Ironic, because Braid and its, at the time, popularity was almost single handedly responsible for the newborn Indie Dev scene becoming pretentious, fart sniffing garbage.
Because after it came out, and all the usual game journos jerked it off into everyone buying it, suddenly every game wanted to have their princess be the atomic bomb and the MC to actually be an evil incel TRP rapist the whole time. Games could be an exercise in "go fuck yourself" like his secret stars were and people would love it, you could make a generic garbage puzzle/walking game and as long as it had some big "relatable" twist it was GOTY.
So in a way, Braid itself laid the egg that would eventually blossom into Depression Quest and Gone Home creating Gamergate itself.
I also enjoyed it. It wasn't great and it got tiresome by the end, but I still played it through and can say it was a solid 7/10 elevated by being this "new thing called an indie game for 2$."
And exactly as you said, finding out the intention ruins that entirely and turns it to active hate.
Based on like 20 year memory it was something like "you are a creep stalker forcing yourself on this random woman in some sort of narcissistic hero fantasy. Also something something atomic bomb."
It can't be stated just how big this game was at the time. Literally everyone was talking about it, and then criticizing it, so eventually it just became "its just art man" so that Blow's pretentious ass could pretend it was deeper than it was and dodge infinite questions about it.
Honestly, I don't think he set it with that as the entire goal. He certainly just made a video game with no story or literally anything to it beyond the gameplay, but then he made up a bunch of stuff to make it seem more than that. Because there is literally nothing to suggest any of that until you hit the last few minutes. And even then its all metaphorical headcanons, because nothing is concrete. But that's what he leaned into and attached it to.
Ironic, because Braid and its, at the time, popularity was almost single handedly responsible for the newborn Indie Dev scene becoming pretentious, fart sniffing garbage.
Because after it came out, and all the usual game journos jerked it off into everyone buying it, suddenly every game wanted to have their princess be the atomic bomb and the MC to actually be an evil incel TRP rapist the whole time. Games could be an exercise in "go fuck yourself" like his secret stars were and people would love it, you could make a generic garbage puzzle/walking game and as long as it had some big "relatable" twist it was GOTY.
So in a way, Braid itself laid the egg that would eventually blossom into Depression Quest and Gone Home creating Gamergate itself.
I enjoyed playing Braid.
Then I read about what Blow meant Braid's story to be and about the secret stars.
Then I said fuck Braid and fuck Jonathan Blow.
I also enjoyed it. It wasn't great and it got tiresome by the end, but I still played it through and can say it was a solid 7/10 elevated by being this "new thing called an indie game for 2$."
And exactly as you said, finding out the intention ruins that entirely and turns it to active hate.
What was the intent? I dug around a little bit, but didn't see anything concrete, just "it's, like, art, man."
Same question, u/SR388-SAX
Based on like 20 year memory it was something like "you are a creep stalker forcing yourself on this random woman in some sort of narcissistic hero fantasy. Also something something atomic bomb."
It can't be stated just how big this game was at the time. Literally everyone was talking about it, and then criticizing it, so eventually it just became "its just art man" so that Blow's pretentious ass could pretend it was deeper than it was and dodge infinite questions about it.
Honestly, I don't think he set it with that as the entire goal. He certainly just made a video game with no story or literally anything to it beyond the gameplay, but then he made up a bunch of stuff to make it seem more than that. Because there is literally nothing to suggest any of that until you hit the last few minutes. And even then its all metaphorical headcanons, because nothing is concrete. But that's what he leaned into and attached it to.