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Interested to play this but I think the trailer does it a huge disservice. Just a barrage of voice clips and no real structure to it. I think it would help the

Interested to play this but I think the trailer does it a huge disservice. Just a barrage of voice clips and no real structure to it. I think it would help the game a lot if they replace that trailer ASAP

jsheard 10mo ago
Yeah it's a real step backwards from how The Witness was presented: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ul7kNFD6noU https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ul7kNFD6noU This looks to be the first of Jon Blows games to put writing front and center, so I wonder if the clunkiness goes beyond the trailer. That's not really his forte.
- klausa 10mo ago
  Would you not consider Braid to have put writing front and center?
  - hyperbolablabla 10mo ago
    The writing of Braid wasn't fantastic imo. But the game really spoke for itself.
  - kibwen 10mo ago
    It's been about 15 years since I played it, but I recall the writing in Braid being memorably shallow, clumsy, and pretentious (with the grand twist at the end being that they guy who spent the whole game acting like a clingy stalker was actually a clingy stalker this whole time).
    - klausa 10mo ago
      I very deliberately did not say anything about my opinion about the quality of writing in Braid (and I think replaying it again wouldn’t do it any favors) ;) But I do think that the writing was fairly central to the intended experience and design of the game.
    - klik99 10mo ago
      The actual story wasn’t anything special, but I thought how it told the story through mechanics was really well done. It wasn’t the first to do that but did it a larger scope than anything else at the time.
    - entropicdrifter 10mo ago
      That wasn't the real twist, the real twist is that it was all an allegory for the Manhattan Project
  - jsheard 10mo ago
    Not really, the writing is sectioned away from the gameplay and easy to skip over unread without missing anything relevant to the main event, the puzzles. It's not good but its unobtrusiveness made it easy to forgive. Judging from this trailer the characters will be yapping to themselves and each other during gameplay though, so it had better be well executed, especially if they end up talking a lot.
- AceJohnny2 10mo ago
  Huh, featuring "Escape Artist" by Zoe Keating, I wonderful choice. I forgot about that.
- 0x1ceb00da 10mo ago
  I think release trailers and announcement trailers are different things. This is what came up when I searched for announcement trailer of witness. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=amR6LmU6bzg https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=amR6LmU6bzg
enqk 10mo ago
I think there’s way less people willing to work with him in 2025 than when the witness was in development
- IshKebab 10mo ago
  Why?
  - TwitBar 10mo ago
    Leans center-right. Candid. Publicly supported Trump. Other stuff that just makes him a normal person circa 90s but really turns some people off in 2025.
stephc_int13 10mo ago
I agree, a trailer should focus on emotional reaction, not a simple display of features or quirkiness (1400 puzzles,10 years of dev). Besides, the voices and writing are generic and maybe even AI generated. The witness had a really good promotion canpaign beautiful and intriguing.
- sunrunner 10mo ago
  > not a simple display of features or quirkiness (1400 puzzles, 10 years of dev) I think a 'number of features' metric can work but only for players that already know and like your game, where an expansion with 'Five exciting new areas' is understood as something that they'd enjoy, and I agree it feels odd for a new IP. Similarly, saying how many years it took isn't remotely a selling point for a new player. If you'd been following the development process then you probably wouldn't care, and if you hadn't you also probably wouldn't care. It does seem awkward to have to design a trailer for a pure puzzle game, something that essentially relies on things going on inside a player's mind for fun, which by definition won't be visible. Baba Is You did have something you can show potential players, but I'm not sure there's a trailer that could convey The Witness' 'Oh, I wonder if I can...' moment as it's a very internal experience that comes from playing enough to get to that point. The Witness was, however, visually beautiful (IMO) and its symbol-based language let the trailer keep an element of mystery and intrigue. Order of the Sinking Star, while potentially also a fantastic puzzle game, seems to not be able to hide anything by nature of it being very clearly a Sokoban-like. Even if there are as-yet-unseen depths to how it treats the Sokoban format, the trailer needs something to work with, and while I think it also looks lovely it perhaps doesn't have the The Witness visual appeal or mystery to draw people in.
- johnnyanmac 10mo ago
  I guess the idea is that Blow has a built-in audience and is appealing to them. "1400 puzzles from the maker of Braid/Witness? Wow!"
- groundzeros2015 10mo ago
  Blow falls into a classic engineering mistake of marketing the challenge or effort to make something (audio logs everywhere) and not the end experience. Note that when masters like Steve Jobs do it, they mention it very quickly, or they mention the ideals of craftsmen ship, rather than the actual process.
deleted 10mo ago
[deleted]
dcre 10mo ago
Agree, surprisingly weak trailer considering how good the game is likely to be.
geophph 10mo ago
When I saw the trailer in my YouTube feed I immediately thought it was an ad for those trash mobile games. Watching it didn’t really change my opinion either. I don’t actually want that to come across in a disparaging way - but it was just the vibes it gave off.
zeroq 10mo ago
I'm not sure that's entirely true. I'm getting "bring your adventure" vibe, similar to The Witness. Take Thomas Was Alone for example - seemingly simple platform puzzle game with deep and engaging story where you're more interested about characters than new mechanics and puzzles. In contrast The Witness could be scraped to core puzzles and released as an iPad game for $5.99, but the whimsical island and scattered pseudo intellectual voice clips make it so much more giving you opportunity to pause and think about life. This seems very similar. A sokoban puzzle game with an entirely optional plot line that leaves a lot for interpretation by the player.
spicyusername 10mo ago
He mentioned in a recent interview the trailer ended up getting rushed due to complexities working with the companies who edited it and the conference timeline, and that he is also somewhat unhappy with it.

jsheard 10mo ago

Yeah it's a real step backwards from how The Witness was presented: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ul7kNFD6noU https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ul7kNFD6noU This looks to be the first of Jon Blows games to put writing front and center, so I wonder if the clunkiness goes beyond the trailer. That's not really his forte.

klausa 10mo ago
Would you not consider Braid to have put writing front and center?
- hyperbolablabla 10mo ago
  The writing of Braid wasn't fantastic imo. But the game really spoke for itself.
- kibwen 10mo ago
  It's been about 15 years since I played it, but I recall the writing in Braid being memorably shallow, clumsy, and pretentious (with the grand twist at the end being that they guy who spent the whole game acting like a clingy stalker was actually a clingy stalker this whole time).
  - klausa 10mo ago
    I very deliberately did not say anything about my opinion about the quality of writing in Braid (and I think replaying it again wouldn’t do it any favors) ;) But I do think that the writing was fairly central to the intended experience and design of the game.
  - klik99 10mo ago
    The actual story wasn’t anything special, but I thought how it told the story through mechanics was really well done. It wasn’t the first to do that but did it a larger scope than anything else at the time.
  - entropicdrifter 10mo ago
    That wasn't the real twist, the real twist is that it was all an allegory for the Manhattan Project
- jsheard 10mo ago
  Not really, the writing is sectioned away from the gameplay and easy to skip over unread without missing anything relevant to the main event, the puzzles. It's not good but its unobtrusiveness made it easy to forgive. Judging from this trailer the characters will be yapping to themselves and each other during gameplay though, so it had better be well executed, especially if they end up talking a lot.
AceJohnny2 10mo ago
Huh, featuring "Escape Artist" by Zoe Keating, I wonderful choice. I forgot about that.
0x1ceb00da 10mo ago
I think release trailers and announcement trailers are different things. This is what came up when I searched for announcement trailer of witness. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=amR6LmU6bzg https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=amR6LmU6bzg

enqk 10mo ago

I think there’s way less people willing to work with him in 2025 than when the witness was in development

IshKebab 10mo ago
Why?
- TwitBar 10mo ago
  Leans center-right. Candid. Publicly supported Trump. Other stuff that just makes him a normal person circa 90s but really turns some people off in 2025.

stephc_int13 10mo ago

I agree, a trailer should focus on emotional reaction, not a simple display of features or quirkiness (1400 puzzles,10 years of dev). Besides, the voices and writing are generic and maybe even AI generated. The witness had a really good promotion canpaign beautiful and intriguing.

sunrunner 10mo ago
> not a simple display of features or quirkiness (1400 puzzles, 10 years of dev) I think a 'number of features' metric can work but only for players that already know and like your game, where an expansion with 'Five exciting new areas' is understood as something that they'd enjoy, and I agree it feels odd for a new IP. Similarly, saying how many years it took isn't remotely a selling point for a new player. If you'd been following the development process then you probably wouldn't care, and if you hadn't you also probably wouldn't care. It does seem awkward to have to design a trailer for a pure puzzle game, something that essentially relies on things going on inside a player's mind for fun, which by definition won't be visible. Baba Is You did have something you can show potential players, but I'm not sure there's a trailer that could convey The Witness' 'Oh, I wonder if I can...' moment as it's a very internal experience that comes from playing enough to get to that point. The Witness was, however, visually beautiful (IMO) and its symbol-based language let the trailer keep an element of mystery and intrigue. Order of the Sinking Star, while potentially also a fantastic puzzle game, seems to not be able to hide anything by nature of it being very clearly a Sokoban-like. Even if there are as-yet-unseen depths to how it treats the Sokoban format, the trailer needs something to work with, and while I think it also looks lovely it perhaps doesn't have the The Witness visual appeal or mystery to draw people in.
johnnyanmac 10mo ago
I guess the idea is that Blow has a built-in audience and is appealing to them. "1400 puzzles from the maker of Braid/Witness? Wow!"
groundzeros2015 10mo ago
Blow falls into a classic engineering mistake of marketing the challenge or effort to make something (audio logs everywhere) and not the end experience. Note that when masters like Steve Jobs do it, they mention it very quickly, or they mention the ideals of craftsmen ship, rather than the actual process.

deleted 10mo ago

[deleted]

dcre 10mo ago

Agree, surprisingly weak trailer considering how good the game is likely to be.

geophph 10mo ago

When I saw the trailer in my YouTube feed I immediately thought it was an ad for those trash mobile games. Watching it didn’t really change my opinion either. I don’t actually want that to come across in a disparaging way - but it was just the vibes it gave off.

zeroq 10mo ago

I'm not sure that's entirely true. I'm getting "bring your adventure" vibe, similar to The Witness. Take Thomas Was Alone for example - seemingly simple platform puzzle game with deep and engaging story where you're more interested about characters than new mechanics and puzzles. In contrast The Witness could be scraped to core puzzles and released as an iPad game for $5.99, but the whimsical island and scattered pseudo intellectual voice clips make it so much more giving you opportunity to pause and think about life. This seems very similar. A sokoban puzzle game with an entirely optional plot line that leaves a lot for interpretation by the player.

spicyusername 10mo ago

He mentioned in a recent interview the trailer ended up getting rushed due to complexities working with the companies who edited it and the conference timeline, and that he is also somewhat unhappy with it.