Relaxing atmosphere, cool puzzles
I think if you threw someone into Taiji who had never in their life played The Witness or heard of it, they would find it frustrating and boring. Conversely, if you have played The Witness, you'll spend your entire playtime wishing it was a better game.
The difference is where The Witness had very simple rules to all its puzzles, it held both a deceptively hidden secret game under its hood and layered its puzzles together for its more complex puzzles. It's not a spoiler to say that stars work by grouping two together in The Witness. Taiji, on the other hand, is only challenging in that figuring out the esoteric rules of its puzzle symbols is mind numbingly frustrating. Every puzzle type in Taiji has like 2 or 3 different rulesets that can change on a dime and you're just expected to interpret without any explanation. There were entire segments that I completed without knowing entirely how the puzzles actually worked. The entire art museum section is half reasonable and fun puzzles and half nonsense that, even after finding the solution, left me completely dumbfounded.
I think there are a lot more ways to criticize Taiji but worst thing it does is that it gives Johnathan Blow credit by comparison.
The difference is where The Witness had very simple rules to all its puzzles, it held both a deceptively hidden secret game under its hood and layered its puzzles together for its more complex puzzles. It's not a spoiler to say that stars work by grouping two together in The Witness. Taiji, on the other hand, is only challenging in that figuring out the esoteric rules of its puzzle symbols is mind numbingly frustrating. Every puzzle type in Taiji has like 2 or 3 different rulesets that can change on a dime and you're just expected to interpret without any explanation. There were entire segments that I completed without knowing entirely how the puzzles actually worked. The entire art museum section is half reasonable and fun puzzles and half nonsense that, even after finding the solution, left me completely dumbfounded.
I think there are a lot more ways to criticize Taiji but worst thing it does is that it gives Johnathan Blow credit by comparison.
Enjoyed it to start with but the 'teach as you solve' didn't quite play out thanks to jumps in logic within puzzle sets and a few too many cases of overly complex rules.
I appreciate it trying to evoke The Witness (a great game with a shitty creator) but it being top down meant that the open area didn't live up to its potential, as you're unable to be guided by natural landmarks or structures to the best place to solve/learn the mechanics.
On the positive side, I did like the mansion location which acts as an exam of the rules you've learned combined with art pieces and the environment, and the art style itself never felt like a hindrance to legibility. It also sounds silly but the water sounds were really relaxing when you're standing next to a waterfall trying to work out how flowers or diamonds are meant to work.
Ended up completing 6 of the main sections with some optional puzzles - I might come back to this in the future but my attention span waned pretty fast.
I appreciate it trying to evoke The Witness (a great game with a shitty creator) but it being top down meant that the open area didn't live up to its potential, as you're unable to be guided by natural landmarks or structures to the best place to solve/learn the mechanics.
On the positive side, I did like the mansion location which acts as an exam of the rules you've learned combined with art pieces and the environment, and the art style itself never felt like a hindrance to legibility. It also sounds silly but the water sounds were really relaxing when you're standing next to a waterfall trying to work out how flowers or diamonds are meant to work.
Ended up completing 6 of the main sections with some optional puzzles - I might come back to this in the future but my attention span waned pretty fast.
Demasiado caótico tal vez, pero ayuda con ese huequito que deja The Witness.
Jonathan Blow eres un tonto.
Jonathan Blow eres un tonto.
I am thoroughly baffled at the amateurish puzzle design, map and general lack of polish on this title. It could have been pretty good since the puzzle design is pretty good sometimes but this is sorely missing a TON of polish
I have not 100% finished it but I'm done with 7/9 "worlds" and the "ending". While a fair few puzzles are intriguing and genuine thinkers, the variance between "baby block easy" and "what is even going on" is wild and unhinged. There's whole areas dedicated to childish, incredibly straightforward puzzles that barely take any time (ruins, graveyard and orchard). But then some areas have some true head scratchers (garden and half of mansion) and you're left wondering where the balance is in all this. I also found it incredibly annoying to get around the world. There's no permanent map so many times I just run in random directions with a vague idea of where to go. The placement of the teleport stones is utterly baffling and none, save one, are situated inside the puzzle areas they're supposed to represent with most of them being either just outside the area or in some arcane location that you have to dig yourself out of every time you go there making the fast travel system utterly pointless. The map being the way it is also means that you will end up at the very end of a puzzle sequence without any preamble as to how to solve it which means you will have to go out of your way to find the "teaching" moment that tells you what the puzzle even means.
The puzzles are pretty fun in some of the areas (mine, mill and the shrine) which saves it for me. The game is also mercifully short and the whole map is pretty small so even if you're lost, going from one end to the other barely takes a minute which is a saving grace. While I don't feel I wasted my time, I don't think this was particularly good.
I have not 100% finished it but I'm done with 7/9 "worlds" and the "ending". While a fair few puzzles are intriguing and genuine thinkers, the variance between "baby block easy" and "what is even going on" is wild and unhinged. There's whole areas dedicated to childish, incredibly straightforward puzzles that barely take any time (ruins, graveyard and orchard). But then some areas have some true head scratchers (garden and half of mansion) and you're left wondering where the balance is in all this. I also found it incredibly annoying to get around the world. There's no permanent map so many times I just run in random directions with a vague idea of where to go. The placement of the teleport stones is utterly baffling and none, save one, are situated inside the puzzle areas they're supposed to represent with most of them being either just outside the area or in some arcane location that you have to dig yourself out of every time you go there making the fast travel system utterly pointless. The map being the way it is also means that you will end up at the very end of a puzzle sequence without any preamble as to how to solve it which means you will have to go out of your way to find the "teaching" moment that tells you what the puzzle even means.
The puzzles are pretty fun in some of the areas (mine, mill and the shrine) which saves it for me. The game is also mercifully short and the whole map is pretty small so even if you're lost, going from one end to the other barely takes a minute which is a saving grace. While I don't feel I wasted my time, I don't think this was particularly good.
Fun and challenging puzzle game. Has some fun mechanics and well thought out puzzles. Some of the puzzles can be pretty opaque, which makes it particularly hard if you stop and try to return later.
Good if you love puzzles, but the game has "The Witness problem", thinking that hiding things in the environment and poorly defining mechanics is fun
Most of the puzzle ideas are novel and fun. Excellent take on a Witness-like.
dares to ask the dangerous question of: what if the witness was made by a well adjusted individual
A Witness-inspired puzzler with a cool and mysterious open world that's filled with flat-panel, 2D puzzles. Taiji has little in the way of tutorials and explanations, and instead the gameplay is about not only solving puzzles by creating black and white patterns on grids - but also by inferring the very rules of the puzzle's you're solving. It's a clever idea (just as it was in The Witness) and its executed well, with a good range of neat concepts across the game's 9 regions.
Pretty fun puzzle game, if lacking obvious substance beyond puzzles. Despite my love for The Witness, this one is a bit too imitative without the same kind of auteur flourish that JB brings to his works. Overall difficulty is quite approachable for this one but there were a good number of manageable noggin busters, and the tutorial panels lead you well to understand each mechanic, so if you want a ~10-15 hour narrative free (but visually distinct and lovely) puzzle experience, this one isn't so bad.
The Witness if Jon Blow had Alzheimer's.
this rocks but some of the puzzles feel like a bit of a stretch
cool I never have to use the witness as an example of good puzzle design anymore cuz this exists and does the same thing except isn't made by a right winged asshole
Neat PS1 demake of The Witness. Lacking an identity of its own but still serves up a few stunning puzzles. I especially liked the gallery and the normal ending.
A stupid need to follow playthroughs had me watching the entirety of this game before thinking whether I would've liked to play it myself.
Taiji is a puzzle game that features a variety of different grid puzzles - mostly. It gradually iterates on a given idea and then combines it with other puzzle elements. If you like The Witness this draws a lot of inspirations it seems.
While the game started out simple enough, some of the puzzle mechanics were obtuse and it expects you to infer how the puzzles work through experimenting with trial and error combined with visual clues in the artwork of the world surrounding them. This worked a few times early on but it didn't take long before I got stuck. I found myself just deferring to guides to understand the mechanics which turns out to be surprisingly intricate.
In spite of that I did enjoy the game once I knew how things worked. There's some genuinely fun puzzle design and interesting layering. I got through 7 of the 9 areas before I grew tired of the ever growing complexity and overlap of puzzle mechanics. A solid effort, but lacking polish.
While the game started out simple enough, some of the puzzle mechanics were obtuse and it expects you to infer how the puzzles work through experimenting with trial and error combined with visual clues in the artwork of the world surrounding them. This worked a few times early on but it didn't take long before I got stuck. I found myself just deferring to guides to understand the mechanics which turns out to be surprisingly intricate.
In spite of that I did enjoy the game once I knew how things worked. There's some genuinely fun puzzle design and interesting layering. I got through 7 of the 9 areas before I grew tired of the ever growing complexity and overlap of puzzle mechanics. A solid effort, but lacking polish.
Fills the hole left by The Witness.
A creatively conceived puzzle game with solid pixel graphics and a pleasant soundtrack, but I found it difficult to not compare it pretty negatively to The Witness (seemingly it’s main inspiration). In many ways, it feels like a 2D homage to that game, but lacking the breadth and richness of that game’s puzzles, or its spectacular art. I also found Taiji’s more challenging puzzles to trend towards tedious and repetitive than The Witness’s brilliant moments of epiphany. Similarly, Taiji’s more thinking-outside-the-box puzzles often don’t offer much new beyond their inspiration. That all sounds more negative than my overall experience, and I loved Taiji for the first several hours, but its late game was largely a slog and soured my lasting impression a bit.
Taiji hat sich die Messlatte ganz schön hoch gelegt, denn als "Pixel The Witness" tritt es in große Fußstapfen. Für mich persönlich ist The Witness eines der besten und schönsten Rätselspiele aller Zeiten. Taiji konnte eigentlich nur verlieren und im schlimmsten Fall als eine dreiste Kopie eines großartigen Spiels enden.
So ist es aber nicht gekommen. Taiji hat einen schönen Pixel-Stil und einen bezaubernden Zen-artigen Soundtrack. Die Rätsel sind interessant und teilweise sehr knackig, auch wenn man sich die parallelen zu Ideen aus The Witness gefallen lassen muss. Auch der Umfang war für mich persönlich deutlich höher als erwartet, allerdings habe ich hier auch die 100 % voll gemacht.
Nur die Magie von "dem Moment" in The Witness konnte Taiji nicht erzeugen. Trotzdem würde ich es aber jeder Person empfehlen, die The Witness mochte und einfach mehr von dieser Art Spiel/Rätsel möchte. Ich habe die Zeit mit Taiji sehr genossen und es kann meines Erachtens nach voller Stolz neben The Witness stehen. Gute Arbeit.
So ist es aber nicht gekommen. Taiji hat einen schönen Pixel-Stil und einen bezaubernden Zen-artigen Soundtrack. Die Rätsel sind interessant und teilweise sehr knackig, auch wenn man sich die parallelen zu Ideen aus The Witness gefallen lassen muss. Auch der Umfang war für mich persönlich deutlich höher als erwartet, allerdings habe ich hier auch die 100 % voll gemacht.
Nur die Magie von "dem Moment" in The Witness konnte Taiji nicht erzeugen. Trotzdem würde ich es aber jeder Person empfehlen, die The Witness mochte und einfach mehr von dieser Art Spiel/Rätsel möchte. Ich habe die Zeit mit Taiji sehr genossen und es kann meines Erachtens nach voller Stolz neben The Witness stehen. Gute Arbeit.
An incredible puzzle game that everyone who likes puzzles should play!
This review contains spoilers
Such a treat for fans of Witness's puzzle mechanics, felt like a 2D addendum to the game, with such lovely spritework and a zen atmosphere. The finale (Black ending) was spectacular, I wouldn't have minded even more of those types of puzzles.
Spoiler for White achievement:
The White (meta) puzzles were... mostly good. The orchard one is by far my favorite, and the ruins one was neat to spot, too. I think there were some flaws with the other ones, but the Mill one is pretty bad!
While I spotted the solar panels in the Mill matching the shape of the meta puzzle, I could not find anything on them and was a bit lost. When I finally looked up the answer and saw it involved something similar to the desert puzzles in the Witness, I was excited to see the tiles light up in the right spots, but I struggled to even make them out. It's a bit awkward to get different viewpoints of the panels and even when I did, the shading differences were so subtle I don't think I ever would have noticed them. Surprised this wasn't called out by any playtesters in development, it really stood out as bad design in a game packed with such careful attention to it otherwise.
Edit: It has been reported to me that you can simply walk onto the roof. How did I complete this game again
Spoiler for White achievement:
The White (meta) puzzles were... mostly good. The orchard one is by far my favorite, and the ruins one was neat to spot, too. I think there were some flaws with the other ones, but the Mill one is pretty bad!
While I spotted the solar panels in the Mill matching the shape of the meta puzzle, I could not find anything on them and was a bit lost. When I finally looked up the answer and saw it involved something similar to the desert puzzles in the Witness, I was excited to see the tiles light up in the right spots, but I struggled to even make them out. It's a bit awkward to get different viewpoints of the panels and even when I did, the shading differences were so subtle I don't think I ever would have noticed them. Surprised this wasn't called out by any playtesters in development, it really stood out as bad design in a game packed with such careful attention to it otherwise.
Edit: It has been reported to me that you can simply walk onto the roof. How did I complete this game again
Taiji is a pixel-art open world puzzle game which may as well be the spiritual successor to Jonathan Blow's masterwork The Witness. Similar to that game's gargantuan set of maze panels and tricky environmental solves, Taiji uses a foundation of powered tiles to create a path towards solutions. Through the game's open design, you can explore one of 9 areas in any order to learn different ways to use the tiles to solve problems. The game teaches you without explaining verbally, so it's up to you to deduce what certain symbols and mechanics mean, and how they factor into the devious obstacles blocking your path forward.
Overall, Taiji is a smaller, denser game than the Witness, but it requires a sharper logical skillset, and asks its players to fill in more of the blanks between rulesets. Unapologetically, the game makes more sense if you've played its inspiration. The game's structure and even general world design shares identical DNA, but carves out its own flavors in some of the game's more interesting sections. While certain ideas were really a joy to solve through, others left a lot to be desired. Many of the harder puzzles, through its nonverbal tutorialization, tend to jump the shark with the ruleset, leading to frustrating trial and error and potentially brute forcing. Some puzzles I eventually figured out the answers to, but there are still some puzzles I have no clue why the answer is what it was. The game so clearly understands how to trick you, and rewards players for being perceptive and trying new ideas, but these problematic areas (the Mill and the Gallery) tend to dissuade the satisfaction of the solve, which is what The Witness was all about.
That said, the game is quite enjoyable. Its visual landscape bears a strong Japanese influence and the light addition of ambient music is a great touch while you sit in stupor in front of the more than 400 total puzzles in the game. The game is open-ended, so if you are stuck in one area, you can try your hand somewhere else. The island is also relatively small, meaning you can zip to where you need to go in under 2 minutes. There are some excellent visual cues here, and the best puzzles are the ones that really make use of a combination of the world, logic, and knowledge of the game's mechanics.
Both of Taiji's endgame states are equally enjoyable and are fairly challenging compared to the stuff that precedes it. Fans of the Witness will really want to see everything this game has to offer, poking at its seems and finding every panel you can. It has its questionable solutions, and some areas are better than others, but Taiji is a beautifully styled puzzle game that nails the passion of solving unique mind-teasers.
Overall, Taiji is a smaller, denser game than the Witness, but it requires a sharper logical skillset, and asks its players to fill in more of the blanks between rulesets. Unapologetically, the game makes more sense if you've played its inspiration. The game's structure and even general world design shares identical DNA, but carves out its own flavors in some of the game's more interesting sections. While certain ideas were really a joy to solve through, others left a lot to be desired. Many of the harder puzzles, through its nonverbal tutorialization, tend to jump the shark with the ruleset, leading to frustrating trial and error and potentially brute forcing. Some puzzles I eventually figured out the answers to, but there are still some puzzles I have no clue why the answer is what it was. The game so clearly understands how to trick you, and rewards players for being perceptive and trying new ideas, but these problematic areas (the Mill and the Gallery) tend to dissuade the satisfaction of the solve, which is what The Witness was all about.
That said, the game is quite enjoyable. Its visual landscape bears a strong Japanese influence and the light addition of ambient music is a great touch while you sit in stupor in front of the more than 400 total puzzles in the game. The game is open-ended, so if you are stuck in one area, you can try your hand somewhere else. The island is also relatively small, meaning you can zip to where you need to go in under 2 minutes. There are some excellent visual cues here, and the best puzzles are the ones that really make use of a combination of the world, logic, and knowledge of the game's mechanics.
Both of Taiji's endgame states are equally enjoyable and are fairly challenging compared to the stuff that precedes it. Fans of the Witness will really want to see everything this game has to offer, poking at its seems and finding every panel you can. It has its questionable solutions, and some areas are better than others, but Taiji is a beautifully styled puzzle game that nails the passion of solving unique mind-teasers.
It's a 2D The Witness with a different mechanic instead of maze navigation..
Overall this is a decent puzzle game, very similar to The Witness. You've gotta figure out how to solve the puzzles and the rules of the puzzles just by context alone. Which works in a lot of cases.
However this game is a bit obtuse sometimes and the solutions for puzzles may as well be impossible to figure out. I had to brute force my way through at least 2 required puzzles because there was seemingly no way to actually solve the puzzle.
Also one of the main mechanics of the puzzles just doesn't make sense. It seems to make sense, and then at one point it just starts being completely inconsistent, and I still don't know what's wrong with it. Ultimately, I'm sure there were logical ways to get past all of these roadblocks, but I guess I'm just not smart enough for whatever mental gymnastics are required to figure out the logic.
I still mostly enjoyed playing it, and most of the puzzles were good. The art was really good and the music was pretty fitting throughout the game. Overall, it's almost exactly a 2D version of The Witness. For better or worse.
However this game is a bit obtuse sometimes and the solutions for puzzles may as well be impossible to figure out. I had to brute force my way through at least 2 required puzzles because there was seemingly no way to actually solve the puzzle.
Also one of the main mechanics of the puzzles just doesn't make sense. It seems to make sense, and then at one point it just starts being completely inconsistent, and I still don't know what's wrong with it. Ultimately, I'm sure there were logical ways to get past all of these roadblocks, but I guess I'm just not smart enough for whatever mental gymnastics are required to figure out the logic.
I still mostly enjoyed playing it, and most of the puzzles were good. The art was really good and the music was pretty fitting throughout the game. Overall, it's almost exactly a 2D version of The Witness. For better or worse.