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cleanup the witness page

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jonathan
2023-11-23 15:36:10 +10:30
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src/blog/the_witness.md
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@ -9,7 +9,7 @@ date: 2023-11-22
i've been on a puzzle game kick recently; antichamber and manifold garden have always visually intrigued me, so i knocked them out in the beginnning of the year and found them pretty enjoyable. i had a crack at filament, which was a creative and interesting idea, but it went a little too hard too fast for my liking and i pretty quickly got demoralised and stopped playing. so what was next on the chopping block?
we're only a quarter of the way in, but the witness is potentially my favourite game of the year. it's been out for about seven years now so i've heard plenty of hot takes on it and frankly expected it to not hold up to the hype, but i was almost instantly swept up in the puzzles and world. i pretty quickly started making comparisons to myst, as you're dropped on a big island with no people but loads of weird mechanisms, cryptic mechanisms and a wide variety of architecture and flora. the location designers clearly had no shortage of inspiration, because you can find all kinds of weird perspective tricks and shapes in shadows and reflections if viewed from just the right angle. the look of the whole game is bright and warm and i spent a lot of time heading over to some exciting looking ruin or cluster of plants i saw out of the corner of my eye
we're only a quarter of the way in, but the witness is potentially my favourite game of the year. it's been out for about seven years now so i've heard plenty of hot takes on it and frankly expected it to not hold up to the hype, but i was almost instantly swept up in the puzzles and world. i pretty quickly started making comparisons to myst, as you're dropped on a big island with no people but loads of weird mechanisms, cryptic mechanisms and a wide variety of architecture and flora. the location designers clearly had no shortage of inspiration, because you can find all kinds of weird perspective tricks and shapes in shadows and reflections if viewed from just the right angle. the look of the whole game is bright and warm and i spent a lot of time heading over to some exciting looking ruin or cluster of plants i saw out of the corner of my eye. this world design decision keeps the mystery high and makes exploration a reward unto itself!
<a href="https://www.giantbomb.com/images/1300-2603402">
<img src="https://www.giantbomb.com/a/uploads/scale_super/1/16049/2603402-1392940491-1.jpg" onerror="this.onerror=null; this.src='/_assets/img/the_witness/000.jpg'">
@ -19,15 +19,13 @@ puzzle-wise, the witness is structured extremely well to make you feel like a ge
there are a couple of exceptions to this, of course, but a lot of these really out-there examples are for puzzles meant as endgame // secret content, and i don't decry the game doing this. i've also heard some complaints that certain areas were impossible to understand without prodding for certain players. [joseph anderson](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KZokQov_aH0) had trouble with the sound puzzles, whereas my highschool level musical education kicked in immediately and i absolutely blitzed through this area. conversely, i had trouble with the gate at the "tetris" area, and i actually had to ask for help
this brings up two tangential thoughts that i want to bring up:
A. the witness was a difficult enough game that i needed to ask for help once, something that didn't happen with antichamber and manifold garden. despite this, i completed almost all of the rest of the game without prodding from my friend who had already completed it, and their only other contribution was secret areas that uncovered more for me to do.
B. i am totally in support of round-the-watercooler style sharing when it comes to games. it harkens back to the pre-internet sense of collaborative discovery, and allows you to control how much you get """spoiled""". and frankly, getting completely stuck on a game isnt fun. the witness encourages you to stop and think more about a problem, but completely depriving yourself past this point doesn't feel worthwhile to me. in any case, perfectly balancing a game like this has got to be an almost impossible task, and i think the move of babying you in the beginning and trying to teach you the deeper concepts in a more unconscious style works great
<a href="https://www.pushsquare.com/games/ps4/witness#enlarge-4">
<img src="https://images.pushsquare.com/screenshots/74438/large.jpg" onerror="this.onerror=null; this.src='/_assets/img/the_witness/001.jpg'">
</a>
i've already touched on the visual style of the witness, but i want to double down on the _feel_ of the chosen style of the game. the island world evokes the feeling of myst, dropping you in an unexplained environment with buildings in different states of repair, complicated machinery, farmed and experimental plantlife and strange stone statues littered around the place. this world design decision keeps the mystery high and makes exploration a reward unto itself!
this brings up two tangential thoughts that i want to bring up:
A. the witness was a difficult enough game that i needed to ask for help once, something that didn't happen with antichamber and manifold garden. despite this, i completed almost all of the rest of the game without prodding from my friend who had already completed it, and their only other contribution was secret areas that uncovered more for me to do.
B. i am totally in support of round-the-watercooler style sharing when it comes to games. it harkens back to the pre-internet sense of collaborative discovery, and allows you to control how much you get """spoiled""". and frankly, getting completely stuck on a game isnt fun. the witness encourages you to stop and think more about a problem, but completely depriving yourself past this point doesn't feel worthwhile to me. in any case, perfectly balancing a game like this has got to be an almost impossible task, and i think the move of babying you in the beginning and trying to teach you the deeper concepts in a more unconscious style works great
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