Adventure Gamers - Forums

No, I’m not kidding.  I was reminded of Cosmic Osmo, not in a bad way - I like Cosmic Osmo. I don’t mean the game play is like Cosmic Osmo, or even the graphics, but the theme of exploration reminded me of it.

I love your little playground jabs, Karlok.  Very nice.

Bt

Obviously you’ve not played Order of the Thorne.  It is not a role playing game.

I meant adventure adjacent just as I wrote it - it’s not an adventure game in a traditional sense, but it shares some themes in common.  Mystian Puzzle Game is very apt, though I feel Myst at least had more story and lore with it.

Bt

Finished. Outstanding game.

I’ve already started a new game because I haven’t solved everything. Did anyone manage to get the door in the ship open?

FINALLY!!!! I know it’s old news but this puzzle was killing me for time!! Anyone remembers it? Effing great stuff

(That is not the solution of course)

Edit: Ok, now it’s done, not the true ending of course, solved 401 +12 puzzles.

Blackthorne - 21 February 2016 07:44 PM

Obviously you’ve not played Order of the Thorne.  It is not a role playing game.

I meant adventure adjacent just as I wrote it - it’s not an adventure game in a traditional sense, but it shares some themes in common.  Mystian Puzzle Game is very apt, though I feel Myst at least had more story and lore with it.

Bt

After spending some hours into it, your argument with Karlok is exactly whats The Witness is all about.
Its deeply philosophical, pseudo scientific/religious stuff but with story what your perception makes out of it.
Your game are hybrids as her perception.
You called The witness , Myst with less story, well your take.

Its all about perception.
Its not revealed untill waaay later.
But life is about making out from your past knowledge, hence your perception.
Your whole exercise in this game is based on this theme.

I would highly recommend you to push yourself to play it , just to see a man trying to push the medium further rather than cookie cutter stuff we find everywhere.
Even though you will it pretentious like many.

As someone who’ve played and mostly enjoyed both Myst(1) & The Witness, I confirm that the Myst had, objectively, more story.

namehaver - 02 June 2016 06:16 PM

As someone who’ve played and mostly enjoyed both Myst(1) & The Witness, I confirm that the Myst had, objectively, more story.

Objectively how?
If you want word, its explicit.
Withess is more implicit and way more artistic and environmental storytelling is something that each gamer can interpret differently.
From many posts across multiple forums, there is alot in Witness to call it objective.
In other words its Darksouls vs Mgs5 story debate, ofcorse mgs5 has more cutscenes but that doesnt mean mgs5 had more story.

Each puzzle area sometimes each puzzle tells a story in Witness, it speaks to you differently, and fire your neurons to decipher the lore attached to those puzzles.
Some found them routine jobs to progress, others infered it as a plot device.

Ofcourse it depends upon how invested you are and how much you can relate/infer.

https://dustmop.itch.io/the-witnes

Enjoy this 8bit Demake

I bought this game on Friday and am already hooked. I’m not sure why there is not more love from the puzzle adventure crowd for this game. Maybe it is the 3D movement? There is no issue with mouse control when you program the middle button for ‘W’. The game reminds me mostly of the Rhem series where spacial skills are helpful. Those grid puzzles have been grossly misrepresented as maze-like. They are much more like logic mini games that progress in deviousness enough that the developer includes sets of tutorial practice puzzles.So instead of sliders and codes you have these mini-games to open gates, power up areas, access rooms, etc. (all the things we normally do in exploration adventures). And speaking of exploration, wow! Vast areas, lots of environments from beaches to mesa inspired locals to castle ruins.
I initially ignored this game because of the general gamer reviews of the ‘repetitive’ maze puzzles. I avoided any more in depth reviews or videos because of spoilers. Then there was the price. I’ve been spoiled lately buying cheap fix casuals. With Obduction releasing soon, and likely a new computer to play it, I thought I might as well get the most out of my present rig. I’m glad I did. This game is a blast so far. Even when I’ve been stuck, there are so many other places to check out. It has been a while since I have looked forward to running up to the computer room for a few hours of escape.

Whew, finally found this thread. So, I was thoroughly disappointed with the game. There’s a great game lurking in there, but it’s drowning in a sea of tedious puzzles. I’m guessing there’s a saying in there about how eureka moments require a lot of hard work but somehow in Braid Mr. Blow did a great job distilling each distinct concept into a small amount of puzzles, and in The Witness that skill had apparently abandoned him.

This is only slightly annoying for some of the puzzle mechanics - after all, you’re free to visit them at any time, so if you’re not into binging a particular mechanic you can interleave at will. However, some mechanics just have no merit.
The example I saw mentioned everywhere, and rightfully so, is the sun temple, where you have to find the exact position to stand in to see the outline of what you need to do. It combines the two worst aspects of the game, the 3D pixel hunt (made even MORE frustrating because of your inability to crouch or tilt your head) and puzzles where the only challenge is finding the key. Good puzzles require blending some clue with some thinking. A great in-game example is the shipwreck, and there are others. Then there’s this.
It’s not limited to just that area, though. It repeats in the monastery, where it’s possible to find many perspectives showing paths into the multi-path diamond puzzles, the jungle and in some sense that short series of reflective landmark puzzles. These all suffer from the same issue, the difficulty is just tedious, there’s no challenge to it.
Unfortunately, this continues with the game’s most lauded mechanic, the environmental puzzles. Maybe it’s because I got one right away, but I honestly didn’t bother with them. For the most part it’s the same annoying mechanics mentioned earlier, and the few cases where you have to actually work (by manipulating the environment) are not enough to carry them. I also see no justification for the large amount, having only a few with an obvious hook and some of the difficult ones would have been better, I think.

And it’s a shame, because among all that crap, sometimes gated behind a series of annoying padding, are some really great puzzles. There are many moments of brilliance, such as the gardens, the colored squares in different lighting, some of the puzzles in the town that bring together multiple aspects, even the final column puzzles. The best example, I feel, is the final area itself. It’s unlocked with one of the most annoying puzzles in the game, then has a standard section (if I recall), followed by stupidly annoying “out of order” puzzles that seriously caused me motion sickness at some point, then suddenly you have the great two bridge construction puzzle followed by a great floor puzzle combined into larger puzzle only to encounter the timed section, which I maybe got lucky with since I did it immediately, got two easy ones or something. It’s just all over the place, banal puzzles, annoying puzzles, great puzzles, etc.

I think if you were to take the 50 or so best puzzles from this game you’d end up with a masterpiece to rival Braid. As it stands, it’s a game I can’t recommend to anyone because for every cool bit there are about 4 “meh” bits and 1-2 really annoying parts, so overall it’s not really worth it.

The Witness is a masterpiece in puzzle game design as far as I am concerned. If you distill the game to its core, it is connecting a line from a source point to a destination, but it is amazing how much variety and challenge you can get by slightly altering this very simple premise. On top of that, it wonderfully introduces you to its new rules by starting from the very basic, and upping the difficulty slightly with each new panel, till by the end, you are left with solving a true conundrum.

The Witness is unapologetically difficult, and it hearkens to a day when adventure games were not scared to tax you mentally.
I know it might sound masochist, but I took enjoyment in the old days in just leaving the game for a day or two, with the hot anticipation of breaking the stalemate when I came back. I had the same experience with this game. Lots of the time, I would be looking at a panel for 15 minutes and just get frustrated and give up for the day, but the next time I took a stab at it, I had the solution right in front of me.

With all that said, this game is not perfect and there are a couple of frustrating design issues that annoyed me.

- Navigating the island is a pain in the ass. It is especially frustrating that you cannot walk on grass in certain areas, and you have to follow the narrow path outlined for you. I get why he did this, mainly to block you from going places without solving a panel that might teach you something, but there were some instances where I had to do lots of backtracking to get somewhere, when I could have easily just walked on the grass and gotten there. For an open world game, it is restricting in that sense. In the same way, long distance navigation in the island is frustrating. It’s cute that taking a boat and driving it uses the same simple game mechanic of connecting a source point to a destination, but the act of getting to a boat, and waiting till your boat arrives just padded the game with unnecessary boring tedium. A fast travel like in Monkey Island would have been perfect here.

- This next thing was something I noticed but kind of forgotten about, but J Blow actually mentioned as one of the things he would change in the game. The game can be intimidating for new users. Mainly, the town that tests you on everything you learned in the game, is right next to where you start the game. You arrive to it very early, and you will be turned off by how obscure everything looks like. J Blow said that if there was something he would change, it is blocking this town until you have visited the rest of the island and learned about the rest of the mechanics.

Overall, I love this game, and I have played it several times now, and I still get stuck on some of the panels . By the way, I understand some of the frustration in controls for some folks. This game was really designed to best be used with a game controller.