With any artistic endeavour it’s easy to slip from eloquent poeticism to haughty pretention when crafting a piece that boldly explores loss, existentialism and love. Humbleness and subtlety go a long way. Jonathan Blow’s enigmatic platformer, Braid, is an intrepidly personal game; awash with gorgeous art, brilliant design and, at times, a rather contrived narrative. But perhaps it takes being just a little bit ostentatious to deliver something as strikingly profound and astonishing as Mr. Blow and his artist, David Hellman, have crafted with Braid. It can be a bit self-indulgent, but then again it is a game unlike anything you’ve ever played.

At first, it presents itself as seemingly simple as a platformer can be. As the slightly rotund and orderly Tim you’ll run, jump and bounce off portly enemies; classic Super Mario through and through. Tim is quite literally picking up the pieces of his shattered life in the form of obscured puzzle pieces strewn across six worlds, each ultimately forming its own painting and insight into his journey to find the “Princess”.

Simplicity permeates the entire experience, but the complexity and depth of design become inevitably apparent within the first few levels. The ability to control the flow of time – be it forwards, backwards or making it stand still – quickly becomes the soul and brilliance of gameplay. It also, rather overtly, plays to the thematic meanderings of the narrative, which contemplates the nature of time and its implications.

The time bending mechanic begins with turning back the clock to alter simple mistakes, be it a poorly timed jump or a fall to your death. And it becomes increasingly mind boggling and enthralling with each puzzle piece attained. Later on, your shadow will replicate your future actions that just happened in the past — out of body actions materialized – if that makes any sense. It gets complex, it gets deep and it gets increasingly difficult. But the game always imbues in you the feeling of complete and utter control. Intertwined in the gorgeous artful backgrounds are little clues that help you along the way. An even simpler method is to just observe the motion of the world, ponder a solution.  If at all you’ll be frustrated only with yourself, never the game.

Gameplay is immaculately introduced and instills faith in the player in such a way unlike any other game before it. And so, it comes across as odd that the yarn spun here is occasionally contrived. The metaphors are there in gameplay, the time mechanic is inexorably interwoven with the narrative, and that in itself is immensely laudable. But it’s thematically blatant, pounding its cautionary tale home with heavy handed prose texts before each world. Then when gameplay mechanics, while brilliant in function, are pushed in your face you’ll begin to wish the narrative would respect your patience and tolerance like the gameplay does so well.

Though, Braid is not solely an intellectual exercise, it’s also a whirlwind of fanciful style with elegant visual and musical artistry. David Hellman’s hand crafted worlds are absolute wonders, literal moving paintings with broad and beautiful brushstrokes and colours that begin as playful and jovial but gradually give way to a gloomy disposition, matching an ultimately tragic tale. The same can be said of the haunting harmony of strings that weave their way through each scene perfectly, warped by the flow of time.

Through looking backward, Braid has moved forward. It is an ostensibly little game of great significance and sometimes it can be far too self-aware of that fact. It presents itself under the guise of the most classic of gaming memories and, while it remains just that simple, it also dares you to rethink how a game can be experienced.