Jonathan Blow's Braid launched on Xbox Live Arcade and became one of the first indie games to break through to mainstream critical acclaim. Each world introduced a different relationship with time: in one, time moves only when you move; in another, certain objects are immune to your rewinds. The puzzles were fiendish, the painted art style was gorgeous, and the story seemed like a simple rescue-the-princess tale until its final level recontextualized everything in a gut-punch twist. Braid proved that indie games could match or exceed AAA quality in design and storytelling, just on a different scale.