I read Penny Arcade pretty regularly. This week they mentioned something called Braid, using phrases like “something that really matters,” and “even within its circumscription their minds are shattered and remade,” and “genuinely huge concepts that hum with stradavarian fullness.”

Like, whoa.

So we bought the game.

It cost $25 to buy enough “Microsoft points” (oy. whatever.) to download it from Xbox Live Arcade, but Marty used the rest on something else he liked, so Braid cost us just about $15. And I’ll tell you something. This is one of the most fantastic games I’ve ever played. I can’t stop playing this game, and I’m not the same since I started.

It’s incredibly simple. It’s a mind game, about moving forward and backward through time and solving increasingly more challenging puzzles. It reminds us a lot of the dinky Flash version of Portal (that we loved so desperately and obsessed ourselves with conquering). But Braid has the basic problem-solving structure of Portal, the brilliant (and sometimes borrowed) humor of the original Mario games, the simplicity of a Flash side-scroller, the depth and beauty of a tragic romance, and the musical-visual high art genius of a mad Aphrodesian heaven.

For it is the artwork and the soundtrack that just blow my mind to pieces.

I loved Yoshi’s Island for the game art, but Braid is Yoshi’s Island for grown-ups. Braid has real brain puzzles and illustrations with the sophistication of oil paints—not vectors or crayons. The mystery and aching of its storytelling alters you in some impossible, unidentifiable fashion. This game, it plucks at your heartstrings; you move through pages of a book, pieces of a puzzle, you feel deeply emotional but don’t know why, the music really moves you, the lush landscapes—vast green meadows with sun-streaked clouds and city skylines billowing sunset flame—reach inside you. Change you.

God, why don’t they make more games like this?

I’m dying to know if a version will be released for Mac. I want to throw money at the creators of this wonderful work. Braid’s website is here; a list of songs in the soundtrack is here, and you can see screenshots here. But there’s nothing, absolutely nothing like playing the game and experiencing all these things moving together, in synchronicity. It’s breathtaking.

Guys, buy this freaking game.