Once in a while, a game comes along that makes you remember why we love this interactive medium. A game that pushes at the boundaries of what videogaming can achieve. A game that is such a self-contained vision, that it takes you on a journey which transcends the controller in your hands.

‘Small but perfectly-formed’ is a phrase that would well describe several gaming masterpieces such as Portal and Ico. Just like Valve’s darkly comedic tale and Fumito Ueda’s atmospheric journey, Jonathan Blow’s Braid is a game that inspires and provokes emotional responses that seem out-of-reach for most other titles.

Superficially, Braid has taken the guise of a platformer and plays much homage to the ‘grandfather’ of the genre - Super Mario Bros. In reality however, Braid is a puzzler wearing Platform shoes, and the classic line ‘The princess is in another castle’ is transformed here into something incredibly more poignant.

The princess in question is the sole object and desire of Braid’s only player-controlled character, Tim. He possesses the extraordinary power of time-manipulation; specifically his primary power is that he’s able to rewind time, making death an irrelevance.

Although Braid is certainly not the first game to include this feature, other titles have incorporated this as something of a standalone gimmick to ease the frustration of restarting, whereas in Braid this feature is central to the gameplay.

The gameplay itself sees the protagonist collecting a total of 60 puzzle pieces over five different worlds, eventually assembling a picture relating to the ‘story’. Each world introduces its own spin on the central theme of temporal distortion, including time-immune objects, ‘parallel worlds’, time-dilation and a world where space and time are intrinsically linked.

The conundrums which the player must solve are all unique and logical, there’s no repetition or filler to be found here. Once you stop thinking of Braid as a platformer and start thinking of the possibilites of time-control, the ‘Eureka!’ moments will soon follow. This humble little Xbox Live Arcade game features some of the most satisfying and well-designed puzzling seen in years.

Controls are simple and intuitive, as you might expect from a game that doesn’t give you much more than a jump button and a rewind button. Learning the rules of how time flows in each world, and using these to your advantage is the fun part. You may find a childish grin spreading across your face as Braid forces you to look at the world in new ways.