The indie game movement has been slowly brewing over the years; way back to when basement developers were a real thing. However, with the release of the Xbox 360 and Playstation 3 independent games became mainstream affairs, releasing on home consoles for the first time via the Playstation Network and Xbox Live architectures. One of the first major, breakout hits was Jonathon Blow’s Brain. A 2d platformer like Mario, Braid featured several mind bending mechanics; like rewinding time when you move to the left, and fast forwarding time when you move to the right – Braid proved to be incredibly popular, and incredibly challenging.
Braid also proved to be one of the first indie games to have a wonderful AAA worthy soundtrack, and beautiful hand painted graphics. Braid was instantly recognised by players and critics alike as a wonderful, unique game worthy of everyone’s attention. Even now, a few years later, Braid is still seen as one of the best indie games of all time.