14 DAY TRIAL // The Xbox Live Arcade system, which contains small downloadable games, has been the host of some very interesting titles over the years. We've seen the fun that the side-scrolling adventure game Castle Crashers can offer but nothing prepared us for the time-rewinding quests of Braid, created by independent developer Jonathan Blow.
Braid has a story similar to Mario, in which Tim, a regular guy, goes in search of a princess, with whom he has a very ambiguous relation. Spread across seven worlds, the game is a classic platformer, in which Tim must jump on enemies in order to destroy them, but, as a major twist, he can also use a particular time reversal technique, which essentially rewinds the game for a few seconds.
The game enjoyed a massive success on the XBLA and now, after some pretty hard work from Jonathan Blow, it will be launched for the PC as well. Blow recently confessed on his blog that, although the game was almost complete, the fact that a lot of blockbuster titles were released this holiday season meant that his creation wouldn't enjoy the same great sales.
“I had originally announced the release date for the end of 2008, but for various reasons, this hasn’t happened. Once we slipped into mid-October and all the big Christmas-season blockbusters started coming out, it just seemed like a bad idea to schedule Braid for that time period, as it seems likely it’d get released and then disappear.”
Blow also mentioned that he was indeed working on a native Mac version and, if Sony wanted to, a PlayStation 3 version wasn't out of the question. Considering the innovations that Braid brought to platformers and how it has impacted quite a lot of gamers, Sony should be interested in this title.
All that's left for us to do is count down the days until the February-March period when Blow will launch his great game.