- Just wanted to put this up quickly, since Microsoft put out the press release overnight announcing titles ahead of next week's Tokyo Game Show, and right at the bottom of the announcement, in the Xbox Live Arcade section, is official confirmation that Jon Blow's IGF winner Braid is coming to XBLA early next year. (There's also some other notable XBLA announcements in the release, as covered by Gamasutra, including Mizuguchi's Rez getting a re-release for the service.)

Here's the paragraph officially announcing it: ""Braid" (Number None Inc.). Arriving in early 2008 on Xbox LIVE Arcade, "Braid" is a platformer/puzzle game. The player journeys across seven worlds to rescue a princess; in each world, time behaves in its own peculiar way. The player must cleverly manipulate the flow of time to solve puzzles. "Braid" aims to provide a mind-expanding, filler-free experience."

Good news, I think - console would have been my preferred way to play the game, since it's a twisted Mario-ish 2D platformer at its root, so I'm glad it's finally going to debut in the next few months - it's been a while since it won the Innovation In Design Award at the 2006 IGF (for which, disclaimer, I am Chairman.)

For the two GSW readers who haven't seen it in action, there's a demo of the current PC version in Jon's Independent Games Summit lecture we recently posted in video form - skip to 15.10 in the video to see it. Hopefully it won't get overhyped before it debuts, but it's a genuinely interesting, neat game.