The Witness

Having fluked the solution to the first 'red hexagon' puzzle, I spent ages trying to figure out the logic behind it. Managed to convince myself it had something to do with the way the wires connected to each panel, and managed to make up some insane leaps of logic to 'guess' the second one. Got that one after some mind-melting trial & error, and then realised the rule made no sense at all for third one (obviously didn't make any sense for the first two either :pac:)

Obviously the actual rule turned out to be far, far simpler Really clever set of puzzles. Thought the greenhouse ones were inspired too.

Retr0gamer wrote: »

The puzzles so far might be clever but really there's not a whole lot here that couldn't be done in a puzzle book.

That's inaccurate. There's a substantial amount of puzzles here that rely on the fact that you're in a 3D space, and able to approach them from varying perspectives. For a game whose main gameplay input is 2D it's a remarkably three dimensional game, and there are several key mechanics that simply could not be replicated on paper.

I also feel the whole line puzzle thing is totally at odds with the island exploration. They both feel totally disjointed even when the environment plays a part in some of the puzzles.

Again, I'd disagree near completely here. The puzzles and world constantly inform and interact with each other - no detail is careless or ill-considered. Whether that's puzzle panels making substantial, important changes to the environment, or the world informing the puzzles, the two deceptively disparate elements are constantly interacting. If I'm being honest, it has been a while since I've played a game where every single detail feels so totally precise and everything so carefully intertwined. It's very Dark Souls like in that sense.

It's unlike something like Braid or Portal where the central puzzle mechanics are intrinsically entwined in the game and story.

Here's the thing: I'd say everything in The Witness is far more intrinsically entwined than Braid every was. Trying to marry Braid's themes with its gameplay mechanics works on a broad level, but is far less obvious on a moment to moment basis. The Witness is much more coherently designed, the overarching themes, story snippets and gameplay all feel like they've been carefully conceived to operate in harmony.

Touching on what partyjungle was saying about the emptiness of the world, I think that sense of quiet and isolation is utterly essential to what Blow is communicating here. John Teti articulated this best in his IMO dead-on review:

AV Club wrote:

A uniting theme of the recordings is epiphany—a moment when your consciousness expands to accommodate some new, essential truth. These aural tone-setters are an elegant accent to the game, which is an epiphanic symphony of its own, producing a crescendo of little miracles in your brain if you let it.

The title has a poignant connotation: You are the sole witness to your flashes of new understanding, and only you perceive the particular alchemy of hard work and happenstance that produced them. There’s a beauty in the loneliness there, which The Witness accentuates with its more literal solitude... When you are struck by an elegant solution in the game, you not only get the thrill of your achievement, but you can also sense a faint echo of the larger epiphanies that have driven humanity forward.

Dismiss it as 'pretentious' (that shallowest, most useless of criticisms), but that's something I constantly see reflected in The Witness. It's a game about knowledge and progress - how we come to understand the world through observation and creation alike. You travel through shrines, greenhouses, windmills, factories, orchards - all exploring the ways people look at the world and apply the knowledge they've gained or are looking for. That feeds into how the game asks you to interact with it. It's fitting, then, that there's the unobtrusive, sparse audio logs reflect on historical examples of that.

The beautiful but eerily quiet world. The scattered audio logs. The puzzles themselves. They all come together to create what is one of the most artful, brilliantly authored games I've ever played.

It ain't for everyone, I fully accept that. But I think you know yourself Retr0 you will find no shortage of games to satisfy your self-acknowledged bloodlust

Great, pretty comprehensive (given the depths of the game, there's still lots unexplored :pac:) conversation with Blow from the Giant Bomb guys. For his reputation for pretentiousness, I always think in video interviews (compared to print interviews, where he seems more elusive) he comes across as nicely down-to-earth, able to articulate his views eruditely and confidently but in a very accessible, easily digestible way. So this is a fascinating breakdown of the design philosophy of the game. Plus, wonderful to see him tackle The Challenge and get stuck with the same brain farts

Just a warning: Do not watch the video until you feel you have pretty comprehensively or confidently finished up with the game.

limnam wrote: »

They're myst nut jobs. They love punishment. It'll be a gift :pac:

Worth looking into Obduction as well if so - The Witness is IMO a far superior game, although Obduction is really good and a much more direct descendant of Myst. Quite intensive on PC though!

While I don't think you'll like the game if you can't dig the line puzzles, it's also worth pointing out that like most games* the hardest puzzles will not reveal themselves in 40 minutes of play Some very challenging and rewarding sections in the game.

*except for Stephen's Sausage Roll, which is designed to intellectually punish all within minutes