Who's the brown dinosaur in Braid?

Question

At the end of each world, there's a brown dinosaur who tells you that the princess is in another castle. I get the Mario reference, but is the brown dinosaur a reference to something else or is it a character original to Braid?

Asked by Qiaochu Yuan

Answer

Although David Hellman did most of the art for Braid, Edmund McMillen did some early character designs including the dinosaur^[1]. You'll recognize Edmund's style from other gaming.SE favorites such as Super Meat Boy and the Binding of Isaac.

You can see the squat, tie-wearing style for Tim was kept from Edmund's early drawings, though David mentions that he redid the face for Tim. You can see variations on the Braid dino from Edmund here. Edmund didn't mention any specific inspirations from other sources^[2]; he's just a plush dino and one of his original creations for Braid.

Answered by authenticgeek

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Hints, not walkthrough, for Braid?

Question

I love the game but a little stuck, and not willing to look at walkthrough sites.

Anyone know of places to find "hints" to help through levels without giving away the solution completely?

Answer

This blog has pretty good hints for each world, without explicitly giving away the solutions. Here are the individual links:

• World 2
• World 3
• World 4
• World 5
• World 6
• World 1 : missing

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How do I get out of the pit?

Question

In Braid 3-1, there's a locked door on the opposite side of a large pit. At the bottom of the pit there's a goomba carrying the key to the door. I've managed to time it so that when I jump down onto the goomba, I pick up the key and bounce back up - but I'm not bouncing up high enough to escape the pit. What's the trick?

Answer

Each area in Braid introduces a special mechanism. The first level of each area, The Pit, allows you to experiment with the mechanism, so I would advice you to play around a bit first. That said, the special mechanism for the third region is:

Objects that have a green glow around them are not affected by your time reversal ability

Therefore, the solution to the problem is to:

Go down, kill the Goomba and get the key - note its green glow - and reverse time so that you get back to where you started. They key will remain in your hands, and you can then use it to open the door.

Here's a YouTube video walkthough if you need any more help.

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Why are my Sprites Flickering in Braid?

Question

While playing Braid, I constantly see sprites flickering and disappearing through the whole game. I have searched a lot but no one seems to have the same problem on PC or Console.

here are some example screenshots:

here is the full album of woe

I bought Braid as part of Humble Bundle 3 and activated it on Steam.

It is running on XP Professional with 2.00 GHz processor and 1.37 GB of RAM video card Nvidia GeForce 6100

Thanks in advance.

Answer

I had that flickering, too. Turning VSync off did the trick for me: In Steam, right click Braid, choose properties, then Set Launch Options... and enter -no_vsync there. You can also try -windowed or -30fps. There's a list of Braid's command line switches with which you could further play around.

If you're not running Braid via Steam, first, as Fambida suggested, make sure you got the required DirectX files etc. Then right click your Braid shortcut, choose properties and append -no_vsync after Braid.exe (if there are quotes, after these).

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Do I need to get all puzzle pieces in Braid?

Question

For example in the first level I got like 10 out of 12 pieces, so I didn't complete the puzzle, but I could still go to the next level.

So how do the puzzles work?

Can I get them all into one level, or do I need to go trough the next levels and the come back with magic or something to get the first ones? :)

Because on the 1st level there are 2 pieces impossible to get..

Answer

You can progress to the next level whenever you reach the end of the current level (no matter how many puzzle pieces you got).

However, to progress to the final level (up the ladder in the house) you will need to complete each puzzle board as each board completed adds another piece of ladder that you will be able to climb.

On the 1st level there are 2 pieces impossible to get..

There are no puzzles in Braid that must be completed using something you collect in a later level, all pieces can be gotten consecutively, you just need to figure out how, as some of them are very tricky.

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Going the distance in Braid

Question

Is there a significant benefit to running through the entirety of Braid to find the stars? I have done a little FAQ reading and determined that I have screwed up my chances of using my existing save game, and would need to restart.

Is the "second" ending worth it though? I found Braid to be an amazing game, but a lot of drudgery would need to be overcome to get all those puzzle pieces again....if they payoff isn't that great I don't know if I'd do it.

---

Edit:

I am not a completionist by any sense of the word...basically the general concept was that I was wondering if the payoff vs the amount of work going into getting the stars would be worth it.

Answer

An extremely hardcore player of Braid here.

Braid is a very deep game and there are many aspects about the story/gameplay/puzzles/etc that can be either understood, or completely missed.

Getting all the stars reveals a different ending, but this ending is not straightforward at all. It's difficult to tell whether you'd understand what happens after you get the stars and beat the final level as you have to (I won't go into further details to avoid spoilers).

If you follow the story of Braid and are interested in every little detail, I'd say get the stars. In my opinion, it's not that difficult. It can be done on one sitting. But remember: after you get the stars, there won't be a crystal clear message explaining anything about the story. You will only open an opportunity to a different ending, which ultimately also needs a further understanding by the player.

Long story short: Get the stars, it's worth it!

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Is Braid on PS3/PC different in any way? Is there a definitive choice?

Question

gals and things,

I'm one of the few poor souls who hasn't played Braid yet. I don't have an xbox so my choices are PS3 or PC. The game came out on both platforms a little while after the xbox version, so I was wondering if the content on all three is the same. Are there extra levels or anything in either of those two versions? Are the graphics different/higher res on PC? Any other notable differences?

Also, (this part of the question is more subjective) I don't have a game pad for the PC, so it'd be played on my keyboard. Does it play ok like this or is this enough of a reason to go with the PS3 version?

Thanks a bunch!

Alex

Answer

They're all exactly the same. And since Braid only has 2 speeds of movement (moving or stopped) I can't imagine it being very different gameplay-wise on either platform.

I personally own the game on the Xbox 360, and think it's great! I'd probably have to suggest going with the PS3 version of the game, because the Gamepad is a nice way to layout the controls.

Braid is all about the puzzles, and art style, but the audio track is nice too, so you may want to take into account the quality of the sound system[s] you have your PC and PS3 set up with as well.

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Edit:
It might be interesting to note that on Gamespot, Braid for Xbox 360 and PS3 received a 9.2/10 critic score, where the PC game "only" recieved 9.1/10. A slight difference, to be sure, but it's there.

Also, please read the comment below by 'RiMMER', as it mentions a few minor details that are different between versions. In general however, the games are wholly identical.

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How to solve the World 4 hunt?

Question

Now that we've determined that the World 4 hunt level of Braid is solvable without doing anything special outside the level, the question remains:

How to solve this level?

Answer

You have to kill every monster like in World 2. However, with time tied to movement, if you move to the left of where (and when) you killed a monster, you'll undo the kill, so you'll have to kill them by jumping on them and moving right.

So, move to the far left of the level and make a note of where all the monsters are. You'll have to kill them in order from left-most to right-most.

First, the one at the very top, then the one on the mid-left platform (by jumping using the monster on the mid-right, not using the ladder), then the left one on the bottom. Then the one on the lower platform on the right, and then the one on the mid-right.

The door is time-independent, so it will stay unlocked from this point on.

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Is the World 4 version of Hunt impossible without doing something else first?

Question

I'm stuck on the World 4 version of Hunt. I don't want a walkthrough; I don't even want a hint. (Please don't offer a hint.) I just want to know whether it's impossible without doing something else first to alter the puzzle, because it sure looks impossible to me: as far as I can tell, the rightmost guy will always be alive when you get to the gate. Just kidding; I got it.

Answer

No, this is completely possible to do without doing anything else outside the level. I was skeptical at first as well, but you just have to think about it a bit.

As requested, no hint has been given.

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