Who’s the brown dinosaur in Braid

braid

At the end of each world, there's a brown dinosaur who tells you that the princess is in another castle. I get the Mario reference, but is the brown dinosaur a reference to something else or is it a character original to Braid?

Best Answer

Although David Hellman did most of the art for Braid, Edmund McMillen did some early character designs including the dinosaur[1]. You'll recognize Edmund's style from other gaming.SE favorites such as Super Meat Boy and the Binding of Isaac.

You can see the squat, tie-wearing style for Tim was kept from Edmund's early drawings, though David mentions that he redid the face for Tim. You can see variations on the Braid dino from Edmund here. Edmund didn't mention any specific inspirations from other sources[2]; he's just a plush dino and one of his original creations for Braid.