The Witness

TLDR: I can just picture the cinema villain leaning forward into a pool of light, the ember of their cigar flaring as they suck on it and then whisper in a cloud of smoke “ … No witnesses. Ya hear?” [b][u]General Thoughts/Overview:[/u][/b] The witness is a walking simulator puzzle game. It feels like it aims to be myst, but doesn’t manage. Are we the witness? Who knows. What have we witnessed? Not sure. Walk around, drag things to form patterns. Work out how the patterns are meant to be drawn from the surroundings, add up bits as you move around the island, learning new mechanics and getting more skilled so you can back track and do more puzzles. Unlock extra patterns to get video clips, find Dictaphones here and there to get random quotes with no context, and drag the terrain to unlock piles of tyres. [b][u]Pros:[/u][/b] [list][*] Solving the puzzles feels really good at first, and solving a puzzle that’s been bamboozling you for a while feels fantastic. [*] There are a lot of puzzles to solve, if volume is your thing. Most of them aren’t particularly inventive, but oh boy are they voluminous. [*] There is no hand holding. Either you work it out or you don’t. (Or, you use a guide.) [/list] [b][u]Cons:[/u][/b] [list][*] The repetition is murderous. The critical path puzzles don’t iterate at all, once you’ve solved the basics its rinse and repeat 5ish more times for the base area, then remember the solution, and exceptions, to use in conjunction with other puzzles. If you’re REALLY lucky you get an uno reverse card set of puzzles to worth with too. [*] With a massive open island you can easily get lost when trying to find the next puzzle, or miss puzzles, or miss areas you needed to go. There’s no easy way to navigate, so you have to find everything again. Which is an absolute ball ache. The fixed point fast travel system helps a little, but navigation is painful. [*] Once the ambiance wears off, it becomes tedious. Everything in the game is monotonous, from the puzzles, to the art, to the quotes and clips. It’s just all so very dull. [/list] [b][u]Suggested improvements:[/u][/b] [list][*] A map. If not for fast travel, then for us to leave markers for ourselves. [*] A more defined critical path, so we don’t have to do some much back tracking with different puzzle combinations once we’ve learnt the basics. [*] More puzzle variety. It’s almost all the same tired stuff. [/list] [b][u]Overall Recommendation:[/u][/b] I know the exact moment the witness lost me. It was in the mountain as I felt I was about to finish, but then a bunch of the puzzles began to move around. Little did I know I had a hundred million or so more puzzles, but I said “no” and began using a guide to blast through the end of the game. I probably cut a third of all the puzzles in the game inside that mountain, and I never went around solving the myriad of environmental puzzles either, because I was just bored and done. This game is for people who really like drawing patterns. It’s for people who want a lot of the same sort of thing, but slightly different this time. It’s for people who really enjoy taking their time and thinking about things. I have multiple pages in my notepad, and a bunch of envelopes from post covered in my chicken scratches where I’ve tried to work out puzzles, and the only way I could do it was by making shapes and trying different combinations (sounds stupid, but it massively cuts down on iteration time.) The fact I got bored and just wanted the game to end means it’s a no from me. I’ve eaten muesli for breakfast every day for a decade, I’m fine with the same thing over and over, but even I had had enough of this inside 10 hours, and I [i]like[/i] these kinds of puzzles. [url=https://store.steampowered.com/curator/44852412/]My curator page[/url] with reviews by genre. In case you want to find more games, or even reviews, like this one.

This game is more about looking for stuff than puzzle solving. And when you find something, you better hope that you found the proper tutorial level before that. If not, you are screwed., Not only that, you have to write stuff down and draw maps unless you have the best memory in the world. Alot of puzzles have more than one solution, and alot of times both work. But more than a few times, only one works... This could have been such a great game if they only made it a bit more linear and locked down the puzzles you don't have the tools for yet. This game was way more frustrating than fun.

The Witness is one of the most engaging tests of patience that I have ever endured in my gaming career. The experience is far from perfect--an epilepsy warning at the start would be appreciated for some sections, and the ending is incredibly unsatisfying--but to me, the journey is ultimately the game's greatest strength. I find it very fulfilling to figure out the rules to each of the game's many puzzles, and it generally does a good job at providing runway to accurately assess the nuances of the rulesets. If you're wanting to push your mind to the limit to figure out rules on your own, then I think this game is phenomenal. However, it is not perfect, and I suggest that you come into the experience with an expectation of stopping and trying something else at certain points.

■ [b] 더 위트니스 [/b] □ [b] 아, 머리 아파 [/b] ㅤ（★★★☆☆） <Braid>를 개발한 인디 개발자 조나단 블로우가 7년에 걸쳐 개발한 퍼즐 어드벤처 게임이다. 이동과 달리기, 퍼즐 긋기 전환만 있는 조작법으로 500개가 넘는 퍼즐이 숨 쉬는 섬을 돌아다니며, 미지의 상징을 관찰하고, 규칙을 학습하여, 적용함으로 해결하는 퍼즐을 풀어야 하는 목적을 갖고 있다. 그야말로 '배움' 그 자체를 퍼즐로 전달하고, 통찰의 지적 재미를 느낄 이들을 위한 모음집이다. 한붓그리기에서 따온 선 긋기와 규칙 있는 표식의 조합으로 구성된 수많은 퍼즐을 헤쳐 나가며, 한없는 응용력 앞에서 자부심과 자괴감이 공존하는 나 자신의 모습을 관찰할 수 있었다…. 기초-기본-심화-복합 순으로 난이도가 차츰 오르지만, 명시적인 목표 없이 황량한 공간을 탐험하며, 새로운 퍼즐을 풀고 싶기에 퍼즐을 풀고 싶어하는, 퍼즐 사랑꾼과 같은 동기를 스스로 만들어내야 한다. 힌트도 없는 건 물론 표식 학습을 위한 권장 지역의 단서마저도 초반에 제공해 주지 않은 점이 불편했다. [quote] 📮 평가모음집 큐레이터 → [url=https://store.steampowered.com/curator/43983573/] 📰 [/url] [/quote]

While the game is fairly well crafted, the puzzles are tedious, boring, and end up being a lot of ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥. It tries to teach you mechanics of the puzzles only to have it violate the very rules it just tutorialized. The insufferable voice-overs are pompous platitudes. There are countless puzzle games out there that are far superior and much more affordable. Don't waste your time on this one!

one thing I’ve witnessed is almost $40 missing from my bank account and this quickly prompted an “aha! eureka!” moment. interesting puzzle. game? not as much. conundrum? jigsaw? the crux of perception? hmm. I feel like Jonathan Blow tried to convey some thought-provoking messages but could have found some better, more refined ways to transfer them. by this I mean that many answers rewarded by solving puzzles are by no means a result of labor but instead a crude copy-paste which instead of providing satisfaction to the player ends up generating awkwardness and second-hand embarrassment. would it have been so hard to at least apply rotoscoping to some of the featured lectures? perhaps it’s just my own subjectivity but I don’t feel like forcing players to consume real-world content under the pretense of a video game is justified. not only are some of the puzzles actually unreasonable in terms of time investment, but the in-game audio optimization and overall pace make playing it feel dull, repetitive, and thankless. the atmosphere and overall artwork are commendable but its sheer pretentious aura put me off. the soundtrack has nothing to write home about. additionally, some sound choices and environmental effects can effectively bewilder you and cause either unwarranted fear, or ridicule. I do recommend The Witness for its rawness and philosophical interpretation of post-modernism and metaphysics though I must stress that the elaboration falls short, and you could surely do better with saving yourself the money when plenty of content on Internet Archive is at your disposal to educate you through videos of Carl Sagan, Andrei Tarkovsky, Alan Watts, Richard Feynman, etc. ⚠️ [b] PHOTOSENSITIVE and MOTION SICKNESS warning [/b]⚠️ adjusting settings won’t do anything about it, and there are no sensitivity controls. 🐰❓

Самая лучшая головоломка в которую я играл. Играл я правда до этого только в Braid и какой-то point and click до этого из подобного, но неважно. Тема с лабиринтами на обратной стороне Хэппи мила полностью раскрыта со всех сторон. Тут и объединение, и пары, и тетромино, и точки, которые нужно задеть, и пространственные головоломки и т.д. Тема с шизофренией и сигилами тоже раскрыта. Я в своей ванной нашел уже около 4 но я знаю где-то прячутся ещё. Если я когда-то пройду все игры на своем аккаунте и захочу куда-нибудь вернуться, то эта игра будет одна из тех в которую я точно зайду ещё разок.

除了视角有点晕，神作，随着探索能够不断出现惊喜

I stared at a line for 45 minutes. Walked away. Came back. Looked at the same line from a 45 degree angle. Literally moonpied my Batman huggies. 10/10

I bought this expecting an immersive, atmospheric puzzle adventure game with a bit of story and lore, like The Room 1 - 5, Obduction or the Myst series. But what i got is a world full of very repetitive and abstract puzzles that feel completely disconnected from that world. No interesting mechanical contraptions to work out, switches and levers, no keys to find, not even a combination lock where I have to work out the answer myself. Just endless variations of very similar looking tile puzzles on a flat 2d grid with no explainations at all. The ingame world does look nice visually, but the repetitive puzzle design is way too abstract for my taste. I expected more from this.