I'd argue that The Witness actually goes one step deeper than that. The game is about challenging your preconceived notions of the world around you and figuring things out for yourself based on experimentation. The 'symbols in real life' thing is essentially just symbolic of applying the same rote thinking to the real world. In other words, The Witness is a game about teaching the player how to think for themselves about the world they live in rather than blindly accepting the most straight forward answer. It's something that could have only been done in the form of a game and is the main feature that really sets The Witness apart from other games.
@@MasDoucit's actually just a simulation of what an afterimage of what you saw before you paused, because in the game, you close your eyes. nothing special really
I was watching the world record run where the guy went out and got food in a part where you have to draw a line on the in-game movie screen and can't finish until it finished playing, so I had to use the video progress slider.
I'd call your level 5 a level 6. Here's why. There are a lot of things that you may notice in the game, but cannot click on. A bare tree turns into one in blossom when seen from a correct perspective. A giant sculpture of a woman turns out to be just a half of an art object, when you find it's smaller part and see them interact. There're a lot of things of that type. And the reward is just the realization: this is intentional. This is designed for me to witness. That's level five. Do you agree?
It was so mind-blowing when I found my first environmental puzzle. I'm really glad I found them on my own instead of stumbling across a spoiler online. I even remember which one it was. It was a patch of pink flowers just outside the castle. I wish I could erase all memory of this game and play it again from the beginning.
Same and same, my first was the yellow tractor thing by the apple trees. I was just walking around and there it was. There is something so special about the feeling you get from finding something like that.
Mine was the rope on the ship. There's something so otherworldly about the discovery, you've been looking at these shapes for hours and some part of you sees one in the environment and thinks "haha what if?" Then those sparks fly with the loud sound effect and you can't help but follow it through. You think it was a one time thing but then you realize that not only are they EVERYWHERE, but they've been everywhere this whole time. Now your mind is opened to witnessing an entirely new way to view the world, and it's impossible to see it as you did before.
In the double ending, that you get from unlocking all of the lasers, hidden in the caves, at the end of the tunnel connected by the windmill there is a pattern consisting of three triangles if you input this puzzle and overlay it over the starting area you're able to reactivate the laser grid allowing you to beat the game without starting over your progress
Does anybody else think this is the best video game ever made? It has a unique, engaging mechanic, it has genuine artistic merit, it's intelligent, philosophical, multi-layered and outstandingly beautiful.
Yes completely. And i think anyone who plays it and understand it, even if they think it's boring, must admit that the design is crazy out there and well executed.
No because their are a bunch of points in the game that are bad design. The sound puzzles, the color strobing, the parts where you cannot actually see the puzzles due to intended blocking, and the lore is gated behind hidden tapes with little payoff. That and the game has a massive narcissistic vibe to it.
It's not really the best game, but it has its merits. I think part of what holds it back is the lack of accessibility (eg. sound and flashy color puzzles)...
Plzz HELP!!!! I can't watch any videos on youtube! Every time I open a video the seekbar looks like a puzzle and I drag it all the way to the right. :(
So, actually dragging the red circle all the way right through the grey line isn't solving anything because of the different colors. But when you drag it to the end you'll see that the red line has been formed on the left side of your circle. Move it all the way back to the light, and voila! Your puzzle is solved and your video is set to the beginning. :)
Nice video. You've skipped another level, which I enjoyed a lot: some puzzles matches the environment, but the environment is not required to solve them, what they do is allow you to change the environment in order to move along the island or to make possible a solution to another puzzle. And discovery of this puzzle-world correspondence was just amazing.
I get what you're saying, like door switches that aren't really puzzles, moving the elevator by the sawmill, moving the platform thingies in the swamp, etx
+maxxramman Well there's also puzzles like "how do I get over there" and you do it by finding a new solution to a panel. The tree house comes to mind right away, but there were other instances.
I did found out, that there is a way to find out if you have solve all the puzzles. You have to be very observant on a specific area on the island. :) I'll hope there will be more games like The Witness in the future, instead of all the violent war games. A game have to be fun to play, and if you can lean something too, its great. :)
+knus1959, yes, and this kind of one more level - there are patterns in the game, which are not part of the puzzle, but discovering them is quite a fun, for example, women hidden in the perspective. 7 levels to go, isn't this amazing...
If you play enough of any game then you'll start seeing it in real life and start trying to do stuff that you can only do in the game. I remember after a lot of Mirrors Edge I started seeing red objects and immediately thinking "I gotta jump off of that." it's just how you react after getting used to seeing a lot of one thing.
It reminds me a lot of the novel Sophie's World, the way it teaches you to philosophise, and inverts your understanding of reality by introducing new levels and ways to think.
Jonathon Blow is a Buddhist. In the Story of the Buddha. Mara the Demon of temptation asks the Buddha who will Witness him. And the only witness The buddha had was the world around him. :D
Jordie Weeds Is he really a Buddhist? Because when I was playing the game I got the distinct notion that it was meant to be something like a Zen Koan, a form of mindful meditation of a fundamentally unsolvable problem. There's at least one recording in the later portion of the game that describes what a Koan is, and it may be the last recording a lot of people listen to in the game. The world itself is definitely very meditative.
Yeah as far as I could tell he's a buddhist. Seemingly he is trying to bring peoples focus back to the world around you. What's fun is you'll have someone play the game and start seeing these puzzles in everything they do. Whether or not that was intentional I find it incredibly interesting.
Seemingly this game was very deliberate in it's design. It's hard to see the mind of a person like Jonathan Blow. He has a very particular and peculiar way of teaching but as it stands the zen masters also did that same thing they basically just screwed with people until they came to certain conclusions. This game is meant to screw with you in the same way. Nothing is definitive and nothing matters. Besides the fact the you rebirth after you complete the game, in Mahayana buddhism this is called Saṃsāra or rebirth to continue life. Also I could just be completely off base and everything i'm connecting to Jonathan Blows buddhism could be a much deeper dynamic connection with the Tao and Hindu philosophies as well. I'm mostly versed in Zen practice so that's where my mind went when I first saw this game. Sorry for the long reply have a good day. :D
The name "The Witness" is also likely related to notions of non-duality and mindfulness in spiritual practice, since terms like "witness consciousness" and "non-dual witnessing" are often used to describe a certain mental phenomenon people experience in meditation. The game makes direct reference to this kind of stuff in some of the videos in the the theater, and Jonathon Blow himself meditates and has talked about non-duality briefly before. ...although, I do seem to recall him saying that didn't capture why it was called The Witness, even though it also works on that level.
Fantastic video, and I think these "Levels" are exactly on point man. This could actually be an introduction/trailer to the game if they stop at Level 2 or Level 3.
You forgot to mention the random stuff you see in the game that you only see if it’s the right perspective. There is no puzzle or solution...it’s just a beautiful moment in the game that you get to experience if you happened to look at the right place at the right time. Great example is the statue in marsh and the statue on the mountain touching hands if you stare at the perfect angle. Or if you stare at the shoreline combined with the reflection in the water in a certain area on the island...it actually is a giant person praying etc.
The stone people made me thing the game was gonna be about.. solving why the people are statues and why the island felt.. off.. like why is there a bunch of panels controlling things while nature still exists
7:40 this rebirth is eluded to in one of the earliest audio logs you can find where the woman's voice says: "through many births I have wandered on and on, searching for, but never finding, the builder of this house."
There is another layer not mentioned. I would say Is 4.5 on the list. There is hidden imagery in the landscape. Such as a face in a tree or the outline of a person. But it’s only seen from a certain perspective. There is no puzzle to solve just the joy of finding one of these images.
Intresting you talk about gameification and bringing up AC as an example when there are these obelisks that kinda work as checklists in the witness, so yeah you could also have it in that game.
Really liked the environmental easter eggs within the game. These Easter eggs aren’t puzzles but rather something visually cool that you only will be able to see from a specific angle. If you weren’t able to find a single one within your play through than I recommend you to search it up on TH-cam.
i think why Braid has more reputation is, it is easier to see its uniqueness, original gameplay structure, but in the witness, you have to look at it from wider angle, it is not visible at first glance, and i didnt even see the hidden puzzles in the nature, i just got bored and never play it again. infact it is a wonderful and out of the box game
That's actually not the only way to see the credits. If you make it far enough through the game, you are given a way to turn the light gate in the starting garden area back on.
A great example of level 5 (although it is still in the game) is the broken piece of machinery outside of the glass factory, every time I pass it I check to see if it works as an environmental puzzle, even though I try one every hour or so.
There are more animals...a stone turtle, a deer, koi fish,...Depending on where you stand at the bold tree in the desert you can see people's faces inbetween the branches.
I think you could even stick another level in there before level 4 for the puzzles that control the world. For example, the bridge-controlling puzzles in the marsh (tetris area) or the puzzles that control the quarry.
I loved this game, but i can understand some of the negative comments people give about it. Some of the puzzles really are waaaay outside the box, and without a true aversion to solving puzzles i can see how it would be pretty hard to sit through the whole game, especially when you consider what kind of games the overall population is used to, hell even i sometimes found myself swearing pretty loudly. But the rewarding feeling of figuring a hard puzzle out is just unmatched, for me not even getting that rare piece of equipment compares to it. It honestly was a surreal experience, this game will be forever in my fondest and hated memories alike.
Awesome breakdown. Right there with you. However you didn't speak about the games philosophical and religious themes. The audio logs that's you find generally have some common ground with the theme of the area that you find them in along with said areas puzzles. I think the ultimate message of the game if Jonathan blow intended there to be one is to observe the world around you. And that there are many ways to observe and interpret not only our planet but the universe.
Me and some friends finish the game me not at 100% cause i'm still chasing round :P but i finish the game and on fb we create a group name The rounds hunters we sending photos and playing around cause as soon as we have finish and then we know a other friend start it we go see him and say Oh gosh you are done right here you will see them everywhere ( sorry for my bad writting i'm from quebec) I play all the game with 1 friend and we finish it in about 34 hours. Him more cartesian and me more instinctive. A Amazing game! I'm stuck inside the mountain , one you show in your video, i know how to solve them but Oufff you have to be so quick... i will retry until i got it :P Have a nice Level 5 day :P
I am personally convinced that The Witness is in reference to Sakshi, a Hindu concept of 'pure awareness'. "See, this table is an object of experience to my eyes. My eyes and the body are objects of experience to my mind. And my mind is an object of experience, I cannot deny it, it's a fact ...to what? That awareness which experiences the mind from within. That awareness which cannot be objectified. That is called, for want of a better term, because it witnesses, it shines upon, illumines every movement of the mind, every thought, every idea, every memory, every feeling, it's called the Witness. In Sanskrit: sakshi." - Swami Sarvapriyananda
I can't say I experienced level 5 from The Witness, but I certainly understood what he was getting at with his ending video. Probably because I beat the whole game in like 2 sittings I didn't have much time in between to notice patterns in the real world. I also discovered the environmental puzzles almost immediately after leaving the castle, so they distracted me quite a bit throughout the game. Almost wish they weren't so obvious so soon, but I guess that's my fault for being a curious, analytical thinker who isn't afraid to click on things that aren't puzzles (I actually saw several let's players notice the real world puzzles but never even consider clicking on them, which was bizarre to me). I did experience level 5 after playing Portal 2 though. I played the whole game through solid and when I left my room my brain kept subconsciously planning on which flat surfaces would be best to put portals on such that I could climb up the wall and get to.. wait nevermind this is real life. :P
There's no way you beat the whole game in 2 sittings unless you used a guide. Unless by beat the game you mean get the normal 7 laser ending. But 100% completion needs at least 50 hours, and probably more like 80-100 hours without a walkthrough. It took me 105 hours, but I spent too much time wandering around the island looking for cool perspectives and enjoying the scenery instead of focusing strictly on completion.
I got all 11 lasers, and finished the majority of the end-game content, including a certain musical event. I did not get every world puzzle, as I view that as post-game replayability content. I did not read any guides or watch any videos about the game until after I had completed it to my satisfaction (completed != 100%, as Jon Blow has said, there is no 100% in this game, it's much more than solving the puzzle panels). I have ~34 hours played I think. People solve puzzles at different rates, everyone should play through at their own pace to have the best experience.
dandymcgee That's fair. I'm just arguing that I do not think it is possible to complete all puzzles the game has to offer in two sittings. I suspect the environmental puzzles would easily double your reported play time. Also, how would you know that the environmental puzzles are post-game replayability content if you didn't consult any outside source? I didn't realize that finding them all didn't unlock anything until after I found the last one. I think your claim is suspect. Assuming you discovered that fact when you looked it up after you had "completed the game to your satisfaction", I think you cut yourself short. It's definitely possible to locate them all on your own. But knowing that they don't lead to a new ending or unlock something cool is a bit of a let-down that I think prevents most people from being motivated enough to search for them all.
Zamzummin I had no interest in finding them all even before I learned they did nothing. I did not look anything up until I was satisfied with my experience. If I had *never* looked anything up, I would have missed a lot of really cool things that I would never have noticed on my own. That's one of my favorite parts of playing through a game and then watching other people do it to see what they did differently.
If you consider the movies played in the "cinema" room in the game, it's pretty evident that the game title refers to the "witness consciousness" from eastern religious philosophy. You surely have watched it already, but for everyone who is interested, take a look at the YT video called "The Unbearable Now". It explains it all very well.
Wait this is the only game related video on this channel? Aw man, I was interested in seeing what else this guy has played and what his reactions are. The Let's Play community needs more intellectual thinkers.
What about Level 6? The reason to not actually care about playing the game? The realization of letting go of obsessions that have a very obvious, and kinda unforgiving, endings that achieve nothing substantial. All the video recordings ans Audio logs (THAT ARE SUPER HARD TO FIND ALL OF THEM OMGAWD) The 6th layer. The philosophy of The Witness.
I think the main issue isnt that "maze puzzles is all you do", but that more than half of those puzzles do not engage with the enviroment around the mazes, or take the opportunity of being inside a videogame. What I mean by that, is that you can recreate most of those puzzles on a piece of paper, and put them on a newspaper and puzzle book. Areas like the Marsh and Treehouse are basically just an onslaught of logical puzzles that exchange simplicity and creativity, for complexity and work. The "ah ha!" moment you get here, simply doesnt justify the amount of time you can lose in tetramino puzzles. The game is at its best when it is using the space around the maze and incorporating it in the puzzle like the Desert and Keep Monastery areas, and demanding the player to use lateral thinking. This of course, is my preference, I can totally understand why people would love to solve tetromino and pairing puzzles, just as so many people enjoy pure math puzzle problems, which is something I never did like. Solving the puzzle is the reward, definitely, but I did feel that that reward was bigger when I took a step back to think for a bit, and then catching something that wasnt there in the first place, and smaller when I finally figured out what exactly was the pattern to solving a solely tetromino puzzle. I did enjoy the time I spent on the game, beating The Challenge is my achievement of the year so far. I was just a bit disappointed, and I imagine other people have the same opinion as me, that the game didnt become something solely a videogame could do( which is weird, when you think about how Blow made Braid). Fantastic level design, fantastic player guidance, great "story", great art, great puzzles, but it doesnt reach Masterpiece status for me.
+Hattori Hanzo I find that I had the exact opposite experience; the tetronimo and other purely logical puzzles were my favorite by a good margin. I think they're so cool, that I wish some of the more environmental puzzles had been scrapped in favor of more of these. In fact, whereas you find the desert one of your favorite areas, I personally found it one of my least favorite, if not my actual least favorite. I thought that there was too much repetition of the basic rule, with not enough interesting twists on it to justify the puzzle count it encompassed. I knew exactly where the solution was once I got to most of them, whereas the tetronimo solutions only revealed themselves after a while of thinking and experimentation, and they involved more complex concepts which added to the satisfaction once solved. I would have preferred the desert had been merged with other areas, and same for the forest cast shadows area.
I agree with your line of thinking, but I don't think you've followed it through completely. Games are absolutely at their best when they are doing things other mediums are unable to do. I would argue that this is one of the central design philosophies of the game. You suggest that many of the puzzles could simply be put in a newspaper. you're half right. Yes, you could put a bunch of the panels into a newspaper and someone who had played the game could have a similar experience solving them there. But that's missing the crucial step... If you stop and think for a moment how puzzles in a newspaper or book work, the player tries to solve them and then has to check his solution against the solutions in tomorrow's newspaper or the back of the book. This means you get one attempt at the puzzle. It also means those puzzles almost always have only one solution, but that's less important. The key thing is one attempt. The main puzzle in The Witness is actually learning the puzzle rules. If you think about the way they introduce them, there is simply no way you could do that in a newspaper or book. It relies on you being able to guess, form a hypothesis based on the result, test your hypothesis, adjust the hypothesis, test again. This is possible because the game can check your solution without showing you the correct solution. This isn't really something you can do in other mediums and I've certainly never seen it done before. Once you've worked out all the intricacies of the rules, then I suppose it might as well be in a book. But it does still allow for multiple solutions (an important fact for the treetop puzzles) which a book generally wouldn't. Besides, many times I thought I did understand the rules properly, just to be stumped by a puzzle which seemed to break them (spoiler: it didn't).
Joe Hendrey Yes, im very aware of that unique difference, thats probably the best aspect of the game, how it lets you pretty much teach yourself this language that is connected to the whole island. What I was trying to say though, is that the majority of the puzzles are all very static. Its you and a maze panel. For alot of people thats just like homework, its a sucession of increasingly more complicated puzzles where you already know the theory of how it works. The one instant where the tetromino puzzle strays away from that formula, is when it makes you understand that as long as the pieces are connected, you can change their positions within the maze and not necessarily enclose their respective icon. The moment you know how the tetromino puzzles work, you know how the solve the rest of them, its no longer a battle of trying to understand why there is a specific solution to the puzzle you simply cant see, and instead its you trying to finally visualize the correct answer by trial and error. Both puzzles are good, but some people have have preference for one or the other. The other kind of puzzles on the other hand, make you wonder "What am I missing here, how exactly does the developer want me to approach this? This worked before but now its the wrong solution....let me look at it from this angl-oh i got it!". The spacial interactivity of the game is being fuly utilized, and that for me is what puzzle videogames should always try to achieve. The puzzle that saved the Treehouse for me was that multiple solution part. I was getting exhausted of building bridges because it seemed like every step meant having to do work. I knew where i needed to go, I knew the rules, but I just had to keep unlocking more bridge. But then, there is a timer on the door, and that changes everything." How the hell do i get there on time? There is no other way to go! Wait, there were maze puzzles that had more than one solution! I have to build a different bridge!" That for me was the only true puzzle of the area, the rest was filler.
Hattori Hanzo I get what you're saying. I disagree that there was only one revelatory moment with the tetronimo puzzles. Understanding how the blue blocks worked was also quite difficult. One panel in particular took me a long time to understand why it worked because it seemed to work for the wrong reasons. With the treetop area, I also got a tiny bit of that sort of feeling. But I would enjoy the pen and paper version of those puzzles anyway, so it was fine for me. I do know that one of the design philosophies was to have a unique concept in every panel. Sometimes those are such small ideas that it's hard to really isolate what they are, and it can seem a bit repetitive if your earlier hypothesis already included that aspect. But I think the idea in general is that you could have one idea of what the rule is and have to adapt it slightly for every single puzzle you encounter. Each panel is about being slightly more specific about the rule. I don't know if they were successful in that 100% of the time, but I definitely did notice that my understanding of the rules was constantly evolving throughout the game, right up until the laser in each section.
+Hattori Hanzo "Wait, there were maze puzzles that had more than one solution! I have to build a different bridge!" That for me was the only true puzzle of the area, the rest was filler." Except all the puzzles that were teaching you the rules of these star shapes.
1:30 describing Open World To-Do Lists in 2016 In the year 2022, after two years of a horrible Pandemic, a far-right US government that tried to cling to power, EVERYONE talking about Open World grind to do list, because Elden Ring buried it and sold 12 million copies.
I would say that there is one inconsistent puzzle in the game, in the sound-based series. Bird, bird, bird, bird, wolf, bird... When I played the game for the first time I developed a habit of actively defining the ruleset I figured. "This is an error symbol, it cancels one mistake." "These symbols mark a shape that you need to trap/outline with the line interchangeably if grouped together". The better I defined the rule, the easier following puzzles became. And if a definition didn't work, I looked back and reworded it until it worked for all puzzles of that type. But in the sounds puzzles... You trace some sounds. Then there are distractions. How do you define what is a distraction and what isn't? You can't properly. You just kinda try to trace any sound until it works, I guess. So you have a bird with a barking distraction. Then you have a howl with a bird distraction. I call bullshit on that. And yes, in the shipwreck there's a sound puzzle without any birds, just noises. The point is that matching random sounds until something works isn't really a good definition in my opinion.
That's not even the end of it. There's countless perspective easter eggs too! And they go on and ON! Here's just a few. th-cam.com/video/j2OT3QdrHLU/w-d-xo.html
I absolutely love this game but theres also a lot I hate and I'm left after completing it with a feeling that it was a great game that could have been a fucking amazing game and the heartbreaking part is making it that wouldn't have been very hard to do. I won't get into all that but what I will complain about is that after spending for absolute ever getting all the environmental puzzles there was absolutely nothing cool that resulted from going through all that trouble. Not even gaining yet another pretentious video. Give me something man. I don't even thrive on rewards I just feel tricked that this monolith thing was interesting and leading somewhere.. anywhere. The kicker is.. it would have been such a great cap off if it was or there was some kind of hidden third ending related to it. (I could still be wrong about that but I doubt it..) Also fuck Jonathan Blow for making me sit through the Psalm 46 thing for an hour TWICE because I didn't realise the first time about the puzzle related to it. Ugh. It was like being actively trolled as a reward.
Definitely a troll, but the overall concept and how it tied to the Masquerade was supposed to be the awe-some part. The enjoyment of the environmental puzzles are supposed to be the hunt or the novelty (if you looked up the solutions) of the puzzle. Maybe its just his way of game design but some things are more about the journey and not the destination. The stars in Braid didn't do anything but they were so clever and interesting I personally didn't feel like I was owed something in return. I do think that some of the environmental puzzles are over saturated though. In your opinion what would have made the game 'fucking amazing'? Im totally with you though about the love/hate for the game. Could of expounded more on the concepts but maybe he wanted it to be interpreted openly. There was an interview with him stating that the original concept had a full story but then he dialed back the narrative. Unfortunately Jonathan never discloses his thoughts on the story for Braid/The Witness because he believes it is a disservice to the player.
Dan Medzy I think he just didn't expect that there'll be people who discovered the environmental puzzles and won't suspect that the white circle isn't related to one. I personally, immediately jumped to discover where the line is cause I absolutely knew there's a puzzle somewhere
- Teaching the player without words or tutorials isn't anything special. Games have done that before. Half-Life 2, Portal 2, Dark Souls, as you pointed out yourself. - The game never breaks its own rules. Wow. Which games do that anyway? Ah right, shitty ones. - Why is this called "5 Levels of Depth"? What is depth for you? These are just 5 things the game "offers" you, they are next to each other, not "behind" each other. I would call this Breadth, not Depth. - Level 5 is nothing special. The only reason you don't have this in other games is because they are not 30+ hours of the same abstract interaction. I had this in other games though, for example the first Assassins Creed, I started to see ledges and other things on buildings which I could theoretically climb on. I also had this when working with the Source Engine for a very long time. Suddenly outside I saw everything as "Textures", "Brushes" and "Models".
It is not because some very great games did something that it is easy to reproduce to a completely different genre ! Then what he means by "never breaks its own rules" is more of a "What you learn in one kind of puzzle will also apply to other puzzles if you need it" which is not the case in a lot of games. For example in Portal you might solve puzzles with lasers and other with emancipation grid but what you learn with one can not apply to the other neither synergize well whereas in the witness even if you learn something about one kind of puzzle, you can also apply it in another kind of puzzle (being on the same kind of interaction btw) which is why Jonathan Blow could make many puzzles combining what you learned in different areas.
But there are some games which incorporate a tutorial or other means with which a player can be guided. Excluding audio and subtitles of the audio and video logs, the witness has zero words anywhere. It was deliberately designed that way so it is worth pointing out, not meaning it is unique or never been done before. It is just one of the many central aspects of the game that in the sum make this game special. Yes, the game never breaks its own rules. But in this specific case, it is more complex than other games. Having enviromental puzzles adds the requirement that all circles in the game need to be clickable and part of a puzzle, otherwise the rule of the world falls apart. Imagine, as a game and level designer, you have to design each part of your map in a way so that from every point you can stand on it is not allowed to look like a circle. Also that some panel background colors signal which rules are at play. For example the tree puzzles all have green backgrounds and there is a puzzle in the town which also has that but has a different layout because the tree is different. If the dots in a puzzle are of different size then that suggests that it is an audio puzzle. There are small details that matter because they are picked up again in various place again. And noticing them will help in your journey. Sure, these 5 levels are always ever-present, but there usually is a common path to discover them. it is just the most likely order you will experience them, even thought I would say that level 5 can occur as soon as level 1. I think the real depth of this game lies in you learning to reflect on what you are doing, encouraging to experiment and wonder, about everything around you and yourself in it, thus eventually leading you to conciously witnessing yourself doing what you are doing and being able to question that, thus question what you want out of your life. Every action you do in the game comes from a choice before. Enviromental puzzles kind of teach you that even before you start a puzzle you already decided to start a puzzle. That everywhere you are you can go into the mode of wanting to solve a puzzle and click on circles. And I think that the sum of the parts of the game allow to accomplish that is what makes the game special and unique and never been done before.
Playing this game when it came out was a wonderfull experience. Reaching level 4 blew my mind and i became obsessed with it. After i finished the game i even came at level 5 and began to see the puzzles in the real world. This is actually called the "tetris effect" en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tetris_effect It even refers to The witness in the article.
Actually I think the game actively steers you in the way to look deeper into everything, not just looking differently at the world. I clearly is also about you looking deeper into yourself as well as try to view yourself differently by reflecting on what you are doing, being more aware of yourself in your enviroment, see it as a whole, something that you learn through figuring out the rules of the puzzles.
"This video is only for people who have completed the game." "Okay so let me explain what the witness is and what all the puzzles mean." Really weird editing. We already know if we've beaten it.
I'd argue that The Witness actually goes one step deeper than that. The game is about challenging your preconceived notions of the world around you and figuring things out for yourself based on experimentation. The 'symbols in real life' thing is essentially just symbolic of applying the same rote thinking to the real world. In other words, The Witness is a game about teaching the player how to think for themselves about the world they live in rather than blindly accepting the most straight forward answer. It's something that could have only been done in the form of a game and is the main feature that really sets The Witness apart from other games.
I really like this interpretation. Thanks.
Even if you pause the game (everyone misses this) the players eyes "shut" and you can see symbols move around in the players mind.
@@MasDoucit's actually just a simulation of what an afterimage of what you saw before you paused, because in the game, you close your eyes. nothing special really
Holy Shit !
Just as you talked about "level 5", I looked at the volume-display of the TH-cam-player...
I was watching the world record run where the guy went out and got food in a part where you have to draw a line on the in-game movie screen and can't finish until it finished playing, so I had to use the video progress slider.
@@kaidatong1704 The last run I watched, the guy booted up a SNES emulator and started speedrunning SMB: The Lost Levels.
I'd call your level 5 a level 6. Here's why.
There are a lot of things that you may notice in the game, but cannot click on.
A bare tree turns into one in blossom when seen from a correct perspective.
A giant sculpture of a woman turns out to be just a half of an art object, when you find it's smaller part and see them interact. There're a lot of things of that type.
And the reward is just the realization: this is intentional. This is designed for me to witness.
That's level five.
Do you agree?
It was so mind-blowing when I found my first environmental puzzle. I'm really glad I found them on my own instead of stumbling across a spoiler online. I even remember which one it was. It was a patch of pink flowers just outside the castle.
I wish I could erase all memory of this game and play it again from the beginning.
Same and same, my first was the yellow tractor thing by the apple trees. I was just walking around and there it was. There is something so special about the feeling you get from finding something like that.
Mine was the rope on the ship. There's something so otherworldly about the discovery, you've been looking at these shapes for hours and some part of you sees one in the environment and thinks "haha what if?" Then those sparks fly with the loud sound effect and you can't help but follow it through. You think it was a one time thing but then you realize that not only are they EVERYWHERE, but they've been everywhere this whole time. Now your mind is opened to witnessing an entirely new way to view the world, and it's impossible to see it as you did before.
In the double ending, that you get from unlocking all of the lasers, hidden in the caves, at the end of the tunnel connected by the windmill there is a pattern consisting of three triangles if you input this puzzle and overlay it over the starting area you're able to reactivate the laser grid allowing you to beat the game without starting over your progress
Level 5 is just an exaggerated of the tetris effect
6:14 TALOS PRINCIPLE (favorite puzzle game of all time)
Does anybody else think this is the best video game ever made? It has a unique, engaging mechanic, it has genuine artistic merit, it's intelligent, philosophical, multi-layered and outstandingly beautiful.
Yes completely. And i think anyone who plays it and understand it, even if they think it's boring, must admit that the design is crazy out there and well executed.
Some of the puzzles are unintuitive so no, not as s game. But as a work of art? Probably
No because their are a bunch of points in the game that are bad design. The sound puzzles, the color strobing, the parts where you cannot actually see the puzzles due to intended blocking, and the lore is gated behind hidden tapes with little payoff. That and the game has a massive narcissistic vibe to it.
I totally agree with you, I just love the game!
It's not really the best game, but it has its merits. I think part of what holds it back is the lack of accessibility (eg. sound and flashy color puzzles)...
Plzz HELP!!!! I can't watch any videos on youtube! Every time I open a video the seekbar looks like a puzzle and I drag it all the way to the right. :(
it seems you have thewitnessis paranoïum, try taking somme dotanlinin, it should be helpfull
So, actually dragging the red circle all the way right through the grey line isn't solving anything because of the different colors. But when you drag it to the end you'll see that the red line has been formed on the left side of your circle. Move it all the way back to the light, and voila! Your puzzle is solved and your video is set to the beginning. :)
@@lygn418 wow, a solution that solves the witness and the youtube
Nice video. You've skipped another level, which I enjoyed a lot: some puzzles matches the environment, but the environment is not required to solve them, what they do is allow you to change the environment in order to move along the island or to make possible a solution to another puzzle. And discovery of this puzzle-world correspondence was just amazing.
I get what you're saying, like door switches that aren't really puzzles, moving the elevator by the sawmill, moving the platform thingies in the swamp, etx
+maxxramman Well there's also puzzles like "how do I get over there" and you do it by finding a new solution to a panel. The tree house comes to mind right away, but there were other instances.
The boat. Can't forget the boat
@@alaeriia01 what a’boat it?
I did found out, that there is a way to find out if you have solve all the puzzles. You have to be very observant on a specific area on the island. :) I'll hope there will be more games like The Witness in the future, instead of all the violent war games. A game have to be fun to play, and if you can lean something too, its great. :)
+knus1959, yes, and this kind of one more level - there are patterns in the game, which are not part of the puzzle, but discovering them is quite a fun, for example, women hidden in the perspective. 7 levels to go, isn't this amazing...
If you play enough of any game then you'll start seeing it in real life and start trying to do stuff that you can only do in the game. I remember after a lot of Mirrors Edge I started seeing red objects and immediately thinking "I gotta jump off of that." it's just how you react after getting used to seeing a lot of one thing.
Yeah, same with Portal...
Tetris effect
Google it
4 years later and I still stumble upon things in the real world that look like puzzles.
After seeing a lot of people pooping on the Witness, it's nice to see someone who has a different point of view.
I agree.
It reminds me a lot of the novel Sophie's World, the way it teaches you to philosophise, and inverts your understanding of reality by introducing new levels and ways to think.
Best video I've seen describing The Witness! Thanks for sharing!
Watch a video called the unbearable now. It's just incredible
Jonathon Blow is a Buddhist. In the Story of the Buddha. Mara the Demon of temptation asks the Buddha who will Witness him. And the only witness The buddha had was the world around him. :D
From what I have experienced it seems Jonathon Blow is trying to teach people mindfulness.
Jordie Weeds Is he really a Buddhist? Because when I was playing the game I got the distinct notion that it was meant to be something like a Zen Koan, a form of mindful meditation of a fundamentally unsolvable problem. There's at least one recording in the later portion of the game that describes what a Koan is, and it may be the last recording a lot of people listen to in the game.
The world itself is definitely very meditative.
Yeah as far as I could tell he's a buddhist.
Seemingly he is trying to bring peoples focus back to the world around you.
What's fun is you'll have someone play the game and start seeing these puzzles in everything they do. Whether or not that was intentional I find it incredibly interesting.
That was my impression too. But if that was really a key motivation, he missed soooo many easy opportunities to teach more.
Seemingly this game was very deliberate in it's design. It's hard to see the mind of a person like Jonathan Blow. He has a very particular and peculiar way of teaching but as it stands the zen masters also did that same thing they basically just screwed with people until they came to certain conclusions. This game is meant to screw with you in the same way. Nothing is definitive and nothing matters. Besides the fact the you rebirth after you complete the game, in Mahayana buddhism this is called Saṃsāra or rebirth to continue life.
Also I could just be completely off base and everything i'm connecting to Jonathan Blows buddhism could be a much deeper dynamic connection with the Tao and Hindu philosophies as well. I'm mostly versed in Zen practice so that's where my mind went when I first saw this game.
Sorry for the long reply have a good day. :D
The name "The Witness" is also likely related to notions of non-duality and mindfulness in spiritual practice, since terms like "witness consciousness" and "non-dual witnessing" are often used to describe a certain mental phenomenon people experience in meditation. The game makes direct reference to this kind of stuff in some of the videos in the the theater, and Jonathon Blow himself meditates and has talked about non-duality briefly before.
...although, I do seem to recall him saying that didn't capture why it was called The Witness, even though it also works on that level.
You got my interpretation of the game perfectly
Fantastic video, and I think these "Levels" are exactly on point man. This could actually be an introduction/trailer to the game if they stop at Level 2 or Level 3.
You forgot to mention the random stuff you see in the game that you only see if it’s the right perspective. There is no puzzle or solution...it’s just a beautiful moment in the game that you get to experience if you happened to look at the right place at the right time. Great example is the statue in marsh and the statue on the mountain touching hands if you stare at the perfect angle. Or if you stare at the shoreline combined with the reflection in the water in a certain area on the island...it actually is a giant person praying etc.
The stone people made me thing the game was gonna be about.. solving why the people are statues and why the island felt.. off.. like why is there a bunch of panels controlling things while nature still exists
7:40 this rebirth is eluded to in one of the earliest audio logs you can find where the woman's voice says: "through many births I have wandered on and on, searching for, but never finding, the builder of this house."
There is another layer not mentioned. I would say Is 4.5 on the list. There is hidden imagery in the landscape. Such as a face in a tree or the outline of a person. But it’s only seen from a certain perspective. There is no puzzle to solve just the joy of finding one of these images.
Intresting you talk about gameification and bringing up AC as an example when there are these obelisks that kinda work as checklists in the witness, so yeah you could also have it in that game.
level five is called "tetris effect"
Really liked the environmental easter eggs within the game. These Easter eggs aren’t puzzles but rather something visually cool that you only will be able to see from a specific angle. If you weren’t able to find a single one within your play through than I recommend you to search it up on TH-cam.
i think why Braid has more reputation is, it is easier to see its uniqueness, original gameplay structure, but in the witness, you have to look at it from wider angle, it is not visible at first glance, and i didnt even see the hidden puzzles in the nature, i just got bored and never play it again. infact it is a wonderful and out of the box game
That's actually not the only way to see the credits. If you make it far enough through the game, you are given a way to turn the light gate in the starting garden area back on.
A great example of level 5 (although it is still in the game) is the broken piece of machinery outside of the glass factory, every time I pass it I check to see if it works as an environmental puzzle, even though I try one every hour or so.
level five is low key a conceptual understanding of how segwit and the fundamental principles of distributed concensus technologies work.
The last version of the apple tree puzzle was really awesome
Interesting example of the Tetrist Effect
I wish I could forget all the puzzles so I could play through this game again.
There are animals on The Island.
Out by the Desert Ruin in the direction of the Quarry here are a few stick insects. Ha, ha!
+Nicholas Harris They are carved. Those are just the branches of those dead trees in the desert. there is nothing living in the island.
There are more animals...a stone turtle, a deer, koi fish,...Depending on where you stand at the bold tree in the desert you can see people's faces inbetween the branches.
Really clear and concise analysis!
I think you could even stick another level in there before level 4 for the puzzles that control the world. For example, the bridge-controlling puzzles in the marsh (tetris area) or the puzzles that control the quarry.
Games where the design is the core mechanic than the puzzles are very nice games
I loved this game, but i can understand some of the negative comments people give about it.
Some of the puzzles really are waaaay outside the box, and without a true aversion to solving puzzles i can see how it would be pretty hard to sit through the whole game, especially when you consider what kind of games the overall population is used to, hell even i sometimes found myself swearing pretty loudly.
But the rewarding feeling of figuring a hard puzzle out is just unmatched, for me not even getting that rare piece of equipment compares to it.
It honestly was a surreal experience, this game will be forever in my fondest and hated memories alike.
Awesome breakdown. Right there with you. However you didn't speak about the games philosophical and religious themes. The audio logs that's you find generally have some common ground with the theme of the area that you find them in along with said areas puzzles. I think the ultimate message of the game if Jonathan blow intended there to be one is to observe the world around you. And that there are many ways to observe and interpret not only our planet but the universe.
The title of the game is a reference to the term „witness consciousness“, which is a state of mind. The in-game movies make this clear.
Me and some friends finish the game me not at 100% cause i'm still chasing round :P but i finish the game and on fb we create a group name The rounds hunters we sending photos and playing around cause as soon as we have finish and then we know a other friend start it we go see him and say Oh gosh you are done right here you will see them everywhere ( sorry for my bad writting i'm from quebec) I play all the game with 1 friend and we finish it in about 34 hours. Him more cartesian and me more instinctive. A Amazing game! I'm stuck inside the mountain , one you show in your video, i know how to solve them but Oufff you have to be so quick... i will retry until i got it :P Have a nice Level 5 day :P
I saw a witness thing in the trees outside my house I cant unsee it
I am personally convinced that The Witness is in reference to Sakshi, a Hindu concept of 'pure awareness'.
"See, this table is an object of experience to my eyes. My eyes and the body are objects of experience to my mind. And my mind is an object of experience, I cannot deny it, it's a fact ...to what? That awareness which experiences the mind from within. That awareness which cannot be objectified. That is called, for want of a better term, because it witnesses, it shines upon, illumines every movement of the mind, every thought, every idea, every memory, every feeling, it's called the Witness. In Sanskrit: sakshi." - Swami Sarvapriyananda
I can't say I experienced level 5 from The Witness, but I certainly understood what he was getting at with his ending video. Probably because I beat the whole game in like 2 sittings I didn't have much time in between to notice patterns in the real world. I also discovered the environmental puzzles almost immediately after leaving the castle, so they distracted me quite a bit throughout the game. Almost wish they weren't so obvious so soon, but I guess that's my fault for being a curious, analytical thinker who isn't afraid to click on things that aren't puzzles (I actually saw several let's players notice the real world puzzles but never even consider clicking on them, which was bizarre to me).
I did experience level 5 after playing Portal 2 though. I played the whole game through solid and when I left my room my brain kept subconsciously planning on which flat surfaces would be best to put portals on such that I could climb up the wall and get to.. wait nevermind this is real life. :P
There's no way you beat the whole game in 2 sittings unless you used a guide. Unless by beat the game you mean get the normal 7 laser ending. But 100% completion needs at least 50 hours, and probably more like 80-100 hours without a walkthrough. It took me 105 hours, but I spent too much time wandering around the island looking for cool perspectives and enjoying the scenery instead of focusing strictly on completion.
I got all 11 lasers, and finished the majority of the end-game content, including a certain musical event. I did not get every world puzzle, as I view that as post-game replayability content. I did not read any guides or watch any videos about the game until after I had completed it to my satisfaction (completed != 100%, as Jon Blow has said, there is no 100% in this game, it's much more than solving the puzzle panels). I have ~34 hours played I think. People solve puzzles at different rates, everyone should play through at their own pace to have the best experience.
dandymcgee That's fair. I'm just arguing that I do not think it is possible to complete all puzzles the game has to offer in two sittings. I suspect the environmental puzzles would easily double your reported play time.
Also, how would you know that the environmental puzzles are post-game replayability content if you didn't consult any outside source? I didn't realize that finding them all didn't unlock anything until after I found the last one. I think your claim is suspect.
Assuming you discovered that fact when you looked it up after you had "completed the game to your satisfaction", I think you cut yourself short. It's definitely possible to locate them all on your own. But knowing that they don't lead to a new ending or unlock something cool is a bit of a let-down that I think prevents most people from being motivated enough to search for them all.
Zamzummin I had no interest in finding them all even before I learned they did nothing. I did not look anything up until I was satisfied with my experience. If I had *never* looked anything up, I would have missed a lot of really cool things that I would never have noticed on my own. That's one of my favorite parts of playing through a game and then watching other people do it to see what they did differently.
Totally agree! Just finished playing the game and i see those everywhere now O.O
The greatest game ever made, and maybe the greatest game which will ever exist imho
Game developers that have played The Witness reach level 8, where you can't help but let Jon Blow design style permeate your own creations.
If you consider the movies played in the "cinema" room in the game, it's pretty evident that the game title refers to the "witness consciousness" from eastern religious philosophy. You surely have watched it already, but for everyone who is interested, take a look at the YT video called "The Unbearable Now". It explains it all very well.
Wait this is the only game related video on this channel? Aw man, I was interested in seeing what else this guy has played and what his reactions are. The Let's Play community needs more intellectual thinkers.
I love that theory on the title!
After finishing the game completely, I went nuts too. But it passes after a couple of weeks of withdrawal
I JUST FINISHED THE WITNESS AND CAN'T EVEN LOOK NORMAL AT A SPOON ANYMORE. HELP.
Once i found an enviromental puzzle i was hoping they would be the actual key to the end game and the puzzles were just all tutorials.
The witness "tells" you about environmental puzzles near the end of the normal route
What about Level 6? The reason to not actually care about playing the game? The realization of letting go of obsessions that have a very obvious, and kinda unforgiving, endings that achieve nothing substantial. All the video recordings ans Audio logs (THAT ARE SUPER HARD TO FIND ALL OF THEM OMGAWD)
The 6th layer. The philosophy of The Witness.
I haven't taken the trial and error to beat the Challenge yet, I've been trying to run back through the game to get back into it
it's not trial and error if you're high iq
Level 5 is ABSOLUTELY TRUE ‼️
The level 1 puzzle you showed was more like a level 2
Great video, quite a unique game
I loved this game, and I don't even like puzzles games...but then again, maybe I do now 😆
you said it's one of your top 5, may i know what are the others?
This video gets it! Nailed it.
I think the main issue isnt that "maze puzzles is all you do", but that more than half of those puzzles do not engage with the enviroment around the mazes, or take the opportunity of being inside a videogame.
What I mean by that, is that you can recreate most of those puzzles on a piece of paper, and put them on a newspaper and puzzle book.
Areas like the Marsh and Treehouse are basically just an onslaught of logical puzzles that exchange simplicity and creativity, for complexity and work.
The "ah ha!" moment you get here, simply doesnt justify the amount of time you can lose in tetramino puzzles.
The game is at its best when it is using the space around the maze and incorporating it in the puzzle like the Desert and Keep Monastery areas, and demanding the player to use lateral thinking.
This of course, is my preference, I can totally understand why people would love to solve tetromino and pairing puzzles, just as so many people enjoy pure math puzzle problems, which is something I never did like.
Solving the puzzle is the reward, definitely, but I did feel that that reward was bigger when I took a step back to think for a bit, and then catching something that wasnt there in the first place, and smaller when I finally figured out what exactly was the pattern to solving a solely tetromino puzzle.
I did enjoy the time I spent on the game, beating The Challenge is my achievement of the year so far.
I was just a bit disappointed, and I imagine other people have the same opinion as me, that the game didnt become something solely a videogame could do( which is weird, when you think about how Blow made Braid).
Fantastic level design, fantastic player guidance, great "story", great art, great puzzles, but it doesnt reach Masterpiece status for me.
+Hattori Hanzo I find that I had the exact opposite experience; the tetronimo and other purely logical puzzles were my favorite by a good margin. I think they're so cool, that I wish some of the more environmental puzzles had been scrapped in favor of more of these.
In fact, whereas you find the desert one of your favorite areas, I personally found it one of my least favorite, if not my actual least favorite. I thought that there was too much repetition of the basic rule, with not enough interesting twists on it to justify the puzzle count it encompassed. I knew exactly where the solution was once I got to most of them, whereas the tetronimo solutions only revealed themselves after a while of thinking and experimentation, and they involved more complex concepts which added to the satisfaction once solved. I would have preferred the desert had been merged with other areas, and same for the forest cast shadows area.
I agree with your line of thinking, but I don't think you've followed it through completely. Games are absolutely at their best when they are doing things other mediums are unable to do. I would argue that this is one of the central design philosophies of the game. You suggest that many of the puzzles could simply be put in a newspaper. you're half right. Yes, you could put a bunch of the panels into a newspaper and someone who had played the game could have a similar experience solving them there. But that's missing the crucial step...
If you stop and think for a moment how puzzles in a newspaper or book work, the player tries to solve them and then has to check his solution against the solutions in tomorrow's newspaper or the back of the book. This means you get one attempt at the puzzle. It also means those puzzles almost always have only one solution, but that's less important. The key thing is one attempt.
The main puzzle in The Witness is actually learning the puzzle rules. If you think about the way they introduce them, there is simply no way you could do that in a newspaper or book. It relies on you being able to guess, form a hypothesis based on the result, test your hypothesis, adjust the hypothesis, test again. This is possible because the game can check your solution without showing you the correct solution. This isn't really something you can do in other mediums and I've certainly never seen it done before.
Once you've worked out all the intricacies of the rules, then I suppose it might as well be in a book. But it does still allow for multiple solutions (an important fact for the treetop puzzles) which a book generally wouldn't. Besides, many times I thought I did understand the rules properly, just to be stumped by a puzzle which seemed to break them (spoiler: it didn't).
Joe Hendrey Yes, im very aware of that unique difference, thats probably the best aspect of the game, how it lets you pretty much teach yourself this language that is connected to the whole island.
What I was trying to say though, is that the majority of the puzzles are all very static. Its you and a maze panel.
For alot of people thats just like homework, its a sucession of increasingly more complicated puzzles where you already know the theory of how it works.
The one instant where the tetromino puzzle strays away from that formula, is when it makes you understand that as long as the pieces are connected, you can change their positions within the maze and not necessarily enclose their respective icon.
The moment you know how the tetromino puzzles work, you know how the solve the rest of them, its no longer a battle of trying to understand why there is a specific solution to the puzzle you simply cant see, and instead its you trying to finally visualize the correct answer by trial and error. Both puzzles are good, but some people have have preference for one or the other.
The other kind of puzzles on the other hand, make you wonder "What am I missing here, how exactly does the developer want me to approach this? This worked before but now its the wrong solution....let me look at it from this angl-oh i got it!". The spacial interactivity of the game is being fuly utilized, and that for me is what puzzle videogames should always try to achieve.
The puzzle that saved the Treehouse for me was that multiple solution part.
I was getting exhausted of building bridges because it seemed like every step meant having to do work. I knew where i needed to go, I knew the rules, but I just had to keep unlocking more bridge.
But then, there is a timer on the door, and that changes everything." How the hell do i get there on time? There is no other way to go! Wait, there were maze puzzles that had more than one solution! I have to build a different bridge!"
That for me was the only true puzzle of the area, the rest was filler.
Hattori Hanzo I get what you're saying. I disagree that there was only one revelatory moment with the tetronimo puzzles. Understanding how the blue blocks worked was also quite difficult. One panel in particular took me a long time to understand why it worked because it seemed to work for the wrong reasons.
With the treetop area, I also got a tiny bit of that sort of feeling. But I would enjoy the pen and paper version of those puzzles anyway, so it was fine for me. I do know that one of the design philosophies was to have a unique concept in every panel. Sometimes those are such small ideas that it's hard to really isolate what they are, and it can seem a bit repetitive if your earlier hypothesis already included that aspect. But I think the idea in general is that you could have one idea of what the rule is and have to adapt it slightly for every single puzzle you encounter. Each panel is about being slightly more specific about the rule.
I don't know if they were successful in that 100% of the time, but I definitely did notice that my understanding of the rules was constantly evolving throughout the game, right up until the laser in each section.
+Hattori Hanzo "Wait, there were maze puzzles that had more than one solution! I have to build a different bridge!"
That for me was the only true puzzle of the area, the rest was filler." Except all the puzzles that were teaching you the rules of these star shapes.
What are your top 5 favorite games, Robin?
1:30 describing Open World To-Do Lists in 2016
In the year 2022, after two years of a horrible Pandemic, a far-right US government that tried to cling to power, EVERYONE talking about Open World grind to do list, because Elden Ring buried it and sold 12 million copies.
Interesting game .
I agree with level 5
Wait wait wait I finished the game and did not get that video. What?
Nvm I kept watching xD
I would say that there is one inconsistent puzzle in the game, in the sound-based series. Bird, bird, bird, bird, wolf, bird... When I played the game for the first time I developed a habit of actively defining the ruleset I figured. "This is an error symbol, it cancels one mistake." "These symbols mark a shape that you need to trap/outline with the line interchangeably if grouped together". The better I defined the rule, the easier following puzzles became. And if a definition didn't work, I looked back and reworded it until it worked for all puzzles of that type.
But in the sounds puzzles... You trace some sounds. Then there are distractions. How do you define what is a distraction and what isn't? You can't properly. You just kinda try to trace any sound until it works, I guess. So you have a bird with a barking distraction. Then you have a howl with a bird distraction. I call bullshit on that.
And yes, in the shipwreck there's a sound puzzle without any birds, just noises. The point is that matching random sounds until something works isn't really a good definition in my opinion.
That's not even the end of it. There's countless perspective easter eggs too! And they go on and ON! Here's just a few.
th-cam.com/video/j2OT3QdrHLU/w-d-xo.html
_The Witness_ is a folly.
What game is at 1:38 ?
I mention this in the audio but it's Assassin's Creed: Syndicate
I absolutely love this game but theres also a lot I hate and I'm left after completing it with a feeling that it was a great game that could have been a fucking amazing game and the heartbreaking part is making it that wouldn't have been very hard to do. I won't get into all that but what I will complain about is that after spending for absolute ever getting all the environmental puzzles there was absolutely nothing cool that resulted from going through all that trouble. Not even gaining yet another pretentious video. Give me something man. I don't even thrive on rewards I just feel tricked that this monolith thing was interesting and leading somewhere.. anywhere. The kicker is.. it would have been such a great cap off if it was or there was some kind of hidden third ending related to it. (I could still be wrong about that but I doubt it..) Also fuck Jonathan Blow for making me sit through the Psalm 46 thing for an hour TWICE because I didn't realise the first time about the puzzle related to it. Ugh. It was like being actively trolled as a reward.
Definitely a troll, but the overall concept and how it tied to the Masquerade was supposed to be the awe-some part. The enjoyment of the environmental puzzles are supposed to be the hunt or the novelty (if you looked up the solutions) of the puzzle. Maybe its just his way of game design but some things are more about the journey and not the destination. The stars in Braid didn't do anything but they were so clever and interesting I personally didn't feel like I was owed something in return. I do think that some of the environmental puzzles are over saturated though. In your opinion what would have made the game 'fucking amazing'? Im totally with you though about the love/hate for the game. Could of expounded more on the concepts but maybe he wanted it to be interpreted openly. There was an interview with him stating that the original concept had a full story but then he dialed back the narrative. Unfortunately Jonathan never discloses his thoughts on the story for Braid/The Witness because he believes it is a disservice to the player.
Dan Medzy I think he just didn't expect that there'll be people who discovered the environmental puzzles and won't suspect that the white circle isn't related to one. I personally, immediately jumped to discover where the line is cause I absolutely knew there's a puzzle somewhere
Dude you totally missed level 6 - didn't *really* get the game like so many others.
which is?
Which level of depth is the pretentious one?
+BLB048 The one where you think there is depth
Git gud
If a level of depth falls in a wood, and there is no one to witness it, is it pretentious?
@@andrewgrant6516 Good point. How many people actually played this game?
- Teaching the player without words or tutorials isn't anything special. Games have done that before. Half-Life 2, Portal 2, Dark Souls, as you pointed out yourself.
- The game never breaks its own rules. Wow. Which games do that anyway? Ah right, shitty ones.
- Why is this called "5 Levels of Depth"? What is depth for you? These are just 5 things the game "offers" you, they are next to each other, not "behind" each other. I would call this Breadth, not Depth.
- Level 5 is nothing special. The only reason you don't have this in other games is because they are not 30+ hours of the same abstract interaction. I had this in other games though, for example the first Assassins Creed, I started to see ledges and other things on buildings which I could theoretically climb on. I also had this when working with the Source Engine for a very long time. Suddenly outside I saw everything as "Textures", "Brushes" and "Models".
It is not because some very great games did something that it is easy to reproduce to a completely different genre !
Then what he means by "never breaks its own rules" is more of a "What you learn in one kind of puzzle will also apply to other puzzles if you need it" which is not the case in a lot of games. For example in Portal you might solve puzzles with lasers and other with emancipation grid but what you learn with one can not apply to the other neither synergize well whereas in the witness even if you learn something about one kind of puzzle, you can also apply it in another kind of puzzle (being on the same kind of interaction btw) which is why Jonathan Blow could make many puzzles combining what you learned in different areas.
But there are some games which incorporate a tutorial or other means with which a player can be guided. Excluding audio and subtitles of the audio and video logs, the witness has zero words anywhere. It was deliberately designed that way so it is worth pointing out, not meaning it is unique or never been done before. It is just one of the many central aspects of the game that in the sum make this game special.
Yes, the game never breaks its own rules. But in this specific case, it is more complex than other games. Having enviromental puzzles adds the requirement that all circles in the game need to be clickable and part of a puzzle, otherwise the rule of the world falls apart. Imagine, as a game and level designer, you have to design each part of your map in a way so that from every point you can stand on it is not allowed to look like a circle. Also that some panel background colors signal which rules are at play. For example the tree puzzles all have green backgrounds and there is a puzzle in the town which also has that but has a different layout because the tree is different. If the dots in a puzzle are of different size then that suggests that it is an audio puzzle. There are small details that matter because they are picked up again in various place again. And noticing them will help in your journey.
Sure, these 5 levels are always ever-present, but there usually is a common path to discover them. it is just the most likely order you will experience them, even thought I would say that level 5 can occur as soon as level 1.
I think the real depth of this game lies in you learning to reflect on what you are doing, encouraging to experiment and wonder, about everything around you and yourself in it, thus eventually leading you to conciously witnessing yourself doing what you are doing and being able to question that, thus question what you want out of your life. Every action you do in the game comes from a choice before. Enviromental puzzles kind of teach you that even before you start a puzzle you already decided to start a puzzle. That everywhere you are you can go into the mode of wanting to solve a puzzle and click on circles. And I think that the sum of the parts of the game allow to accomplish that is what makes the game special and unique and never been done before.
Playing this game when it came out was a wonderfull experience. Reaching level 4 blew my mind and i became obsessed with it. After i finished the game i even came at level 5 and began to see the puzzles in the real world. This is actually called the "tetris effect"
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tetris_effect
It even refers to The witness in the article.
I wish I'd heard of this term before I made the video. It would have been a really interesting sequence.
Man the game is only supposed to make you look at the world differently, people shouldn't be digging too hard into it.
Actually I think the game actively steers you in the way to look deeper into everything, not just looking differently at the world. I clearly is also about you looking deeper into yourself as well as try to view yourself differently by reflecting on what you are doing, being more aware of yourself in your enviroment, see it as a whole, something that you learn through figuring out the rules of the puzzles.
Honestly the Witness just bored me. I never got to the environmental puzzles but after that revelation I just could not give less of a shit.
"This video is only for people who have completed the game."
"Okay so let me explain what the witness is and what all the puzzles mean."
Really weird editing. We already know if we've beaten it.