The Witness

After around 70 hours, I finally completed all of it. I absolutely love The Witness. Some people may be turned off by the "line puzzles," wondering the need for the world itself around them. But for many, there are reasons. Big reasons. Here the environment is the puzzle, the panel is where you put your answer. And then there are even more secrets within these surroundings to find. Explaining any further would spoil it. There are also puzzles that don't use the environment, teaching you many of the rules of this game that will be used and built upon in the future. It won't tell you how to do them though, this game is as much about learning the puzzle as it is about solving the puzzle. But the answers are there. It can be a very hard game when it wants to, but it's never unfair. If you're stuck, the open world is great to look around and solve other puzzles. And the art direction is just incredible, sometimes I'll just stare at how pretty everything is. You'll quickly notice the amount of detail put into it and how much thought was put into where and how everything was placed. I mean, look at this small blog post: http://the-witness.net/news/2015/06/polishing-the-architecture/ Don't expect much story, though you can piece some together. This game is pure puzzle. No hand holding and no "Good jobs." A game about observation, epiphany and logic that wants you to learn instead of being told. If you like puzzles, especially difficult ones, play it.

I had a more fleshed out review for this one, but somehow it didn't upload. Suffice it to say this is the most fun I've had with an adventure game since playing the original Myst when I was young. Go in with an open mind and you'll experience a breathtakingly detailed environment and challenging series of puzzles. Kept me riveted for all 25+ hours my first play-through lasted. Highly recommended!

I both love and hate The Witness in equal measure. The design, artwork, environment, and "feel" are all excellent - truly a masterpiece. The way it teaches the puzzles, without having to resort to words, is well thought through, even if the puzzles do end up getting somewhat repetitive and tiresome. But the pretentiousness... I can't begin to describe how I hate the game for it. The cage ending and the video ending treat the player with equal contempt. If you want to push a mystical (pseudo-Buddhist) view - sure, go ahead, but don't mix that with a game concept like this. I don't regret the first 50-75% of the time I spent playing the game. I was in awe of the concept. I regret having worked out the "point" of the game, because that spoiled it for me. For another game with a similarly immersive feel, but with some plot, go for Quern.

The worst thing about this game is that it is not for everyone. In fact, it is not for most people. It requires sheer thinking and dedication. If you seek quick rewards for short dopamine bursts you will be disappointed. But if you are willing to put in the extra effort, you will feel like Winston in Portal 2 when you solve his first puzzle. When you start playing you think this is silly, connecting dots with lines. Then you play a bit and realize that it's not just connecting dots with lines but connecting dots with lines in a tricky way. And the game provides you with a learning curve, you start with trivial puzzles that let you figure out the trick, so you can solve more complex ones. And things get mildly interesting for a while Eventually you will solve 3-4 different types of puzzles, and you will ask again, is that it? At this point you might stop playing. But you already started see the goal. And if you are curious enough you will return to see it through. If you do so you will start to enjoy the game more, because they managed to place the most boring puzzles near the start. As you press on, pattern recognition kicks in and you will start noticing things you didn’t realize before that they were there. Eventually you will get to your goal and realize that you have already done more than what was needed, so you just press on, finish the game, get disappointed by the ending, and bury the game in your virtual drawer. But if you are like me, then you will have an itch on the inside of your skull because of the “few” unsolved mysteries. This is the point where the real game begins. Because this game is not about finishing the “campaign mode” or collecting achievements. It is simply about figuring stuff out. And man, I have to say, stuff there is. A lot more than what you'd think. Nothing’s there by accident. If something looks like something it is something. Some puzzles are so deep that I cannot even fathom the amount of design work it took to come up with.