edition?

> when asked how many of his development team are working on the compiler for programming language Jai, Blow replied: "None, because we can't afford to pay anyone because the sales are bad."

Context: jblow is a well known dev figure working on Jai, a programming language. He hasn't quite reached the fame level of carmack, but has a sizeable following

I can appreciate the transparency of it, but talking about it in these terms can’t help sales. You are sort of doing the reverse of social proof on the purchase by saying people think it is dog shit.

Considering this is the first I'm hearing of it, and I'm going to guess many other people, I'm not surprised. Did they do any marketing?

FWIW the linked article is reporting on a 5 minute YouTube video montage of Jonathan Blow interview snippets. Might be worth it to watch/listen to the video directly.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8KR5i98aCy0

Usually remasters make sense if some big value is added or the game is so old that new assets massively improve the experience. I don't believe Braid belongs to the latter, so the main value add to the game is developer commentary, which I have heard from multiple places, is phenomenal, but who really cares about developer commentary? I think it's almost exclusively other game developers, of which there are just not enough to generate massive sales.

Jonathan Blow is an amazing inspiration.

Braid, considered as one of the greatest games ever made, was built around a time when indie game dev wasn't really a big thing. He has also funded a bunch of other indie game dev companies.

His talks on programming and the bad practices of OOP, SOLID and all that nonsense and the general clunkiness and slowdown of software and the levels of abstraction and house of cards are very welcome commentary.

OT: But my favorite review of Braid is by Soulja Boy https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xSXofLK5hFQ

I never really enjoyed the stoic commentary in his games, meaning not why I played them. Once you play Braid you’ve played Braid. Why would I return for bug fixes and commentary? Why bet the stake of your company on a remaster that doesn’t really add anything to the game?

It’s a shame, because it has some of the most well-done commentary I’ve seen in a game. Worth a look if you’re into discussions about game design.

20€ for upgrade for game that has been sold for little as 1,5€ and often 3€... Also the modern day relevancy with the amount of options being around is questionable... This is not anymore the day when it was only one of the few kids on the block(Steam)...

On PC at least you can still run the original and aside from lower resolution art it holds up just fine.

I imagine the main reason to try a remaster is to get it on current gen console stores, but the indie game market is a lot more crowded than it was in 2008.

But it's a game you play for the puzzles and story, which don't give it the replayability of a more actiony platformer. Hard sell for people who played it already, so it has to find new customers. That's way harder than it was on the 360's Xbox Live Arcade.

Good. I wish this would be enough to stop pushing out remakes after remakes after remakes. I know that it won't be. But hopefully it's a small step towards it.

(I do have fond memories of the original, even though I totally forgot about it until I read this headline. But I also remember that it was a 2D scroller/puzzle game, which didn't have a lot of ways to improve in its field. At least not technically...)

I think I may be having a Mandela effect moment.

For me, Braid was most prominently known as like a cool HTML5 tech demo. I remember playing it at like 15fps in Google Chrome... And that's all it was.

But now I look at wiki, and apparently it was a video game for consoles and natively released for PC?

Am I misremembering something. Now when searching for the HTML5 version of Braid, I find no results.

Edit: Lol, I'm thinking of Bastion, very similar name and art style: https://boingboing.net/2011/12/09/html5-only-version-of-bast...

Braid is a classic fun title for sure, and it certainly follows the tradition of challenging game play.

1. Novelty:

2D side-scroller puzzles are a tough sell to the youth crowds these days, as many kids have the alternate choice of minecraft, Roblox (terrible), Fortnight, and GTA.

2. Utility:

Also, the demise of most puzzle games was the insipid walk-though content on YT. i.e. people look up spoilers for zero effort game play (not fun, so pointless.)

3. Perceived scarcity:

Have they considered relaunching the release, but changing "Braid: Anniversary Edition" title to "Braid: Uncensored bloody violent hadōken slaughter of the acid-barfing screaming dinosaurs".

Best of luck, =)

I literally had no idea this came out.

Steam Spy seems to agree. https://steamspy.com/app/499180

There’s so much competing for our attention these days

Cool. Blow could use a plate of humble pie.

He's asking $20 for an updated version of a 20-year-old indie game. I'd have happily paid $5 for a PS5 or Steam version but asking $20 feels nuts when you look at that is asked for other indie classics.

That and he has a reputation almost as bad as the Fez dude.

I wouldn't really buy this in the first place for $20, maybe on sale, but in addition you can get it for free on mobile if you have a netflix subscription, so I'd have to imagine that many people do what I did and played it for a bit on their phone, so now I doubt I'll ever pay for it.