For those wondering, Jonathan Blow is the author of the critically acclaimed time travel platform game 'Braid'. <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jonathan_Blow" rel="nofollow">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jonathan_Blow</a>
Although it's tempting, this is a game you really don't want any spoilers about (if you are ever going to play it). Vi Hart, who has been playtesting the game for months, said:<p>> Tips for playing The Witness: give yourself a week or two, no hints, no reviews. Sleep on it. Take breaks. It's a big game. Nothing like it.<p>> If you can't spend all day every day playing The Witness, give yourself months. Engage deeply with The Witness and it will stare back.<p>> Don't watch twitch streams or look at screenshots or read reviews. Just play it, seriously.
I'm a few hours in and have already had so many moments of pure euphoria. It is a full sensory game. It uses my whole brain. Aesthetically, intellectually, even spiritually.<p>A quote in one of the audio logs is so exquisite that I just have to share.<p><i>One nature perfect and pervading circulates in all natures</i><p><i>One reality, all comprehensive, contains within itself all realities</i><p><i>The one Moon reflects itself wherever there is a sheet of water</i><p><i>And all the moons in the waters are embraced within the one moon</i><p><i>The Dharma body [the Absolute] of all Buddhas enters into my own being</i><p><i>And my own being is found in union with theirs</i><p><i>The Inner Light is beyond praise and blame</i><p><i>Like space it knows no boundaries</i><p><i>Yet it is even here, within us, ever retaining its serenity and fullness</i><p><i>It is only when you hunt for it that you lose it</i><p><i>You cannot take hold of it, but equally you cannot get rid of it</i><p><i>And while you can do neither, it goes on its own way</i><p><i>You remain silent and it speaks, you speak and it is dumb</i><p><i>The great gate of charity is wide open, with no obstacles before it.</i><p>- Yung-Chia Ta-Shih
One thing to note is that some of the optional puzzles are likely to be unsolvable by colorblind and hearing impaired players: <a href="http://kotaku.com/colorblind-and-hearing-impaired-players-wont-be-able-to-1755459642" rel="nofollow">http://kotaku.com/colorblind-and-hearing-impaired-players-wo...</a><p>As someone who is colorblind, I've been happy to see many games come out with options to enable filters for one or more types of colorblindness. It's disappointing that such a feature isn't present in this game.
Some of my absolute favorite memories are playing Myst as a kid with my family. We'd huddle around the computer, take notes, kibitz about where to explore, be amazed at the visuals (those gondola-style rides were breathtaking at the time!). Riven might have been the high point of the series for us with the feeling of exploration it had being so great and involving.<p>I wish modern exploration/puzzle adventures in the Myst vein were made to be more easily navigated by my parents, who just can't handle FPS-style controls, quick action, jumping puzzles, etc. So I can't have them try Braid or Fez or most other modern games despite having some great puzzles. Machinarium worked great, Her Story was good but quite different, but other than that we'll probably never get to share that same Myst-style experience again. At least Cyan is working on a Myst-esque game again, Obduction.
I've been wanting to play this ever since Casey Muratori wrote about the process of generating grass for the terrain in an eye-pleasing distribution:<p><a href="http://mollyrocket.com/casey/stream_0015.html" rel="nofollow">http://mollyrocket.com/casey/stream_0015.html</a> (<a href="https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7692332" rel="nofollow">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7692332</a>)
><i>The bulk of the game feels like taking an IQ test.</i><p>This is from a negative (but helpful) review of this game and it echoes exactly how I felt about playing Braid. His games feel like they're constructed so everyone will admire the genius of the creator for thinking up these kinds of interesting puzzles. And if the player ends up enjoying the game while they're admiring its creator, well that's an added benefit I guess.
I was rather struck by this game. The puzzles are indeed clever and was immediately enamoured with the combinatoric spaces and visual appeal. Perhaps it is my experience with Go as a "conversation with hands," that drew me in to The Witness as a "conversation with the designer."<p>I hope Jonathan feels very lucky to have made this game. It is great and I find myself envious and over-joyed that he has had the time, privilege, and skill to build it (and many thanks to the team behind it as well).
JBlow is featured in the documentary Indie Game[0][1] which follows the trials and tribulations of development and launch of two indie games Super Meat Boy and Fez.<p>It's surprising how similar the whole experience is to launching a startup!<p>[0] <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indie_Game:_The_Movie" rel="nofollow">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indie_Game:_The_Movie</a><p>[1] <a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1942884/" rel="nofollow">http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1942884/</a>
Although I have a backlog of unplayed games which could last me for an eternity or two, I will probably buy the game regardless at full price now, instead of waiting for the inevitable sale a few months down the line.<p>While Jonathan's opinions can be a bit divisive, he is obviously a passionate programmer and gamer, and he financed the game from the sales of Braid, without kickstarter shenanigans.<p>(And of course the game appeals to me regardless as an old-school adventure games lover).
Looks really very intriguing, I'm not about to install Windows to play it though - it doesn't seem there is a Mac / Linux version available?
It is interesting that the game's rating is very positive but no one recommends it if I read the reviews. It seems that this game is not like Myst but a sterile puzzle collection without a story. Did I miss something?
The hype machine around this is strange - tons of superficially positive reviews but without a whole lot of passion behind them.<p>Does anyone else smell something off about the response to the game so far? Have people convinced themselves that this is a great game before they started enjoying it?
Wow, back in the day I loved Atlantis the lost tales [0], this definitely has that feel. I would have bought it already if I had more than just Linux at my disposal...<p>With the Steambox/machine now in production I thought the divide windows/Linux was shrinking rapidly. I'm not at all a gamer though.<p>[0] <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JYlzsZcuVkY" rel="nofollow">https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JYlzsZcuVkY</a>
(SPOILERS, obviously. Mostly surface-level.)<p>I absolutely love the game, but for the sake of discussion, I have to admit that I'm slightly disappointed by the puzzle-paneliness of it all. I didn't read many spoilers over the 8 years of its development, but Jonathan Blow always made a point to emphasize the epiphany-based nature of the game. I took this to mean that as you gain knowledge from the panels, you slowly begin to understand how to use them to engage in more interesting ways with the world. Instead, the opposite is true: the world simply provides different kinds of masks to solve the puzzles with. In other words, the panels are still the beating heart of the game, while the world is mostly static.<p>To me, this goes against what I like most in games. I find that one of the primary advantages of this interactive medium is the ability to solve puzzles by intuition. Braid was particularly good at this: instead of having to stand in front of a challenge and reason it out in your mind, you could dive right in and play around with the mechanics until your mind took on the solution all on its own. Over time, you acquired a feeling of natural mastery over these new elements. The Witness does not feel like this; more often than not, you have to logic out the puzzles in your head or on paper, and it never feels as good as using the game world to interactively solve a problem.<p>(Yes, I'm aware of the obelisk puzzles, but it seems they still follow more or less the same formula. But I haven't gotten very far in that direction, so we'll see.)<p>The game also makes me think about the problem of hidden knowledge in open-world games. Most metroidvania-style games gate the player with keys or abilities, but a few are starting to add paths that are closed solely based on the player's knowledge. One of the first games I remember doing this is Super Metroid: the wall jump and high jump allowed you to get to a lot more places, but they were nearly impossible to discover without the bird helpers. Fez did this with its Tetris language. La-Mulana did it with its obscure inscriptions. And The Witness does it with the ruleset of its various puzzles -- more completely than any other game before it. Still, I wonder if there's a better way to stash away that kind of knowledge. The puzzle panels are a bit too abstract for my tastes. I'd love to see a game where the hidden knowledge you find is entirely ability-based, but not obscure like in Super Metroid.<p>Again, The Witness is a masterpiece and one of the few games I'd gladly call art. It would be worth $40 just for the opportunity walk around the incredibly beautiful world. Just some food for game design thought! :)
I was going to buy this game until I read the steam reviews. If you're considering this purchase I highly recommend reading the top-rated helpful reviews. They changed my mind, they might change yours.<p>TLDR for the reviews - Only buy this if you like puzzles for individual puzzle's sake, not as means to unlocking a larger story.
Nice to have an indie developer exposed by HN. Sad to see there are no other cases.
Blow had its relevance due to XBOX but many indies have been out there before on PC, so it sounds unfair when you think in the whole scene
Oh goodie, he's moving complaints and unfavourable opinions to "Dumb Internet Questions". I recommend reading the reviews, especially the longer ones, before buying.
Windows and PS4 huh? As the exclusive owner of Macs and an Xbox One, that's little irritating. I'd at least imagine a Windows to Xbox One port to be reasonable.
Congratulations to Jonathan Blow on finishing his game — I was afraid that he would never be done. I look forward to playing it, and I hope it sells well.<p>For entirely selfish reasons, I'm now really hoping this release means he now has some breathing room to spend more time on developing his programming language, Jai.
This game is the perfect tool for testing your problem solving skills. It puts you in a new framework and tests your cognition.<p>Portal, The Talos Principle, all have the same goal.<p>I wonder if people could become excellent problem solver by playing these games instead of honing the skills in the mathematics, physics or similar frameworks.
There’s been a lot of coverage about the puzzles and ingenuity of the gameplay, but equal attention should be given to the amazing artistic style of the game.<p>a couple of blog posts about the making of the trees:
<a href="http://the-witness.net/news/2013/06/2157/" rel="nofollow">http://the-witness.net/news/2013/06/2157/</a>
<a href="http://the-witness.net/news/2011/06/witness-trees/" rel="nofollow">http://the-witness.net/news/2011/06/witness-trees/</a><p>I’d love to see more videogames step away from uncanny-valley and ill-advised attempts at photorealism and instead embrace unique artistic style.
This game is indeed great! Push the envelope forward for puzzle games and games in general. The game feels pretty heavy with potential like there are layers I am not even seeing yet and I am 10 hours in!<p>Some what spoilery I made a solver for one of its puzzles: <a href="https://gist.github.com/robo-hamburger/2269ef76603263ce1061" rel="nofollow">https://gist.github.com/robo-hamburger/2269ef76603263ce1061</a><p>Amusingly I ended up not really needing it but fun to code.
My daughter is going to be about 4, and she loves puzzles. I was thinking about picking this up for the apple tv to play along with her. Is it conceptually too difficult for children?
Here is a Jonathan Blow interview on The Witness.<p><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6OV2rYM6mRo" rel="nofollow">https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6OV2rYM6mRo</a>
I have two questions that the steam page didn't answer; Can I play this in VR, and if not, why not? Jonathan Blow is a master artisan - I can't wait to try this game.
And it is <i>wonderful</i>.<p>It's one of those games that manages to push buttons in your brain you never knew you had, and make you feel like a genius when something finally clicks.<p>And it does all this without ever needing to explain anything.<p>Jonathan Blow's enigma variations. A meandering meditation on the means by which humans gain knowledge and understanding of the world, by standing on the shoulders of a hacking minigame.<p>Also it's gorgeous.<p>Did I mention it's BRILLIANT?
I like the potential of the game, but sadly it did not meet my expectations.<p>I saw it as a Myst-style game, where you have puzzles, but you also have a lot of interactive environment around you to explore.<p>Here, I was getting taken it by a lot of beautiful scenarios in the distance, only to realise that there is nothing to do there, but solve more panels.
It simply feels like this beautiful island is going to waste, being a little more than a hiding place for the panels.<p>How's everyone feeling about this?
One of the things I did not like is the sometimes incredibly obfuscated association of symbols with mechanics. For example, the panels with sun symbols. [Spoilers] It didn't take me incredibly long to figure out that they needed to be grouped in twos, but it did take me longer to figure out than to solve the first ~8 introductory panels. And the worst part, how is a star in any way connected with grouping by twos????
Is that the guy who was unable to install Ubuntu properly, so he declared that supporting Linux versions of his game is not worth the effort? Color me disinterested. "No Tux, no bucks."
I've gotta be honest. I have no idea who Jonathan Blow is. I checked the Steam Store page and it seems .. to be not my thing.<p>That said, I recently found, bought and played 'Pony Island' (if you don't know what that is: Do NOT watch videos. Think '6th Sense' - you'll ruin the game). That wouldn't have caught my eye based on random videos/screenshots either and it's right now my 'best game ever'.<p>Can someone explain why 'The Witness' is interesting? Why would it trend here? What's the relation between HN and Jonathan or this game?