Use this Play Together guide to learn how you can help your child turn Braid play time into a positive learning and relationship-building experience. To learn more about why playing games with your children is so important, check out our Science of Play page.

Talk Before You Play

Take a minute to talk with your child about how the Working Memory and Planning Thinking Skills work, and why they are important for success in school and at home.

Set Gameplay Goals

While playing Braid, take your time to get a good feel for the time controlling mechanic and its effects on Tim and his world. Because Braid is a puzzle game the enemies in it shouldn't be thought of as a threat, but rather an obstacle (or sometimes a helpful tool) that stand in the path to the puzzle pieces. Encourage your child to pace herself and to think broadly when facing particularly difficult puzzles. Braid's puzzles can become very complex, especially toward the end of the worlds, and it can be very beneficial to your child to have a second person to make suggestions, give another perspective, and to help her work out her own solutions. Try to complete the following gameplay goals to get the most out of your Briad experience:

Gameplay Goals:

• Collect 3 puzzle pieces in World 2.
• Collect 3 puzzle pieces in World 3.
• Defeat the boss in World 3.
• Finish the portrait of World 2.

Stop and Reflect

After completing the suggested gameplay goals, take a minute to reflect with your child on how she used her Working Memory and Planning skills in Braid.

• Discuss with your child how remembering her character's actions when reversing time was crucial for being able to collect puzzle pieces.

• Explain the importance of planning out the necessary steps she needs to take in order to collect the pieces, instead of rushing into the puzzle or using a trial-and-error approach. Relate this skill to completing a school project and how prioritizing actions can simplify complex tasks.

• Ask your child to describe how she used her Planning and/or Working Memory skills to complete a particularly difficult puzzle in the game.

• If your child reached a world that changed the time control mechanics ask them how they recalled their experiences in earlier levels and related them to the new world's challenges.

Our Make it Work activities are designed to transform your child’s gameplay to real-world improvements in thinking and academic skills. If you’re just getting started with LearningWorks for Kids, we suggest you try them all to find which are the best for you and your child.

Introduce the Thinking Skills

Read over the pages for Working Memory and Planning. Then take some time to introduce these thinking skills to your child. Explain that:

Reading

Braid's engaging gameplay and beautifully crafted environments are matched by a deep, somewhat ambiguous story which is revealed in pieces of text introduced to players periodically throughout the journey. Before entering each world players can choose to read several short excerpts from Tim's story. Each world's mechanics reflect the context of these texts, covering topics such as forgiveness, regret, and devotion. Each passage read by will reveal new insights into Tim's troubled past, allowing readers to slowly formulate their own idea of who the characters are and why they are here. After completing Braid and unlocking the epilogue, players will be left to interpret Tim's story their own way.

Braid is a game that requires careful planning, and can be a great tool to help children diagnosed with ADHD to exercise thoughtfulness and problem-solving. The ability to recall and apply various bits of in-game information is also needed, as the game's rules and mechanics constantly expand throughout the game. This kind of gameplay helps players practice Working Memory, a skill that can be beneficial for children dealing with the challenges of ADHD to exercise.

How to Use Braid for Children with ADHD:

• Discuss the ways Braid helps foster careful attention to detail. The game mechanics revolves around manipulating time, tasking players with paying close attention to the way the flow of time changes the environment.
• Explain that before acting, it is important for players to fully absorb the environment, taking note of the layout of the world, the placements of hazards,enemy locations and moving platforms.
• There is always a set goal to achieve in the game, from finding a key to simply crossing a cliff, but the player frequently has to stay at it for extended periods of time before figuring out how to achieve it. Explore the ways Braid allows players to achieve creative solutions, and try to connect this type of goal-directed persistence and problem solving to the real world.