The Witness

Finally got around to starting the Witness yesterday. So far I like the game art style, which is a refreshing change from the gritty realism that most games are trying for these days. It's bright, colourful, creative and has some great level design for exploration and discovery. Everything is different and new when I reach it. The puzzle design is interesting too in that it gives you the basics at the beginning, but after that, you're on your own for figuring out how each of the maze puzzles work and relate to the environment around them. A lot of the puzzles build on one another, and some include elements of other areas while other count on you to translate visual information to new places. The one problem I have is I'm not a very visual person and have a lot of trouble transforming objects visually inside my head. I can remember scenes and pictures pretty well, but ask me to flip it or imagine an invisible object/picture/path and my brain just implodes. For instance, right now I can see the image of one of the line paths I found on a hexagonal pillar inside my head, but I would have a lot of trouble translating that image onto another object or applying it somewhere else.

One thing I could do without is the inclusion of random quotes and videos. There are various hidden recordings of a man and a woman quoting various great minds and thinkers (mostly Albert Einstein tbh), which is interesting, but super distracting. They really should have been included as text files vs audio recordings as they go on FOREVER. They all seem to be linking together based on theme, but it's kind of a vague over-arching theme, especially since you can essentially go anywhere you want on the island at any time providing there isn't a puzzle barrier in your way. When I activate them, I try to listen, but I want to move the game along, so I wander around, but I need to wait until they are done speaking before I can comment or interact with anything. It's not that the game doesn't let you...it's that I find it very hard to focus on listening and understanding the quotes at the same time as completing a puzzle. If these were text items, I could read them a lot faster and get the general sense of meaning.

I'm very much an auditory learner, which is why I talk through problems most of the time. I learn best through stories because I'm really interested in listening to them. When it's a smattering of quotes linked together by theme rather than narrative...I just don't really care. It's all interesting and deserves contemplation, but this is a game where the visuals are telling more of a story than the actual audio quotes are, and quite frankly I don't think they're needed. Perhaps I'm not seeing the bigger picture yet, but so far it comes off as pretentious and bloated, while the rest of the game is so clean and builds upon itself. The visuals tell me more of the story and the mystery of the island I'm on, which is all I really care about. I didn't start this game to be lectured in philosophy. I started this game because I heard it was more narrative driven and that there would be an over-arching story to accompany the elements I discover while playing. If I learn philosophical or scientific principles through the story's narration, even better, but I don't need random thematically linked quotes to enrich my gaming experience.

The best part of this game is that it's mildly unsettling. It's just a variety of abandoned environments with vague hints that someone is actively living there (freshly sliced apples, pillows, drawings). There are also other random hidden things like a carving in the water of a woman with chicken feet, or the little statue of a dog that scared the shit out of me (I'm still a little embarrassed about that one). THAT is the narrative and mystery I'm looking for, not a bunch of random quotes.

So good game so far. I'm recording it and will likely put it in the puzzle game section of my channel page when I'm done. It won't be an official release though I think. I'll leave it unlisted as I think it'll be for specific audiences.