Braid

Tim is off on a search to rescue the Princess. She has been snatched by a horrible and evil monster.
 This happened because Tim made a mistake.

Take Super Mario Bros., add a few unlimited time powers, put it in front of an animated impressionistic canvas, throw in some seriously mind bending puzzles and add a truckload of symbolism, and you have Braid. You control Tim as he searches for a Damsel in Distress, while stomping various odd creatures to progress through levels and collect puzzle pieces. Tim can rewind, create Doppelgängers, slow time and manipulate special objects and enemies that are either exempt or particularly vulnerable to his control of time, depending on the theme of the level.

Warning: The following tropes contain multiple spoilers that will essentially ruin the game for you. Do not read them if you intend to experience the game the way it was meant to be experienced.

Tropes used in Braid include:
  • 100% Completion: More like 110% completion: the secret stars are so secret, there aren't any achievements for them!
  • Abnormal Ammo: Some cannons shoot out clouds. Others shoot manheadsmooks.
  • Advancing Wall of Doom: World 1-1.
  • Affectionate Parody: We have flags, castles, goombas, princesses, piranha plants and the original level of Donkey Kong where our parodied hero originated. Someone really likes Super Mario Bros.. And undeniably the best example of all: "I'm sorry but your princess is in another castle."
  • Alt Text: Sort of... if you can find it.
    • In the epilogue, there are several books, some green and some red, and several locations where you can hear a woman's voice. Make sure a RED book on a given screen is open, then go to the place on the screen where you hear the woman's voice.
    • The text changes to the same stories, but in the perspective of unspecified females. A man rescuing a woman in Manhattan? The woman is being abducted. The atomic bomb being invented? A woman is expressing disappointment in humanity. A child jilted for not being able to go into a candy store? His mother is waiting until he's older.
  • Anachronic Order: The first world is World 2, and World 1 is only unlocked after you collect every puzzle piece. Not to mention that you start World 1 at 1-4, and PLAY BACKWARDS to 1-1!
  • An Aesop: There are pages and pages that could be written on this. The most popular one seems to be "you can't undo the past."
  • Auto-Scrolling Level: World 1-1.
  • Back to Front: Saving(?) the princess.
  • Big Bad: Inverted, as the supposed villain in the final level, when you turn time back to its regular state, was in fact rescuing the Damsel in Distress from you. See also Fridge Horror.
  • Can't Take Anything with You: That key could be useful? Sorry, stays in the previous room. Oh, you mean in the same room? Ah... you see, when you rewind time, you retraced your steps to before you picked up that key or puzzle piece, so you also unpicked it up. We apologize for the inconvenience. Usually.
  • Damage Discrimination: Mostly avoids the "no infighting" rule: environmental hazards do not discriminate between Tim and his enemies, which is a bad thing in situations where you are using enemies as, say, springboards to puzzle pieces, and enemies can Goomba Stomp each other. They don't go out of their way to fight each other though.
  • Damsel in Distress: See Big Bad above.
  • Death Is a Slap on The Wrist: The rewind power never runs out and can always be used to reverse death. In fact, if you want to collect everything, you are required to die on occasion. Only a genius or a cheater[1] can complete the game on the first try with only the minimum required deaths (one[2]), much less completing the secret ending.
  • Deus Ex Nukina: The Alternate Ending.
  • Difficulty Spike: Halfway through World 6. It drops back down for World 1, which is actually the final world.
  • Directionally Solid Platforms: The thin metal ones.
  • The Ending Changes Everything: For both endings. In the first, Tim is a stalker chasing the Princess. The secret ending implies that [3].
  • Falling Chandelier of Doom: The Bosses are defeated by creatively manipulating deadly chandeliers. How many times can you drop one chandelier on someone? As many as you want, if you mess with time.
  • Fixer Sue: Invoked and Deconstructed in that some of the text points to Tim trying to be this.
  • Floating Platforms: Played straight with clouds and a few other gravity-defying objects.
  • Foreshadowing: The title screen seems to be this.
  • Gainax Ending: The alternate ending will turn from Downer Ending into this the more you analyze the story. Donnie freaking Darko is more straightforward. Lampshaded by a certain video game reviewer who puts up a few guesses of who the "princess" is.
  • Game Over: Averted, as there is no way to get a Game Over. Dying does nothing except freeze time in the game, waiting for you to rewind.
  • Gameplay and Story Segregation: Back-and-forth example: if you believe some of the theories out there, a large portion of the gameplay and story is tightly interwoven. If you believe other theories out there, then chances are they will tell you that 90% of the text before each world does not relate to the plot, nor the actual puzzles. Quite a paradox, eh?
  • Goomba Stomp: The only method of attack. Well, that and the occasional chandelier. There are also a few puzzles that involve letting a not-goomba stomp you. That popping sound you hear is your freaking mind being blown.
  • Goomba Springboard: Crucial for completing some of the puzzles. You gain additional height by stomping multiple goombas, as well. Inverted for one of the hardest puzzles, by keeping that one not-goomba bouncing.
  • Gotta Catch Them All: Required to get the resolution of the story.
  • Guide Dang It: Most, if not all, of the eight secret stars. Including the existence of said stars.
  • Hero Antagonist
  • Heroic Sacrifice: Sort of: there's one puzzle that actually requires you to kill yourself in order to get the puzzle piece. Of course, for Tim, Death Is a Slap on The Wrist, so it's not that much of a "sacrifice".
  • Homage: Just about everything is homage to Mario.
    • The "goombas" offer an alternative homage by being hedgehogs.
  • Interchangeable Antimatter Keys: Quite a few puzzles require you to figure out how to open two different doors with the same single-use key.
  • Jump Physics: Being a platformer and all, it's only natural.
  • Killer Rabbit: Or rabbit with an identity crisis?
  • Knight in Shining Armor: Double Subverted, or even more.
  • The Law of Conservation of Detail: If you can interact with it, it's probably vital to figuring out a puzzle. In fact, the designer and art director specifically stated that they structured the graphics in such a way that only the important stuff stands out.
    • Confusingly averted in the last screen of the Epilogue. That cloud literally does nothing, yet it's so prominent. This probably spawned the most Epileptic Trees, as it's the only thing in the game that serves no purpose that's brought to your attention.
    • It doesn't help that for completionists, the cloud and its puffs will probably make them think of the cloud in the second level of the game that DOES move, much as it seems otherwise, and DOES lead to somewhere very useful, albeit at a very slow pace.
  • Let's Play: By DarthBlingBling. Spoiler warning, of course.
  • Lost Forever: Don't touch the World 3 puzzle until you find the star related to it.
  • Love Makes You Evil
  • Malevolent Architecture: Spikes, cannons, pits of fire...
  • Man-Eating Plant: Look familiar?
  • Meaningful Name: It's painfully obvious, but: His name is Tim, and he can control time.
  • Mental World: The levels.
  • Mind Screw: Some of the puzzles, multiple layers of storyline, and methods of getting secret stars.
  • Mook Maker: The enemy-spewing cannons.
  • Multiple Endings: Two: the obvious ending, and collecting the eighth secret star. There is also alternate text in the Epilogue, if you can find it.
  • Nice Hat: Lots of them can be found in the background of World 6 for some strange reason.
  • One-Hit-Point Wonder: But you can just turn back time when you die.
  • Our Time Travel Is Different: Time travel follows slightly different rules in each world.
  • Platform Hell: Subversion. The game would be this, if it weren't for the rewind mechanic.
  • Playable Epilogue: Tim runs around in the mess he created, according to fan speculation.
  • Puzzle Boss: All of them.
  • Rule of Symbolism: Very much so. It actually contains more than one layer of symbolism too.
  • Save the Princess: Deconstructed.
  • Scenery Porn: It seems the majority of the time spent working on this game has been spent on backgrounds. Over a year, apparently.
  • Set Piece Puzzle: Pieces scattered through each stage that unlock a ladder to the finalfirst world.
  • Shout-Out:
    • Jonathan Blow in an early PC Gamer interview stated one of the games' main influences is Infocom's Trinity. Ya don't say...
    • Among the many alleged Trinity Test references, the first stage of the game is "Three Easy Pieces".
    • The quotes in the epilogue were made by physicists J. Robert Oppenheimer and Kenneth Bainbridge upon witnessing the Trinity Test, respectively "It worked" and "Now we are all sons of bitches."
  • Shows Damage: The boss.
  • Sour Grapes Tropes: "Wanting what you can't have" is a major recurring theme.
  • Speed Run: Only worth 15 gamerpoints, incredibly enough.
  • Spikes of Doom: Everywhere.
  • Stalker with a Crush: Tim himself, as it is revealed that he is the true monster that the princess is running from.
  • Star-Shaped Coupon: The eight secret stars.
  • Time Master: Tim, at least within the realm of his imagination.
  • Title Drop: Twice, but with no clear indication to its significance.
  • Tomato in the Mirror: IT'S YOU!
  • Uncommon Time: "Long Past Gone", 7 measures of 3/4 then one of 2/4. Or maybe one of 12/4 than one of 11/4, or 6 measures of 3/4 and one of 5/4. Depends on how you split it up.
  • Villain Protagonist: Tim, in the end.
  • Violation of Common Sense: Some of the puzzles, such as the ones that requires you to jump into Spikes of Doom to retrieve a key and then rewind to pull Tim out.
  • Waddling Head: Basic enemies.
  • Waiting Puzzle: Taken Up to Eleven with one (thankfully optional) puzzle.
  • Wham! Episode: World 1-1. Tim isn't actually a Knight in Shining Armor, he's a crazy stalker who the princess is trying to run away from, and the "horrible monster" is a real Knight In Shining Armor that is rescuing her from Tim. Yes, it's a Mind Screw.
  1. ↑ With good reflexes.
  2. ↑ If your reflexes are phenomenal.
  3. ↑ The game is an allegory for nuclear weapons development: the Princess is the split atom, and Tim is a scientist.
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