Individual puzzles in each area range from boring and stupid to revelatory and awesome (usually averaging out to be pretty good), but take up so little time on average that they kind of go in one eye (or ear, should be so unlucky) and out the other. The (attempted) interesting part of The Witness is the use of space and ways the spaces the puzzles inhabit “bring it all together" with the walks between the maze screens presenting their own complications, and often times resulting in a sort of "final boss puzzle."
When looking back several months to when I first played the witness, this part of the game completely dwarfs individual puzzle experiences in my mind. I’m pretty sure I didn’t care for the individual puzzles in the treehouse level but who cares, the bridge puzzle is the coolest thing in the game. I vaguely remember liking the individual puzzles in the hedge maze fort, but who cares the final puzzles are stupid time wasting memorization. I absolutely hated the individual mazes that incorporated the tree branch shadows, but loved the way they synthesized both themes for the final puzzle. The greenhouse color puzzles were kind of cool at first, but the final elevator was so dumb that I can only look back on the area in contempt.
The volatility of this dynamic defined my emotional experience with The Witness, as the conceit of the game’s world is that it was solely and specifically constructed for the puzzles. When the environments fail to significantly enhance the puzzles, or use their teachings in interesting ways, they have nowhere to hide like they do for me in a Myst, a Riven, or an Outer Wilds, with their Lewis and Clark-sy fascinations with exploring the details of their own worlds. In The Witness, more than all of the aforementioned games, the trees, mountains and rivers are nothing more (outside of a not insignificant aesthetic appeal) than extensions of those puzzle boxes. When The Witness’s world and environments fail, it's a total failure, and to me, The Witness totally failed with disappointing frequency.
Final note: this game didn't Tetris Effect me at all, like not one time did I see a circle or line out walking around and think of The Witness. This kind of makes me really hate the final cutscene, it called its shot and missed really bad.
When looking back several months to when I first played the witness, this part of the game completely dwarfs individual puzzle experiences in my mind. I’m pretty sure I didn’t care for the individual puzzles in the treehouse level but who cares, the bridge puzzle is the coolest thing in the game. I vaguely remember liking the individual puzzles in the hedge maze fort, but who cares the final puzzles are stupid time wasting memorization. I absolutely hated the individual mazes that incorporated the tree branch shadows, but loved the way they synthesized both themes for the final puzzle. The greenhouse color puzzles were kind of cool at first, but the final elevator was so dumb that I can only look back on the area in contempt.
The volatility of this dynamic defined my emotional experience with The Witness, as the conceit of the game’s world is that it was solely and specifically constructed for the puzzles. When the environments fail to significantly enhance the puzzles, or use their teachings in interesting ways, they have nowhere to hide like they do for me in a Myst, a Riven, or an Outer Wilds, with their Lewis and Clark-sy fascinations with exploring the details of their own worlds. In The Witness, more than all of the aforementioned games, the trees, mountains and rivers are nothing more (outside of a not insignificant aesthetic appeal) than extensions of those puzzle boxes. When The Witness’s world and environments fail, it's a total failure, and to me, The Witness totally failed with disappointing frequency.
Final note: this game didn't Tetris Effect me at all, like not one time did I see a circle or line out walking around and think of The Witness. This kind of makes me really hate the final cutscene, it called its shot and missed really bad.
Reviewed on May 02, 2023