Without the respite of the environment, the puzzles feel almost unrelentingly difficult, which might explain why similarly themed games like Portal introduce comic interlocutors to help alleviate the tension. Instead of the open terrain of the colorful island, it takes place within a series of plain white chambers, and the puzzles rely less on insight and more on overcoming additional obfuscations: smudges on the panels, invisible lines, and both randomized and timed elements. Wires connect simpler puzzles to more advanced ones, the electrical path of a successfully completed maze allowing players to activate the next this is pretty much a diagram of how our minds make connections.īut if The Witness allows players to learn and wonder at all the symbolism at their own pace, to draw their own conclusions, the game’s final segment is irritatingly off-point. In truth, the puzzles reflect the world around them, some more literally than others. That the main puzzles are a series of square grids through which you can trace light beams that connect one point to another makes the entire thing sound cold and impersonal. The same is true of The Witness itself, as the only thing gating players is the speed at which they can translate the world around them via a series of puzzles, specifically mazes.īlow, of Braid fame, has built a living, breathing island around these puzzles so as to personify natural logic-to reveal the elegance in something as simple as a tangled series of branches, or the way we once told time by the shadow cast on a fixed point. (Those looking for a more structured approach to gameplay or narrative would do well to pick up The Talos Principle.) In theory, there’s nothing that stops any of us from doing anything, save for untrained ability. This freedom can be a bit overwhelming at times, but in that way it perfectly, and intentionally, mimics life itself. If a discovered puzzle is too complex, requiring one to first learn the various symbology in another, easier location, you can simply walk away and find something more to your speed. Instead, the game communicates its desires through suggestive design, with tantalizing scenery that encourages players to follow one road rather than another, but which never punishes us for wandering off the beaten path. To do so, The Witness sets players loose on an enigmatic island, offering no direct guidance or-in a departure from the game’s most obvious predecessor, Myst-any sort of story. It also suggests that The Witness’s fundamental principle isn’t to strip us of free will, but to put it to the test. But also quoted at length in hidden audio logs are mathematical scientists and philosophers like Albert Einstein and Arthur Eddington, which gives an idea of the game’s intellectual pedigree. Skinner is quoted at length in The Witness, which is apt given how Thekla, Inc.’s game wordlessly conditions the player to solve an increasingly elaborate and varied combination of mazes.
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