JB: You start seeing reactions of people on the internet, and for me it was a very addictive thing, because here I spent several years working on this thing in isolation for the most part. Suddenly it gets out, and most people, like tens of thousands of people play it in the first few days. You see that all over the internet. And for me, that was a very negative experience.
I was actually seriously depressed for probably 3-4 months after Braid came out. When you work a long time something really intricate like that, there's a hope that, people are going to understand the things that you did. And that you'll have some line of communication with your audience.
And actually, some of the most demoralizing things were actually positive reviews of the game. The game came out and people would say "Oh this game is great!", "9 out of 10", "10 out of 10!", and they'd say what's good about the game, and in many cases it would be just a very surface understanding of the game. They didn't even see, what I thought was most special about it. Not that many people understand you, and that was a little bit heartbreaking, in a way. I visualized I was going to have some kind of connection with people through the game. They think it's great, but the connection isn't there. They're not seeing the most important thing .
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