This is the third part of my series of Braid hints. It’s not a walkthrough, because simply giving the puzzles’ answers would ruin the game. But I got so frustrated at the game that I gave in to temptation and looked online to find answers to a puzzle in both world 2 and world 3, so I’m now providing the spoiler-free hints I wish I’d had access to. I’m happy to say that I got all the way through world 4 without looking online for any help. World 4 is also my favorite level in the game.

The official walkthrough says…

Some of the puzzles will be hard. But when you manage to solve those hard puzzles, you will feel very good about it. The game will feel very rewarding. Don’t rob yourself of that feeling by reading a walkthrough!

I urge you to only read the hints on levels where you’re completely stuck. Once you read a spoiler, you can never un-read it.

World 4: Time and Place

World 4 introduces the ability to control time by moving left and right. In fact, you can’t help but move time backward and forward by moving left and right. It’s critical that you understand how this works and what it means in order to solve world 4’s puzzles.

The Pit
1. (easy)
This level is so easy that I’m hesitant to provide any hint. But here’s something: monsters can carry keys.

Jumpman
1. (medium)
Keep in mind that since your movement left and right controls the monsters’ positions, even going so far as to resurrect dead monsters should you move back past where you stomped them, the monsters will always be in the same spot when you’re at a certain left-right position. You may have to find another route.

2. (easy)
You’ll do a lot of dying and rewinding here. If you get frustrated, try the other door.

3. (very easy)
No hint.

Just Out Of Reach
1. (easy)
No hint.

2. (medium)
Before getting too frustrated, check out the entire map.

Hunt!
1. (medium)
Not as easy as the first hunt, is it? The key here is understanding how the left/right time movement thing works. The monsters will come back to life if you move left beyond the point where you killed them. So you’ve got to kill them in a specific order. Also, since time only moves forward as you’re moving right, you can’t kill the monsters without a tinge of rightward movement – you can jump on a monster as many times as you like, and if you’re not moving right, it shouldn’t die. You can use this to your advantage.

Movement By Degrees
1. (easy)
Things can happen offscreen. There are often sound cues you can listen for to determine when something happens.

2. (medium)
If you’re finding that you can’t move quickly enough, make sure you know how to rewind at x8 speed. That will move you very quickly indeed.

Movement, Amplified
1. (easy)
Rewinding isn’t the way to move faster. Try the cloud bridge.

2. (very easy)
No hint.

A Fickle Companion
1. (hard)
This one infuriated me more than any of the other puzzles on this world until I realized exactly how the level works. The key thing (no pun intended) to realize here is that when you carry the key to the right, and then move back leftward, it will follow whatever path back that you’d taken before. So if you move left along a different path, you’ll lose the key. But you can’t get the key up to the door without moving left a bit. So how do you move the key leftwards? The answer to that question is similar to how you’ve solved some previous puzzles.

2. (medium)
This one is one of my favorites in the game – it’s just so clever. You want a hint? You’ve got to use the monster.

And that’s it for world 4. More to come soon.