You all must remember from college that I’ve been a computer gamer for a long time. Lately, real life has been seriously cramping my gaming styles. Gradually, I’ve shifted focus away from the epic multi-month sagas and toward games that are quality and DENSE with content, ideally ones that are playable in small segments of time since I don’t get to spend all day Sunday gaming any more. I’ve just started playing a new one that I’m really enjoying so I thought I’d post about it and another game of similar mind-bending quality.

First: Portal.
If you haven’t heard of it, it’s a “first person shooter” but without the shooting. Well, you get shot at but you don’t have any weapons of your own. It’s a diabolical puzzle game played through the first person interface. It was produced by Valve, the company that makes the Half Life series. Valve has an online game distribution system (Steam) so you can get it online and download it (broadband required - it’s LARGE) and don’t have to buy it at a store. I think it’s about 20 bucks and it will make your brain melt. In a good way. Really REALLY good game. There’s also a free demo available if you want to try before you buy.

Second: Braid
This is a “platformer” (like Mario Brothers - running side-to-side, jumping over things and onto platforms), but as with Portal that’s just the foundation. The game is really all about time manipulation. In addition to running and jumping, the game has introduced a “go back in time” button. This is used to rescue yourself (instead of dying and starting over) but is also required to solve most of the puzzles in the game. The puzzle design is really innovative and challenging. I’m not an arcade game type of guy, so I find the “platformer” part difficult, but it’s still not impossible even for me. The real challenges are the puzzles which range from instructive (“I’m going to show you a new trick you can do with time”) to clever (“Now let’s see if you can figure out how to use the trick in new ways”) to just plain mean (“Now that you think you get it, try THIS”). Braid was produced by an independent game designer (it’s an “indie” game) with the aid of some outside help for art and music (which merit links of their own). The game is available on Steam (the Valve online store I mentioned above) and from a few other places, too, for 15 dollars. I bought mine at Greenhouse after downloading and playing the demo, which is also available at that Greenhouse link. This game is available for Mac and Windows both.

Finally, on a completely different topic, I thought I’d leave you all with some music.