The Witness

This game is weird, which usually I would really enjoy. In this game though, it's weird in a really pretentious and boring way. The game itself is really pretty, and the setting is quite lovely. It's so peaceful and at times cryptic that I kept expecting something spooky to jump out at me, but it never did. I think the first two hours or so of gameplay are the most magical and exciting. Learning the basic mechanics and exploring the vast island were incredibly fun and engaging for me. The experience did go downhill, though. This game really thinks that it has a lot to say about the meaning of life, but it really really doesn't. The setting wants you to explore and find hidden things, but often when you do you are rewarded with audio logs of a person reading a "meaningful" quote that can often go on for ages. Like, 3-7 minutes, with no indication of how long it will be before you start it. It absolutely destroyed the flow of gameplay for me, as sometimes I would stumble across one and stop to listen to it, only to find myself listening still, five minutes later, having forgotten what it was I was trying to do when I found it. This can be fine in some cases, but if you're pondering a puzzle when you find one it can completely interrupt your thought process. Coming back to listen to them later can be rough as well because they are often quite hidden or out of the way. The puzzles are all interesting, and they intend for you to learn their mechanics through completing easy puzzles and slowly increasing the difficulty. This is fine in some cases, but there were a few areas where the puzzle mechanics were completely lost on me, even when I would leave and come back after a few days with a fresh mind. In these cases there is not much you can do other than brute forcing or keep coming back with fresh eyes if you don't want to look up a guide. it can be quite frustrating. I tried my best to play without any walkthroughs so I kept leaving and coming back to the puzzle areas that I didn't understand. This meant that the last chunk of the playthrough naturally became the most frustrating and unfun, because I was left struggling with nonsensical (to me) puzzles that I absolutely couldn't wrap my head around for the last few hours of the game. I finished the game feeling annoyed and unsatisfied after struggling with one of the puzzles in the final sequence of the game, which completely ruined any atmosphere built up. I do think that this game overall does a good job of creating many different puzzle variants using the same base mechanic of using the grids, but the nonexistent guidance of the game can become frustrating when you feel like you've exhausted every solution or strategy to solving them. I often found myself having to retrace steps and re-explore areas over and over just to find one thing that I happened to miss on my first go-through of an area. This frustration absolutely detracts from the experience, and there was truly nothing more irritating than spending half an hour wandering and searching for some kind of small missed detail only to be met with a four minute audio log philosophizing about God. I really wish that you could pick up the audio logs and keep them in a notebook or something and listen to them at your own pace. Overall the experience ended up feeling very tedious and frustrating, and the sheer volume of puzzles became somewhat exhausting. It would take many many hours to complete every single puzzle in the game, but a lot of that time comes from the kind of hidden puzzles that expect you to keep a left click going for almost an hour. I think maybe if you played an hour or two per day over a period of weeks or months, it would be a better experience, but I don't know how realistic it is. I think that overall I would give this game a 4.5/10 that can be fun if you ignore certain aspects like the audio logs, but especially with the creator being a crazy pro-trump nut I think that I would give this game a pass.

没有任何正反馈的小众变态解密游戏，玩的极其恶心，解密游戏难可以理解但是连解密规则都藏起来是什么意思，然后再加上大地图也完全没有引导导致玩家甚至连去哪里都不知道。作者凭什么觉得自己的游戏能完美到地图和解密规则都让玩家自己猜出来，规则也不是很简单的我看还让玩家去猜，最后的几个章节还有前面规则的重复利用，尤其是雪山哪里想不出新的谜题后，加了一些及其恶心的干扰视线的外部元素。作者纯粹的傲慢和能力有限本质嘉豪。

Le jeu est pas si mal mais à certains gros probleme qui le rendent énervants chose qui est aux antipodes de ce que l'ont recherche dans un jeu de puzzles , de plus les puzzles vers la fin sont compliqué mais de la mauvaise raison , par exemple mettre des puzzles aléatoire avec un timer , c'est une très mauvaise idée et certain puzzles dans leurs réalisation sont soit épiléptique soit donne envie de vomir . tout de meme un 15/20 mais j'peux pas le conseiller à des gens qui serait + la cible . ah est d'ailleurs ca vaux pas 40 euros dutout , j'lai eu sur un bundle et j'suis Choqué du prix , c'est abusé la vie .

A very heavy focus on puzzling leaves this in a hard area to give a flat recommendation to, especially with how specific a few are and how much you will be in scratching your head over them, something which is done better by other games in its class. Still, the general design is great, the game looks gorgeous and the sound design compliments everything very well. Definitely a game to pick up on sale if you like a good puzzle game (while this is a "MetroidBrainia" like outer wilds/chroma zero/tunic/animal well etc. the self discovery does take a back seat to the puzzling and compared to those games feels very underwhelming), otherwise buy at your own risk. (This is a mixed review, however for the point of how specific the target audience is it's a not recommend.)

Gameplay & Puzzles Repetitive mechanics: Puzzles rely heavily on repetitive grid and sliding panel designs. Punishing design: Failing late-stage panels can reset previous progress, adding frustration. Burnout factor: Solving row after row of identical panels quickly drains the fun. Story & Atmosphere Weak narrative: The game provides little to no context for the player's presence or environment. Missing momentum: Scattered voice notes fail to create a compelling reason to keep playing. Sorry, not for me

The Witness is mentally stimulating and aggravating at the same time. Like Sudoku, but more challenging!! I love this game!

Les puzzles sont difficiles, mais après tout pourquoi pas. Parfois les solutions sont tirées par les cheveux... mais après tout pourquoi pas. Au moins, ça occupe, ça fait travailler le cerveau. Le problème de ce jeu vidéo c'est qu'il pourrait tout à fait ne pas être un jeu vidéo. Histoire inexistante ou presque, pas de musique, presque pas de sons d'ambiance, une direction artistique intéressante au premier abord mais qui tourne finalement fade... Il n'y a que quelques puzzles qui utilisent vraiment les possibilités qu'offrent le JV. Le gameplay n'est au service de rien. Et rien ne sert le gameplay. Dommage.

游戏有相当严重的性能问题和眩晕问题，作为一个游戏的基本分我打不及格，虽然目前对游戏的内容了解还没有很深入，但相关问题实在太过严重，先打一个不推荐，游玩完成后我会重新综合评价