The Witness

In a perfect world, my review of The Witness would end here. Really. There is not much more to say. Jonathan Blow is a work that arouses emotions, like a romantic painting, and it is difficult to pigeonhole it in the sterile categories we are used to. These have been years of great growth, for my favorite hobby, and in many ways The Witness seems to me to be a point of arrival, a milestone. We always knew that video games had something to say, but being in front of such a mature and refined work of art is unsettling.

I do not like to make these speeches, because the risk that they pass for the usual intellectual pippers for fart sniffers is always real. Indeed, I am often the first to point the finger at those who fill their mouths with the word "art", as if they had a sacred power, capable of giving cultural dignity to a childish pastime such as video games. But The Witness deserves all the big words in the world. I've been waiting for him religiously since the first time I saw him, and the wait was rewarded.

In Jonathan Blow's new fantasy we find ourselves on an island, apparently deserted, without explanation. There are no tutorials, bright letters or off-screen voices. The player is abandoned to his loneliness and must understand what to do with his digital life. The game world is full of small puzzles, all with a similar format: grids, with starting and finishing points, in which to trace paths. The basis is disarming simplicity, but the game is not only about solving puzzles, it is also about understanding the rules.

As you walk around the island, the puzzles are enriched with new elements, which form a rigorous and multifaceted gameplay grammar. Freedom of movement is total, but to open certain doors, which are immediately accessible, you need to have understood a series of concepts, far from trivial. From this point of view, the elegance of The Witness is out of scale: the puzzles are all based on the same concept, but continue to amaze and make the gray matter "sweat", without ever becoming repetitive or frustrating.

Exploring the island you understand the reason for the very long period of development. On a technical level there is nothing shocking (in fact, we can assume that the definitive look of the game had been ready for more than two years), but the attention to detail is obsessive. Even going beyond the impeccable progression of the puzzles, there are dozens of subtleties that betray all the love instilled by Blow and associates in The Witness.

The perfect example is ambient audio, without music, which reproduces with a more real than realism the sound of footsteps on different materials, the wind between the branches and the sounds of the sea. The game is full of invisible excellences like this, which together create a touching and unforgettable experience. Even The Talos Principle, Croteam's recent masterpiece, doesn't stand up to comparison. The two games are similar, but the infinite care of The Witness has an extra spark of genius and madness.

Jonathan Blow is a brave designer, capable of putting together such a great game and at the same time so bizarre and misunderstanding. I'm sure there will be arid hearts in the world capable of storing it as a series of annoying and repetitive puzzles, but rightly so. The Witness conveys the message of its author, like a book or a record, and the fact that it is not universally and objectively "beautiful" is part of its charm. Personally, I can say that there was no better way to start my 2016 videogame, and that I can't wait to find out what the future of this great game designer has in store for us.

MODUS OPERANDI
I played The Witness on PS4, with a code received directly from Sony. I tried it both alone and in the company of my better half. Like other similar games, puzzles are great for solo sessions as well as for cooperation. I played for about twenty hours (although it is difficult to keep track of the weather on the island), but I have not even come close to completing it 100%. According to Jonathan Blow it has been a feat for at least 80 hours and, judging from what I have seen, the figure seems more than plausible to me.

Because after having spent a full weekend I still don't know if I hate The Witness or I love it. On the one hand there are moments of tiredness when solving dozens of maze puzzles that are gradually adding new elements to the mix. On the other, I want to feel 'that' feeling again when I overcome them . That is one of the best kept secrets of this Jonathan Blow creation, the sense of accomplishment by overcoming a maze that you thought was impossible. When you finish a puzzle you feel almost almighty , up to the geniuses that appear in tape recorders and videos here and there. Because in The Witness there are no explanations of any kind, being we who interpret the clues that the development team has been leaving. This is so with the puzzles, which teach us through practice the secrets of their mechanics, but also with history, which is discovered VERY little by little by solving more and more of the 650 labyrinths that have been included.

Everything starts simple, without explanations: a tunnel and the first contact with the labyrinths. Press the Square button and a dot appears on the screen. We press X and the point seems to want to highlight something. Just look for a circle to highlight and begin the magic of the mazes , the main mechanic that is used to advance in The Witness. At the beginning we will only have to find the way out, but things will gradually become complicated until unsuspected extremes: we will trace geometric shapes, we will have to go through different points, separate elements, look for symmetries ... We will even get inside the labyrinths ourselves! The variants are many, but even more so, their combinations, making these simple mazes the main protagonists of the production . Sometimes we will end up in the nose, without understanding the requirements of a puzzle, but at least we will have the possibility to continue exploring the island of The Witness.

The exploration of the 10 zones in which the island is divided is the other half of The Witness, which is an open world, but full of closed doors, which can only be unlocked by solving a puzzle. Of course, we can arrive first and try our luck, however, it is more than likely that we do not understand the mechanics of the solution, which will force us to go back and look for simpler puzzles in the learn what to do with the labyrinths. However, after a few hours in which the marked path is 'more or less' clear, we will be able to leave the marked roads and discover the secrets of this island, walking through its beautiful forests, discovering landscapes and reaching places every More curious. It will be at this time when we begin to discover recorders with information, to ask what are those blackish totems that populate the island and to find the first environmental puzzles (Yes, the scenario is also full of mazes).

Actually, The Witness gets us hooked with its proposal thanks to the sensation of continuous realization , and the possibility of leaving a puzzle too complicated and later to solve it, when we are fresh (it has happened to us that after multiple attempts with a puzzle we have left to play, to solve it at first after turning on the console) . The game world is large and intricate , and it will take us a long time to discover all of its areas, but even more so to unravel the many secrets it hides. By the time we know how to locate each of the areas, we will already be axes with the labyrinths, and we can afford to ask ourselves if The Witness has a history. And he has it, light, but complete. Moreover, the game can be finished only by completing the main areas , and leaving aside hundreds of unresolved mazes, recorders not found and videos not seen. In that case we will feel powerful, but we will not understand too much, so we will want to go back and discover the rest of the subtleties that give meaning to the paranoia of The Witness. There are many, many hours of play (so many that we have not been able to find everything), which will lead us to fully understand the plot of the proposal.

In addition, everything in The Witness is geared towards focusing on solving puzzles. There is no music, the sound effects are not too frequent (although always correct) and the visual section distils affection and variety, but without being recharged or showing anything that should surprise us in the technical, to the point that we will notice some popping in the detail of landscape elements (which does not make us face a less beautiful game). It seems that Blow's intention has been to leave us in front of an almost blank folio, only populated by labyrinths in the purest 'book of hobbies' style, while we stroll through an idyllic island. In this sense, The Witness is a success, because it offers something different that treats the player as an intelligent entity, rather than as a mere agent within the function that has been organized. It may be minimalist, yes. I may get tired and desperate too. You can even blame The Witness for something self-pleasing. However, while you play, you live on the island and you just want to solve 'that' puzzle more and discover the hidden mystery. A challenge at the height of the best minds, which also has an extraordinary design.

A game so different that we recommend playing with pencil and paper next to it.

Quo Vadis?

Almost 650 of them are spread across the island (not all of them have to be solved to complete the game). The principle is as simple as it is ingenious . From a starting point, I have to draw a line with the mouse (or a controller) to the destination.

This is still a finger exercise for the first puzzles in the garden of an old building, but it quickly becomes more challenging. Because as soon as I escape the initial area, the whole dimension of the island opens up.

Nice. And difficult.

The Knobelinsel is divided into a total of ten areas , all of which are accessible at all times. For example, there is an Asian-style temple, a desert section, a village with an impressive windmill, a castle and a swamp area.

Everything comes to life with beautiful comic graphics with bright colors that almost create holiday feelings.

My visual highlights are the bright pink apple tree grove and the rusty shipwreck in the northeast of the island. The rest of the technical implementation is also clean: The Witness runs smoothly, only in isolated moments did I notice a tearing of the picture lines.

look closely

Each area introduces a new puzzle mechanism , which provides a refreshing change. It is always about drawing lines, but always according to a special principle that I first have to develop myself - there are no tutorials or a help option.

Sometimes points have to be collected on the way to the goal, then squares or sun symbols separated, then again I have to pay attention to different colors (there is no mode for players with weak colors!) Or recognize geometric shapes.

In some areas, it makes sense to observe the environment closely , because it often becomes the decisive game element: rocks, apples, position of the sun, perspective, light and shadow - the solution is often just a train of thought away and is often so simple and at the same time ingenious, that I slapped my forehead several times with the flat of my hand.

These eye-opening moments are incredibly motivating and are probably the greatest strength of The Witness. Because I'm going through an exciting learning process and can transfer my knowledge to later puzzles - because, of course, individual disciplines are also combined with each other, for example geometric shapes and sun symbols.

Hard but fair

The level of difficulty of the control panel puzzles is still moderate at first, but then quickly increases. In some places, the game even laughs maliciously in my face and is just a new element, as if it knew exactly that my head was bursting in front of the screen and my brain was flipping somersaults.

That's why The Witness reminds me of Dark Souls: It is often merciless and frustrating, but never unfair and always motivating , because every solution is understandable and never taken out of thin air. In addition, I don't have to go through the puzzles one at a time, but can stroll around the island as I please and try another task if I can't get anywhere else.

And then look forward to every little reward that the game serves me in portions. For example, a power line that changes color - or a door that opens squeakily and reveals a secret passage.

The greatest satisfaction is at the end of each section. Once I have solved the last riddle, a mysterious yellow box opens, a spotlight whizzes out and shoots a beam of light at the top of the highest mountain on the island. Another step closer to the solution!

I want to know!

The fascinating thing about The Witness is not only the naturally occurring learning process with constantly recurring eye-opening experiences, but also how the player's curiosity drives the game itself. Although Jonathan Blow's new work doesn't tell a story and, for example, completely dispenses with cutscenes, there are enough questions that I'm sticking to.

For example, what about the stone figures, the painter on the ledge or the man with the chalice in the rock grotto on the beach? What are the strange humming black pillars all over the island? And what do the philosophical quotes in the audiologs tell me that I keep stumbling upon? The Witness keeps throwing breadcrumbs at me, which I greedily want to follow to the source.

Reach your goal together

Although The Witness is designed as a single player title, it reveals an amazing multiplayer component and has a magical appeal to anyone who just wants to take a look. During the test, there are always colleagues behind me, fingers frantically pointing at the screen, everyone wants to puzzle.

"Try it like this," I often hear, even more often a "May I?" And rarely a "Aaaaaah, I think I have it!" This is always the start of an idea ping-pong, you exchange ideas, try and ponder together. And in the end pats his shoulder enthusiastically when the supposedly unsolvable panel is finally done. Of course, the "Jawoll factor" is also available alone, but it is definitely funnier in the group.

Downsides and PC technology

The Witness also has its weaknesses. The replay value, as is typical for the genre, is kept within narrow limits, because once you go through it, the puzzles do not change. However, until you have solved everything, you can easily schedule 80 to 90 hours of play. In some places I master a riddle and something happens, but I cannot understand what exactly.

The creation of saves is also somewhat opaque: there is basically only one savegame. As soon as I call up the main menu, it is saved. In addition, I noticed that the game creates a new save point after every 100 puzzles solved. After 500 puzzles, I have a total of five saveslots, but only one at the beginning. Stupid that a free memory function is missing.

In addition, I am somewhat disappointed with the rudimentary graphics settings of the PC version. At the start of the game there are only the graphic options »Standard«, »Low«, »Medium« and »High«. I can also set the mouse sensitivity and optional subtitles in the main menu - but that's about it.

Speaking of mouse sensitivity: The general control through the game world and when puzzling works perfectly with mouse and keyboard. Only the game menu was not adapted for the mouse and can only be operated with the keyboard - a small, negligible shortcoming.

However, what annoys me is the lack of music . Although the rest of the soundscape with correct footsteps on different surfaces, birdsong or the sound of the waves is enormously atmospheric, a shallow musical carpet would have given the puzzle fun even more depth. "Only one percent of the players" will solve all the puzzles in the game, Jonathan Blow once said. I will make an effort to belong.

400 puzzles solved, 30 cards with strange drawings, one "tetris" laid on the floor using the pieces of paper mentioned above and one night full of dreams about panels with labyrinths - three days spent on intense playing in The Witness , the latest production by Braid , Jonathan Blow, they were definitely not normal. To the extent that when I finally, after many moments of frustration and just as much satisfaction, saw a very ambiguous ending, and then an even more ambiguous hidden ending, I wasn't even sure whether I love the game or hate it. After analyzing calmly my own thoughts, in the end I conclude that this is a great title - but ... only for a very small audience. For most, however, it will be "only" or "until" a very good puzzle game.

The Witness makes an exceptionally positive first impression, after a few moments spent by us in a dark tunnel attacking with a cornucopia of pastel colors - watching the terrain full of vivid, bright colors is a real pleasure for the eyes. The game does not use any fancy graphic effects or an advanced physical engine, but it more than makes up for the number of details filling the virtual world and the taste with which numerous models have been designed and integrated into the environment .

When, after a few minutes from the start of the game, we leave the initial area of the game and the entire island of action is open before us, it is not known where to go first - every building or forest looming in the distance tempts and encourages you to visit this region next . Look into a pink forest or an abandoned quarry? Or maybe explore partially buried ruins protruding from the sands of the desert? Or try to get to the half-sunken tanker wreck? For the first moments spent with The Witness, you ignore the many riddles here and enjoy the peaceful exploration. Which, moreover, attentive players additionally rewards scraps of the plot depicted by means of statues or dictaphones found here and there with registered quotes from known thinkers. I would not mind if after the passing of fashion for retro style and pixel art just in the direction of such relatively simple, but pretty and numerous three-dimensional models turned into independent productions.

When the admiration for the craftsmanship with which the environment was created finally passes, we remember that The Witness is a puzzle game, not a walking simulator. At first glance, it is the production of one trick, in addition, much less effective than time manipulation in Braid or the title portals created by Valve. Oh, the whole island is full of electronic panels, on the screens of which we can see simple mazes, and our goal is to find the way from point A to B. It turns out quite quickly, however, that the team led by Jonathan discovered a huge potential in this - seemingly - banal concept and used it to create a variety of challenges.

The first, simple panels are gradually expanded with new elements - for example, the boards gain different-colored squares, which we have to separate from the line marked with the cursor. Or we perform the task of recreating figures taken alive from Tetris . These obvious examples may not sound too impressive, but I would not like to reveal too much, because The Witness 's big advantage is the way the game teaches us to approach new challenges - there are no tutorials or a voice from heaven telling you what to do . Instead, each type of puzzle has its own series of panels, on which we solve rebuses of a given type with an increasing level of difficulty - starting from a child's play to a really complicated one. In this very clever way, we learn individual rules and prepare for truly difficult puzzles. This mechanism, moreover, brilliantly uses a hidden ending (or in the opinion of some - it's appropriate), which theoretically can be learned even at the very beginning of the game - but to figure out how to activate it, you must first understand the rules that govern the game.

There are a total of 650 puzzles to solve in The Witness . Fortunately, to finish the game you do not have to deal with everyone - my counter at the finish indicated 400 successes, and I squeezed from this production much more than the minimum required to see the end. And this "fortunately" is used here deliberately, because at the end I felt real tiredness. Although The Witness turns out to be a very good teacher of panel mechanics, geniuses alone won't do us - and the level of difficulty of many puzzles just overwhelmed me and I felt like I was playing Dark Souls , in which instead of outstanding manual skills I need a volatile mind.

Sometimes it helped to take a longer break, other times to draw everything on a piece of paper, once it even worked laying paper blocks on the floor - but there were also challenges that I did not complete despite sitting over them for over an hour. I like to strain my mind, however, the level of difficulty in producing Thekla studio sometimes turned out to be too high and frustrating . Another thing was that once I was able to solve something that seemed unsolvable, the satisfaction was enormous. This is one of those titles that taste much better when dosed in small portions, instead of taking hours of mental marathons with them for many hours - but even so, I am inclined to say that for a large number of players this position will be too tiring and difficult.

My private nightmare was that despite the extreme level of difficulty, The Witness pulls you in and really wants to take on the challenges of Blow's production. I haven't solved a few puzzles yet, but I will probably do it yet - puffing over them for hours, getting annoyed and drawing the right line, feeling like a fool. Only in order to finally - because every puzzle in this game can be worked out - to feel enormous, though lasting only a few minutes, satisfaction with success. After which there will be a clash with another of hundreds of panels. Geniuses and masochists will definitely have fun.

The Witness can be passed by completely putting aside the story told by the game. You can also not ignore it, but still end the fun, having no idea what it is about - the plot is presented only with the help of sculptures and dictaphones found in locations, and the image emerging from them seems quite vague and interpretable on really many ways . I do not doubt that some players will find genius in all this - but it will be the same percentage of users who saw in Braid the tale of regret caused by the construction of the atomic bomb. For people who dislike the excessive interpretation of shreds of information and creating sophisticated theories from them, the plot, if they manage to put it together at all, will prove to be of little interest and rather disappointing.

Some consider the latest production of Jonathan Blow to be an absolutely outstanding work, another proof that computer games are an art, and the assessment visible in this review will probably treat as unfair. However, to get to this group, it is required to have at least two out of three rather rare character traits - above-average intellect, angelic patience and a passion for in-depth analysis of (pop) culture works. Without such a set, The Witness will seem "only" quite a nice, long and very nice puzzle game. And extremely difficult to do if you want to get to know her fully.