18 ms·

Jonathan Blow's new game, The Witness, is out

520 points by Audiophilip 11y ago

sp332 11y ago
Although it's tempting, this is a game you really don't want any spoilers about (if you are ever going to play it). Vi Hart, who has been playtesting the game for months, said: > Tips for playing The Witness: give yourself a week or two, no hints, no reviews. Sleep on it. Take breaks. It's a big game. Nothing like it. > If you can't spend all day every day playing The Witness, give yourself months. Engage deeply with The Witness and it will stare back. > Don't watch twitch streams or look at screenshots or read reviews. Just play it, seriously.
- simoncion 11y ago
  > ...this is a game you really don't want any spoilers about... I couldn't possibly agree more. But, just so others don't end up making (or not making!) a blind purchase, I present a spoiler-free summary: It's a puzzle game. I'm likely not nearly done with the game and the puzzles have ranged from trivial to really, really, rather hard. The guy who made Braid is the designer of and one of the programmers of this game. It's also rather pretty, and the art (and foley) directions [0] are solid. [0] Yes, plural.
  - Tepix 11y ago
    Do you think it will be possible to turn it into a mobile game?
    - s_kilk 11y ago
      Apparently it's coming to iOS some time in the future.
    - simoncion 11y ago
      From what I've seen so far, there's no reason why you couldn't control the game with two fingers, rather than a gamepad or a mouse and keyboard. Of course, it would be less pretty with one's hands in front of portions of the screen, but whatever. :)
- cstuder 11y ago
  Since the game turns out to be pretty polarizing, I would suggest reading a review or two. Most reviewers appreciate the design of the game and keep it spoiler free. My recommendation: http://www.polygon.com/2016/1/25/10817632/the-witness-review-PC-PS4 http://www.polygon.com/2016/1/25/10817632/the-witness-review... "The Witness is maze puzzles. Full Stop."
  - moultano 11y ago
    > "The Witness is maze puzzles. Full Stop." While this is technically true, I really think it gives people the wrong impression. The colored mazes are the universal UI widget but many of them are switchboards that control the environment in the game in ways typical to 3d puzzlers (turning on lights, moving platforms, aligning objects.) Many of the puzzles are the sort of abstract logic puzzles you'd see in an IQ test or mobile game, but most of them revolve around paying close attention to your environment and seeing it in different ways. I'd love to describe a few of them, but wouldn't want to spoil the moments of euphoria from noticing them yourself. It's unfortunate that the game starts with some of the more abstract ones, because the real joy lies elsewhere in the game, but I would say that if you don't enjoy an abstract intellectual challenge you probably won't enjoy it.
  - teddyh 11y ago
    > "The Witness is maze puzzles. Full Stop." You cut out the important bit of the very next sentence: ‘That's also a highly reductionist take. It's like saying that a book is "just words."’
- lgieron 11y ago
  Ugh. Sounds interesting, but I'll probably be saving it for retirement.
  - Jach 11y ago
    I'm looking forward to the inevitable steam sale / indie bundle in a year or so. Plenty of things to play beforehand.
- s_kilk 11y ago
  > Although it's tempting, this is a game you really don't want any spoilers about Agreed, definitely don't want spoilers. I've set up a subreddit specifically for spoiler-free gentle hints: https://www.reddit.com/r/TheWitnessHints/ https://www.reddit.com/r/TheWitnessHints/ The main /r/TheWitness sub is starting to get quite spoilery.
- tobr 11y ago
  Anyone who wants to avoid spoilers: you should avoid this thread too, including replies to sp332's comment.
  - StavrosK 11y ago
    Thank you. Ctrl+W
pferde 11y ago
Is that the guy who was unable to install Ubuntu properly, so he declared that supporting Linux versions of his game is not worth the effort? Color me disinterested. "No Tux, no bucks."
- newjersey 11y ago
  I agree. Here is a relevant Reddit discussion https://www.reddit.com/r/linuxmasterrace/comments/3c508j/my_response_to_jonathan_blows_braid_the_witness/ https://www.reddit.com/r/linuxmasterrace/comments/3c508j/my_...
  - joncampbelldev 11y ago
    Sounds like people are shifting the blame for JB's frustration with linux onto hardware vendors for not providing drivers ... that's not really going to be acceptable to a perfectionist like JB. "Oh here's my game on linux, please address any questions or problems to those shitty hardware vendors" No, he's just going to release it on a platform where he can guarantee compatibility and functionality with minimum effort on his part.
    - jhawk28 11y ago
      Making a game is HARD. Why take on the additional risk of complicated multiplatform when that can be done later.
  - fsloth 11y ago
    The post at the top is a pretty horrible rant but the following discussion is surprisingly civil and to the point.
- hurricaneSlider 11y ago
  I'm 100% sure Jonathan Blow can install Ubuntu. He is writing his own programming language. For a game like that, it just isn't economically feasible to develop for Linux. Especially since the engine was written from scratch. He spent more or less all of the profits on his previous release on this new game. From the videos I've watched about the dev, he is somewhat of a perfectionist. It would likely rankle him to release a subpar experience on a given platform, which given the economic incentives, it would likely be.
krige 11y ago
Oh goodie, he's moving complaints and unfavourable opinions to "Dumb Internet Questions". I recommend reading the reviews, especially the longer ones, before buying.
donatj 11y ago
Windows and PS4 huh? As the exclusive owner of Macs and an Xbox One, that's little irritating. I'd at least imagine a Windows to Xbox One port to be reasonable.
- fulafel 11y ago
  They have a timed exclusivity agreement with Sony, hence PS4 first. "It will be released on the PC and the PlayStation 4 on January 26, 2016. The game will come to iOS some months after that, and other platforms a bit later." (http://the-witness.net/news/about/ http://the-witness.net/news/about/) Fingers crossed for a Linux port at some point! For Blow's last game (Braid) I think the Linux port was done by a third party. Or maybe it's time to get a copy of Windows and set up a VM with GPU passthrough...
  - jamesgeck0 11y ago
    Blow made a comment a few years ago along the lines that even if there wasn't a console exclusivity agreement, they didn't have the resources to launch on multiple consoles simultaneously.
- mwill 11y ago
  Bit of info why Blow went PS4 over XBO: http://arstechnica.com/gaming/2015/09/how-sony-snagged-jonathan-blows-the-witness-away-from-the-xbox-one/ http://arstechnica.com/gaming/2015/09/how-sony-snagged-jonat...
- chrismbarr 11y ago
  Well, I was about to add it to my Steam wish list until I read this. My only non-work computer is a Mac, so I guess I won't be playing it until it's released there.
- abrkn 11y ago
  I'm in the same situation. Perhaps we can hope to play the game in a year or so. If The Witness is even close to the quality of Braid, I'll wait.
- 11y ago
tempodox 11y ago
And of course it only runs on Windoze. This is not a game, it's a Microsoft Promotion Item.
- LeonM 11y ago
  It doesn't run on xbox, so I highly doubt that
deleted 11y ago
[deleted]
nailer 11y ago
For those wondering, Jonathan Blow is the author of the critically acclaimed time travel platform game 'Braid'. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jonathan_Blow https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jonathan_Blow
- chrismbarr 11y ago
  And for all those wondering, YES you should go buy & play Braid if you haven't already. It's an astounding game. A 2D platformer-style game that deals with in-game undo, time travel, time distortion, and multiple realities. It's mind bending, fun, and beautiful. Watch the trailer for it here if you haven't seen it before: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uqtSKkyJgFM https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uqtSKkyJgFM
  - StavrosK 11y ago
    Braid is a masterpiece, just go get it now and play it WITHOUT WALKTHROUGHS (they'll just spoil the game for you). I'm not sure the Witness can live up to Braid, but we'll see.
    - kdamken 11y ago
      I think a lot of times people tend to over-exaggerate when using terms like 'masterpiece', but in this case it's warranted. The puzzles and gameplay are brilliant, and then when you discover what the story is actually about it really blows you away.
      - Tarrosion 11y ago
        I don't mean to invoke any sort of death of the author, the story isn't about anything except what you bring to it kind of vagueness...but part of the genius of Braid is that it's intentionally unclear what the story is about. The famous quote in the epilogue makes you think of an important historical event, but plausibly that's metaphorical and the game is about something more personal, existential. Maybe the game isn't about anything but making you reflect. Maybe it's an expression of particular events in Blow's life. Maybe all of the above.
Kurtz79 11y ago
Although I have a backlog of unplayed games which could last me for an eternity or two, I will probably buy the game regardless at full price now, instead of waiting for the inevitable sale a few months down the line. While Jonathan's opinions can be a bit divisive, he is obviously a passionate programmer and gamer, and he financed the game from the sales of Braid, without kickstarter shenanigans. (And of course the game appeals to me regardless as an old-school adventure games lover).
tgb 11y ago
Some of my absolute favorite memories are playing Myst as a kid with my family. We'd huddle around the computer, take notes, kibitz about where to explore, be amazed at the visuals (those gondola-style rides were breathtaking at the time!). Riven might have been the high point of the series for us with the feeling of exploration it had being so great and involving. I wish modern exploration/puzzle adventures in the Myst vein were made to be more easily navigated by my parents, who just can't handle FPS-style controls, quick action, jumping puzzles, etc. So I can't have them try Braid or Fez or most other modern games despite having some great puzzles. Machinarium worked great, Her Story was good but quite different, but other than that we'll probably never get to share that same Myst-style experience again. At least Cyan is working on a Myst-esque game again, Obduction.
- nilkn 11y ago
  I'm just waiting for the inevitable Myst game in VR. It's pretty much the perfect medium for it, since it solves the locomotion problem by just removing locomotion and replacing it with a set of discrete locations to stand at. The only downside is that it would be a very solo experience and certainly couldn't be enjoyed as a family.
unixhero 11y ago
No Linux port, You got to be effing kidding me.
edem 11y ago
It is interesting that the game's rating is very positive but no one recommends it if I read the reviews. It seems that this game is not like Myst but a sterile puzzle collection without a story. Did I miss something?
- abcd_f 11y ago
  That's perfectly normal. If you don't like something, you are much more likely to vent than when you like it. Besides, it's a new release, so those who like it are still busy playing it.
- clentaminator 11y ago
  I think the default sorting for Steam reviews is by how helpful a review was. Looking through some of the positive and negative reviews, it seems like the positive reviews are fairly short and don't say much about the game, while the negative reviews are longer and the reviewers do mention what they thought did and didn't work about the game, so the longer reviews that have a negative opinion end up being the most helpful. Just telling someone you liked something isn't going to cut it for everyone. I can only guess that everyone who wanted to write a more in-depth positive review was just so keen to get back to playing the game that they cut their review short ;)
  - Gigablah 11y ago
    The proportion of votes for negative vs positive reviews seem way off. I wouldn't be surprised if there was some vote brigading going on for whatever reason. Either that or people mindlessly vote for the longest review.
    - user85348905 11y ago
      Nah, it couldn't at ALL be that people simply did not find it to be all that brilliant. It simply must be either a conspiracy or the masses are idiots.
    - archagon 11y ago
      Seriously. I posted a short review about how I liked the game (with some minor reservations) and immediately got, like, 3 downvotes. Gamers these days are children.
moultano 11y ago
I'm a few hours in and have already had so many moments of pure euphoria. It is a full sensory game. It uses my whole brain. Aesthetically, intellectually, even spiritually. A quote in one of the audio logs is so exquisite that I just have to share. One nature perfect and pervading circulates in all natures One reality, all comprehensive, contains within itself all realities The one Moon reflects itself wherever there is a sheet of water And all the moons in the waters are embraced within the one moon The Dharma body [the Absolute] of all Buddhas enters into my own being And my own being is found in union with theirs The Inner Light is beyond praise and blame Like space it knows no boundaries Yet it is even here, within us, ever retaining its serenity and fullness It is only when you hunt for it that you lose it You cannot take hold of it, but equally you cannot get rid of it And while you can do neither, it goes on its own way You remain silent and it speaks, you speak and it is dumb The great gate of charity is wide open, with no obstacles before it. - Yung-Chia Ta-Shih
hbex5 11y ago
And it is wonderful. It's one of those games that manages to push buttons in your brain you never knew you had, and make you feel like a genius when something finally clicks. And it does all this without ever needing to explain anything. Jonathan Blow's enigma variations. A meandering meditation on the means by which humans gain knowledge and understanding of the world, by standing on the shoulders of a hacking minigame. Also it's gorgeous. Did I mention it's BRILLIANT?
- amichail 11y ago
  Isn't it like those ill-defined puzzles where you need to say what number comes next? Any number can come next.
  - azzafazza 11y ago
    Pretty much this. It isn't a very good game. It's padded to kingdom come, there is a lack of motivation to keep going and no music kills any atmosphere it might potentially create.
    - clentaminator 11y ago
      Nothing rude meant by this (honestly), but if the experience of discovering the island, finding and completing the puzzles itself isn't motivating enough then perhaps it's just not the game for you? I understand your point about filler, but the puzzles are the game, and if you're enjoying them then it probably doesn't come across as filler, just more to get stuck in with (though I do wonder whether so many slight variations on a theme are required in certain areas). Hyped it may be, but that doesn't mean that you absolutely have to enjoy it at all costs. There are other games, and other developers :)
  - grabcocque 11y ago
    Not even remotely.
    - amichail 11y ago
mrmondo 11y ago
Looks really very intriguing, I'm not about to install Windows to play it though - it doesn't seem there is a Mac / Linux version available?
- cstuder 11y ago
  Coming to iOS "in a couple of months", other platforms later. Currently Windows and PS4 only.
  - Qwertious 11y ago
    Well, that certainly simplifies the "do I buy it" problem. No tux, no bux.
  - galapago 11y ago
    Source?
    - cstuder 11y ago
      http://the-witness.net/news/about/ http://the-witness.net/news/about/
- Narishma 11y ago
  It's currently available on PS4 as well, and may come to other platforms in the future.
- baddox 11y ago
  It looks great and I would definitely be playing it this weekend, but Windows-only is a nonstarter. I'm rather surprised to see an indie title like this not support OS X.
Keyframe 11y ago
Premise sounds exactly like Myst.
- krige 11y ago
  It's quite unlike Myst actually, lacking anything resembling a story, and the interaction with environment is minimal.
  - Keyframe 11y ago
    I don't know what the game is like, but I've said the premise sounds exactly like Myst. Even the video supports that. Here's a brief from the linked page: You wake up, alone, on a strange island full of puzzles that will challenge and surprise you. You don't remember who you are, and you don't remember how you got here, but there's one thing you can do: explore the island in hope of discovering clues, regaining your memory, and somehow finding your way home. The Witness is a single-player game in an open world with dozens of locations to explore and over 500 puzzles. This game respects you as an intelligent player and it treats your time as precious. There's no filler; each of those puzzles brings its own new idea into the mix. So, this is a game full of ideas. Difference in the premise being instead of your amnesia and finding about you, there's a book and you're finding about island's characters.
danso 11y ago
I've been wanting to play this ever since Casey Muratori wrote about the process of generating grass for the terrain in an eye-pleasing distribution: http://mollyrocket.com/casey/stream_0015.html http://mollyrocket.com/casey/stream_0015.html (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7692332 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7692332)
- remybach 11y ago
  Well there goes my afternoon.
hoorayimhelping 11y ago
>The bulk of the game feels like taking an IQ test. This is from a negative (but helpful) review of this game and it echoes exactly how I felt about playing Braid. His games feel like they're constructed so everyone will admire the genius of the creator for thinking up these kinds of interesting puzzles. And if the player ends up enjoying the game while they're admiring its creator, well that's an added benefit I guess.
- eamsen 11y ago
  I've tried hard to like Braid despite it being a platform game (Flashback (1992) is the only game in that genre that I've enjoyed so far). It's gorgeous, clever and polished, yet it felt pretentious to the point where it would distract from the beauty of the game. And I didn't know anything about the creator of the game before trying, so that couldn't have been personal bias (not implying that would have been the case otherwise).
  - blablablame 11y ago
    I agree. I tried to play Braid many times but just couldn't get myself to play for more than a bit and switch to another game. Interesting enough, Flashback is probably one of the games I use as a reference for platform games so maybe that has something to do with it. For anyone that hasn't played Flashback, give it a go. The graphics while low res now, still look very much alive and nice to look at even on modern monitors.
  - gknoy 11y ago
    I find it interesting that you felt it was pretentious. What made it feel that way to you? I ask, because I never felt like that. I felt curiosity about what the Real Plot was about, I felt challenged (and frustrated) by the puzzles, and really enjoyed the art and music style. It felt like each mechanic was introduced once I'd mastered the previous ones, and other puzzles made it worthwhile to replay things once I had already passed a level. To me, it felt like it did for Time what Portal did for space -- made me think about interactions in a new way. It didn't feel like it was trying to impress me, or wow me with the creator's brilliance (other than "this was made by one guy??") so much as make a game that made me think differently. I think its similarity to Portal is something I hadn't thought of before now, but that explains a lot about why I liked it.
fasteo 11y ago
Anyone knows the music of the first teaser ?
- fasteo 11y ago
  Shazam to the rescue: Zoe Keating, escape artist https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5Ufe2JtYqZI https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5Ufe2JtYqZI
Mahn 11y ago
Looks like it's getting panned in steam reviews as people play it. Very surprising.
- deleted 11y ago
  [deleted]
- moultano 11y ago
  I think it's too hard to explain what's good about the game without spoilers, so the positive reviews don't have much content.
- tdsamardzhiev 11y ago
  I think posting a review of a game after playing it for 1 hour is awkward. But what is more awkward is upvoting reviews of other people that played it for 1 hour.
nickpeterson 11y ago
My daughter is going to be about 4, and she loves puzzles. I was thinking about picking this up for the apple tv to play along with her. Is it conceptually too difficult for children?
- minimaxir 11y ago
  The Witness is not available for iOS yet.
- 6x9equals42 11y ago
  The world is beautiful so she might enjoy playing it, but you would be doing the actual puzzle solving. It gets very challenging.
  - nickpeterson 11y ago
    Thanks, I couldn't gauge from the pictures how hard it actually is.
azzafazza 11y ago
$0.15 has been deposited into your Jonathan Blow account, thank you for continuing to help us shill this game on various websites!
- dang 11y ago
  We've banned this account for repeatedly breaking the HN guidelines.
- dang 11y ago
  Comments like this will get your account banned from HN. Please (re-)read the site guidelines, and post civilly and substantively from now on, or not at all. We detached this comment from https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10987825 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10987825 and marked it off-topic.
eXpl0it3r 11y ago
And why exactly is this on Hacker News?
- clentaminator 11y ago
  "On-Topic: Anything that good hackers would find interesting. That includes more than hacking and startups. If you had to reduce it to a sentence, the answer might be: anything that gratifies one's intellectual curiosity." An open world puzzle game seems exactly like the kind of thing that might gratify one's intellectual curiosity. Plus it does make a nice change from reading the latest thing about React ;)
  - dang 11y ago
    That, plus its creator is one of us: https://news.ycombinator.com/threads?id=jblow https://news.ycombinator.com/threads?id=jblow. Of course this belongs on HN.
- minimaxir 11y ago
  Honestly, I'd like to see more about gaming on Hacker News. (I've been submitting what I can, although it's hard to find good sources)
- JabavuAdams 11y ago
  Because it's a way more technically demanding product than the typical HN "I made this CRUD thing to disrupt yadda yadda" product?
imron 11y ago
Excellent. Now hopefully he has more time to work on his programming language :-)
myth_buster 11y ago
JBlow is featured in the documentary Indie Game[0][1] which follows the trials and tribulations of development and launch of two indie games Super Meat Boy and Fez. It's surprising how similar the whole experience is to launching a startup! [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indie_Game:_The_Movie https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indie_Game:_The_Movie [1] http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1942884/ http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1942884/
- seivan 11y ago
  I feel like it's hard to launch a game as an MVP. You can try it out, but actually selling it without having all the aspects of the game (sound, graphics, performance, etc) might be hard.
  - j2bax 11y ago
    It seems that this is the purpose that Steam's Early Access program fulfills. Players know well that the game is unfinished, but there is still enough there to explore. Users even pay for this early access and then they provide valuable feedback to the developers. Sounds like an MVP to me!
- drzaiusapelord 11y ago
  That movie is really unfair to him. It more or less mocks him and paints him as this out of touch primadonna instead of focusing on his work. I feel it was very unfair to him and dramatized for the audience at his expense.
  - myth_buster 11y ago
    I came out thinking that he is an idealist and I respected him for that.
- hnal943 11y ago
  Indie Game: The Movie is one of the best documentaries I've ever seen. The cinematography is amazing, and they tell a great story about each of the dev teams they follow. Definitely worth a watch.
AsyncAwait 11y ago
I like the potential of the game, but sadly it did not meet my expectations. I saw it as a Myst-style game, where you have puzzles, but you also have a lot of interactive environment around you to explore. Here, I was getting taken it by a lot of beautiful scenarios in the distance, only to realise that there is nothing to do there, but solve more panels. It simply feels like this beautiful island is going to waste, being a little more than a hiding place for the panels. How's everyone feeling about this?
- chasing 11y ago
  > How's everyone feeling about this? I'm feeling like you haven't played very far into the game. :-) And neither have I! The puzzles are definitely mostly panel-based, but the environment becomes very important to solving them. I think The Witness is quite clever, so far. It's interesting how much diversity and playfulness can come from just these simple little grid-and-line puzzles.
  - danpalmer 11y ago
    I can't agree with this enough, I've found the puzzles to be a mechanism by which I can fully appreciate the truly beautiful environment.
- webkike 11y ago
  I agree with this. The game is at its best when the panels interact with the world in a meaningful way, but this is very rare.
- on_and_off 11y ago
  two hours or so into it so far, so I don't have an overview of the whole game. The puzzles so far have rarely asked for more than 10 seconds to find a solution. Navigating the island does feel like an artificial overgame at the moment. Some of the puzzles have caused changes in the 3D world but in very small ways. I guess that things are going to get more complex soon though.
  - 11y ago
muraiki 11y ago
One thing to note is that some of the optional puzzles are likely to be unsolvable by colorblind and hearing impaired players: http://kotaku.com/colorblind-and-hearing-impaired-players-wont-be-able-to-1755459642 http://kotaku.com/colorblind-and-hearing-impaired-players-wo... As someone who is colorblind, I've been happy to see many games come out with options to enable filters for one or more types of colorblindness. It's disappointing that such a feature isn't present in this game.
- michaelbuddy 11y ago
  Send him the info. Despite the success he's still an indie dev, and maybe didn't have the resources at the outset, or just didn't get to it or know about it. but maybe it could be in an update.
  - dr_zoidberg 11y ago
    From the linked article: > “We definitely thought about colorblindness but ultimately there was not much we could do in terms of the individual puzzles,” the game’s lead developer, Jonathan Blow, told me today. It's been a decision by the devs. Still, it would be nice if they updated the puzzles for those who are colorblind.
- yoklov 11y ago
  Yeah this is pretty unfortunate. Sadly, having played through the puzzles that involve color, it's not superficial at all. The puzzles are fundamentally about how colors work and combine. There isn't an obvious way to make a colorblind friendly version...
agentultra 11y ago
I was rather struck by this game. The puzzles are indeed clever and was immediately enamoured with the combinatoric spaces and visual appeal. Perhaps it is my experience with Go as a "conversation with hands," that drew me in to The Witness as a "conversation with the designer." I hope Jonathan feels very lucky to have made this game. It is great and I find myself envious and over-joyed that he has had the time, privilege, and skill to build it (and many thanks to the team behind it as well).
webkike 11y ago
One of the things I did not like is the sometimes incredibly obfuscated association of symbols with mechanics. For example, the panels with sun symbols. [Spoilers] It didn't take me incredibly long to figure out that they needed to be grouped in twos, but it did take me longer to figure out than to solve the first ~8 introductory panels. And the worst part, how is a star in any way connected with grouping by twos????
- bendykstra 11y ago
  When a new rule is introduced, the early panels can be easily solved by trial and error. However, it's a mistake to continue until you can articulate the rule. That means experimenting with a panel even if you accidentally get the correct answer on the first try. Edit: I'm reminded of this game from the New York Times from October: http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2015/07/03/upshot/a-quick-puzzle-to-test-your-problem-solving.html http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2015/07/03/upshot/a-quick...
  - webkike 11y ago
    I do not mind new panels introducing concepts; what I mind is the symbols not always being clearly connected with the mechanic they introduce. For example, the black and white symbols that needed to be separated were intuitive.
    - devindotcom 11y ago
      MINOR SPOILER/HINT BELOW While I sort of agree, I must say that part of the fun of the game (and much of the challenge) is learning the 'language' of each puzzle. In the case of the little orange suns, it was like learning from scratch, one letter at a time. First panel: "Okay, I can't go between them." Second panel: "Oh, I can, but have to end up on one side... which amounts to having them in the same section. How is that different?" Third panel: "There were 4, and the only path that worked divided them? What the hell?" Fourth panel: "Oh with six I have to make them into groups of two - so maybe I have to divide them equally?" Fifth panel: "Aha, no, it's groups of two!" And now that's part of your vocabulary; you discovered it organically, not by bringing in some outside knowledge like symbols from off the island. Notice there aren't any numbers or letters? Like, anywhere? That's part of it...
jslakro 11y ago
Nice to have an indie developer exposed by HN. Sad to see there are no other cases. Blow had its relevance due to XBOX but many indies have been out there before on PC, so it sounds unfair when you think in the whole scene
- JabavuAdams 11y ago
  Jon Blow's probably the most famous indie developer, next to notch. Maybe more-so, among game developers. He was at the first indie game jam in 2002, I think he may have written for Game Developer magazine during the nineties, but not sure about that. I keep thinking the nineties were only a decade a away :/
- chc4 11y ago
  I'd hesitate to call Jon Blow an indie dev anymore, expect in the "not a AAA studio" sense. With the success of Braid and including in Indie Games the movies, he is probably one of the most well recognized game developers. The Witness has a massive budget, multiple developers, and high-end voice actors.
rwc 11y ago
Looks like Myst but without the cutting edge 1993 graphics.
no_wave 11y ago
The hype machine around this is strange - tons of superficially positive reviews but without a whole lot of passion behind them. Does anyone else smell something off about the response to the game so far? Have people convinced themselves that this is a great game before they started enjoying it?
- s_kilk 11y ago
  > Have people convinced themselves that this is a great game before they started enjoying it? Quite possibly. While it is an excellent game, the hype train has been rolling for so long that by this point it can't be seen as anything less than excellent. See also the review cycle around the similarly hyped and long-awaited "That Dragon, Cancer".
- swah 11y ago
  I think that is normal - Jon Blow has a big online presence, lots of fans due to Braid... I upvote edw519 before I finish reading his comments all the time...
- hibikir 11y ago
  It's just very difficult to explain what is so good about the game without spoiling the heck out of it, and since a big part of the experience is discovery, people that really like the game will hate do not want to spoil it for new players. I play puzzle hunts, and have played a whole lot of puzzle based games over the years. I do not like Braid that much. However, I think The Witness is, gameplay wise, better than Portal, Talos Principle, Myst, 7th Guest or anything from the Professor Layton series. The puzzles get to be very hard, but they never felt unfair. If anything, the negative reviews come from how the very beginning of the game starts too slowly, making sure you understand a little piece of the game, when, in practice, there's a whole lot more to it. The tutorial area is simple and generic, on purpose. Right afterwards, you get to an area that is just confusing, with puzzles you really shouldn't even attempt. Go anywhere else though, and the real game opens up, and it's wonderful.
- saluk 11y ago
  I don't know what you are seeing, I'm passionate about it. There are really only one or two puzzle games of this caliber every year, if that, and for me this is the best one in many years. The superficial similarity of the puzzle design to some popular iphone games, combined with a higher price than indie games typically have, seems to be putting people off. It's also a very simple game. There isn't a lot someone who likes it can say about it without spoiling anything. There are puzzles. They are good. The island is also a puzzle. It is fun to solve puzzles. Yeah, I can't really go on that way for very long, can I.
ericfrederich 11y ago
Nothing but bad reviews on the link provided. Wow.
oilywater 11y ago
This game is the perfect tool for testing your problem solving skills. It puts you in a new framework and tests your cognition. Portal, The Talos Principle, all have the same goal. I wonder if people could become excellent problem solver by playing these games instead of honing the skills in the mathematics, physics or similar frameworks.
- agentultra 11y ago
  You may begin to realize that you are doing maths without realizing it. Thinking mathematically is quite natural for a curious, motivated person. It's writing down these thoughts which people find difficult. It's not easy for us to be precise! It could augment your skills in mathematics. Most people are much better than they think they are or are given credit for. I gave my niece the game, Set, over the holidays. She was able to beat adult players after a few rounds. Similar experiences with http://dragonbox.com http://dragonbox.com as well.
  - oilywater 11y ago
    I believe it is called problem solving, not math. Mathematics is a framework for problem solving which requires problem solving skills and knowledge of mathematics. I believe anyone using a piece of paper and writing down their thinking is doing problem solving on problems that are presented in the game. Yes, it is probably equivalent to some algorithms present in computer science but they are (if not familiar) discovering everything by themselves. The game provides the framework for problem solving, so instead of having knowledge of math/algorithms, you build that knowledge yourself and improve your problem solving skills as you go. The way math is commonly taught seems to be knowledge oriented - which leaves a lot of people completely stuck when it comes to problem solving. That's why I'm interested if you could, playing these games, improve your general problem solving skills, so that only thing you have to do, when you start with a different framework, is to get the knowledge - but your thinking previously trained without it and it should work now when you're familiar with the framework. At least that is what I would expect form a general problem solver that got one's skills by solving problems in maths, or physics. I would assume that they could solve problems in other areas if they knew the terminology, if they acquired knowledge.
autoreleasepool 11y ago
How far along is he with implementing his game dev language, Jai? I haven't kept up, but I was interested in his early demonstrations.
- topspin 11y ago
  He's still doing live coding sessions on Twitch. Nothing has been released yet. Despite that there is already at least one comprehensive Jai language tutorial that I've seen and also syntax highlighting rules for at least one editor.
lobster_johnson 11y ago
Congratulations to Jonathan Blow on finishing his game — I was afraid that he would never be done. I look forward to playing it, and I hope it sells well. For entirely selfish reasons, I'm now really hoping this release means he now has some breathing room to spend more time on developing his programming language, Jai.
wnevets 11y ago
$40 is a bit too steep for me. I'll wait till a steam sale.
seanp2k2 11y ago
Titles like this could be amazing with VR. Can't wait until Rift + Vive finally start shipping :)
teekert 11y ago
Wow, back in the day I loved Atlantis the lost tales [0], this definitely has that feel. I would have bought it already if I had more than just Linux at my disposal... With the Steambox/machine now in production I thought the divide windows/Linux was shrinking rapidly. I'm not at all a gamer though. [0] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JYlzsZcuVkY https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JYlzsZcuVkY
- eridius 11y ago
  Any consoles? It's on PS4 too, and while I haven't checked I'd guess it's on Xbox One.
  - teekert 11y ago
    Yes, but PS4 only.
    - eridius 11y ago
      Huh, you're right. I'm a bit surprised that a Windows game with a console version would be PS4-exclusive.
Eric_WVGG 11y ago
There’s been a lot of coverage about the puzzles and ingenuity of the gameplay, but equal attention should be given to the amazing artistic style of the game. a couple of blog posts about the making of the trees: http://the-witness.net/news/2013/06/2157/ http://the-witness.net/news/2013/06/2157/ http://the-witness.net/news/2011/06/witness-trees/ http://the-witness.net/news/2011/06/witness-trees/ I’d love to see more videogames step away from uncanny-valley and ill-advised attempts at photorealism and instead embrace unique artistic style.
- LesZedCB 11y ago
  That's been really big for Oculus games from what I can tell. It has the added benefit of being faster to render, allowing for a GTX970 (the minimum spec card for oculus) to be able to drive games at the required speed. Lucky's Tale[1] is a good example of this. [1] http://playfulcorp.com/ http://playfulcorp.com/
archagon 11y ago
(SPOILERS, obviously. Mostly surface-level.) I absolutely love the game, but for the sake of discussion, I have to admit that I'm slightly disappointed by the puzzle-paneliness of it all. I didn't read many spoilers over the 8 years of its development, but Jonathan Blow always made a point to emphasize the epiphany-based nature of the game. I took this to mean that as you gain knowledge from the panels, you slowly begin to understand how to use them to engage in more interesting ways with the world. Instead, the opposite is true: the world simply provides different kinds of masks to solve the puzzles with. In other words, the panels are still the beating heart of the game, while the world is mostly static. To me, this goes against what I like most in games. I find that one of the primary advantages of this interactive medium is the ability to solve puzzles by intuition. Braid was particularly good at this: instead of having to stand in front of a challenge and reason it out in your mind, you could dive right in and play around with the mechanics until your mind took on the solution all on its own. Over time, you acquired a feeling of natural mastery over these new elements. The Witness does not feel like this; more often than not, you have to logic out the puzzles in your head or on paper, and it never feels as good as using the game world to interactively solve a problem. (Yes, I'm aware of the obelisk puzzles, but it seems they still follow more or less the same formula. But I haven't gotten very far in that direction, so we'll see.) The game also makes me think about the problem of hidden knowledge in open-world games. Most metroidvania-style games gate the player with keys or abilities, but a few are starting to add paths that are closed solely based on the player's knowledge. One of the first games I remember doing this is Super Metroid: the wall jump and high jump allowed you to get to a lot more places, but they were nearly impossible to discover without the bird helpers. Fez did this with its Tetris language. La-Mulana did it with its obscure inscriptions. And The Witness does it with the ruleset of its various puzzles -- more completely than any other game before it. Still, I wonder if there's a better way to stash away that kind of knowledge. The puzzle panels are a bit too abstract for my tastes. I'd love to see a game where the hidden knowledge you find is entirely ability-based, but not obscure like in Super Metroid. Again, The Witness is a masterpiece and one of the few games I'd gladly call art. It would be worth $40 just for the opportunity walk around the incredibly beautiful world. Just some food for game design thought! :)
- joshschreuder 11y ago
kevinSuttle 11y ago
Love the music. Can't wait for the soundtrack to be released.
iandanforth 11y ago
I was going to buy this game until I read the steam reviews. If you're considering this purchase I highly recommend reading the top-rated helpful reviews. They changed my mind, they might change yours. TLDR for the reviews - Only buy this if you like puzzles for individual puzzle's sake, not as means to unlocking a larger story.
- taloft 11y ago
  Fascinating, but honestly you shouldn't be warning people off a game you haven't even played based on hearsay.
  - iandanforth 11y ago
    Hrm, I appreciate your point. Personally I like reading comments that challenge hype, but if second hand hearsay carries no weight for you, or you find it offensive in some way, please ignore my original comment and accept my apologies for wasting your time.
gravypod 11y ago
Is this the game he wrote in his new programming language?
- Narishma 11y ago
  No. It's written in C++.
  - gravypod 11y ago
    Has he given any hint when we will see him using his programming language in the real world?
sandworm101 11y ago
So it's basically Myst but without the story?
darklajid 11y ago
I've gotta be honest. I have no idea who Jonathan Blow is. I checked the Steam Store page and it seems .. to be not my thing. That said, I recently found, bought and played 'Pony Island' (if you don't know what that is: Do NOT watch videos. Think '6th Sense' - you'll ruin the game). That wouldn't have caught my eye based on random videos/screenshots either and it's right now my 'best game ever'. Can someone explain why 'The Witness' is interesting? Why would it trend here? What's the relation between HN and Jonathan or this game?
- simoncion 11y ago
  > I checked the Steam Store page and it seems .. to be not my thing. ... Can someone explain why 'The Witness' is interesting? If it's truly not your thing, then you won't understand why it's interesting. If it is your thing, then it's very, very, very interesting. ROT13'd probably-spoiler-free-but-maybe-contains-tiny-spoilers overview of what makes the game good follows: Gur Jvgarff vf n chmmyr tnzr. Gur chmmyrf enatr va qvssvphygl sebz gevivny gb irel engure uneq. Vg vf fvzvyne va fcvevg gb Zlfg, ohg abg ng nyy gur fnzr nf Zlfg. Gur neg naq fbhaq vf tbetrbhf. Gur tnzr'f cnpvat vf ernyyl tbbq.
aaronsnoswell 11y ago
I have two questions that the steam page didn't answer; Can I play this in VR, and if not, why not? Jonathan Blow is a master artisan - I can't wait to try this game.
- saluk 11y ago
  You kind of can with a hack, but it's not a comfortable experience. The game was not really developed with VR in mind, though the team experimented with VR support.
highCs 11y ago
Someone knows who the art director is?
ryan-allen 11y ago
It's awesome. Someone please nuke the spoilers!
nod 11y ago
Is this an heir to Myst?
gtkspert 11y ago
This looks awesome
robohamburger 11y ago
This game is indeed great! Push the envelope forward for puzzle games and games in general. The game feels pretty heavy with potential like there are layers I am not even seeing yet and I am 10 hours in! Some what spoilery I made a solver for one of its puzzles: https://gist.github.com/robo-hamburger/2269ef76603263ce1061 https://gist.github.com/robo-hamburger/2269ef76603263ce1061 Amusingly I ended up not really needing it but fun to code.
mempko 11y ago
MIST for a newer generation! I'm surprised nobody else mentioned MIST here.
programmarchy 11y ago
Would love to play this... on my Mac. :/ There's rumors of an iOS version in the future.
phodo 11y ago
Here is a Jonathan Blow interview on The Witness. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6OV2rYM6mRo https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6OV2rYM6mRo

520 points by Audiophilip 11y ago

sp332 11y ago

Although it's tempting, this is a game you really don't want any spoilers about (if you are ever going to play it). Vi Hart, who has been playtesting the game for months, said: > Tips for playing The Witness: give yourself a week or two, no hints, no reviews. Sleep on it. Take breaks. It's a big game. Nothing like it. > If you can't spend all day every day playing The Witness, give yourself months. Engage deeply with The Witness and it will stare back. > Don't watch twitch streams or look at screenshots or read reviews. Just play it, seriously.

simoncion 11y ago
> ...this is a game you really don't want any spoilers about... I couldn't possibly agree more. But, just so others don't end up making (or not making!) a blind purchase, I present a spoiler-free summary: It's a puzzle game. I'm likely not nearly done with the game and the puzzles have ranged from trivial to really, really, rather hard. The guy who made Braid is the designer of and one of the programmers of this game. It's also rather pretty, and the art (and foley) directions [0] are solid. [0] Yes, plural.
- Tepix 11y ago
  Do you think it will be possible to turn it into a mobile game?
  - s_kilk 11y ago
    Apparently it's coming to iOS some time in the future.
  - simoncion 11y ago
    From what I've seen so far, there's no reason why you couldn't control the game with two fingers, rather than a gamepad or a mouse and keyboard. Of course, it would be less pretty with one's hands in front of portions of the screen, but whatever. :)
cstuder 11y ago
Since the game turns out to be pretty polarizing, I would suggest reading a review or two. Most reviewers appreciate the design of the game and keep it spoiler free. My recommendation: http://www.polygon.com/2016/1/25/10817632/the-witness-review-PC-PS4 http://www.polygon.com/2016/1/25/10817632/the-witness-review... "The Witness is maze puzzles. Full Stop."
- moultano 11y ago
  > "The Witness is maze puzzles. Full Stop." While this is technically true, I really think it gives people the wrong impression. The colored mazes are the universal UI widget but many of them are switchboards that control the environment in the game in ways typical to 3d puzzlers (turning on lights, moving platforms, aligning objects.) Many of the puzzles are the sort of abstract logic puzzles you'd see in an IQ test or mobile game, but most of them revolve around paying close attention to your environment and seeing it in different ways. I'd love to describe a few of them, but wouldn't want to spoil the moments of euphoria from noticing them yourself. It's unfortunate that the game starts with some of the more abstract ones, because the real joy lies elsewhere in the game, but I would say that if you don't enjoy an abstract intellectual challenge you probably won't enjoy it.
- teddyh 11y ago
  > "The Witness is maze puzzles. Full Stop." You cut out the important bit of the very next sentence: ‘That's also a highly reductionist take. It's like saying that a book is "just words."’
lgieron 11y ago
Ugh. Sounds interesting, but I'll probably be saving it for retirement.
- Jach 11y ago
  I'm looking forward to the inevitable steam sale / indie bundle in a year or so. Plenty of things to play beforehand.
s_kilk 11y ago
> Although it's tempting, this is a game you really don't want any spoilers about Agreed, definitely don't want spoilers. I've set up a subreddit specifically for spoiler-free gentle hints: https://www.reddit.com/r/TheWitnessHints/ https://www.reddit.com/r/TheWitnessHints/ The main /r/TheWitness sub is starting to get quite spoilery.
tobr 11y ago
Anyone who wants to avoid spoilers: you should avoid this thread too, including replies to sp332's comment.
- StavrosK 11y ago
  Thank you. Ctrl+W

pferde 11y ago

Is that the guy who was unable to install Ubuntu properly, so he declared that supporting Linux versions of his game is not worth the effort? Color me disinterested. "No Tux, no bucks."

newjersey 11y ago
I agree. Here is a relevant Reddit discussion https://www.reddit.com/r/linuxmasterrace/comments/3c508j/my_response_to_jonathan_blows_braid_the_witness/ https://www.reddit.com/r/linuxmasterrace/comments/3c508j/my_...
- joncampbelldev 11y ago
  Sounds like people are shifting the blame for JB's frustration with linux onto hardware vendors for not providing drivers ... that's not really going to be acceptable to a perfectionist like JB. "Oh here's my game on linux, please address any questions or problems to those shitty hardware vendors" No, he's just going to release it on a platform where he can guarantee compatibility and functionality with minimum effort on his part.
  - jhawk28 11y ago
    Making a game is HARD. Why take on the additional risk of complicated multiplatform when that can be done later.
- fsloth 11y ago
  The post at the top is a pretty horrible rant but the following discussion is surprisingly civil and to the point.
hurricaneSlider 11y ago
I'm 100% sure Jonathan Blow can install Ubuntu. He is writing his own programming language. For a game like that, it just isn't economically feasible to develop for Linux. Especially since the engine was written from scratch. He spent more or less all of the profits on his previous release on this new game. From the videos I've watched about the dev, he is somewhat of a perfectionist. It would likely rankle him to release a subpar experience on a given platform, which given the economic incentives, it would likely be.

krige 11y ago

Oh goodie, he's moving complaints and unfavourable opinions to "Dumb Internet Questions". I recommend reading the reviews, especially the longer ones, before buying.

donatj 11y ago

Windows and PS4 huh? As the exclusive owner of Macs and an Xbox One, that's little irritating. I'd at least imagine a Windows to Xbox One port to be reasonable.

fulafel 11y ago
They have a timed exclusivity agreement with Sony, hence PS4 first. "It will be released on the PC and the PlayStation 4 on January 26, 2016. The game will come to iOS some months after that, and other platforms a bit later." (http://the-witness.net/news/about/ http://the-witness.net/news/about/) Fingers crossed for a Linux port at some point! For Blow's last game (Braid) I think the Linux port was done by a third party. Or maybe it's time to get a copy of Windows and set up a VM with GPU passthrough...
- jamesgeck0 11y ago
  Blow made a comment a few years ago along the lines that even if there wasn't a console exclusivity agreement, they didn't have the resources to launch on multiple consoles simultaneously.
mwill 11y ago
Bit of info why Blow went PS4 over XBO: http://arstechnica.com/gaming/2015/09/how-sony-snagged-jonathan-blows-the-witness-away-from-the-xbox-one/ http://arstechnica.com/gaming/2015/09/how-sony-snagged-jonat...
chrismbarr 11y ago
Well, I was about to add it to my Steam wish list until I read this. My only non-work computer is a Mac, so I guess I won't be playing it until it's released there.
abrkn 11y ago
I'm in the same situation. Perhaps we can hope to play the game in a year or so. If The Witness is even close to the quality of Braid, I'll wait.
11y ago

tempodox 11y ago

And of course it only runs on Windoze. This is not a game, it's a Microsoft Promotion Item.

LeonM 11y ago
It doesn't run on xbox, so I highly doubt that

deleted 11y ago

[deleted]

nailer 11y ago

For those wondering, Jonathan Blow is the author of the critically acclaimed time travel platform game 'Braid'. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jonathan_Blow https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jonathan_Blow

chrismbarr 11y ago
And for all those wondering, YES you should go buy & play Braid if you haven't already. It's an astounding game. A 2D platformer-style game that deals with in-game undo, time travel, time distortion, and multiple realities. It's mind bending, fun, and beautiful. Watch the trailer for it here if you haven't seen it before: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uqtSKkyJgFM https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uqtSKkyJgFM
- StavrosK 11y ago
  Braid is a masterpiece, just go get it now and play it WITHOUT WALKTHROUGHS (they'll just spoil the game for you). I'm not sure the Witness can live up to Braid, but we'll see.
  - kdamken 11y ago
    I think a lot of times people tend to over-exaggerate when using terms like 'masterpiece', but in this case it's warranted. The puzzles and gameplay are brilliant, and then when you discover what the story is actually about it really blows you away.
    - Tarrosion 11y ago
      I don't mean to invoke any sort of death of the author, the story isn't about anything except what you bring to it kind of vagueness...but part of the genius of Braid is that it's intentionally unclear what the story is about. The famous quote in the epilogue makes you think of an important historical event, but plausibly that's metaphorical and the game is about something more personal, existential. Maybe the game isn't about anything but making you reflect. Maybe it's an expression of particular events in Blow's life. Maybe all of the above.

Kurtz79 11y ago

Although I have a backlog of unplayed games which could last me for an eternity or two, I will probably buy the game regardless at full price now, instead of waiting for the inevitable sale a few months down the line. While Jonathan's opinions can be a bit divisive, he is obviously a passionate programmer and gamer, and he financed the game from the sales of Braid, without kickstarter shenanigans. (And of course the game appeals to me regardless as an old-school adventure games lover).

tgb 11y ago

Some of my absolute favorite memories are playing Myst as a kid with my family. We'd huddle around the computer, take notes, kibitz about where to explore, be amazed at the visuals (those gondola-style rides were breathtaking at the time!). Riven might have been the high point of the series for us with the feeling of exploration it had being so great and involving. I wish modern exploration/puzzle adventures in the Myst vein were made to be more easily navigated by my parents, who just can't handle FPS-style controls, quick action, jumping puzzles, etc. So I can't have them try Braid or Fez or most other modern games despite having some great puzzles. Machinarium worked great, Her Story was good but quite different, but other than that we'll probably never get to share that same Myst-style experience again. At least Cyan is working on a Myst-esque game again, Obduction.

nilkn 11y ago
I'm just waiting for the inevitable Myst game in VR. It's pretty much the perfect medium for it, since it solves the locomotion problem by just removing locomotion and replacing it with a set of discrete locations to stand at. The only downside is that it would be a very solo experience and certainly couldn't be enjoyed as a family.

unixhero 11y ago

No Linux port, You got to be effing kidding me.

edem 11y ago

It is interesting that the game's rating is very positive but no one recommends it if I read the reviews. It seems that this game is not like Myst but a sterile puzzle collection without a story. Did I miss something?

abcd_f 11y ago
That's perfectly normal. If you don't like something, you are much more likely to vent than when you like it. Besides, it's a new release, so those who like it are still busy playing it.
clentaminator 11y ago
I think the default sorting for Steam reviews is by how helpful a review was. Looking through some of the positive and negative reviews, it seems like the positive reviews are fairly short and don't say much about the game, while the negative reviews are longer and the reviewers do mention what they thought did and didn't work about the game, so the longer reviews that have a negative opinion end up being the most helpful. Just telling someone you liked something isn't going to cut it for everyone. I can only guess that everyone who wanted to write a more in-depth positive review was just so keen to get back to playing the game that they cut their review short ;)
- Gigablah 11y ago
  The proportion of votes for negative vs positive reviews seem way off. I wouldn't be surprised if there was some vote brigading going on for whatever reason. Either that or people mindlessly vote for the longest review.
  - user85348905 11y ago
    Nah, it couldn't at ALL be that people simply did not find it to be all that brilliant. It simply must be either a conspiracy or the masses are idiots.
  - archagon 11y ago
    Seriously. I posted a short review about how I liked the game (with some minor reservations) and immediately got, like, 3 downvotes. Gamers these days are children.

moultano 11y ago

I'm a few hours in and have already had so many moments of pure euphoria. It is a full sensory game. It uses my whole brain. Aesthetically, intellectually, even spiritually. A quote in one of the audio logs is so exquisite that I just have to share. One nature perfect and pervading circulates in all natures One reality, all comprehensive, contains within itself all realities The one Moon reflects itself wherever there is a sheet of water And all the moons in the waters are embraced within the one moon The Dharma body [the Absolute] of all Buddhas enters into my own being And my own being is found in union with theirs The Inner Light is beyond praise and blame Like space it knows no boundaries Yet it is even here, within us, ever retaining its serenity and fullness It is only when you hunt for it that you lose it You cannot take hold of it, but equally you cannot get rid of it And while you can do neither, it goes on its own way You remain silent and it speaks, you speak and it is dumb The great gate of charity is wide open, with no obstacles before it. - Yung-Chia Ta-Shih

hbex5 11y ago

And it is wonderful. It's one of those games that manages to push buttons in your brain you never knew you had, and make you feel like a genius when something finally clicks. And it does all this without ever needing to explain anything. Jonathan Blow's enigma variations. A meandering meditation on the means by which humans gain knowledge and understanding of the world, by standing on the shoulders of a hacking minigame. Also it's gorgeous. Did I mention it's BRILLIANT?

amichail 11y ago
Isn't it like those ill-defined puzzles where you need to say what number comes next? Any number can come next.
- azzafazza 11y ago
  Pretty much this. It isn't a very good game. It's padded to kingdom come, there is a lack of motivation to keep going and no music kills any atmosphere it might potentially create.
  - clentaminator 11y ago
    Nothing rude meant by this (honestly), but if the experience of discovering the island, finding and completing the puzzles itself isn't motivating enough then perhaps it's just not the game for you? I understand your point about filler, but the puzzles are the game, and if you're enjoying them then it probably doesn't come across as filler, just more to get stuck in with (though I do wonder whether so many slight variations on a theme are required in certain areas). Hyped it may be, but that doesn't mean that you absolutely have to enjoy it at all costs. There are other games, and other developers :)
- grabcocque 11y ago
  Not even remotely.
  - amichail 11y ago

mrmondo 11y ago

Looks really very intriguing, I'm not about to install Windows to play it though - it doesn't seem there is a Mac / Linux version available?

cstuder 11y ago
Coming to iOS "in a couple of months", other platforms later. Currently Windows and PS4 only.
- Qwertious 11y ago
  Well, that certainly simplifies the "do I buy it" problem. No tux, no bux.
- galapago 11y ago
  Source?
  - cstuder 11y ago
    http://the-witness.net/news/about/ http://the-witness.net/news/about/
Narishma 11y ago
It's currently available on PS4 as well, and may come to other platforms in the future.
baddox 11y ago
It looks great and I would definitely be playing it this weekend, but Windows-only is a nonstarter. I'm rather surprised to see an indie title like this not support OS X.

Keyframe 11y ago

Premise sounds exactly like Myst.

krige 11y ago
It's quite unlike Myst actually, lacking anything resembling a story, and the interaction with environment is minimal.
- Keyframe 11y ago
  I don't know what the game is like, but I've said the premise sounds exactly like Myst. Even the video supports that. Here's a brief from the linked page: You wake up, alone, on a strange island full of puzzles that will challenge and surprise you. You don't remember who you are, and you don't remember how you got here, but there's one thing you can do: explore the island in hope of discovering clues, regaining your memory, and somehow finding your way home. The Witness is a single-player game in an open world with dozens of locations to explore and over 500 puzzles. This game respects you as an intelligent player and it treats your time as precious. There's no filler; each of those puzzles brings its own new idea into the mix. So, this is a game full of ideas. Difference in the premise being instead of your amnesia and finding about you, there's a book and you're finding about island's characters.

danso 11y ago

I've been wanting to play this ever since Casey Muratori wrote about the process of generating grass for the terrain in an eye-pleasing distribution: http://mollyrocket.com/casey/stream_0015.html http://mollyrocket.com/casey/stream_0015.html (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7692332 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7692332)

remybach 11y ago
Well there goes my afternoon.

hoorayimhelping 11y ago

>The bulk of the game feels like taking an IQ test. This is from a negative (but helpful) review of this game and it echoes exactly how I felt about playing Braid. His games feel like they're constructed so everyone will admire the genius of the creator for thinking up these kinds of interesting puzzles. And if the player ends up enjoying the game while they're admiring its creator, well that's an added benefit I guess.

eamsen 11y ago
I've tried hard to like Braid despite it being a platform game (Flashback (1992) is the only game in that genre that I've enjoyed so far). It's gorgeous, clever and polished, yet it felt pretentious to the point where it would distract from the beauty of the game. And I didn't know anything about the creator of the game before trying, so that couldn't have been personal bias (not implying that would have been the case otherwise).
- blablablame 11y ago
  I agree. I tried to play Braid many times but just couldn't get myself to play for more than a bit and switch to another game. Interesting enough, Flashback is probably one of the games I use as a reference for platform games so maybe that has something to do with it. For anyone that hasn't played Flashback, give it a go. The graphics while low res now, still look very much alive and nice to look at even on modern monitors.
- gknoy 11y ago
  I find it interesting that you felt it was pretentious. What made it feel that way to you? I ask, because I never felt like that. I felt curiosity about what the Real Plot was about, I felt challenged (and frustrated) by the puzzles, and really enjoyed the art and music style. It felt like each mechanic was introduced once I'd mastered the previous ones, and other puzzles made it worthwhile to replay things once I had already passed a level. To me, it felt like it did for Time what Portal did for space -- made me think about interactions in a new way. It didn't feel like it was trying to impress me, or wow me with the creator's brilliance (other than "this was made by one guy??") so much as make a game that made me think differently. I think its similarity to Portal is something I hadn't thought of before now, but that explains a lot about why I liked it.

fasteo 11y ago

Anyone knows the music of the first teaser ?

fasteo 11y ago
Shazam to the rescue: Zoe Keating, escape artist https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5Ufe2JtYqZI https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5Ufe2JtYqZI

Mahn 11y ago

Looks like it's getting panned in steam reviews as people play it. Very surprising.

deleted 11y ago
[deleted]
moultano 11y ago
I think it's too hard to explain what's good about the game without spoilers, so the positive reviews don't have much content.
tdsamardzhiev 11y ago
I think posting a review of a game after playing it for 1 hour is awkward. But what is more awkward is upvoting reviews of other people that played it for 1 hour.

nickpeterson 11y ago

My daughter is going to be about 4, and she loves puzzles. I was thinking about picking this up for the apple tv to play along with her. Is it conceptually too difficult for children?

minimaxir 11y ago
The Witness is not available for iOS yet.
6x9equals42 11y ago
The world is beautiful so she might enjoy playing it, but you would be doing the actual puzzle solving. It gets very challenging.
- nickpeterson 11y ago
  Thanks, I couldn't gauge from the pictures how hard it actually is.

azzafazza 11y ago

$0.15 has been deposited into your Jonathan Blow account, thank you for continuing to help us shill this game on various websites!

dang 11y ago
We've banned this account for repeatedly breaking the HN guidelines.
dang 11y ago
Comments like this will get your account banned from HN. Please (re-)read the site guidelines, and post civilly and substantively from now on, or not at all. We detached this comment from https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10987825 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10987825 and marked it off-topic.

eXpl0it3r 11y ago

And why exactly is this on Hacker News?

clentaminator 11y ago
"On-Topic: Anything that good hackers would find interesting. That includes more than hacking and startups. If you had to reduce it to a sentence, the answer might be: anything that gratifies one's intellectual curiosity." An open world puzzle game seems exactly like the kind of thing that might gratify one's intellectual curiosity. Plus it does make a nice change from reading the latest thing about React ;)
- dang 11y ago
  That, plus its creator is one of us: https://news.ycombinator.com/threads?id=jblow https://news.ycombinator.com/threads?id=jblow. Of course this belongs on HN.
minimaxir 11y ago
Honestly, I'd like to see more about gaming on Hacker News. (I've been submitting what I can, although it's hard to find good sources)
JabavuAdams 11y ago
Because it's a way more technically demanding product than the typical HN "I made this CRUD thing to disrupt yadda yadda" product?

imron 11y ago

Excellent. Now hopefully he has more time to work on his programming language :-)

myth_buster 11y ago

JBlow is featured in the documentary Indie Game[0][1] which follows the trials and tribulations of development and launch of two indie games Super Meat Boy and Fez. It's surprising how similar the whole experience is to launching a startup! [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indie_Game:_The_Movie https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indie_Game:_The_Movie [1] http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1942884/ http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1942884/

seivan 11y ago
I feel like it's hard to launch a game as an MVP. You can try it out, but actually selling it without having all the aspects of the game (sound, graphics, performance, etc) might be hard.
- j2bax 11y ago
  It seems that this is the purpose that Steam's Early Access program fulfills. Players know well that the game is unfinished, but there is still enough there to explore. Users even pay for this early access and then they provide valuable feedback to the developers. Sounds like an MVP to me!
drzaiusapelord 11y ago
That movie is really unfair to him. It more or less mocks him and paints him as this out of touch primadonna instead of focusing on his work. I feel it was very unfair to him and dramatized for the audience at his expense.
- myth_buster 11y ago
  I came out thinking that he is an idealist and I respected him for that.
hnal943 11y ago
Indie Game: The Movie is one of the best documentaries I've ever seen. The cinematography is amazing, and they tell a great story about each of the dev teams they follow. Definitely worth a watch.

AsyncAwait 11y ago

I like the potential of the game, but sadly it did not meet my expectations. I saw it as a Myst-style game, where you have puzzles, but you also have a lot of interactive environment around you to explore. Here, I was getting taken it by a lot of beautiful scenarios in the distance, only to realise that there is nothing to do there, but solve more panels. It simply feels like this beautiful island is going to waste, being a little more than a hiding place for the panels. How's everyone feeling about this?

chasing 11y ago
> How's everyone feeling about this? I'm feeling like you haven't played very far into the game. :-) And neither have I! The puzzles are definitely mostly panel-based, but the environment becomes very important to solving them. I think The Witness is quite clever, so far. It's interesting how much diversity and playfulness can come from just these simple little grid-and-line puzzles.
- danpalmer 11y ago
  I can't agree with this enough, I've found the puzzles to be a mechanism by which I can fully appreciate the truly beautiful environment.
webkike 11y ago
I agree with this. The game is at its best when the panels interact with the world in a meaningful way, but this is very rare.
on_and_off 11y ago
two hours or so into it so far, so I don't have an overview of the whole game. The puzzles so far have rarely asked for more than 10 seconds to find a solution. Navigating the island does feel like an artificial overgame at the moment. Some of the puzzles have caused changes in the 3D world but in very small ways. I guess that things are going to get more complex soon though.
- 11y ago

muraiki 11y ago

One thing to note is that some of the optional puzzles are likely to be unsolvable by colorblind and hearing impaired players: http://kotaku.com/colorblind-and-hearing-impaired-players-wont-be-able-to-1755459642 http://kotaku.com/colorblind-and-hearing-impaired-players-wo... As someone who is colorblind, I've been happy to see many games come out with options to enable filters for one or more types of colorblindness. It's disappointing that such a feature isn't present in this game.

michaelbuddy 11y ago
Send him the info. Despite the success he's still an indie dev, and maybe didn't have the resources at the outset, or just didn't get to it or know about it. but maybe it could be in an update.
- dr_zoidberg 11y ago
  From the linked article: > “We definitely thought about colorblindness but ultimately there was not much we could do in terms of the individual puzzles,” the game’s lead developer, Jonathan Blow, told me today. It's been a decision by the devs. Still, it would be nice if they updated the puzzles for those who are colorblind.
yoklov 11y ago
Yeah this is pretty unfortunate. Sadly, having played through the puzzles that involve color, it's not superficial at all. The puzzles are fundamentally about how colors work and combine. There isn't an obvious way to make a colorblind friendly version...

agentultra 11y ago

I was rather struck by this game. The puzzles are indeed clever and was immediately enamoured with the combinatoric spaces and visual appeal. Perhaps it is my experience with Go as a "conversation with hands," that drew me in to The Witness as a "conversation with the designer." I hope Jonathan feels very lucky to have made this game. It is great and I find myself envious and over-joyed that he has had the time, privilege, and skill to build it (and many thanks to the team behind it as well).

webkike 11y ago

One of the things I did not like is the sometimes incredibly obfuscated association of symbols with mechanics. For example, the panels with sun symbols. [Spoilers] It didn't take me incredibly long to figure out that they needed to be grouped in twos, but it did take me longer to figure out than to solve the first ~8 introductory panels. And the worst part, how is a star in any way connected with grouping by twos????

bendykstra 11y ago
When a new rule is introduced, the early panels can be easily solved by trial and error. However, it's a mistake to continue until you can articulate the rule. That means experimenting with a panel even if you accidentally get the correct answer on the first try. Edit: I'm reminded of this game from the New York Times from October: http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2015/07/03/upshot/a-quick-puzzle-to-test-your-problem-solving.html http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2015/07/03/upshot/a-quick...
- webkike 11y ago
  I do not mind new panels introducing concepts; what I mind is the symbols not always being clearly connected with the mechanic they introduce. For example, the black and white symbols that needed to be separated were intuitive.
  - devindotcom 11y ago
    MINOR SPOILER/HINT BELOW While I sort of agree, I must say that part of the fun of the game (and much of the challenge) is learning the 'language' of each puzzle. In the case of the little orange suns, it was like learning from scratch, one letter at a time. First panel: "Okay, I can't go between them." Second panel: "Oh, I can, but have to end up on one side... which amounts to having them in the same section. How is that different?" Third panel: "There were 4, and the only path that worked divided them? What the hell?" Fourth panel: "Oh with six I have to make them into groups of two - so maybe I have to divide them equally?" Fifth panel: "Aha, no, it's groups of two!" And now that's part of your vocabulary; you discovered it organically, not by bringing in some outside knowledge like symbols from off the island. Notice there aren't any numbers or letters? Like, anywhere? That's part of it...

jslakro 11y ago

Nice to have an indie developer exposed by HN. Sad to see there are no other cases. Blow had its relevance due to XBOX but many indies have been out there before on PC, so it sounds unfair when you think in the whole scene

JabavuAdams 11y ago
Jon Blow's probably the most famous indie developer, next to notch. Maybe more-so, among game developers. He was at the first indie game jam in 2002, I think he may have written for Game Developer magazine during the nineties, but not sure about that. I keep thinking the nineties were only a decade a away :/
chc4 11y ago
I'd hesitate to call Jon Blow an indie dev anymore, expect in the "not a AAA studio" sense. With the success of Braid and including in Indie Games the movies, he is probably one of the most well recognized game developers. The Witness has a massive budget, multiple developers, and high-end voice actors.

rwc 11y ago

Looks like Myst but without the cutting edge 1993 graphics.

no_wave 11y ago

The hype machine around this is strange - tons of superficially positive reviews but without a whole lot of passion behind them. Does anyone else smell something off about the response to the game so far? Have people convinced themselves that this is a great game before they started enjoying it?

s_kilk 11y ago
> Have people convinced themselves that this is a great game before they started enjoying it? Quite possibly. While it is an excellent game, the hype train has been rolling for so long that by this point it can't be seen as anything less than excellent. See also the review cycle around the similarly hyped and long-awaited "That Dragon, Cancer".
swah 11y ago
I think that is normal - Jon Blow has a big online presence, lots of fans due to Braid... I upvote edw519 before I finish reading his comments all the time...
hibikir 11y ago
It's just very difficult to explain what is so good about the game without spoiling the heck out of it, and since a big part of the experience is discovery, people that really like the game will hate do not want to spoil it for new players. I play puzzle hunts, and have played a whole lot of puzzle based games over the years. I do not like Braid that much. However, I think The Witness is, gameplay wise, better than Portal, Talos Principle, Myst, 7th Guest or anything from the Professor Layton series. The puzzles get to be very hard, but they never felt unfair. If anything, the negative reviews come from how the very beginning of the game starts too slowly, making sure you understand a little piece of the game, when, in practice, there's a whole lot more to it. The tutorial area is simple and generic, on purpose. Right afterwards, you get to an area that is just confusing, with puzzles you really shouldn't even attempt. Go anywhere else though, and the real game opens up, and it's wonderful.
saluk 11y ago
I don't know what you are seeing, I'm passionate about it. There are really only one or two puzzle games of this caliber every year, if that, and for me this is the best one in many years. The superficial similarity of the puzzle design to some popular iphone games, combined with a higher price than indie games typically have, seems to be putting people off. It's also a very simple game. There isn't a lot someone who likes it can say about it without spoiling anything. There are puzzles. They are good. The island is also a puzzle. It is fun to solve puzzles. Yeah, I can't really go on that way for very long, can I.

ericfrederich 11y ago

Nothing but bad reviews on the link provided. Wow.

oilywater 11y ago

This game is the perfect tool for testing your problem solving skills. It puts you in a new framework and tests your cognition. Portal, The Talos Principle, all have the same goal. I wonder if people could become excellent problem solver by playing these games instead of honing the skills in the mathematics, physics or similar frameworks.

agentultra 11y ago
You may begin to realize that you are doing maths without realizing it. Thinking mathematically is quite natural for a curious, motivated person. It's writing down these thoughts which people find difficult. It's not easy for us to be precise! It could augment your skills in mathematics. Most people are much better than they think they are or are given credit for. I gave my niece the game, Set, over the holidays. She was able to beat adult players after a few rounds. Similar experiences with http://dragonbox.com http://dragonbox.com as well.
- oilywater 11y ago
  I believe it is called problem solving, not math. Mathematics is a framework for problem solving which requires problem solving skills and knowledge of mathematics. I believe anyone using a piece of paper and writing down their thinking is doing problem solving on problems that are presented in the game. Yes, it is probably equivalent to some algorithms present in computer science but they are (if not familiar) discovering everything by themselves. The game provides the framework for problem solving, so instead of having knowledge of math/algorithms, you build that knowledge yourself and improve your problem solving skills as you go. The way math is commonly taught seems to be knowledge oriented - which leaves a lot of people completely stuck when it comes to problem solving. That's why I'm interested if you could, playing these games, improve your general problem solving skills, so that only thing you have to do, when you start with a different framework, is to get the knowledge - but your thinking previously trained without it and it should work now when you're familiar with the framework. At least that is what I would expect form a general problem solver that got one's skills by solving problems in maths, or physics. I would assume that they could solve problems in other areas if they knew the terminology, if they acquired knowledge.

autoreleasepool 11y ago

How far along is he with implementing his game dev language, Jai? I haven't kept up, but I was interested in his early demonstrations.

topspin 11y ago
He's still doing live coding sessions on Twitch. Nothing has been released yet. Despite that there is already at least one comprehensive Jai language tutorial that I've seen and also syntax highlighting rules for at least one editor.

lobster_johnson 11y ago

Congratulations to Jonathan Blow on finishing his game — I was afraid that he would never be done. I look forward to playing it, and I hope it sells well. For entirely selfish reasons, I'm now really hoping this release means he now has some breathing room to spend more time on developing his programming language, Jai.

wnevets 11y ago

$40 is a bit too steep for me. I'll wait till a steam sale.

seanp2k2 11y ago

Titles like this could be amazing with VR. Can't wait until Rift + Vive finally start shipping :)

teekert 11y ago

Wow, back in the day I loved Atlantis the lost tales [0], this definitely has that feel. I would have bought it already if I had more than just Linux at my disposal... With the Steambox/machine now in production I thought the divide windows/Linux was shrinking rapidly. I'm not at all a gamer though. [0] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JYlzsZcuVkY https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JYlzsZcuVkY

eridius 11y ago
Any consoles? It's on PS4 too, and while I haven't checked I'd guess it's on Xbox One.
- teekert 11y ago
  Yes, but PS4 only.
  - eridius 11y ago
    Huh, you're right. I'm a bit surprised that a Windows game with a console version would be PS4-exclusive.

Eric_WVGG 11y ago

There’s been a lot of coverage about the puzzles and ingenuity of the gameplay, but equal attention should be given to the amazing artistic style of the game. a couple of blog posts about the making of the trees: http://the-witness.net/news/2013/06/2157/ http://the-witness.net/news/2013/06/2157/ http://the-witness.net/news/2011/06/witness-trees/ http://the-witness.net/news/2011/06/witness-trees/ I’d love to see more videogames step away from uncanny-valley and ill-advised attempts at photorealism and instead embrace unique artistic style.

LesZedCB 11y ago
That's been really big for Oculus games from what I can tell. It has the added benefit of being faster to render, allowing for a GTX970 (the minimum spec card for oculus) to be able to drive games at the required speed. Lucky's Tale[1] is a good example of this. [1] http://playfulcorp.com/ http://playfulcorp.com/

archagon 11y ago

(SPOILERS, obviously. Mostly surface-level.) I absolutely love the game, but for the sake of discussion, I have to admit that I'm slightly disappointed by the puzzle-paneliness of it all. I didn't read many spoilers over the 8 years of its development, but Jonathan Blow always made a point to emphasize the epiphany-based nature of the game. I took this to mean that as you gain knowledge from the panels, you slowly begin to understand how to use them to engage in more interesting ways with the world. Instead, the opposite is true: the world simply provides different kinds of masks to solve the puzzles with. In other words, the panels are still the beating heart of the game, while the world is mostly static. To me, this goes against what I like most in games. I find that one of the primary advantages of this interactive medium is the ability to solve puzzles by intuition. Braid was particularly good at this: instead of having to stand in front of a challenge and reason it out in your mind, you could dive right in and play around with the mechanics until your mind took on the solution all on its own. Over time, you acquired a feeling of natural mastery over these new elements. The Witness does not feel like this; more often than not, you have to logic out the puzzles in your head or on paper, and it never feels as good as using the game world to interactively solve a problem. (Yes, I'm aware of the obelisk puzzles, but it seems they still follow more or less the same formula. But I haven't gotten very far in that direction, so we'll see.) The game also makes me think about the problem of hidden knowledge in open-world games. Most metroidvania-style games gate the player with keys or abilities, but a few are starting to add paths that are closed solely based on the player's knowledge. One of the first games I remember doing this is Super Metroid: the wall jump and high jump allowed you to get to a lot more places, but they were nearly impossible to discover without the bird helpers. Fez did this with its Tetris language. La-Mulana did it with its obscure inscriptions. And The Witness does it with the ruleset of its various puzzles -- more completely than any other game before it. Still, I wonder if there's a better way to stash away that kind of knowledge. The puzzle panels are a bit too abstract for my tastes. I'd love to see a game where the hidden knowledge you find is entirely ability-based, but not obscure like in Super Metroid. Again, The Witness is a masterpiece and one of the few games I'd gladly call art. It would be worth $40 just for the opportunity walk around the incredibly beautiful world. Just some food for game design thought! :)

joshschreuder 11y ago

kevinSuttle 11y ago

Love the music. Can't wait for the soundtrack to be released.

iandanforth 11y ago

I was going to buy this game until I read the steam reviews. If you're considering this purchase I highly recommend reading the top-rated helpful reviews. They changed my mind, they might change yours. TLDR for the reviews - Only buy this if you like puzzles for individual puzzle's sake, not as means to unlocking a larger story.

taloft 11y ago
Fascinating, but honestly you shouldn't be warning people off a game you haven't even played based on hearsay.
- iandanforth 11y ago
  Hrm, I appreciate your point. Personally I like reading comments that challenge hype, but if second hand hearsay carries no weight for you, or you find it offensive in some way, please ignore my original comment and accept my apologies for wasting your time.

gravypod 11y ago

Is this the game he wrote in his new programming language?

Narishma 11y ago
No. It's written in C++.
- gravypod 11y ago
  Has he given any hint when we will see him using his programming language in the real world?

sandworm101 11y ago

So it's basically Myst but without the story?

darklajid 11y ago

I've gotta be honest. I have no idea who Jonathan Blow is. I checked the Steam Store page and it seems .. to be not my thing. That said, I recently found, bought and played 'Pony Island' (if you don't know what that is: Do NOT watch videos. Think '6th Sense' - you'll ruin the game). That wouldn't have caught my eye based on random videos/screenshots either and it's right now my 'best game ever'. Can someone explain why 'The Witness' is interesting? Why would it trend here? What's the relation between HN and Jonathan or this game?

simoncion 11y ago
> I checked the Steam Store page and it seems .. to be not my thing. ... Can someone explain why 'The Witness' is interesting? If it's truly not your thing, then you won't understand why it's interesting. If it is your thing, then it's very, very, very interesting. ROT13'd probably-spoiler-free-but-maybe-contains-tiny-spoilers overview of what makes the game good follows: Gur Jvgarff vf n chmmyr tnzr. Gur chmmyrf enatr va qvssvphygl sebz gevivny gb irel engure uneq. Vg vf fvzvyne va fcvevg gb Zlfg, ohg abg ng nyy gur fnzr nf Zlfg. Gur neg naq fbhaq vf tbetrbhf. Gur tnzr'f cnpvat vf ernyyl tbbq.

aaronsnoswell 11y ago

I have two questions that the steam page didn't answer; Can I play this in VR, and if not, why not? Jonathan Blow is a master artisan - I can't wait to try this game.

saluk 11y ago
You kind of can with a hack, but it's not a comfortable experience. The game was not really developed with VR in mind, though the team experimented with VR support.

highCs 11y ago

Someone knows who the art director is?

ryan-allen 11y ago

It's awesome. Someone please nuke the spoilers!

nod 11y ago

Is this an heir to Myst?

gtkspert 11y ago

This looks awesome

robohamburger 11y ago

This game is indeed great! Push the envelope forward for puzzle games and games in general. The game feels pretty heavy with potential like there are layers I am not even seeing yet and I am 10 hours in! Some what spoilery I made a solver for one of its puzzles: https://gist.github.com/robo-hamburger/2269ef76603263ce1061 https://gist.github.com/robo-hamburger/2269ef76603263ce1061 Amusingly I ended up not really needing it but fun to code.

mempko 11y ago

MIST for a newer generation! I'm surprised nobody else mentioned MIST here.

programmarchy 11y ago

Would love to play this... on my Mac. :/ There's rumors of an iOS version in the future.

phodo 11y ago

Here is a Jonathan Blow interview on The Witness. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6OV2rYM6mRo https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6OV2rYM6mRo