The Witness

Hot take: Half the "Hard" puzzles in this game are just easy puzzles made more obscure. Blow thinks he's very smart, but 75% of the puzzles that stump me are simply because i cant see the board, or worse: the rules randomly changed! This results in most puzzles leaving me thinking "I finally figured out what the hell is going on." rather than feeling like I've solved anything. Altogether, for a game that takes itself so seriously, the puzzles are unrewarding to solve, and put simply, kinda ♥♥♥♥.

I didn't really care for this game. If I had to guess, I finished about 80% of it, before I decided I could not be bothered anymore. Discourse abut the game led me to believe that this was a puzzle game that tests out-of-the-box thinking, which attracted me to it. My experience with The Witness was, unfortunately, the contrary. The core puzzling gameplay is maze drawing, which is in itself not very interesting. The game expands upon this core by, in each area, introducing a new mechanic that expand on the existing formula. Figuring out new mechanics was overall very fun and satisfying. Is is therefore unfortunate that only about 15% of the puzzling consists of figuring out new mechanics, whereas 85% of the puzzling consists of applying previously learned mechanics in various ways to the maze drawing game. Usually, requiring about as much out-of-the-box thinking as a sudoku or crossword puzzle. It is really cool how this game teaches you to understand a certain puzzle mechanic, not by explicitly describing its rules, but by gradually exposing you to harder and harder puzzles featuring said mechanic, implicitly building your understanding. I did encounter one instance where the game failed at this, however. One series of puzzles taught me a straightforward understanding of a mechanic, but I eventually found a complex puzzle I could not solve. I revisited previous puzzles to falsify my understanding of the mechanic, but to no effect. I eventually resorted to looking for the answer online, and found that the correct understanding was much more counterintuitive and convoluted than expected, breaking a rule that had seemingly been previously established. Strangely, the puzzles that follow it slowly guide you to the correct understanding. It seem like an oversight, but it amounted to a very frustrating experience. For the rest of the game, I also found the non-puzzle aspects of the game mediocre at best. The world is pretty, yes, but it's also quite lifeless and, for lack of a better word, shallow. The music didn't stand out to me as being particularly good or bad. I severely disliked the hidden voice notes and video clips, which amounted to nothing more than out-of-context pseudo-intellectual pseudo-spiritual mumbo jumbo. I have the distinct impression the developer felt the need to add something resembling a theme to the game near the end of development, and it being too late to fully flesh out a story, simply threw a bunch of deep-sounding wisdom at the game hoping that something would stick. I don't regret buying the game for eight euros. If I had bought it at the original price of 36 euros, however, I would have been massively let down.

This game is intentionally designed to waste your time. Everything is comically slow, from animations to movement. There's one puzzle that [b]you need to stay still for an actual hour[/b] to solve. Another puzzle has a window of opportunity once every 14 minutes. Videos and cutscenes are ridiculously long, we're talking 10+ mins for most of them. It's not even over. I've never played a puzzle game that does a worse job at establishing ground rules than this one. The devs decided to chain most puzzles just to make it more tedious when you inevitably attempt trial and error. If you fail one, you have to go back and solve the previous one again. Braid is one of my all time favourite games. I thought their second game would be just as good. I wish I could go back in time to refund this game. What a waste of time.

TLDR: The game is pretty, and decently fun, but if you have any difficulty whatsoever with telling colors apart or audio processing, do NOT play this game. I've played a little over two hours, and found one section (so far) of color-based puzzles and one of audio puzzles that require you to track rapid changes in pitch. The color section is fairly straightforward; the audio section involves picking out high-mid-low notes from ambient birdsong. There is, of course, no accessibility mode. There are subtitles (allegedly) but I have them on and they've never triggered. I can't return the game since I've played too long, so I'm just going to have to use a walkthrough to get past the parts I flat-out can't play.

the game itself is interesting but no matter what settings I try, I can't play for long without severe motion sickness kicking in. so for me, it's sadly unplayable. no game is worth feeling sick to your core for hours after just playing for 20 mins.

I really love the Myst games and The Talos Principle. But for some reason I don't like The Witness. The Myst series features obscure, technically difficult puzzles, but they are more grounded in the world and story. The Talos Principle features totally abstract puzzles divorced from story, but they are more kinetic and interactive and intuitive, more like engineering puzzles than anything. The puzzles in this game have the obscurity and technical demand of the Myst series, but without that series' story anchoring. And it has puzzles that are full-on abstractions akin to The Talos Principle, but they lack the kinetic, hands-on fun of those puzzles. As the rules and variables of these line puzzles start to stack up, I simply wasn't having fun trying to hold all the spatial and logical geometry inside my head all while knowing that my reward would simply be another puzzle, and possibly a much harder one, immediately after. Whatever the underlying mystery to all this is, the game wasn't presenting me with any really intriguing carrots to motivate me to continue. That said, this game is clearly meant to appeal to a specific kind of gamer, someone who enjoys difficult puzzles for their own sake and who specifically likes applying algorithmic switchboard logic to solve problems. But I wasn't getting either of the two conditions I need to find these kinds of games fun, so it's just not for me. I might still occasionally dabble and poke at the game out of stubbornness, but I doubt I will complete it. I'll leave this review positive, though, since I think it's an objectively good game for the people it's intended for. At the end of my reviews I like to do a little funny bit as a palate cleanser, so enjoy the following: [spoiler]( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°)[/spoiler]

把整个世界当成手机解锁模拟器玩 二编：需要带脑子 三编：有些地方就算带脑子也没用

I Genuinely enjoyed this game even though I didn't get to complete it. I am saying I do not recommend it because there is no Epilepsy warning in the beginning of the game even though you can literally get to the end of the game and not be able to finish it because of the flashing. I do not appreciate that this was hidden in the FAQ instead of stated somewhere plainly for those like me to see. Likely for the sake of immersion which is terrible.

I can't remember the last time I played a game that made me use everything I know and have learned. This game made me use everything. I have achived end of the game and I am the only witness to this success.

This is my favourite puzzle game of all time (I've played this game a lot on GOG, so ignore my hours on Steam). When asked what I would choose to forget if I could forget one thing, it would be The Witness, so that I could experience it for the first time again, and then read this review to get an idea of what I'm getting into. All in all, I feel like the Witness is a video game that tries to teach you logical thinking from the ground up in a very interesting way. The first few hours of this game feel very confusing, and like you're missing the instruction booklet. What makes The Witness so interesting is that if you keep exploring instead of bashing your head against the wall at puzzles with strange symbols you don't understand, then you'll likely find out what the symbols mean through little 'tutorial' sections that let you guess the answer to puzzles with only 2-3 answers, and then ask yourself "Why did that work?" It can be quite a frustrating experience, and there are certain puzzles (the ones on the beach with the birds) that I still really struggle with despite knowing how they work. The way this game uses it's knowledge of how you likely solved the previous puzzle in an area to then force you to change your solution to the next one can really make it feel like the developer can see into your head and has purposefully tried to make your life more difficult. However, it's also incredibly rewarding when you figure something out. Sadly I didn't understand that when I first played, so I ended up looking up what some of the symbols meant without realizing I was meant to be able to figure them out on my own, and I feel like I robbed myself of a very unique experience. There are quite a few hidden puzzles and secrets, but unlike something like Lingo, travelling around tends to be quite straightforward with beautiful scenery and there's not really any running around in circles for hours trying to figure out one little thing you missed that will open up a whole new area. I don't believe this game is for everyone, and similar to Dark Souls, there will be times where you get frustrated and stuck. Sometimes puzzles feel impossible or hurt your head from thinking too hard. I find some people in the community get rather pretentious about The Witness being a flawless game and if you don't get it then it's because you're stupid or some such thing. Not everyone is going to like this game, and not everyone's brain is going to work the way this game tries to guide it into thinking. However, I do think with enough patience and thought, anyone CAN beat this game without any kind of guide or help. But not everyone has the time to put themselves through that, and I don't think anyone should be expected to do that or be made to feel bad for valuing their time more than thinking of possible solutions to puzzles or what rules mean. I do really recommend trying it out and giving it a fair shot without help for as long as you can stomach though! It's a beautiful game and after playing it I always want to look for other games that give me that same satisfying feeling from figuring things out, such as Lingo or Return of the Obra Dinn!