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.