5/5 -> 4.5/5 -> 4/5
Just before I start I need to express how much I hate a couple of specific criticisms towards this game I've seen echoed around YouTube and certain review websites. The worst is the idea that the game rewarding the completion of puzzles with more puzzles is a flaw of the game rather than a choice to be celebrated, a point I first heard in Snowman Gaming's """spoiler-free""" video on the game. This is an atrocious take, especially towards a puzzle game. Maybe it could be argued that some areas have puzzles that repeat similar ideas occasionally, but as the game's (pretty terrible) creator said, every puzzle does in fact have an idea behind it that sets it apart from others. It baffles me that someone could go into a puzzle game and be disappointed that one puzzle is followed by another, rather than some abstract trophy or fanfare for drawing the correct line on a panel. This would almost make sense if not for the fact that solving puzzles progresses you through the game and allows you to enter new areas, so there ARE non-puzzle rewards for puzzle completion anyway. Anyways...

I love this game, it does so many great things as a puzzle game. Its core mechanics are excellent and its world is beautiful and dense. Its ideas are fleshed out in clearly thought out ways and its secrets are genius and perfectly hidden. I allow in this game things that I would usually find reprehensible in others, such as sound based puzzles, timed puzzles and obscuration mechanics just because of how well they are presented and explored. With that said, there are some aspects of the game that cannot be defended. The game wastes your time at many parts, mostly with some sort of reason as to why something takes so long but at times it can get unjustifiable. The story for the game was scrapped halfway through development, so why not just remove the logs? They only get interesting at the right end of the game and even then that could have either been removed or built upon. Same goes for the combination of mechanics, the interesting interactions each of the symbols could have feels cut short.

I really want to point to all the things that make The Witness great and put it next to my favourite puzzle games of all time, and I could totally understand why some would still give it a perfect score, but this game has some deep-set issues holding it back despite all of its cool ideas and obvious refinement. I just wish the hate towards it was based on reasonable complaints rather than difficulty or rewarding puzzle completion. To be honest, the game may actually be too easy, ending before it could have really peaked.

4/5, will most likely change sooner or later

There’s something about Jonathan Blow games that resists me, and I know I’m not alone - like his indie film(+) compatriot Phil Fish, Blow has acquired a polarizing reputation amongst the gaming community for indulging in hifalutinism, and while far more diplomatic than Fish ever was, it’s hard not to see such vanity in his storytelling. From an overwrought narrative in Braid to a laughably absurd chastisement of video game music, it’s clear Blow, though likely a nice guy in real life, possesses some degree of haughtiness with regards to contemporary views on game design.

The Witness continues this trend via taking a unique stab at gaming, its contents stripping back entire text in favor of environmental set pieces. The premise is you’re an unnamed individual on an island home to the remnants of a lost civilization, its cultural secrets locked behind puzzles you need to resolve…..or so I interpret. Again, there’s no direct form of storytelling here, meaning you either care enough to formulate your own theory about things or move on with your life. For myself, there were enough interesting tidbits scattered about the place that rendered the setting lived-in: from the grindy machinery and old-fashioned electronics to the Pompeii-esque human moulds, you genuinely get a sense that there was a history to this site, no matter its overarching purpose or not.

The isle itself is a visual treat, with Thekla, Inc. lacing plainfaced architecture and natural biomes under a bright color scheme. It’s one of those cases where simplicity savored under singular hues can yield artistic splendour, and the way the devs situated these environments on the map truly resembles one of those classical wood palettes of Renaissance fame via the distinctive contrasts between areas: for example, a Sakura-adorned forest can easily transition into a rustic-styled village or purple-stained swamp; an ashen mountain pass can swiftly lead down to a crisp spring lake.

No matter where you are, though, there’s an inherent calmness to the island. Yes, the lack of inhabitants is a bit creepy, but once you see the vibrant pigments and lite-wind physics decorating the flora about you, you genuinely can’t help feeling at ease during traversal from area to area.

It’s a shame, then, that these vistas are mainly used for window dressing as 90% of The Witness’s enigmas entail staring at screens for the purposes of playing connect-the-dots. Yes, different symbols signify different ways of completing said sequences, but regardless it ends-up being the same boring affair of moving a bar to a predesignated endpoint. Perhaps Blow intended this to be some sort of commentary on how we’re always so honed-in on screens and overlook the natural beauty of the outside world, but even if that was true, it’s a major case of ludonarrative dissonance.

That said, I specified 90% earlier because there are a few puzzles here-and-there that actually involve interacting with the environment in some capacity (one of my favorites being a giant tile simulation), and while they do spice things up, it’s ultimately small potatoes as you’re fundamentally doing the same computerized tasks again-and-again-and-again.

I think the thing that bugged me most about The Witness’s puzzles is the lack of consistent feedback -- when you’re powering a group of terminals in sequential order and seeing their link cables light-up, that’s great; however, many times you’ll run across a series of optional ones that give no output whatsoever in spite of their completion status, their composition in turn coming across like a waste of time. Again, perhaps there was some greater thematic purpose intended by Blow about the arbitrariness of extrinsic motivation, but again I don’t care - if the base endeavor isn’t fun, then something extra should’ve been provided as a means of encouraging/rewarding players for tasks.

But of course, I understand that last sentence will be privy to scrutiny as a lot of gamers have had fun with The Witness. Whether it was the puzzles personally appealing to them or something about the game’s art assets striking a chord within, this has attracted a large following and I certainly don’t want to insult anyone who found enjoyment.


That being said, I hope even the most ardent enthusiast would agree that the open world format here was either pointless or at the very least misguided. Had the Witness’s biomes been based around a gimmick independent of the other, it’d be one thing; however, there are unfortunately a number of conundrums within each sector that require preexisting knowledge obtained from other sectors of the island, meaning the spread-out was utterly pointless -- if the game had to be engaged with in chronological order, then what was the bloody point in even strewing things about? Why wouldn’t Blow just structure it as a set of levels (or at the very least as a linear pen)? As it stands, you’re going to have to consult a guide lest you wish to waste time meandering around in the hopes of finding that right precedent for the constructs you’re stuck with.

Voice acting is relegated to miscellaneous quotes & speeches of famous figures you’ll find in recordings, and it’s fine as far as quality (though I feel their meaning will fly over most people’s heads). Without music, The Witness falls heavily on its SFX, which is a solid consortium of whirlygig tech and heterogeneous footsteps: not quite the acoustic powerhouse of your conventional horror title, but miles above disruptiveness nonetheless.

In the end, your appreciation for The Witness will come down to your enjoyment of its puzzles - if anything from the above sounds up to your liking, then feast on this leisurely stroll through lushful landscapes and sweet water. If not, you’re better off looking elsewhere.


NOTES
+That is Indie Game: The Movie

-The goal of The Witness is to activate select beacons, and while that’s all well-and-good, man do those things take forever to unravel from their mechanism.

-Hated puzzles that’d shut-off if you failed them, forcing you, in turn, to repeat the previous one in order to reboot the energy flow.

-I don’t know if this was a case of my pareidolia acting-up, but I noticed unique carvings within the various boulders.

-Was it a wise decision to make most puzzles redoable?

This was a very cool puzzle experience. I love how it lets you learn each mechanic through gameplay rather than telling you how mechanics work. This lets you feel clever for figuring out each mechanic and learning more over time as you explore the world is super cool. The openness of the game also allows the option to walk away from a tricky puzzle and come back later once you have become more comfortable with the game.
The Witness is the best puzzle game I have ever played and a unique experience everyone should try.

Hands down the best puzzle game I've ever played, The Witness masters not only it's puzzle mechanics which make up the interactive gameplay of the experience, but also keeps the player entertained for its vast playtime with it's intriguing story and themes of the search for truth.

The greatest strength of the game mechanically is that ultimately each puzzle is fundamentally simple and the same, you have a starting point and an endpoint, and the goal is to get from A to B. This allows the creators immense room to slowly introduce many different and ingenious conditions on top of the simple maze template, which keeps the puzzles feeling constantly fresh and ever changing (as soon as you feel you master one mechanic, they do away with it and you're forced to pick up a completely new one). The puzzles in the Witness will not only require your brain, but your eyes, your ears, your ability to adapt new perspectives when needed. Each puzzle is masterfully crafted to appear completely impossible at first, and mind-numbingly obvious once you "get it". The player is rewarded again and again with their successes but also continuously faced with a new seemingly harder challenge, (not unlike Sisyphus and his boulder).

The story and themes of The Witness are arguably just as strong as the games puzzle mechanics, although they are much more subtle and can easily be missed entirely if you're not looking carefully enough. I won't say much about the themes/story as its best experienced yourself, but everything, and I mean everything, in the game relates back to the games story and main theme (loosely that of the search for truth and its depictions in science and zen). The story being told and the way it evolves, the ending, will all relate back to everything that you've done, the way you're interacting with the world and what you're trying to get out of playing the game.

The Witness is an incredible game and definitely worth playing once in your life.

Jonathan Blow is a moron, but Braid was pretty good if you ignored the story. The Witness on the other hand feels cheap and trite and completely devoid of any love for puzzle-solving, eschewing the involved time-bending platforming of Braid for a game where you look at screens and play that iphone game where you have to connect the colored dots. If you were to play this almost immediately after playing The Talos Principle (like I did), it becomes even more apparent what a blithering experience this whole thing is. The Witness is like if Myst was made by a bitter midwit target cashier making what he believes would be a game made by the caricature of a pompous liberal arts major living in his head as the target of resentment towards those above him. All of this is to say that Blow, like fellow "auteur" David Cage, is not smart enough to be making games with such high aspirations.

AD: Tarde 6/7 horas en mi segundo intento, sin estresarme. En mi primer intento entraba muchas veces a tiltearme y solo observar el paisaje.

Es literalmente un mundo de puzzles. Para mi es un grandioso juego, lleno de puzzles que en realidad son siempre el mismo, pero con la suma de reglas y luego la unión de las mismas hace que sea tan interesante que no se pueda volver repetitivo.
Todos las"reglas" son interesantes de aprender y como el juego te va enseñando a resolverlos en niveles anteriores. Algunos si que tenes que darles imaginación para aprenderlos, pero la mayoría (gran mayoría) están bien explicados y te hacen sentir en constante aprendizaje.
La única parte que no aguante fue unos puzzles de sonido, porque no me gustan y ya.

Recomendado como un gran clásico.

Admiro mucho los videojuegos que escogen una mecánica específica y la desarrollan de todas las maneras posibles hasta llevarla al límite. The Witness es tan imaginativo como brillante a la hora de plantear su sistema y jugar con todas las posibilidades que ofrece. No han sido pocos los puzles que me han hecho sonreír tras haberlos terminado; no solo por la gratificación de resolverlos, sino por la belleza intrínseca del diseño excelente que presentan.

Jugar a The Witness es como mirar un cuadro, solo que el cuadro te está llamando gilipollas todo el rato. Mi juego de puzles favorito después de Portal 2.