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Everyone that's reviewing The Witness talks about it very coyly, similarly to how people reviewed Starseed Pilgrim, which is one of my favorite indie games. Everything seems very positive, with the main conceit that most people don't care for the story told via audio logs, which is honestly the part of it that I am least concerned with. Braid's story was received similarly at first and then reevaluated, but I didn't care much for it. Braid did a much better job of atmospheric storytelling than narrative storytelling and I think that The Witness will be the same.

I agree with Yoda on being particular about puzzle games. I really didn't like The Talos Principle, which felt like a mediocre version of The Witness. My favorite puzzle games are probably:

SpaceChem/TIS-100/Infinifactory (Zachtronics)
Braid (Jonathan Blow)
Game Title/Game Title:Lost Levels/Corrypt (Michael Brough) it will take probably 2 hours to complete all 3, and they're free!
English Country Tune (Stephen Lavelle) his new game is supposed to be great too

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Mubi

Downloading now! Should be playing it in 15 minutes.

Meanwhile, I liked this:

Just spent a little under two hours with The Witness. Pretty enjoyable so far. Even though the puzzles are so superficially similar, it's interesting to see just how much they feel different. Part of this is probably the great sense of atmosphere (it's like someone designed an outdoor cathedral for puzzle solving), but I think mainly it's down to the varying concepts using different parts of your brain.

Already taken a bunch of lovely screenshots, too.

Oh man. I hit a rough patch on The Witness, but kept powering through, and there were some really lovely "eureeka! moments. I also ran into lots of puzzles I'm not remotely equipped to solve (not that that worries me much yet), but one that looks almost exactly like previous ones I have been equipped to solve, but doesn't behave as expected (that one's kinda freaking me out).

Anyway, I'm at 3.5 hours, got past a tough one, but I'm stuck on the one just after, so I'm calling it a day. Really pleasantly surprised so far by the variation. I'd steeled myself for it to feel a lot more clinical than it does so far.

I just completed the section with the plants inside a room among other things. A really wow sequence for me in terms of puzzle design and use of environment. The last eureka moment was the best yet! I've gotten 2 lasers so far as well. This game can be a real head scratcher at some points but the solutions are usually designed so that you gain knowledge and can't fumble your way through. I'm loving it so far.

EDIT: Okay, damn. This game is good. Like, really good. This is the game I've always wished I could make (and has several ideas I've thought of before, but used in more clever ways than I thought of)

Looks like I'll be playing the game for 3.5 hours then.

I'll wait for a sale.

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"Critics are like eunuchs in a harem; they know how the Tatty 100 is done, they've seen it done every day, but they're unable to do it themselves." - Brendan Behan

I couldn't wait for a sale.

Damn you, Zeitgeist!

1 hour in, 57 puzzles solved. I've not told the game to go and reproduce with itself yet, so this is a good sign and certainly a lot longer than I initially lasted with Braid.

Maybe it's because the game's not slapping you across the chops with angst?

It'll probably be worth making an "I'm stuck in The Witness and not even Kelly McGillis can save me!" thread.

Re: The Talos Principle - Having messed around with both, I'll say that they're not really comparable at all. Apart from the sunny island setting there's not much crossover. Talos Principle is more Portal-y while The Witness, as Blow has said, is a modern Myst.

So glad to hear you make that comparison. All that I have read and seen made me think of that comparison.

For some reason, that and 7th Guest are the only pc games I can recall. Well, there was Wing Commander and the original Warcraft, that Beavis and ..... .

Is there a tally of how many puzzles you've solved somewhere? I didn't notice one but I'm guessing you all didn't just start counting them, either.

If you hit 'Load' in Options you'll see your tally on your save.

EDIT - 70 puzzles solved now and I've had my fill for a day or two. Need to get back to killing Lovecraftian beasties - The Darkest Dungeon awaits!

Ah, cool, I hadn't had occasion to go in there. I'm at 102, then. Whoo.

I'm afraid to test this because I'm a ways in, but...does anyone know (or are they willing to find out) if New Game creates a separate game, and doesn't overwrite the current one? I assume it must create a separate one if there's a Load option, but I'm not taking that chance.

I've no idea about the save options. It's one of my big gripes with Elite Dangerous - 1 save only.

In a game with multiple classes it really is a serious oversight.

The game allows several saves, so I don't think that starting a new game would delete your old save. I'd expect a warning too about that if it were the case. You can tweet at Blow and see if he's not too busy to respond to confirm though.

I've played probably 10 hours now and the official count is 225 for me. I've yet to come across a puzzle that seemed particularly erroneous or uninteresting, and I haven't finished learning all of the unique mechanics yet. Sometimes I feel a couple of steps ahead of the game, sometimes I feel a couple behind. Sometimes I think I'm a couple steps ahead and find out I'm way behind and get schooled.

If anyone's stuck on something I can probably provide some hints without giving anything away.

I might take you up on that. I'm stuck pretty hardcore on a couple different things right now, and it very much feels like the floodgates could open if I could just crack one concept. That said, I usually only want hints if it's more like "oh, you missed something you were supposed to have picked up by now."

Obviously, when stuck you can just go elsewhere for awhile, since so often you need to learn a concept in one place and apply it elsewhere, but in this case it seems very much like I'm supposed to have figured a couple things out that I haven't quite.

Time to get serious!

I'm edging towards 100 solved and have decided to buy a book of squared paper. Of course, the book will probably arrive 10 minutes after I've kicked my monitor over and sworn never to touch this bedevilled monstrosity again, but I've yet to come across a puzzle which will do that.

Usually I'll just walk away for an hour or two and have a cup of tea.

The Witness has a pretty good art team.






Tilt your head to the left.

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Suspect's Reviews

I wonder if it's the same one that I'm on. It seemed intuitive, but I have inconsistent results which leads me to believe I don't fully get the concept.

Which caused me to lean in towards the monitor, stare it down with wide, mad eyes, and whisper:
what do you want from me?

The Witness is a beautiful looking game.

Rise of the Tomb Raider may well be the best looking game.



This is the first game I've had which maxes out the 6GB VRAM on my 980ti but, man, some of the lighting effects...

That's lovely.

Meanwhile: yeahhhhhh breakthrough! I think I literally fist-pumped at one point.