We’ve all played Super Mario Brothers. It’s the quintessential platformer. You know the score, jump on their heads to kill em and make your way to the castle at the end.

In that respect, Braid isn’t that far off SMB. But as it turns out, Braid has a few magical tricks up its sleeve. Just like Mario, it’s not your average platformer.

It’s a side scrolling affair where you play a little chap called Tim. Your quest is to find the princess who you fell in love with a long time ago.

In order to reach her you must traverse the game’s six worlds,  solving puzzles as you go. These come in the form of jigsaw puzzles. The thing is that you don’t start off with all of the pieces.

You need to get through the door. But first you need to squish that little bugger and get the key.

Upon entering a world you can read some of Tim’s writings on his back story, and how he feels about the princess.

You can then choose from a number of doors, each leading to a different level in that world, all individually named.

The thing about Braid is that it introduces a number of really interesting gameplay mechanics that make it stand apart from the crowd.

Right from the start of the game you can turn back time. That means any time you die, simply pop it on rewind and you’re fine again.

It doesn’t work the same as the Prince of Persia games, where you have a limited amount of time reversal allocated.  In Braid you can just keep time ticking back right up till when you entered that particular level. Interesting…

Click page 2 to read more on the gameplay elements, and why I’m just a sucker for it.