in my experience, the people who have the most to say, especially about how wonderful their own game is, and how wonderful they are designing it, usually before the game is released, and usually saying how bad other games are, the game usually turns out pretty bad itself.
well have to see. i'm just very sceptical.
i mean, his game isn't even out yet, and he is already telling other people how to make their games.

Eh, so far, I like what I see. Then again I like this sort of "boring puzzle thingies" anyway.

Hi guys. You may or may not like the game, of course, and that's fine. I don't actually go around telling people this is a great game or anything -- but in interviews, I will definitely communicate the strong opinions I have about why I did things the way I did.

As for "telling people how to make their games" -- well, I do lectures and interviews and things like that. But I am only doing those things because I'm invited to give lectures, or asked to do interviews, by people who find some value in what I say. If you don't find that value, fine; but then just don't watch or read the material. There's no real reason to bust out the Standard-Issue Internet Negeativity (which is so easy and adds nothing). [Note: I have been in the game business for 12 years, so it's not as if I am some random indie making his first game and being very vocal about it. As sometimes happens.]

Braid hasn't been released yet but most of the people who play it like it a lot, and it won an award and etc. So that's something. Hopefully when you can play it, you will like it. If you don't, then hey -- not your game.

Though the word 'only' reads wrongly to me; I do like doing lectures, etc. But the point is, people do find value in it.

That's very cool that jonathan blow himself came here to defend the negative comments.

let me tell you, dispite xbox live arcade's "hey, we welcome all ideas and submissions for casual games" attitude, they are mean, picky nazis that reject everything. so making it onto xbox live arcade is an amazing feat in itself!!

Braid looks very cool, and I'm looking forward to it. It's kinda like "Klonoa" with a guy in a suit.

Jonathan, were the Klonoa games an inspiration for Braid?

Inspirational games were:
Dojo Dan
Rise of the Robots
ET (Atari 2600)
Alfred Chicken
Vixen (Amiga)

Well, I read this blog daily... it is one of my main internet hangouts. So posting is not that big of a stretch.

When I first started making Braid I went and played a bunch of platformers to get a feel for what was out there. A friend of mine told me that Klonoa 2 was like the greatest platformer ever made... so I played it and, uhh, it really was not for me.

As far as games go, the main influence is Super Mario Bros, which is obvious as soon as you start playing. Most of the other influences come from other media (Italo Calvino's "Invisible Cities", David Lynch's "Mulholland Dr.", the music of the Dirty Three... and probably a bunch of stuff that I am not remembering right now.)

Sorry guys, I won't be updating until this weekend at least. I'm having some serious problems with my PC hardware, so unless that's fixed I won't be able to try out any games for a while.

I will try and make a couple of posts here and there though...

Jonathan,

Don't feed the trolls!

Congrats for getting your game on XBox Live by the way.

Bill

I also had negative opinions about the game when I read about it. (I was probably jeallous about the huge hype it was getting.)

But after seeing one of mr Blow's lectures I completely changed my mind. It was the most interesting presentation I'd ever had the pleasure of viewing, and it cleared up a lot of things about developing games that I previously was unaware of. When seeing the ideas for Braid in motion, and hearing him describe how he had prototyped it, I could see it in a new light where the hype seemed very well deserved.

Hearing mr Blow list David Lynch as an influence is both confusing and exciting. I haven't noticed any connections between Mulholland Dr. and Braid, but Lynch has given me some of my life's most awe-inspiring moments.