“In the world of The Witness, solving puzzles is its own reward.”
August 17, 2017 8:53 AM Subscribe
“If The Witness is about anything —aside from, well, doing lots of puzzles —it's about spirituality and science, their parallels, their differences.” [Polygon] “The assumption is that a simple sequence of hundreds of maze puzzles can't be the next project from the creator of Braid, a game in which narrative was so essential that it was inextricable from the mechanics. Surely it can't be that simple. It is. Oh, don't mistake me: There's a beautiful, defiantly colorful world to explore, and plenty of little hints of how it came to be. The Witness is loaded with "plotmosphere," a useful if pat bit of neologism that would probably make Blow cringe. But, mechanically speaking: The Witness is maze puzzles. Full stop.” [YouTube] [Trailer]
“Big, beautiful and rewarding, Jon Blow's enigmatic puzzle epic is virtuoso game design - and only a fraction too clever for its own good.” [Eurogamer]
“Big, beautiful and rewarding, Jon Blow's enigmatic puzzle epic is virtuoso game design - and only a fraction too clever for its own good.” [Eurogamer]
“This much you might expect if you have followed Blow or played Braid, a simple puzzle-platformer which gained great layers of challenge and ingenuity from, essentially, a rewind button. What might surprise you more is the scale and opulence of The Witness. It took me 23 hours to see the end of the game, at which point I'd solved 365 puzzles, but many puzzles remain unsolved and many mysteries undiscovered. And although it has a certain cool minimalism in its presentation - there's no music, and the island is a deliberately hushed and lifeless place - The Witness is a quite gorgeous example of the 3D modeller's art, characterised by washes of rich, soothing pastel colour and a sculptural attention to detail. The island is as sunnily inviting, as reach-out-and-touch tactile, as it is eerie and remote. To put it another way, The Witness' scope and production values are the equal of many a big-budget, big-publisher release, and its substance would shame most of them.”• Doors of Perception [Gamespot]
“It's also impressive how diverse the puzzles are, and how The Witness manages to keep mazes engaging over the course of 25 plus hours. It's more impressive when The Witness reveals that its world, and the puzzles therein, aren't separate; they bleed together. Certain panels seem impossible until environmental clues offer the telltale hint. Other panels contain no clues at all, but affect your character's surroundings in clever ways. The castle at the center of the island is a shining example--its puzzles spill into the ramparts around them, making you consider the structure in a new light. What's more, the island is open from the start, leaving you free to wander between its puzzles and locales. This is a vital part of The Witness' structure: each area houses a different motif among its panels, based around a certain symbol or clue in its mazes. If the increasing difficulty of one area's puzzles becomes too high, you can put it down, cross the island, and learn a new rule. In many cases, the knowledge you acquire elsewhere helps you better understand the puzzle you just put down.”• The creators of The Witness on how they made a 100-hour puzzle game [The Verge]
“One of the most astonishing things about the game is the attention to detail. The Witness takes place on a relatively small island — after a few hours I was able to get around pretty easily despite my poor sense of direction and the lack of an in-game map — but it’s an incredibly dense place. Nearly everywhere you turn you find something new, and much of it feels important, even if you don’t understand why immediately. From the shape of a building to the placement of a tree, everything in the game feels deliberate, like someone put a lot of thought into how to stack those rocks. The developer even enlisted the help of real-world architects, who worked with the artists to ensure that the architecture and landscaping were grounded in reality. "If you’re asking someone to pay attention to details, clues in the environment, then you as a designer have to go and make sure that what they see is going to be a high-quality experience," Blow says of the focus on details like architecture. "If some part of the game doesn’t support being looked at closely, you’re setting yourself up to be bad." Spanyol adds that "it makes it feel very grounded. It feels more immersive just because the details are in place, and your brain kind of picks up on it."”• Creating Complexity From Simplicity [Game Informer]
“The most memorable puzzle games take root in your mind and keep you thinking. From imagining blue and orange portals around your office to seeing tetrominoes as you try to sleep, playing around with fun puzzle concepts doesn’t always stop when you put down the controller. Like the genre greats, The Witness has the same ability to infiltrate your perception and draw you in. The core mechanic is deviously simple, but it paves the way for brain-bending puzzles and cascading “a-ha” moments that are among the best games can offer. As the lone person on an island full of ruins and mysterious devices, your basic goal is drawing lines. The gorgeous open world serves primarily as a delivery method for hundreds of monitors displaying grids, and you need to trace paths from the designated starting points to the ending points. Of course, you can’t just scribble anything; your line’s exact path is important, and is the basis for an unbelievable amount of diversity and creativity within this straightforward structure. Symbols on the grid require you to outline particular shapes. Physical objects obscure your view. Your surroundings might provide necessary clues. The grid and symbols communicate information clearly, and the satisfaction that comes from identifying the trick and then arriving at the right solution is immense and frequent.”• 'The Witness' is a Beautiful Game with a Shitty Attitude [Waypoint]
“But worst of all, The Witness has a serious attitude problem. It revels in a rationalist worldview that I was repulsed by throughout, the idea that logic and cold, hard, rational thought will solve all the world's problems. I mean, just look at these self-serious statues. These fucking statues. The recordings that litter the world that profess very grand ideas. A movie theater that plays up-to-40-minute video clips of pop philosophy and science and a heaping dose of bullshit. The game's secret ending—attained by completing "The Challenge"—does send much of this up. It makes fun of its entire conceit. But it does so in a way that feels mean and unfair to the game's biggest fans, those who tortured themselves through the challenge's timed puzzles. And the only people in the world who will actually see this "true" ending, this sneering "It was satire all along! Go outside, nerds!" are the ones that are willing to put up with this game's bullshit for the longest.”• The Witness is a very different game when the curiosity is gone [Destructoid]
“"I have vivid memories of sitting in geometry class in ninth grade and listening to the teacher explain why geometry is a different beast than the other maths we had already learned. 'Don't feel bad if you can't do this yet,' he said. 'The reason is because it's chemically impossible for you. We're doing theorems and proofs -- your brain hasn't ever been asked to think like that before. The synapses in your brain need to fire off in order to be able to understand this; when that happens, you'll get it and this will all be easy for you.'" The first time I nailed those geometry proofs, it was an incredible moment. Each subsequent proof was less and less special. Eventually it was routine. I knew how to do these, I just had to apply what I had already learned. That's what playing The Witness for the second time is like. I don't remember the specifics of any of the puzzles, but I remember the rules. That's all it takes. Two puzzles that I originally spent five cumulative hours on (because I stubbornly refused to go elsewhere) took less than a minute this time. I felt like a Fields Medal winner ashamed that he didn't understand addition at some point in his life.”• A Game of Wandering and Wondering [Pop Matters]
“We wake in a dark walkway, a chink of light ahead inviting investigation. A closer look reveals a golden panel affixed to an exit, bearing a symbol that resembles a sperm cell: a single line with a circle at one end. We trace a path from head to tail and the door swings open. Gloomy greys are soon replaced by the lush greens and violets of a walled garden. Cables are draped across foliage and stone, hooked up to monitors that display simple, two-dimensional mazes. To beat these preparatory puzzles, we need only sketch a route from start to end. Once all are complete, we can unlock the looming garden gate and roam the world of The Witness as we please. Well, almost as we please. The island on which the game takes place is split into themed sections, ranging from desert ruins to castle keeps, from treehouses to cherry blossom orchards. All are visually stunning; every plant and rock has been positioned with painstaking precision. As well as boasting a distinct aesthetic, most areas introduce a new rule or constraint to the ubiquitous gridded puzzles—join the dots, separate the shapes, find a symmetrical solution. Some sites and structures are blocked off by trickier challenges that combine multiple rules. Until we have learned how to tackle them, we will need to explore elsewhere.”• The Witness: how Jonathan Blow rejected game design rules to make a masterpiece [The Guardian]
“Nonverbal communication is a big part of The Witness, and Blow thinks that might explain why some people are approaching the game as a dialogue or even battle between him and the player, though he doesn’t see it as combative himself. “There’s like a kind of rhetoric that moves through various subjects as you solve puzzles in the game,” he says, “And it might be that the fact that there’s that flow of ideas, they’re personifying it a little bit more into a combative relationship. I could see that.” It’s elements like nonverbal communication, rather than genre labels, that draw Blow to other games. Though he didn’t have much time to play anything towards the end of development, he did spend a weekend with side-scrolling city builder Kingdom, which similarly rejects heavy tutorialisation. Unsurprisingly, he’s also looking forward to playing other puzzle games like the four-dimensional Miegakure, and Stephen’s Sausage Roll, which he describes as “one of the best puzzle games ever made, or one of the best video games ever made”.”• Tips For Playing The Witness [Kotaku]
⁃ Keep a notebook nearby.• The Witness - Noclip Documentary [YouTube] [47:58]
⁃ A camera could help, too.
⁃ Use the D-pad to solve puzzles a little more quickly.
⁃ Think in variables.
⁃ If you're stumped, try solving a puzzle in reverse.
⁃ Look around after finishing any puzzles, see any wires?
⁃ Don't expect obvious rewards.
⁃ Check your progress.
⁃ Don't sweat the starburst symbols.
⁃ Be ready for the rules to change without warning.
⁃ Make sure you can physically solve the puzzles.
⁃ Be aware of the quasi-point of no return.
⁃ Consider a second playthrough.
⁃ During a second playthrough, look for an easter egg in the opening area.
⁃ Still stumped on a puzzle? Maybe draft an e-mail to Jonathan Blow (but don't send it).
“What lies at the heart of Jonathan Blow's island of mystery? We talk to the famed indie designer about how one of his earliest design ideas blossomed into The Witness.”
There's no way I'll have time for this game myself, but I could see myself turning my kids loose on it when they're old enough- seems like a decent use of their screen time.
posted by a snickering nuthatch at 9:11 AM on August 17, 2017
posted by a snickering nuthatch at 9:11 AM on August 17, 2017
The Witness is a great and unique game, for sure. Rather than another "walking simulator" I would say it is a good entry for "games as art", but I did feel like it could use some editing of the puzzles. It felt as if Jonathan Blow sat around for a few years and included every possible variation of every puzzle he could imagine. It simply gets exhausting after a while and takes impact away from the more unique elements.
posted by lubujackson at 9:50 AM on August 17, 2017 [1 favorite]
posted by lubujackson at 9:50 AM on August 17, 2017 [1 favorite]
I love The Witness so much. Every single thing in the game is placed with considered and deliberate care. There are very few things in it that are there by coincidence or happenstance. I didn't realize how much I loved the game until several months after finishing the main story when I started thinking about it again. I was overcame with a sense of sadness that I didn't get to play it again fresh.
There is [spoilers]a final challenge that I have yet to beat, so there's still something for me when I go back to play it. But you have to be at the peak of your puzzle solving skills, so maybe I should just play through the whole thing again...[/spoilers]
posted by zsazsa at 9:52 AM on August 17, 2017
There is [spoilers]a final challenge that I have yet to beat, so there's still something for me when I go back to play it. But you have to be at the peak of your puzzle solving skills, so maybe I should just play through the whole thing again...[/spoilers]
posted by zsazsa at 9:52 AM on August 17, 2017
___________________________________ | _____ | | ___ | ___ ___ | | | | | | | |_| |__ | |_| __|____ | | | | | | | |_________|__ |______ |___|_| | | |_| | _______ |______ | | ____| | ___ | |____ | |______ | |_| |____ | |___|_|____ | | ___ | |________ | | | ________| | |__ | |______ | | | | | | | ________| | __|____ | | | __| | |_| |__ | | __|__ | ____| | |_| __| | ____| | |____ | |__ | |__ |__ | | |_______|_______|___|___|___|_____|posted by leotrotsky at 9:59 AM on August 17, 2017 [5 favorites]
I'm a simple man. I see an FPP with a link to something written by Justin McElroy, I click on it.
posted by deadaluspark at 10:05 AM on August 17, 2017 [6 favorites]
posted by deadaluspark at 10:05 AM on August 17, 2017 [6 favorites]
I managed to crack one of the types of puzzles while not even playing the game. I'd spent a while banging my head against it, took a break, and then the next day, while driving to work, I figure it out the mechanism. It wasn't that I had memorized any grids, just that I knew what properties of them were causing me trouble. Which really seems like a testament to the quality of the game. The puzzle was simple enough that I could figure it out it from the limited information I could remember overnight, challenging enough that I didn't get it right away, and interesting enough that I wanted to think about it while doing other stuff.
<3
posted by aubilenon at 10:06 AM on August 17, 2017 [2 favorites]
<3
posted by aubilenon at 10:06 AM on August 17, 2017 [2 favorites]
I was overcame with a sense of sadness that I didn't get to play it again fresh.
This is exactly how I feel about the game. I really wish I could get a brain wipe and play it over again, this time paying a lot more attention to the landscape instead of just rushing from panel to panel. (In my defense, I get motion sick from The Witness and some other first-person games so I don't really enjoy the walking-around parts.)
If you haven't played The Witness but want to:
Do not read a damn thing about the game. Not even the most innocuous-seeming review. You'll inevitably read spoilers and this is a game that spoilers really spoil.
When you're working on a bank of tutorial puzzle panels, don't just move on to the next one as soon as it lights up. Replay each puzzle a few times. Try solutions you think will work and solutions you're sure won't. Actually try to fail the puzzle. Hone your understanding of the rules on the simpler puzzles so you don't get to a complicated one later and go, wait, that should have worked, I know the rules, this puzzle is broken...
posted by mama casserole at 10:09 AM on August 17, 2017 [4 favorites]
This is exactly how I feel about the game. I really wish I could get a brain wipe and play it over again, this time paying a lot more attention to the landscape instead of just rushing from panel to panel. (In my defense, I get motion sick from The Witness and some other first-person games so I don't really enjoy the walking-around parts.)
If you haven't played The Witness but want to:
Do not read a damn thing about the game. Not even the most innocuous-seeming review. You'll inevitably read spoilers and this is a game that spoilers really spoil.
When you're working on a bank of tutorial puzzle panels, don't just move on to the next one as soon as it lights up. Replay each puzzle a few times. Try solutions you think will work and solutions you're sure won't. Actually try to fail the puzzle. Hone your understanding of the rules on the simpler puzzles so you don't get to a complicated one later and go, wait, that should have worked, I know the rules, this puzzle is broken...
posted by mama casserole at 10:09 AM on August 17, 2017 [4 favorites]
I like puzzle games in general, but The Witness lost me pretty fast. All the puzzles are the same. Yes, they add a new mechanic, but it's just moving your mouse around a grid or lining stuff up in the world. Getting around was so slow. The world you move around in is so sterile and boring. There are weird statues that do nothing. Environments with no storytelling. Puzzles without a point.
posted by demiurge at 10:13 AM on August 17, 2017 [4 favorites]
posted by demiurge at 10:13 AM on August 17, 2017 [4 favorites]
I loved this game, I played it through steam on my laptop, but had to keep the resolution pretty low for it to run . and then right after got a ps4, where it would look so much better and play a lot smoother, but I'd have to buy it again. I am still very tempted...
posted by 5_13_23_42_69_666 at 10:32 AM on August 17, 2017
posted by 5_13_23_42_69_666 at 10:32 AM on August 17, 2017
I adored The Witness. It was my favorite game in 2016 (and it looks like nothing in 2017 is going to top it either). It's one of the few times I felt like I had to learn a "language" to solve puzzles, and I found it incredibly satisfying.
It wasn't the same on a second playthrough, but it was still fun.
posted by No One Ever Does at 10:33 AM on August 17, 2017 [1 favorite]
It wasn't the same on a second playthrough, but it was still fun.
posted by No One Ever Does at 10:33 AM on August 17, 2017 [1 favorite]
It's a very good puzzle game that I enjoyed a lot.
The meta of it is all very, uh, "I'm extremely white and I know my IQ score and I'm a polymath and I want to marry a classical musician or a ballet dancer."
posted by fleacircus at 10:46 AM on August 17, 2017 [6 favorites]
The meta of it is all very, uh, "I'm extremely white and I know my IQ score and I'm a polymath and I want to marry a classical musician or a ballet dancer."
posted by fleacircus at 10:46 AM on August 17, 2017 [6 favorites]
Someone made a compilation of people discovering some of the spoilers in the game for the first time and it's pure joy.
[SPOILERS: Link to Reddit thread w SPOILERS]
posted by yaymukund at 10:56 AM on August 17, 2017 [2 favorites]
[SPOILERS: Link to Reddit thread w SPOILERS]
posted by yaymukund at 10:56 AM on August 17, 2017 [2 favorites]
I enjoyed The Witness, but the tone started to wear on me, so I made it work by treating it like a casual game-- attacked some puzzles, quit whenever my interest waned. If I got stuck for more than a day, I consulted a walkthrough. At least twice I discovered that my solution to a puzzle had been correct, I just hadn't been able to use the console controller to trace the right path precisely or quickly enough to satisfy the game. (I don't recommend playing it with a controller.) So I felt like there was no point being precious about it.
Likewise, for some puzzles, I figured out how to get the solution, but the mechanic would force me to memorize the path and then retrace it elsewhere. No. I'm playing for puzzle challenges, not memory exercises. Walkthrough all the way on those puzzles. I have zero shame about only doing the fun oh-I-get-it! part and skipping the part that feels like work. When even solving started to feel like work, I dropped the game.
I was also razzing it while I was playing it. The "Beautiful Game with a Shitty Attitude" article has a point. I didn't mind the relentless rationalism-- it's a puzzle game, what else would it be but rational? But it does come off as very self-serious. One of the unlockable video clips is ten full minutes of a Tarkovsky film. At some points, I half-expected the game to forcibly award me a New Yorker subscription. The fact that (spoilers, from the shitty attitude article) apparently this ponderous tone gets self-reflexively mocked in the ending does not really encourage me to go back and finish it. Then again, this post prompted me to check a walkthrough and I discovered I was literally on the last section when I dropped it, so maybe I'll go back after all and cheat through the pillar puzzles just to find out what the send-up at the end is like.
posted by wiremommy at 11:16 AM on August 17, 2017 [4 favorites]
Likewise, for some puzzles, I figured out how to get the solution, but the mechanic would force me to memorize the path and then retrace it elsewhere. No. I'm playing for puzzle challenges, not memory exercises. Walkthrough all the way on those puzzles. I have zero shame about only doing the fun oh-I-get-it! part and skipping the part that feels like work. When even solving started to feel like work, I dropped the game.
I was also razzing it while I was playing it. The "Beautiful Game with a Shitty Attitude" article has a point. I didn't mind the relentless rationalism-- it's a puzzle game, what else would it be but rational? But it does come off as very self-serious. One of the unlockable video clips is ten full minutes of a Tarkovsky film. At some points, I half-expected the game to forcibly award me a New Yorker subscription. The fact that (spoilers, from the shitty attitude article) apparently this ponderous tone gets self-reflexively mocked in the ending does not really encourage me to go back and finish it. Then again, this post prompted me to check a walkthrough and I discovered I was literally on the last section when I dropped it, so maybe I'll go back after all and cheat through the pillar puzzles just to find out what the send-up at the end is like.
posted by wiremommy at 11:16 AM on August 17, 2017 [4 favorites]
I loved this game when it came out. I am also sad that there's no real way to go back to it fresh. The metacontext around the puzzles and the island is pretty bullshit, but I don't come to puzzle games for philosophizing (although if you want a better example of it, check out The Talos Principle).
There are two things that really blew me away about this game. (Major ruination ahead if you haven't solved everything!) First, I thought the way the puzzles (or, really, the game boards) interact with the environment was amazing. My favorite one of these was in the desert biome where the boards do some really interesting (for video game graphics, anyway) things with glass and reflections. How perspective and angles work together to even present the puzzle that needs to be solved was really interesting - and also really, really frustrating at times when it felt like pixel-perfect orientation was required.
And to tie in to that - the first time I found out what the black plinths were there for blew me away. And it happened SO LATE in the game for me I easily spent another 10-20 hours going back over the whole island with a fine comb. That, to me, was the "big" reveal more than finding all the films or even doing the "special challenge." It explained so much of the design of the island - why is this statue here? Why is there this building that seems to have no puzzles? It was when I realized that literally nothing on that island is there for fluff or set dressing, everything has a purpose even if it may not look like it.
posted by backseatpilot at 11:48 AM on August 17, 2017 [1 favorite]
There are two things that really blew me away about this game. (Major ruination ahead if you haven't solved everything!) First, I thought the way the puzzles (or, really, the game boards) interact with the environment was amazing. My favorite one of these was in the desert biome where the boards do some really interesting (for video game graphics, anyway) things with glass and reflections. How perspective and angles work together to even present the puzzle that needs to be solved was really interesting - and also really, really frustrating at times when it felt like pixel-perfect orientation was required.
And to tie in to that - the first time I found out what the black plinths were there for blew me away. And it happened SO LATE in the game for me I easily spent another 10-20 hours going back over the whole island with a fine comb. That, to me, was the "big" reveal more than finding all the films or even doing the "special challenge." It explained so much of the design of the island - why is this statue here? Why is there this building that seems to have no puzzles? It was when I realized that literally nothing on that island is there for fluff or set dressing, everything has a purpose even if it may not look like it.
posted by backseatpilot at 11:48 AM on August 17, 2017 [1 favorite]
This game has a really gratifying loop where you keep getting puzzles that look impossible given all the previous ones, but turn out to be solvable with one intuitive tweak. It's like it's laser-targeted on the "discovery" center of the brain. It's great.
That said, I could not care less about unlocking all the videos in the windmill of TED Talks.
posted by paper chromatographologist at 12:02 PM on August 17, 2017 [1 favorite]
That said, I could not care less about unlocking all the videos in the windmill of TED Talks.
posted by paper chromatographologist at 12:02 PM on August 17, 2017 [1 favorite]
Anyone have a good link to full spoilers? Definitely not my type of game but this discussion about the disconnect between the mechanics and the meta-narrative sound pretty interesting.
posted by kittensofthenight at 12:21 PM on August 17, 2017 [1 favorite]
posted by kittensofthenight at 12:21 PM on August 17, 2017 [1 favorite]
“If The Witness is about anything —aside from, well, doing lots of puzzles —it's about spirituality and science, their parallels, their differences.”
I'm pretty sure it was a police procedural/whodunit with a strong romantic subplot.
posted by Naberius at 12:31 PM on August 17, 2017 [3 favorites]
I'm pretty sure it was a police procedural/whodunit with a strong romantic subplot.
posted by Naberius at 12:31 PM on August 17, 2017 [3 favorites]
I guess this counts as spoilers, but: I absolutely detested The Witness. You solve a puzzle and there's another puzzle. And then it changes the rules in some non-obvious way because fuck you that's why. And then there's some more puzzles. And that's it, that's the whole game. And the whole time you can just feel Jon Blow feeling all self-satisfied and smirking at you as you play.
If you want a fun cod-philosophical first-person puzzle game, go play The Talos Principle instead. The puzzles are better and the story is more fun (and actually exists).
posted by parm at 1:15 PM on August 17, 2017 [5 favorites]
If you want a fun cod-philosophical first-person puzzle game, go play The Talos Principle instead. The puzzles are better and the story is more fun (and actually exists).
posted by parm at 1:15 PM on August 17, 2017 [5 favorites]
You solve a puzzle and there's another puzzle. And then it changes the rules in some non-obvious way because fuck you that's why.
That colored lights section. THAT COLORED LIGHTS SECTION.
I didn't play the game, but my partner did, and I watched them for a good part of it. They eventually gave up because of the tedium. Both of us absolutely detested the colored lights puzzles because it was so arbitrary and there were zero clues whatsoever as to what you were supposed to do. Most of the time when one of us pulls up a walkthrough for a puzzle game, we go, "Oh, duh! Of course!" This time we pulled up a walkthrough and were just sitting here seething in rage because there's literally no way we would have ever thought to try that, because there's no indication at all that we've transitioned from difficult-but-solvable puzzles to puzzles-that-are-completely-unsolvable-without-outside-information. Much time was spent frustratingly trying to solve a maze puzzle only to learn it is literally completely unsolvable (despite looking exactly like all the other solvable puzzles you've been doing!) unless you do something completely different and unintuitive.
It could have been a cool gimmick but instead it felt like the developer withholding information and then going "well you're stupid for not realizing that that's what you were supposed to do."
posted by brook horse at 1:44 PM on August 17, 2017 [2 favorites]
That colored lights section. THAT COLORED LIGHTS SECTION.
I didn't play the game, but my partner did, and I watched them for a good part of it. They eventually gave up because of the tedium. Both of us absolutely detested the colored lights puzzles because it was so arbitrary and there were zero clues whatsoever as to what you were supposed to do. Most of the time when one of us pulls up a walkthrough for a puzzle game, we go, "Oh, duh! Of course!" This time we pulled up a walkthrough and were just sitting here seething in rage because there's literally no way we would have ever thought to try that, because there's no indication at all that we've transitioned from difficult-but-solvable puzzles to puzzles-that-are-completely-unsolvable-without-outside-information. Much time was spent frustratingly trying to solve a maze puzzle only to learn it is literally completely unsolvable (despite looking exactly like all the other solvable puzzles you've been doing!) unless you do something completely different and unintuitive.
It could have been a cool gimmick but instead it felt like the developer withholding information and then going "well you're stupid for not realizing that that's what you were supposed to do."
posted by brook horse at 1:44 PM on August 17, 2017 [2 favorites]
Yeah, the color section is assuming a computer graphics model where all colors are actually RGB composites, and so, for example "yellow" reflects R+G and will appear bright under red light, bright under green light, and dark under blue light. But in real life there is also spectral yellow which is not a combination of red and green, and which would appear dark under red, green, and blue illumination.
posted by Pyry at 2:16 PM on August 17, 2017
posted by Pyry at 2:16 PM on August 17, 2017
I think my favorite review/analysis of The Witness is Joseph Anderson's video, subtitled "A Great Game You Shouldn't Play". He is thorough, specific, and articulate. Between this review and his review of "What Remains of Edith Finch" (as discussed previously, albeit briefly), his videos are now my favorites on all of YouTube.
posted by jsnlxndrlv at 2:19 PM on August 17, 2017 [2 favorites]
posted by jsnlxndrlv at 2:19 PM on August 17, 2017 [2 favorites]
Anyone have a good link to full spoilers? Definitely not my type of game but this discussion about the disconnect between the mechanics and the meta-narrative sound pretty interesting.
This was a good video about the game, and it is extremely spoilerful; it might punch your ticket.
posted by fleacircus at 2:47 PM on August 17, 2017 [1 favorite]
This was a good video about the game, and it is extremely spoilerful; it might punch your ticket.
posted by fleacircus at 2:47 PM on August 17, 2017 [1 favorite]
The Witness reminded me a lot of Tony Hawk's Pro Skater, in that it definitely affected how I looked at the physical world after playing it, only trying to close one eye and line up circles and lines than thinking about locations for big combos.
posted by Durhey at 2:53 PM on August 17, 2017
posted by Durhey at 2:53 PM on August 17, 2017
I was obsessed with The Witness for a few weeks after its release, trying to find some sort of deeper meaning or narrative. I never really found it. I love the game, but it seems like Blow and his team were struggling to find a meaningful story behind the (brilliant) mechanics.
BTW, if you're ever hungry for more puzzles, The Windmill is a fan site with lots more (you can create and post your own).
posted by panic at 2:58 PM on August 17, 2017 [1 favorite]
BTW, if you're ever hungry for more puzzles, The Windmill is a fan site with lots more (you can create and post your own).
posted by panic at 2:58 PM on August 17, 2017 [1 favorite]
After I was about halfway through the game, I found myself saying "Oh, Jonathan blow me" when I'd see the next puzzle in a chain.
posted by egypturnash at 3:10 PM on August 17, 2017
posted by egypturnash at 3:10 PM on August 17, 2017
My wife and I tried SO HARD to enjoy this game.
SO
HARD
posted by DoctorFedora at 3:14 PM on August 17, 2017
SO
HARD
posted by DoctorFedora at 3:14 PM on August 17, 2017
My husband and I played this together, but we still haven't finished it. We're near the end, in the mountain, but there are dozens of puzzles we haven't solved yet. It's a beautiful game, and many of the puzzles are just brilliant -- amazing use of light and shadow --but it left us cold. The recordings and the videos were painfully boring and there was no story. We hoped the recordings and videos would tell us what happened to the people who lived on the island, but there was nothing, and we lost interest.
posted by ceejaytee at 3:48 PM on August 17, 2017 [1 favorite]
posted by ceejaytee at 3:48 PM on August 17, 2017 [1 favorite]
Jonathan Blow explained my daughter's The Witness-themed Father's Day card to me.
[mild spoilers for puzzle mechanics]
My daughter made me a Father's Day card using puzzles in the style of The Witness. I tweeted a picture to Jonathan Blow and he retweeted it without comment.
Then one of his followers came along and said, well, actually some of those puzzles have alternate solutions that don't fit.
To which Jonathan Blow responded with his only comment which was, "I am pretty sure you are not supposed to be able to draw through the leaves."
Jonathan Blow just causally noticed a cool thing about my daughter's card that I had totally missed myself.
I played The Witness together with my daughters and we worked together to solve and discover everything. It was the best time I've ever had with a video game.
posted by straight at 3:51 PM on August 17, 2017 [15 favorites]
[mild spoilers for puzzle mechanics]
My daughter made me a Father's Day card using puzzles in the style of The Witness. I tweeted a picture to Jonathan Blow and he retweeted it without comment.
Then one of his followers came along and said, well, actually some of those puzzles have alternate solutions that don't fit.
To which Jonathan Blow responded with his only comment which was, "I am pretty sure you are not supposed to be able to draw through the leaves."
Jonathan Blow just causally noticed a cool thing about my daughter's card that I had totally missed myself.
I played The Witness together with my daughters and we worked together to solve and discover everything. It was the best time I've ever had with a video game.
posted by straight at 3:51 PM on August 17, 2017 [15 favorites]
Yeah the recordings were dumb. They felt like a reward for looking around a lot but they were more of a punishment.
I also left it in the mountain - I did all the pillars and apparently there's some timed thing you have to do to get to the actual ending, which I just watched on youtube because fuck that. But there were certainly some puzzles that I know I didn't find/unlock. And a lot of the obelisk stuff which was fun while doing the rest of the game, but I no longer have the patience to go over the whole island with a fine-toothed comb to find all those.
That said, I totally enjoyed the time I spent playing the game, and it was clear to me when the rest was going to be not fun, so I just didn't do that stuff, and didn't have a bunch of not-fun as a result. I'm fine with the fact that people who wanted to do more still could.
posted by aubilenon at 3:55 PM on August 17, 2017
I also left it in the mountain - I did all the pillars and apparently there's some timed thing you have to do to get to the actual ending, which I just watched on youtube because fuck that. But there were certainly some puzzles that I know I didn't find/unlock. And a lot of the obelisk stuff which was fun while doing the rest of the game, but I no longer have the patience to go over the whole island with a fine-toothed comb to find all those.
That said, I totally enjoyed the time I spent playing the game, and it was clear to me when the rest was going to be not fun, so I just didn't do that stuff, and didn't have a bunch of not-fun as a result. I'm fine with the fact that people who wanted to do more still could.
posted by aubilenon at 3:55 PM on August 17, 2017
allusions to more significant Spoilers below IF YOU READ THIS BEFORE YOU PLAY THE GAME YOU ARE SPOILING JONATHAN BLOW'S ENTIRE POINT OF MAKING THE GAME
If you listen to Blow talk about how he originally conceived of The Witness, you realize that all the maze puzzles are simply a side effect of the main thing he wanted to do with the game, a gimmick to make possible that moment where you discover the secret stuff.
Which is just incredible to me, crazy, almost on the level of the idea that God would create an entire universe just to make a home on one of the planets around one of the stars for human beings.
posted by straight at 4:00 PM on August 17, 2017 [2 favorites]
If you listen to Blow talk about how he originally conceived of The Witness, you realize that all the maze puzzles are simply a side effect of the main thing he wanted to do with the game, a gimmick to make possible that moment where you discover the secret stuff.
Which is just incredible to me, crazy, almost on the level of the idea that God would create an entire universe just to make a home on one of the planets around one of the stars for human beings.
posted by straight at 4:00 PM on August 17, 2017 [2 favorites]
The Witness is a land of contrasts.
No, seriously. Once you get past the first few traditional mazes, it's all about how to divide things up. And about noticing changes and similarities not just in one puzzle, but in sequences of puzzles.
For anyone who already played all or most of the game, it's worth going back (or watching someone else play) to see all the ways in which the environment screams solutions at you. Because that's what the island is - not the stage for a story, but a bunch of fun thematic hints.
Also ignore the backstory, it's dumb and unsatisfying and has all the rationalist baggage. It should have just been straightforward developer commentary instead.
posted by lazugod at 4:02 PM on August 17, 2017
No, seriously. Once you get past the first few traditional mazes, it's all about how to divide things up. And about noticing changes and similarities not just in one puzzle, but in sequences of puzzles.
For anyone who already played all or most of the game, it's worth going back (or watching someone else play) to see all the ways in which the environment screams solutions at you. Because that's what the island is - not the stage for a story, but a bunch of fun thematic hints.
Also ignore the backstory, it's dumb and unsatisfying and has all the rationalist baggage. It should have just been straightforward developer commentary instead.
posted by lazugod at 4:02 PM on August 17, 2017
My daughter made me a Father's Day card using puzzles in the style of The Witness.
This is so ingenious and impressive and thoughtful I can't stand it. Holy crap.
posted by mama casserole at 4:11 PM on August 17, 2017 [2 favorites]
This is so ingenious and impressive and thoughtful I can't stand it. Holy crap.
posted by mama casserole at 4:11 PM on August 17, 2017 [2 favorites]
That was exactly my reaction, mama casserole.
posted by straight at 4:17 PM on August 17, 2017 [1 favorite]
posted by straight at 4:17 PM on August 17, 2017 [1 favorite]
straight, your daughter sounds wonderful. Thanks for sharing that here with all of us. So cool.
posted by Fizz at 4:30 PM on August 17, 2017
posted by Fizz at 4:30 PM on August 17, 2017
(In my defense, I get motion sick from The Witness and some other first-person games so I don't really enjoy the walking-around parts.)
Yeah, this was me. I got motion sick pretty easily as a kid, and early first person games were a no go. In the past decade or so, that's gone away - These days I can play most first person games without issue (I completely suck at any FPS multiplayer, but that's a different story). But the Witness... I really wanted to play it, I love puzzles and loved what I saw of it, but it's pretty much instant nausea, like no other game. I guess it's a field of vision thing? I don't know, but it's hard to stick with a game that makes you feel like vomiting within five minutes. So I gave up.
posted by Roommate at 4:39 PM on August 17, 2017 [1 favorite]
Yeah, this was me. I got motion sick pretty easily as a kid, and early first person games were a no go. In the past decade or so, that's gone away - These days I can play most first person games without issue (I completely suck at any FPS multiplayer, but that's a different story). But the Witness... I really wanted to play it, I love puzzles and loved what I saw of it, but it's pretty much instant nausea, like no other game. I guess it's a field of vision thing? I don't know, but it's hard to stick with a game that makes you feel like vomiting within five minutes. So I gave up.
posted by Roommate at 4:39 PM on August 17, 2017 [1 favorite]
The Witness definitely has a funny field of vision thing. I suspect they actually had to make it what it is to make a few of the puzzles work right. But I don't usually get sick from games a lot and it made me feel a little squiggly sometimes.
posted by aubilenon at 4:50 PM on August 17, 2017
posted by aubilenon at 4:50 PM on August 17, 2017
Another analysis, done by Electron Dance: The Unbearable Now: An Interpretation of The Witness
posted by ymgve at 5:13 PM on August 17, 2017
posted by ymgve at 5:13 PM on August 17, 2017
trying to solve a maze puzzle only to learn it is literally completely unsolvable (despite looking exactly like all the other solvable puzzles you've been doing!) unless you do something completely different
I liked that about it! like you were led step by step in how to solve things, but it wasn't until you broke out of that thinking to see other ways of solving things that you could get through the entire set. I felt like I was constantly having to innovate, and that was fun. Which was what I thought was lacking in That Talos Principle - the puzzles were becoming to similar. You had a set of tools, and the puzzles would just keep using and re-using them, amping up the complexity by just adding more steps. I didn't end up finishing it because it started feeling tedious. I should go back and try finishing it sometime, I would like to see how it ends.
posted by 5_13_23_42_69_666 at 5:16 PM on August 17, 2017
I liked that about it! like you were led step by step in how to solve things, but it wasn't until you broke out of that thinking to see other ways of solving things that you could get through the entire set. I felt like I was constantly having to innovate, and that was fun. Which was what I thought was lacking in That Talos Principle - the puzzles were becoming to similar. You had a set of tools, and the puzzles would just keep using and re-using them, amping up the complexity by just adding more steps. I didn't end up finishing it because it started feeling tedious. I should go back and try finishing it sometime, I would like to see how it ends.
posted by 5_13_23_42_69_666 at 5:16 PM on August 17, 2017
Metafilter: At some points, I half-expected the game website to forcibly award me a New Yorker subscription.
posted by kandinski at 8:03 PM on August 17, 2017 [2 favorites]
posted by kandinski at 8:03 PM on August 17, 2017 [2 favorites]
I really liked the audio clips and most of the videos. Especially that 10 minute clip of a Tarkovsky film, I was rooting so hard for him by the end of it! I'm surprised that people felt they were offensively rationalist (and that the Talos principle was less so? I found the Talos principle to have worse puzzles and worse philosophizing.) There was a lot more sincere discussion of God in The Witness than I'm used to seeing from rationalists.
SPOILERS AHOY
There was a clip in the mountain where they talked about how they tried to include clips of readings from lots of different faiths. And so they wanted to include something from mainstream atheists, like Dawkins or Harris, I assume. And basically they said they couldn't find any that were worthwhile. The quotes they did use ranged wide and felt appropriate to the setting, a lot of awe and wonder. I actually felt like The Witness separated itself from the hyper-rationalists pretty well, in that way.
As my brother called it, The Witness is a game about epiphanies. I was amazed by it. I have played it almost all the way to completion, which is a little ridiculous, but I just didn't want to leave the island behind.
posted by macrael at 8:47 PM on August 17, 2017 [4 favorites]
SPOILERS AHOY
There was a clip in the mountain where they talked about how they tried to include clips of readings from lots of different faiths. And so they wanted to include something from mainstream atheists, like Dawkins or Harris, I assume. And basically they said they couldn't find any that were worthwhile. The quotes they did use ranged wide and felt appropriate to the setting, a lot of awe and wonder. I actually felt like The Witness separated itself from the hyper-rationalists pretty well, in that way.
As my brother called it, The Witness is a game about epiphanies. I was amazed by it. I have played it almost all the way to completion, which is a little ridiculous, but I just didn't want to leave the island behind.
posted by macrael at 8:47 PM on August 17, 2017 [4 favorites]
SPOILERS CONTINUE
I listened to the clip in the mountain again, they actually only mention Bertrand Russel by name as an example of the kind of materialist atheist they can't seem to find stuff from worth including. "So many defenses of atheism devolve into arguments about the implausibility of bible stories" They talk about a Sagan quote about spirituality being a pure pursuit of the truth that they liked but that's it.
That clip seemed spot on to me, it's hard for me to knock the collection of quotes the picked, I thought they found a beautiful history of people thinking about spirituality, truth, and that which we can't say.
posted by macrael at 9:09 PM on August 17, 2017 [1 favorite]
I listened to the clip in the mountain again, they actually only mention Bertrand Russel by name as an example of the kind of materialist atheist they can't seem to find stuff from worth including. "So many defenses of atheism devolve into arguments about the implausibility of bible stories" They talk about a Sagan quote about spirituality being a pure pursuit of the truth that they liked but that's it.
That clip seemed spot on to me, it's hard for me to knock the collection of quotes the picked, I thought they found a beautiful history of people thinking about spirituality, truth, and that which we can't say.
posted by macrael at 9:09 PM on August 17, 2017 [1 favorite]
This was a good video about the game, and it is extremely spoilerful; it might punch your ticket
Thanks for that. What a great theory.
I found the game quite playable and only temporarily frustrating up to the first ending. For that I didn't cheat at all. The cave ending is super hard and practically begs you to cheat at some point. Which reminds me of Fez - there was a satisfying ending for the normies and a crazy super hard ending for the obsessives, to the point that no one is sure they've found all the puzzles and solutions yet.
posted by fungible at 9:35 PM on August 17, 2017
Thanks for that. What a great theory.
I found the game quite playable and only temporarily frustrating up to the first ending. For that I didn't cheat at all. The cave ending is super hard and practically begs you to cheat at some point. Which reminds me of Fez - there was a satisfying ending for the normies and a crazy super hard ending for the obsessives, to the point that no one is sure they've found all the puzzles and solutions yet.
posted by fungible at 9:35 PM on August 17, 2017
I actually felt like The Witness separated itself from the hyper-rationalists pretty well, in that way.
Yeah it's not disappearing into a Bayesian belly button at lesat. Maybe the off-putting undercurrent is how it's kinda sorta maybe asserting a transcendency and status to cognition that's very self-centered and empathy-free.
When you play a game for a lot of hours, subtle things about the tone can have a kind of cumulative effect. It can be a good thing or a bad thing; it can sometimes be hard to pin down. Very few games include RL deep thought audio logs and TED talks as puzzle rewards.
In retrospect I really like the secret ending of The Witness. It's the most narrative part of the game; a little walking simulator that says, "Okay, appreciate the island as a place you visited, like a vacation spot, okay now you're in an airport, you're leaving, you're going through a magical space back to the real world out of this silly game bye ;D".
posted by fleacircus at 12:34 PM on August 18, 2017 [1 favorite]
Yeah it's not disappearing into a Bayesian belly button at lesat. Maybe the off-putting undercurrent is how it's kinda sorta maybe asserting a transcendency and status to cognition that's very self-centered and empathy-free.
When you play a game for a lot of hours, subtle things about the tone can have a kind of cumulative effect. It can be a good thing or a bad thing; it can sometimes be hard to pin down. Very few games include RL deep thought audio logs and TED talks as puzzle rewards.
In retrospect I really like the secret ending of The Witness. It's the most narrative part of the game; a little walking simulator that says, "Okay, appreciate the island as a place you visited, like a vacation spot, okay now you're in an airport, you're leaving, you're going through a magical space back to the real world out of this silly game bye ;D".
posted by fleacircus at 12:34 PM on August 18, 2017 [1 favorite]
It's definitely a solitary game. I think that what I love about it is that it's about how epiphanies are these kind of transcendent moments , jumps from not-understanding to understanding. And that before you solve the puzzle, when you don't get it/can't see it, it feels like you might never be able to.
I actually think that it'd be interesting (though maybe maddening) to have a puzzle game where some of the puzzles have no solution. Because, there were a number of times in The Witness where I had to bang my head against the wall for a very long time and only did so because I knew there had to be a solution. That's only a guarantee because this is a constructed work as opposed to real life where some questions have no answers.
What does "RL" mean?
What was the secret ending that people are talking about? There was the reward for completing the challenge which was a video about a Shakespeare and a Psalm. And then there was the credits hotel thing that ended with the video of Blow walking around the office. But I thought that was the regular ending, seeing as it had the credits. It doesn't require any of the underground stuff to see, just starting over from the beginning which the elevator-ending takes you to. In fact, that's some of the genius of the game, the ending was right in front of you at the start but you couldn't see it. I'd love to see analysis of what people think the Psalm video means as it is really directed at the most dedicated players.
(Well, save for if there is any reward for completing all six pillars, which I have yet to do)
posted by macrael at 2:51 PM on August 18, 2017
I actually think that it'd be interesting (though maybe maddening) to have a puzzle game where some of the puzzles have no solution. Because, there were a number of times in The Witness where I had to bang my head against the wall for a very long time and only did so because I knew there had to be a solution. That's only a guarantee because this is a constructed work as opposed to real life where some questions have no answers.
What does "RL" mean?
What was the secret ending that people are talking about? There was the reward for completing the challenge which was a video about a Shakespeare and a Psalm. And then there was the credits hotel thing that ended with the video of Blow walking around the office. But I thought that was the regular ending, seeing as it had the credits. It doesn't require any of the underground stuff to see, just starting over from the beginning which the elevator-ending takes you to. In fact, that's some of the genius of the game, the ending was right in front of you at the start but you couldn't see it. I'd love to see analysis of what people think the Psalm video means as it is really directed at the most dedicated players.
(Well, save for if there is any reward for completing all six pillars, which I have yet to do)
posted by macrael at 2:51 PM on August 18, 2017
RL = "real life". Regular ending = elevator ride (= "Endgame" cheevo). Secret ending = the ending pointed at by the secret solution; yeah the Waypoint article gets it wrong good eye.
posted by fleacircus at 9:01 PM on August 18, 2017
posted by fleacircus at 9:01 PM on August 18, 2017
The Witness is a game about communication without communicating.
It's a game about leading the player through a sequence where they discover things for themselves. It always requires that they take a leap at the end, to grasp something that hasn't been explicitly told, but has been implied.
The player is being led, absolutely, but the things being led to are not always immediately obvious. One of them is a "big secret," something absolutely bonkers and wonderful and unexpected and must have been crazy to implement. That is the thing everyone is dancing around when they talk about spoilers.
And that is the thing where it is absolutely possible to ruin the game for some someone by telling them, because it is, in a way, the culmination of the whole communication-without-communicating thing, to grasp something really out there. It's been led up to, just like all the other things, but is a connection of a radically different type than the others. The game isn't quite over when it's discovered, because its implications will keep you going for some time, but that moment is the pinnacle of the game, I think.
posted by JHarris at 1:38 AM on August 19, 2017 [2 favorites]
It's a game about leading the player through a sequence where they discover things for themselves. It always requires that they take a leap at the end, to grasp something that hasn't been explicitly told, but has been implied.
The player is being led, absolutely, but the things being led to are not always immediately obvious. One of them is a "big secret," something absolutely bonkers and wonderful and unexpected and must have been crazy to implement. That is the thing everyone is dancing around when they talk about spoilers.
And that is the thing where it is absolutely possible to ruin the game for some someone by telling them, because it is, in a way, the culmination of the whole communication-without-communicating thing, to grasp something really out there. It's been led up to, just like all the other things, but is a connection of a radically different type than the others. The game isn't quite over when it's discovered, because its implications will keep you going for some time, but that moment is the pinnacle of the game, I think.
posted by JHarris at 1:38 AM on August 19, 2017 [2 favorites]
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But then you take a step back from the grid you're working on and you notice the beautiful landscape in front of you, the soft wind that is blowing, the calming colour palette that makes up this universe. And you take a break, you regroup, you come back and start fresh again.
I realize this game has been out for more than a year now, but I only just discovered it and there's a lot to untangle in this game.
posted by Fizz at 9:04 AM on August 17, 2017 [1 favorite]