Adventure Gamers - Forums

Anyone heard of this? It’s a first-person game in which you explore a seamless open-world island (inspired by Myst), that’s littered with puzzles (at least 500 puzzles so far); and I think all this builds into an abstract, philosophical narrative of some kind.

It’s beautiful to look at. The developer hired architects to design the buildings and landscape. Anyway, I’ve been following the dev blog for some time, but I just discovered that they released some screenshots. The previous screens they released weren’t very substantial. Even at the moment they’re still secretive about the game.

I’m surprised it hasn’t gotten much mention on AG. Anyway, more screenshots over here. And here’s the developer blog.

I was inspired to post here because in a recent interview, the developer, Jonathan Blow, remarked that adventure games have an undefined quality to them that’s fascinating. Which I agree with. He then goes into detail on how he’s trying to design puzzles that don’t feel too arbitrary or poorly paced.

I don’t know about all of you, but I’m starting to believe that this is shaping up to be one of the greatest and artistically ambitious adventure games in recent times.

After all the hubbub over David Cage, I’d love to see what people think of Jonathan Blow.

But yea, The Witness looks pretty great.

Well assuming I’m thinking of the correct Jonathan Blow, I didn’t care for that highly praised platformer he did. This looks like it could actually be really good. I’m not getting my hopes up yet though.

I just mentioned that because Blow has made some comments that polarized people. See here for a short interview:

http://www.cbsnews.com/video/watch/?id=7417988n

Also check Indie Game: The Movie, which has some nice interviews with him.

Sorry, don’t meant to hijack. But I like what Blow is trying to achieve in his games.

I thought Braid was amazing. I remember reading a thread about this game some time back. Here it is - http://archive.adventuregamers.com/forums/showthread.php?t=26388

Really waiting for this game.

We’ve talked to Jonathan and have a preview/interview planned for sometime down the line, but there really hasn’t been too much to see or talk about until recently. And the game is still pretty far off, I believe, so no rush. Definitely one we’ve got our eye on closely, though.

The game certainly looks intriguing, but I’ve yet to hear anything that really sets is apart from Myst (other than the real-time exploration, which that series eventually adopted anyway). Not that a good Myst-style game is unwelcome in its own right, but I think people are expecting something revolutionary from Blow, and so far I’ve seen nothing along those lines.

Never heard of Ether One before, but just had a look at the trailer and it sure looks spectacular

I think Jonathan is hugely smart, has a knack for designing gameplay and being the judge of great aesthetics. But…he isn’t a good writer. At all. The writing in Braid was just awful, and this makes me a bit anxious about The Witness, because I have the feeling that the writing and story will play a much more important role there.
Judging by the screenshots, it doesn’t look like the game is too far off by now, but that’s merely my presumption. It really looks great now! I’m looking forward to it.

I also liked Braid. Its concept was totally unique, artistically speaking very nice and with very smart riddles.
Since I am also a devoted Myst fan, I have high hopes on that one…

At least it looks pretty. I hope all the whole game isn’t made up of those tracing puzzles.

inm8#2 - 15 February 2013 11:47 PM

Also check Indie Game: The Movie, which has some nice interviews with him.

 

Indie Game: The Movie trailer looks great anybody seen it?

Dertiger - 16 February 2013 10:58 AM

inm8#2 - 15 February 2013 11:47 PM

Also check Indie Game: The Movie, which has some nice interviews with him.

 

Indie Game: The Movie trailer looks great anybody seen it?

Yeah, it’s pretty good. It’s also on Netflix (Netflix USA, don’t know about other countries).

I know Blow can be kind of opinionated, but a lot of his points are valid, I think. I think they’re less valid now than when he started work on The Witness - games like Spec Ops: The Line or Cart Life or even Dishonored are bringing interesting and thoughtful ideas into games now - but I still think we have a long way to go.

I am looking forward to this game. There was a recent flurry of activity on the blog (well, a few months ago now) so hopefully that means the finish line is in sight for them.

It’s hard to explain why The Witness should be special, and why it’s not just a realtime Myst clone. The puzzles are apparently put together in such a way that solving a puzzle makes you realise something about the world. So puzzle solving is not just an arbitrary activity, but something that allows you to interact with and contemplate reality. That’s what I heard, anyway.

Braid is something I paradoxically admired more than I enjoyed. At first I fell in love with it, as the first few stages were, I thought, brilliant and unique. At the time it felt totally new. But in the later stages the difficulty spikes considerably, and an unwelcome feeling took over: the gameplay suddenly felt mechanical. It ceased to feel organic and whimsical, as it had in the earlier stages. I started to view every single element of the world as an arbitrary puzzle piece. I could see the strings, so to speak, and that joy of exploration and discovery was lost.

When The Witness was first announced I was hesitant. Honestly, it sounded pretentious, and I tend to gravitate towards concrete narratives, as opposed to abstract, philosophical ones. But now, obviously, I welcome it with open arms. Especially now that Blow has since acknowledged some of the criticisms in how Braid was designed.

I’ve seen Indie Game: The Movie. While I do admire all the developers featured in that documentary, it’s to his credit that Blow comes off as the most “normal” of the bunch. In general, and after watching more of his lectures, I’ve come to admire his design principles. I guess that’s why I’m so excited for The Witness: it’s not so much what it can offer at face value, as a traditional game, but it’s what it can prove intellectually what Blow has been lecturing about since Braid.

The best way I can put it is that I am more excited for how The Witness can make me feel than how much it can entertain me. Upcoming titles like Ether One are exciting, but only when judged from the standpoint of a traditional game. I define my anticipation of Ether One by gauging it on how fun it looks. Which isn’t the same thing. It’s not that The Witness is somehow better; it’s that it seems to have different goals. Either goal is equally worthy of admiration; yet some goals are rarer than others.

It’s that rarity that gets me even more excited. And I hope The Witness pays off.