The witness is a game full of puzzles. Really. Your reward for finishing a set of puzzles is another set. That's your answer to all the "oh I wonder what this door I've unlocked leads to". And when you're done with an area, you repeat the same process elsewhere.
It's good for a game to be to the point, but if your game is nothing but puzzles, it's a bad thing when they all suck. Mostly a mixture between a labyrinth puzzle in a kid's menu and those magazines for old people with crosswords, sudokus... There's an exorbitant amount of puzzles that are just "draw how the line should go in this screen" in sets of ten, which just screams "CREATIVELY BANKRUPT". Then the few zones where there's some other method to solving the puzzles, like looking at shadows, it becomes as gimmicky: with the game beating it over your head the same puzzle dozens of times in a row.
"But I thought the witness was this beautiful mystery game set in a strange island and..." No. (Maybe you're thinking of Myst) This island is a glorified setpiece, practically inert, with a few easter eggs where you can draw lines on very obvious parts of the landscape, and a few perspective tricks in some areas. Despite its ambigious scope and what the atmosphere might initially lead you to believe, this game has no real message, nor does the scenery or the audio logs you find scattered around.
It's certainly not that a game needs a deep message to be good, but for a guy that considers this and his other game "the only good videogames ever", it's pretty funny how it fucks up very basic stuff like exploration. As stated above, there's no real immersion nor incentive to explore once you've realized there's no underlying substance in this game. No, worse. There's cases where you might find an elaborate puzzle with a mechanic you haven't seen yet, and until you find how that works, by finding the are that type of puzzle belongs to, you're not likely progressing there.
The game is so bad though, it even makes walking around the lavish scenery feel like a chore after the first hour. There's a sprint button, but only if you keep it pressed. Surprisingly they didn't add a toggle in game where you are either going somewhere or drawing with your mouse. There's also a boat for 'fast travel' that you can unlock, but it's also shit don't get me started.
Some puzzle mechanics as I said above might not click with you, because there's no explanation for them. You rely on finding simple versions first, and/or trial and error. For a game where you have to figure things out, it makes sense. But so much remains obtuse because of the horrible way the game has of relying information with its insinuations. In its own way it works, because if just told you what rules were in a screen when drawing a pattern, the game would be even more trivial. But it's kinda sad the only challenge is through cloaking a ruleset.
This is also why the pacing is horrible. Stuck? Go try another or keep trying this. Much like a sliding puzzle where the only way to get the answer is when you have it in front of you and not by letting it rest in your head. It's not only that it's bad, but that many other titles do well what this can't.
Better puzzle games like Baba is You is you will have you thinking about the different things you could be doing even after closing it, and there's an even greater sense of reward in its puzzles, as well as way more variation and depth.
Outer Wilds also has puzzles where you have to position yourself with the sun. And the sun is not just a dot in the sky but part of the world. A world you explore, where you can interact with your surroundings and they are part of the puzzle as well. It's filled with even more breathtaking zones and a great history behind all the stuff you find.
Obra Dinn embraces the monotonous and gives you little information as well, but very quickly fills you with intrigue and you're pushing yourself to keep playing and playing the same logic checks.
The Witness is a lot of work poured into a very vivid, glorified tech demo, because all it does is show you how they weren't capable to do anything interesting with it except as padding for the puzzles. Take out all of those, put them back to back and what you have is a glorified lockscreen-like puzzle game for mobile that would probably be free with adds on GooglePlay.
It's good for a game to be to the point, but if your game is nothing but puzzles, it's a bad thing when they all suck. Mostly a mixture between a labyrinth puzzle in a kid's menu and those magazines for old people with crosswords, sudokus... There's an exorbitant amount of puzzles that are just "draw how the line should go in this screen" in sets of ten, which just screams "CREATIVELY BANKRUPT". Then the few zones where there's some other method to solving the puzzles, like looking at shadows, it becomes as gimmicky: with the game beating it over your head the same puzzle dozens of times in a row.
"But I thought the witness was this beautiful mystery game set in a strange island and..." No. (Maybe you're thinking of Myst) This island is a glorified setpiece, practically inert, with a few easter eggs where you can draw lines on very obvious parts of the landscape, and a few perspective tricks in some areas. Despite its ambigious scope and what the atmosphere might initially lead you to believe, this game has no real message, nor does the scenery or the audio logs you find scattered around.
It's certainly not that a game needs a deep message to be good, but for a guy that considers this and his other game "the only good videogames ever", it's pretty funny how it fucks up very basic stuff like exploration. As stated above, there's no real immersion nor incentive to explore once you've realized there's no underlying substance in this game. No, worse. There's cases where you might find an elaborate puzzle with a mechanic you haven't seen yet, and until you find how that works, by finding the are that type of puzzle belongs to, you're not likely progressing there.
The game is so bad though, it even makes walking around the lavish scenery feel like a chore after the first hour. There's a sprint button, but only if you keep it pressed. Surprisingly they didn't add a toggle in game where you are either going somewhere or drawing with your mouse. There's also a boat for 'fast travel' that you can unlock, but it's also shit don't get me started.
Some puzzle mechanics as I said above might not click with you, because there's no explanation for them. You rely on finding simple versions first, and/or trial and error. For a game where you have to figure things out, it makes sense. But so much remains obtuse because of the horrible way the game has of relying information with its insinuations. In its own way it works, because if just told you what rules were in a screen when drawing a pattern, the game would be even more trivial. But it's kinda sad the only challenge is through cloaking a ruleset.
This is also why the pacing is horrible. Stuck? Go try another or keep trying this. Much like a sliding puzzle where the only way to get the answer is when you have it in front of you and not by letting it rest in your head. It's not only that it's bad, but that many other titles do well what this can't.
Better puzzle games like Baba is You is you will have you thinking about the different things you could be doing even after closing it, and there's an even greater sense of reward in its puzzles, as well as way more variation and depth.
Outer Wilds also has puzzles where you have to position yourself with the sun. And the sun is not just a dot in the sky but part of the world. A world you explore, where you can interact with your surroundings and they are part of the puzzle as well. It's filled with even more breathtaking zones and a great history behind all the stuff you find.
Obra Dinn embraces the monotonous and gives you little information as well, but very quickly fills you with intrigue and you're pushing yourself to keep playing and playing the same logic checks.
The Witness is a lot of work poured into a very vivid, glorified tech demo, because all it does is show you how they weren't capable to do anything interesting with it except as padding for the puzzles. Take out all of those, put them back to back and what you have is a glorified lockscreen-like puzzle game for mobile that would probably be free with adds on GooglePlay.