Shapes, colors, and lines are the primary language of The Witness. It is incredibly interesting to see a game convey all its core mechanics with zero textual explanation, and even more so for a puzzle game. Such a slow and guided design philosophy is probably the most notable thing about game and serves to make it an incredibly memorable experience.


At its core, The Witness is fundamentally about doing line puzzles on mazes. Its stated that there are nearly 600 of these little things strewn across the island although that estimate seems like a little much in my mind. The numerous transitory gate puzzles and single line activation puzzles likely served to inflate that number but despite that there is a healthy helping of varied and unique puzzles to solve. At a cursory glance it may seem strange that a game that is as visually interesting as The Witness, paying homage to Myst and other classic pc adventure games that I’ve never played, is filled to the brim with puzzles that require such an aesthetically bare interface. The truth is that the world is presented in the way that it is to create space for a bevy of environmental puzzles that take advantage of all sorts of visual elements from shadows, architecture, and flora. The world’s design also helps contextualize individual puzzles themselves as part of a greater puzzle in a particular area. The most common way in which the game does this is having the player follow a wire from one puzzle to the next but the ways in which puzzles interact with exploration creates some extremely fun reveals as the game continues.


When it comes to these line puzzles themselves there is also quite a bit going on there as well. The extremely minimalist gameplay style may seem off-putting, especially in comparison to Jonathan Blow’s previous title Braid but it should not be confused with minimalism. The Witness is minimalistic by design but by no means a minimalist game and by stripping down nearly all other superfluous mechanics of modern games, Blow and his team have quite purposely designed one of the most maximalist puzzle games ever designed. It is hard to write prose about the particulars of this game’s design but rest assured, even after seeing most of the game, I am in awe of how many different puzzle interactions come together. This unfortunately leaves a caveat that if you are not very good at these kinds of puzzles, or if the game’s slow paced meditative gameplay does not really appeal to you, then there really is not much for you here.


Meditation is one of the primary themes of The Witness. We meditate on puzzle solutions, the numerous audio logs and quotes strewn throughout the game ask us to meditate on broad philosophical ideas, or simply just to meditate on… what it means to meditate. Only slow and thoughtful eyes can identify the numerous environmental puzzles strewn about the game and solving the puzzle screens themselves engender a meditative contemplation. The Witness is a hard game but the key to beating it is to not get frustrated. Its to focus on the information you need and simply figure out what you need to make of it. The open world structure is there so that if any one puzzle presents too much of an obstacle then there is no shame in moving somewhere else and coming back at a calmer state of mind. Anyone can beat this game, just take it slowly and focus.