Braid spoilers

[Wholly Schmidt]

Stars? There are stars?! We're going to need a spoiler thread for people who think they're done, come into the spoiler thread, then decide they don't want any more spoiled!

[Ben Sones]

In the other thread, Jason posted:

Originally Posted by Jason Cross

I must say, there were two parts that frustrated me to no end. One was the "fickle companion" bit. I thought I knew exactly how the key was behaving according to the rules of the world, but sometimes I would climb a ladder or something and the key would jump out of my hands and fly off somewhere. Other times I'd climb the same ladder with it, and that wouldn't happen. I eventually solved the level but I'm not sure I didn't just luck into a solution.

It's actually behaving according to the established rules. The key goes back in time when you move to the left, like all other normal (i.e. non-green-glowy) objects. As you move left, it travels backwards in time, following the path that over which you originally carried it.

The reason why it "teleports" down ladders, even though you carried it up, is because when you are going up a ladder you aren't moving to the left or right, and therefor time is standing still. From the key's perspective, you carry it up the ladder instantly, because no time passes. when you roll time backwards, the key replays events (in reverse) in the exact manner in which they happened... from its perspective. Thus, it seems to "jump" down ladders.

When it's being carried by the monster, you get a similar situation. The monster exists independently of time, and so it can lug the key anywhere, right or left. But if it carries it to the left, it is "rewriting" the past timeline, carrying the key to someplace other than where it actually was at that point on the map. If you roll back time even a fraction of a second for the key, it will "jump" to wherever it was a fraction of a second earlier--from its perspective--which is very likely nowhere near where it is now. So the trick is to make sure that you only go right after picking up the key again.

Yeah, it's one of those puzzles that makes your head spin.

[Wholly Schmidt]

Originally Posted by Ben Sones

In the other thread, Jason posted:



It's actually behaving according to the established rules. The key goes back in time when you move to the left, like all other normal (i.e. non-green-glowy) objects. As you move left, it travels backwards in time, following the path that over which you originally carried it.

The reason why it "teleports" down ladders, even though you carried it up, is because when you are going up a ladder you aren't moving to the left or right, and therefor time is standing still. From the key's perspective, you carry it up the ladder instantly, because no time passes. when you roll time backwards, the key replays events (in reverse) in the exact manner in which they happened... from its perspective. Thus, it seems to "jump" down ladders.

When it's being carried by the monster, you get a similar situation. The monster exists independently of time, and so it can lug the key anywhere, right or left. But if it carries it to the left, it is "rewriting" the past timeline, carrying the key to someplace other than where it actually was at that point on the map. If you roll back time even a fraction of a second for the key, it will "jump" to wherever it was a fraction of a second earlier--from its perspective--which is very likely nowhere near where it is now. So the trick is to make sure that you only go right after picking up the key again.

Yeah, it's one of those puzzles that makes your head spin.

Wow. I figured out the key's behavior--I knew it wasn't just random, but I didn't really think about why. That's even awesomer.

[Abbaon]

Originally Posted by ZekeDMS

It's amazing what a night's rest will do to your perspective on the ending.

Suddenly I see the princess being the metaphor for everyone's obsessions, lost mothers, experiments. And possibly the victim of stalking.

I was thinking along the same lines, but the examples in the epilogue seem too similar and too specific for the Princess to be something as general as obsession.

The Princess is a metaphor for... something big. Truth, Meaning, or some other abstraction with a capital letter. Or none of them in particular. Perhaps she's the fulfilment we're looking for when we go searching for answers. I don't know.

For people like Tim, the analytical minds who exist outside and opposed to the flow of humanity, the search for "the Princess" expresses itself through the desire to understand the laws which govern the world, the way a player learns and masters the rules of a game.

But the Princess can't be found that way. In fact, it's that exactly that desire which keeps her from you. Whatever she's meant to be, she's prerational, and the closer you come to mastering the game, the further you get from her.

Worlds 2-6 aren't different places. They're one place at different moments in time. As time progresses, rationality and civilization impose themselves on the world, and your surroundings become colder and darker and less reassuring. Eventually the plush dinosaur (a common symbol for popular prejudice) doubts the Princess even exists.

Braid retells the story of the Garden of Eden. Gaining insight into the mechanics of reality cost us something precious, and our subsequent advances in understanding have only deepened the loss.

Jonathan Blow is a Gaia-worshipping hippie who wants to wind back the clock to the Paleolithic era, and we've got to stop him before it's too late.

[Jason Cross]

Originally Posted by Ben Sones

It's actually behaving according to the established rules. The key goes back in time when you move to the left, like all other normal (i.e. non-green-glowy) objects. As you move left, it travels backwards in time, following the path that over which you originally carried it.

The reason why it "teleports" down ladders, even though you carried it up, is because when you are going up a ladder you aren't moving to the left or right, and therefor time is standing still.

etc...

Oh sure, I figured that out later. But while I was doing it, after who knows how many other levels that day, it seemed irrational and random. And I was getting frustrated. It's one of those things where I think Braid would have benefited from the kind of usability testing Valve does, y'know? That level would be tweaked to have a part earlier that is simpler, to ease you into the logic of how the key works.

The world 2 puzzle where you complete the puzzle in the background, I'm just gonna call that poor design. The entire game is able to be reasoned out by using previously established rules, but not that one puzzle - you never are even hinted at interacting with the canvases, and it never happens again.

Worse, I'm pretty sure every other puzzle piece is able to be acquired when you first get to the stage it's in. The pieces of the puzzle that contain the ledge are acquired on later stages in world 2, and therefore you need to backtrack.

[Equis]

I'm getting to the point where Impassable Foliage and Cascade are frustrating me to no end. 6-3 and 6-4 for those who don't know. There's a key in cascade which I can't figure out how to get, or even if I should get it. And impassable foliage has the set of 3 plants with the green hedgehogs puzzle piece that I'm lost as well.

At this point, I'm soliciting hints, if not outright solutions. I don't mind losing the feeling of smartness, because I really want to reach the end and appreciate Braid for all that it is. It seems such a waste that I can't the secret ending because two puzzles are frustrating enough that I might put the game down before I ever see all the extras.

PM, if u need.

[Jason Cross]

Gee, if only there was some way to make those plants go down and up with the perfect timing to let the hedgehogs pass...

I'm not sure where you're stuck in Cascade, I'm not getting a metal picture. I will say that I'm pretty sure every key you see in the game, you eventually need if you want to get all the puzzle pieces.

[Equis]

Originally Posted by Jason Cross

Gee, if only there was some way to make those plants go down and up with the perfect timing to let the hedgehogs pass...

I tried that. But everytime I place the ring to manipulate one, I end up messing up with the timing of the other in a way I'm not sure how. Eventually I get one of the hedgehogs, or even 2 pass and I can't bounce on them to the top like I think I'm suppose to. I know I'm missing something, or at least, I don't think it's a lack of platforming prowess that I'm being punished here for.

The key in cascade is located on the very top right hand corner of the stage. I know what to do once I get the key, I just don't know what to do to get the key.

[ZekeDMS]

I managed it with the ring myself, though that was the hard way, frankly. Of course, later it came to me that the fat freddies were time immune, among a sea of non-immune things.

At that point I was able to do it the super easy way and bounce right up to the puzzle piece.

[roBurky]

If I remember, Cascade is one that had me stuck staring at it for hours, as well. I did eventually get those eureka moments, though.

In regard to the complaints about the time-travelling key:
One of the interesting things about Braid is that it /doesn't/ tell you how its world works. For a lot of the puzzles you /have/ to explore and test on your own initiative to figure out how things work. For most of it, I like that. Discovering the enemies bouncing on heads thing, for example.

But I don't think it always works. The level with no name on world 4, for example. I only managed to rescue the purple key by complete accident. I was bored and frustrated, and was killing myself over and over again just for something to do with my hands while I stared at the puzzle. There was a particular behaviour that you need to know in order to attempt the solution to that puzzle, but there's no other place in the game it will happen, and no way to observe it accidentally that I can see.

[Marsh Davies]

Purposefully vague star question here:

I believe I have found one, but it seems that I cannot get it because I have already completed the game. Is this accurate, Jon? And if so OMGWTFetc, you big meanie.

[Wholly Schmidt]

Originally Posted by Equis

I tried that. But everytime I place the ring to manipulate one, I end up messing up with the timing of the other in a way I'm not sure how. Eventually I get one of the hedgehogs, or even 2 pass and I can't bounce on them to the top like I think I'm suppose to. I know I'm missing something, or at least, I don't think it's a lack of platforming prowess that I'm being punished here for.

Pick one of the plants on the far left or right. Adjust its timing by dropping the ring and picking it up until you've got it in sync with the farthest plant.

Even if you're dropping the ring directly underneath one of these plants, the time effect of the ring radiates out farther than just the visible circle, so the other plants will be affected. But if you sync the outer two plants first, then sync the middle plant with those two, when you drop the ring under the middle plant, since it's centered between the other two, it shouldn't desync those outer plants; it will affect them equally.

[Equis]

Originally Posted by Wholly Schmidt

Pick one of the plants on the far left or right. Adjust its timing by dropping the ring and picking it up until you've got it in sync with the farthest plant.

Even if you're dropping the ring directly underneath one of these plants, the time effect of the ring radiates out farther than just the visible circle, so the other plants will be affected. But if you sync the outer two plants first, then sync the middle plant with those two, when you drop the ring under the middle plant, since it's centered between the other two, it shouldn't desync those outer plants; it will affect them equally.

That helped. Thanks

Now Cascade is the last remaining piece to confound me. The puzzle piece above the entrance door that is. Curse you Jon Blow, for your devious mind!

[Wholly Schmidt]

Originally Posted by Equis

That helped. Thanks

Now Cascade is the last remaining piece to confound me. The puzzle piece above the entrance door that is. Curse you Jon Blow, for your devious mind!

To get up to the key, you need to work out two different jumps. You first need to find a way to get to the platform with the cannon that's across from the key. Then you need to work out a jump from there across to the key platform.

edit: At least that's how I did it, this is one of the bits platform-y enough that I wasn't sure it couldn't be done another way.

Then, once you have the key, you may still get stuck! Have fun.

[Pentadact]

Originally Posted by Ben Sones

It's actually behaving according to the established rules. The key goes back in time when you move to the left, like all other normal (i.e. non-green-glowy) objects. As you move left, it travels backwards in time, following the path that over which you originally carried it.

The reason why it "teleports" down ladders, even though you carried it up, is because when you are going up a ladder you aren't moving to the left or right, and therefor time is standing still. From the key's perspective, you carry it up the ladder instantly, because no time passes. when you roll time backwards, the key replays events (in reverse) in the exact manner in which they happened... from its perspective. Thus, it seems to "jump" down ladders.

When it's being carried by the monster, you get a similar situation. The monster exists independently of time, and so it can lug the key anywhere, right or left. But if it carries it to the left, it is "rewriting" the past timeline, carrying the key to someplace other than where it actually was at that point on the map. If you roll back time even a fraction of a second for the key, it will "jump" to wherever it was a fraction of a second earlier--from its perspective--which is very likely nowhere near where it is now. So the trick is to make sure that you only go right after picking up the key again.

Yeah, it's one of those puzzles that makes your head spin.

I'm avoiding the other posts in this thread because I haven't finished the game yet, so apologies if I'm repeating anything already said.

I had the same interpretation of the logic here, but the key didn't always conform to it. When the monster is carrying the key and you're standing still, if you rewind time, you'll see the key retrace the monster's steps. So time passes for the key while it's being held by the rewind-immune monster: if you rewind six seconds, it goes to where the monster was six seconds ago.

But then when you release the rewind button, the key doesn't rest where it currently is (like it normally does when you stop rewinding). It teleports miles away to where it was six seconds before you stopped moving - usually where you were when you last had it.

I kept getting into situations where, if they key really was where it appeared to be during rewinding, I could solve the puzzle, but if it wasn't, I would have to start all over again.

Even the way I did solve it made no sense. I was on a ladder, and I'd climbed up too early and missed snatching the key from the monster as he walked to the left. I rewound time, and as before the key retraced the monsters steps, but this time it stuck to me as it passed below me on the ladder - even though I was necessarily in exactly the same place I was last time, and the key wouldn't even be here if I stopped rewinding at that point, this time it decided I was in picking-up range and gave it to me. So I stopped rewinding, the key stayed in my hands, and I sheepishly climbed up and got the puzzle piece.

To be clear, I know what the logical solution to the puzzle is, and it does work within the way Ben and I interpeted the puzzle logic. But the methods I tried before I worked out the real solution failed for reasons that contradict that logic, and the method I eventually used only worked because it too contradicted that logic.

Edit: Totally made up for by the gag at the end of that level, though, where you have to run away from the dinosaur to find out what he's saying.

-

[Killzig]

Originally Posted by Wholly Schmidt

Pick one of the plants on the far left or right. Adjust its timing by dropping the ring and picking it up until you've got it in sync with the farthest plant.

Even if you're dropping the ring directly underneath one of these plants, the time effect of the ring radiates out farther than just the visible circle, so the other plants will be affected. But if you sync the outer two plants first, then sync the middle plant with those two, when you drop the ring under the middle plant, since it's centered between the other two, it shouldn't desync those outer plants; it will affect them equally.

I did this one by pausing time (press X, use RB to set speed to 0) when the plants were all down. You should get a steady stream of foozles over to that puzzle piece.

[Wholly Schmidt]

Originally Posted by Killzig

I did this one by pausing time (press X, use RB to set speed to 0) when the plants were all down. You should get a steady stream of foozles over to that puzzle piece.

I was trying to avoid the obvious and direct spoiler, but yes, that's what I did too. It's just a lot easier to get all the plants down in the first place if you get them all reasonably synced first, which is what my instructions were for.

[Killzig]

sorry. :-B

[Cossix]

Originally Posted by Killzig

I did this one by pausing time (press X, use RB to set speed to 0) when the plants were all down. You should get a steady stream of foozles over to that puzzle piece.

Jesus I didn't even think about that. I just kept rewinding until I got a couple across. That'll make speedrunning that level like a hundred times easier.

[nothings]

Originally Posted by Wholly Schmidt

I was trying to avoid the obvious and direct spoiler, but yes, that's what I did too. It's just a lot easier to get all the plants down in the first place if you get them all reasonably synced first, which is what my instructions were for.

This is how I approached it too, but I don't know if this is what Jon means by elegant (e.g. in the 1up video, but he also said this to me in email when I tested and complained about it), because while the rewind-0x feels elegant, getting the plants down simultaneously did not.

Admittedly I foolishly synchronized two adjacent plants and then had to try to find the exact halfway point between them without the cue that doing the end ones first would have, but I doubt it's that substantially different, since precision placement of the ring just doesn't feel elegant to me in the first place.

[Marsh Davies]

Originally Posted by Pentadact

I had the same interpretation of the logic here, but the key didn't always conform to it.

I'm pretty sure the key in this level does not act entirely logically. I've had it so it was being carried by the goomba-thing back towards me from the right of the screen, and I've killed the monster and seen the key warp forwards through the level to somewhere where it couldn't have been momentarily before or after the killing.


Also, I'll repeat my question since it seems to have gone unnoticed: are there conditions which necessitate an entire restart in order to get particular stars?

[roBurky]

From what I've read: yes.

I don't think I'll be trying for the stars, though.

[Pentadact]

Wow, am I the only one who did the Impassable Foliage thing by repeatedly headbutting enemies in the ass?

I dropped the ring in a place that let one in four monsters survive the flytraps, then stood at the point where they drop down so that they would always land on my head. That kills me but bounces them straight back up to the little platform, and I can rewind a sec to when I was alive without bringing them back down. They stay up in their little cubby hole until enough have accumulated, whereupon I move out of the way and they all come down at once. I gathered three before unleashing them, partly to be safe in case two wasn't enough to bounce off, and partly because I found this technique hilarious.

Moronically, I assumed this was the only way to do it. It's probably not the fastest, but it does require no skill, tactics or timing.

-

[jim crawford]

Originally Posted by Pentadact

I dropped the ring in a place that let one in four monsters survive the flytraps, then stood at the point where they drop down so that they would always land on my head. That kills me but bounces them straight back up to the little platform, and I can rewind a sec to when I was alive without bringing them back down. They stay up in their little cubby hole until enough have accumulated, whereupon I move out of the way and they all come down at once.

Awesome!

I got that puzzle piece by finetuning the timing of each plant such that all three let the goombas pass. The goombas are emitted at about the same rate that the plants move, so once you have it set up, there's a steady stream.

Since the ring's radius of effect is quite large, I did this by first finetuning the rightmost plant from directly under it, then finetuning the middle plant in small steps from quite far away -- it was barely on screen -- so the rightmost plant would be unaffected, then finally the leftmost plant from even further away.

[Alan Au]

Originally Posted by Abbaon

But the Princess can't be found that way. In fact, it's that exactly that desire which keeps her from you. Whatever she's meant to be, she's prerational, and the closer you come to mastering the game, the further you get from her.

I found the Princess by poking around in the data files and locating the proper set of bitmaps. There's a lesson there somewhere, although I'm not sure exactly what it is.

- Alan

[Bahimiron]

Originally Posted by Marsh Davies

Also, I'll repeat my question since it seems to have gone unnoticed: are there conditions which necessitate an entire restart in order to get particular stars?

I don't believe so, but there has been talk that has suggested that the answer to this question is yes.

[Abbaon]

Originally Posted by Alan Au

I found the Princess by poking around in the data files and locating the proper set of bitmaps. There's a lesson there somewhere, although I'm not sure exactly what it is.

"A stitch in time saves nine." This is one of the surface messages coded into Braid, which Dr. Blow uses to draw your attention away from his plan.

Braid was okay. The most satisfying puzzles were the ones which were effectively solved the moment I saw the solution. Staying stuck because I couldn't pull off the precision timing or placement the game demanded was pretty miserable and happened too often.

To be fair, it could be I was just doing it the hard way. Dunno how many of the puzzles have multiple solutions.

[Bahimiron]

With the majority of puzzles if you find your reflexes aren't good enough to solve them it's likely because you aren't solving them the correct way.

[Wholly Schmidt]

Originally Posted by bahimiron

I don't believe so, but there has been talk that has suggested that the answer to this question is yes.

Well, this is the spoilers thread, so I think the one in question is the star in the main overworld. It involves doing something with some puzzle pieces that I can't seem to do now that I've long since finished that world because I can no longer move the puzzle pieces independently. If you've got a way to do that without restarting the game, I'd love to hear it!

[Wholly Schmidt]

I started a fresh game and grabbed the star in question.

I made a video, cause hey, why not, but it's probably the easiest star in the game so I doubt it's necessary:

http://vimeo.com/1500115

It's World 3 that you need to move puzzle pieces around in, so if anyone has mistakenly stumbled into the spoilers thread without having assembled the puzzle for World 3 yet, don't do it!