It is in your moments of decision that your destiny is shaped
Jonathan Blow of Braid fame has been developing The Witness for several years and after the success of Braid the anticipation for The Witness just kept growing. A lot of praise has since been heaped upon The Witness since its original release last year and now us Xbox owners finally get a chance to see what all the fuss is about. Straight off the bat I'm going to say you'll either love or hate The Witness. Most people will know already if it's a game for them. But if you don't know what the game entails it's puzzles. Lots and lots of puzzles. I'm fact it's surely about puzzles and if puzzles don't float your boat you'll want to avoid this like the plague. But if you do like solving one puzzle after another then you will fall head over heels in love with this.
As with any other game in any other genre The Witness holds your hand during the initial stage which is nothing more than a tutorial. You have to solve five maze puzzles in this area which unlock metal plates which obscure the final puzzle which offer to be solved to progress into the island where the game takes place. Once you are through this initial puzzle stage you are free to tackle the puzzles in any order you want.
The tutorial puzzles are pretty much what you will be solving for the rest of the game except they are all variations on a theme. New elements/rules are introduced to switch things up a bit and to keep your grey matter ticking over. This switch happens immediately with the first puzzle in each area serving as a tutorial and then your on your own as each puzzle in that area increases in difficulty as you solve one and move onto the next. You cannot skip a puzzle and come back to it either. The puzzles are all laid out on a panel so they must be completed in order so you can move forward.
These puzzles range from very simple where you must segregate different colored blocks by drawing lines around them in order to complete the maze. Another puzzle type tasks you with drawing a line through all the black dots before it can be completed. Perspective also plays a big part in puzzle solving and the environment quickly becomes your best friend. The sun, trees, branches, mosaics and even apples all come into play at various points during the game. Casting shadows. How you utilise there aspects varies from one location to the next but each one needs to be mastered in order for you to solve each area and move on. There are so many different puzzle types going on here it's a mind trip.
At certain points in the game there different puzzle solving rules get mixed together and create total and utter confusion. I haven't had to sit down with a pen and notepad for many years but The Witness drove me back in time and my bin quickly fillets with discarded sheets of paper very, very quickly. The challenge some of these puzzles offer seems impossible at times but patience is key here. If I got really stuck I just took a break for ten minutes before going back in. Upon finishing one of these brain melting puzzles I always felt like a smart arse. That was total I reached the next level of insanely difficult puzzles that stumped me.
The end goal is to complete the main puzzle in each area which turns on a laser beam. There are a total of eleven lasers to turn on which all shoot in the direction of the games final puzzle. You don't need to complete every puzzle to but to open the final puzzle you need a minimum of seven lasers pointed at it. This section is where the shit really hit the fan for me.these puzzles are a whole other world of pain. Flickering maze sections, broken laser bridges that intertwine, scrolling puzzles, column puzzles that spin in all direction and that's not even mentioned the puzzles on a timer. Everyone will have their own opinion on the ending and for me it was very poor. After all that head scratching and frustration for that was not worth it.
While all this puzzle solving is good there is absolutely nothing else happening at all. You seemingly appear on this island with no explanation as to how you got there or why your there either. The narrative is none existent and when your ploughing all this time into a game with no story it became a little jarring. Visually The Witness looks gorgeous and it's bright, bold graphics have a cartoon feel about them that sits perfectly with what the game is trying to achieve. There is virtually zero sound here and for me tip works in the game's favour. All you hear are your own footsteps and the environment around you.
The Witness pitches itself at the hardcore puzzle enthusiast and it excels in that genre. The sense of accomplishment when solving particularly difficult areas gives you a massive sense of achievement. But it's lack of narrative, frankly awful ending and zero replayability coupled with a ridiculously high price make it hard to recommend to anyone other than puzzle fans.
