This game is a masterpiece, and I don’t mean that in a “it’s so philosophically deep and has such meaning” way, I just mean that everything about the game design, the exploration, the graphics, the puzzle mechanics, comes together to make an incredibly fun experience which is also consistently wowing you with how brilliant it is. It’s a joy to discover every new area, every new type of puzzle, and every puzzle solution. Solving puzzles in this game is its own reward because the answers are just so clever! It also does such a good job taking a single concept and exploring it to its absolute limit. The world is designed in such a way that you’re constantly figuring out how one area connects to the others, not just physically, but in terms of design and how they make you think, it’s sort of metroidvania-like.

There’s no point in saying more, since this is the sort of game you should experience without expectations, but I do have many thoughts I want to write down. Major spoilers, do not click if you haven’t played the game!

The defining moment of the game, and I think the developer has even stated this was the goal, is the moment the player discovers their first EP. The rest of the game is all fantastic, but this is basically the unforgetable part of the game and what elevates it even further. The game would still be great if it only had grid puzzles, but the moment you first click a circle in the world and it sparks up and you realize that not only is it a drawable line, but that this means there have been lines all over the place that you’ve missed up until then? It’s mindblowing. One of the biggest twists in all of gaming. Because “twist” in gaming usually refers to a plot twist. But this isn’t a story twist, it’s a twist in how your mind works! In how you see the world.

And what’s so brilliant about it is that the game does not hold your hand or guide you into it. (With the exception of the river panel at the top of the mountain, which I honestly saw, filled in, and thought “Huh? That did nothing” and moved on, so that’s not where I got the revelation) The Witness is a game, much like recent story-focused games like Her Story or Telling Lies or Gone Home, which lets you discover everything about the game in your own way. It does not do anything to craft your journey through the game. This is a huge risk, because when you give the player this freedom, you risk them finding things in an order that isn’t really satisfying. Maybe X% of players will find their first EP in the first 20 minutes and they won’t get that shock. But because the developer gives up that freedom, it means that the other Y% of players will all get their own unique experience of that game-defining moment. And I just think that’s such a brave decision to make as a developer.

It’s also just incredibly satisfying, because if you’re like me, you’ve spent a lot of time clicking on random stuff, for hours, and none of it does anything. I was playing this co-op with a friend and I sometimes felt bad that I’d always waste time to go into click-y mode and click random things, because it never did anything. Until suddenly it did something. And, whoa. It felt incredibly validating because it gave me a reward for my innate curiousity. Which I think is exactly what was intended.

So, the theme of the game, or, one of them, is about that sort of curiousity. The way the puzzles and exploration work, they are basically encouraging you to always stay curious, try to figure things out on your own, and then give you satisfaction when you do get it. The developer has stated this was a design goal, and it’s why there aren’t any other rewards. You know, you don’t get gems or coins or items. You just get the satisfaction of knowing you made progress. And more puzzles.

Now, I’ll be honest, I didn’t listen to any audio logs or watch the videos while I was playing. I am told these convey the themes of the game, and I’ve heard/watched a few of them after beating the game. I think the audio logs and videos are where the game gets sort of pretentious, I’ll admit. Nothing wrong with pretentious, some people are into it, I don’t have anything against the developer. But it’s not for me. But what makes me give this a super pass is: All of the themes that these audio/video are trying to tell you, are already in the game. These themes are conveyed by the world and the puzzles. I don’t need to listen to the logs to get it.

The themes of the game are… well, as one streamer I watched on twitch said: (paraphrased) “The theme of the game is, basically, like, perspective or some shit”. Yeah, that’s basically it. The puzzles are about teaching you to look at things in different ways. The EPs are definitely about teaching you to look at the world in a different way. Curiousity is a theme. Perseverance is a theme. There’s one video that talks about how you can get what you want when you stop looking for it. Which is exactly what it’s like when you’re trying to solve a puzzle so hard, but then you give up, take a break, open it up again a few hours later, and suddenly the solution is right in front of you.

Another theme that comes through in the puzzles is something like: “Sometimes, something seems like it should be one way, and it would be really simple if it was, but it isn’t – it’s actually way more complicated” Like a tetris puzzle where one shape is on the left and the other is on the right and it should be as simple as that, but you actually need to combine them using the left shape on the right and the right shape on the left, for example. That’s a theme, because you can also view things in life the same way!

The way the puzzles challenge your most basic assumptions is essentially saying “Well, what if you also challenged your most basic assumptions about the world”. You can go through 50% of your playtime not realizing that there’s this huge aspect of the game that you were missing. Can the same thing happen in your life? Etc

And this is where I think a lot of reviews of the game (I’ve read a handful) go wrong, because they try to sum the game’s brilliance up as being this deep philosophical thing about its themes as conveyed by the audio logs and videos, when I think, no, the brilliance is right there in the gameplay. The audio logs are just spelling it out for you if you miss it.

The brilliance is in how intuitively the game teaches you its mechanics at first by starting you off with a simple line, then advancing to mazes, then showing you a panel that lights up in two ways to teach you some puzzles operate doors or switches. Then having you pass by a complex door with a maze full of dots. Then using tutorial puzzles to teach you some basic mechanics, then having you realize you can go back to that first door and suddenly you know how to do it, even though it looked super daunting a few moments ago.

The brilliance is in all the ways the EPs are hidden. An EP formed by the negative space between the heads of trees, only from one small vantage point. Two EPs formed by the way a bunch of spaces out flowers in a field can be brought together from one viewpoint. EPs made out of the castle puzzles where you realize you need to re-solve the puzzles you already solved with even more restrictions due to blocked paths. The EP that you have to get by sending the boat halfway around the island and waiting for it! The EP that is hidden right at the start of the game in the first corridor, and the mixed feelings you get from it of “Oh wow there’s an EP there” and also “Of course there’s an EP there”. And of course, it didn’t take long after discovering EPs to wonder if the sun would be a starting point, and as soon as I thought about it, I realized there was no way it wouldn’t be. And of course, the game delivered, though I have to say that by that point, I had been building up the sun so much in my mind that it was sort of underwhelming.

Tied to that, I also want to say I think the choice of how to access the secret ending is a little weird. Because beating the game kicks you out and puts you in a new file, any player can find it immediately after getting the first ending. I don’t really understand this – I feel it should’ve been only possible to get it once you get all 11 lasers and go down into the cave and find the pattern. As it is currently, finding that pattern is totally useless, because you don’t actually need to resolve that puzzle to make the gate shiny.

So many of the puzzle symbols are really cool. I loved finding all the triangle ones and eventually realizing they are a Slither Link puzzle. I love Slither Link so I was looking forward to them showing up, and it somehow took me ages to realize the triangles were it. The cancellers were such a fantastic twist. The stars are cool because they are the most complex symbol – I love how the treehouse messes with you by making you think that stars just mean “pair with one other star” until suddenly you get somewhere where that doesn’t work, and have to adapt, and learn there was more to it. This is another example of brilliance in gameplay but also a way to convey the theme of “things aren’t what they seem, even if you’re really convinced they are a certain thing”. Finding cancellers after you’ve done the other areas was also wonderful.

I thought the ending was very nice as well. The game has no story, but taking one final trip through the entire island and revisiting everything and admiring how gorgeous it all is one more time was nice. No comment on the secret ending, which was, uh, again, y’know, sort of pretentious, sort of, uh… something… I mean, I get it, I’m seeing circles and paths everywhere too now. But I’m not hitting them with spoons.

Other highlights I haven’t mentioned:

- The puzzles that serve as mechanical operators for bridges. This was just brilliant!

- The building by the quarry with the crane and slanted platform you have to control to multiple spots to hit EPs.

- The variety of tree puzzles in both the cherry blossom area and the temple. I like how these puzzles have more variety than the symbol puzzles because they constantly build on their concept in new ways.

- EPs using the movie player. Are you kidding me?! My reaction to this was also “Oh, of course there are.”

- Just how great it was to go back to all the early areas after discovering EPs and find new things you completely missed the first time around

- The neat visual perspective things you can do with statues and rocks and other things

- The cloud EP! God, that one was satisfying because you could totally see that some clouds were circular or path-like, but then you finally stumble on the spot it can be viewed from. And of course it also uses the satellite thing. I love how this game includes things that are only useful for one small puzzle which half the players might never even find.

- The puzzle inside the mountain where you have to draw blue and yellow bridges from both sides, making multiple trips back and forth to reach the exit. Brilliant, and super hard to solve even once you realize what you have to do.

- Oh, and The Challenge of course! I can’t believe I forgot about that until now. God, what a brilliant concept to end the game with. It was shocking enough when after completing the mountain, I thought the caves were probably just a nice small bonus area with (seemingly) puzzles that hadn’t been good enough to make the rest of the game. I was shocked when I entered the passageway and saw a crazy crypt thing, and then the the maze area. I love how the game shows you this stuff without you having any idea what it really is. I spend probably 3 minutes exploring the challenge area at first because its really loopy and I always explore every nook and cranny before moving on. Little did I know how much time I’d be spending in that area. And even with that, it was still confusing for a while how to navigate to the 4 random-order puzzles there. The way they use the fourth puzzle to give you the maze layout is brilliant, and I love the impossible puzzle mechanic. This was super intuitive to me, as soon as I saw 3 of them light up, I just said “Only 1 of these is possible”. I love playing the challenge, it took me a few hours to beat, and I’ve still opened the game every day since then to do a few runs of it. Though I suck at the left pillar, it’s kind of just luck if I get a solveable one. I love it when you get a right pillar that lets you literally just draw a straight line – I literally won one run with 5 seconds left because I just reached that pillar, drew a straight line, and hoped. Haha.

One moment I was super proud of was that I somehow missed the environmental symmetry puzzles in the symmetry area (finding rocks/trees in the background that get reflected), and yet despite that, I was able to figure out the solution to the palm tree symmetry puzzle in town, the one that kickstarts the whole chain of various puzzles. (I was hopelessly unable to get the apple tree one though, minutes later)

I am colorblind and very bad at hearing audio pitch, but luckily I was playing with a friend who is a) not colorblind and b) an auditory expert with highly attuned hearing, so it worked out just fine. Teamwork. (Well, okay, I didn’t have any special skills of my own to contribute other than an uncanny ability to sometimes just stumble into correct answers at random)

I’m probably forgetting some things, but I suppose that’s enough raving about this game for now. In conclusion, as I have made clear, I absolutely loved it, down to pretty much every single puzzle, location, every little detail. A truly unforgetable experience.

So, seven months and a hundred brain aneurysms later and I've finally beaten this game. I can proudly sad that I slogged through it without peeping at any hints! Not even once! Okay, okay, I did peep once when I was completely dumbfounded on one section. And then regretted it immediately when I realised the answer was extremely simple and staring me right in the face. In some ways, that's a metaphor for this entire game: the answer is always there, right in front of you, waiting patiently for your mind to click. That's one thing I love about The Witness: it has a strange calm. The puzzles aren't ever cruel, obscure or unreasonable. The answer is always hiding in plain sight.

The Witness is a true masterpiece. It's like a strange mixture of Myst and The Talos Principle, two of my very favourite puzzle games, but it's also quite distinct from anything I've played before. It has two key ingredients: it's jam-packed full of ingenious puzzles and it's also incredibly beautiful. Some of the scenes and sights in this game are literally jaw-dropping. It's an artful juxtaposition: wandering this marvellous place, but also going through these intense mental workouts. But overall the game has a calm, zen atmosphere. You never feel rushed. In fact, at times I just ignored the puzzles and explored the surroundings instead. As you explore, you find little philosophical audio clips of scattered around, calm voices explaining the theories of ancient Greeks, existentialists or physicists. This is very similar to The Talos Principle, and it's really thought-provoking, massaging the right-brain as well as the left.

The delivery of the puzzles is very accessible. All doors are invitingly open and you can dive as deep (or as shallow) as you wish. The island is populated with puzzles of increasing depth and intensity, but you don't need to do 100% to complete it, in fact you don't even need to do 50%. You can actually choose which sections/areas you prefer and ignore/bypass the areas that are giving you trouble, and complete the areas in any order. You could spend literally hundreds of hours uncovering the secrets of the island, finding all the hidden things, or you could just breeze through casually, doing the bare minimum. This adds to that calm, open atmosphere; the player can rush to the end, or perhaps follow those breadcrumbs for miles off the garden path, deep into the abyss.

When I first started playing, I was kind of disappointed: although the island is magnificent, all of the puzzles are these weird grid-based things, solved on panels. At first it felt dumb, like I was solving a series of Sudokus. But after a while I understood the point: they've taken a very simple idea and pushed it way beyond reasonable limits. It's really hard to describe, but the grid is just a basic foundation, and an unbelievable variety of ideas sprout from it. I can't say more without spoiling the game, but these simple grid-based puzzles become so bizarre, creative and elaborate, it's a wonder to behold.

So, this has been an awful review and I feel like I haven't really explained anything about the game. The Witness is a one-of-a-kind game, unlike anything else, a true unique experience. Breathtaking, haunting and unforgettable. It took me a while to warm to it, and to fully understand it, but I'm glad I came back and gave it a second chance, because it's probably my GotY for 2016.

As someone who likes puzzles and puzzle games in general, I had a blast playing through the first several hours of The Witness. While most puzzle games establish the rules and then ask you to find solutions, The Witness takes things one step further and asks you to figure out the rules themselves. That amps up the excitement when you finally arrive at a solution. Not only have you solved it, but you understand what the puzzle is asking of you.

I honestly wanted to complete all of the puzzles The Witness had to offer, and I got through about 350 of them. After that, the handful of puzzles I could access felt inscrutable to me, and I had to consult a guide. The guide told me the logic behind the puzzle, but it still took a large amount of trial and error to still get through them. That's the point where I felt burned out, and ended my playthrough.

So I hadn't reached an ending, and I was still curious about some elements of the game. That's how I started reading the discussions about the game, and discovered several new things. The major discovery, for me, were the environmental puzzles. I did notice patterns in the environments around me, but I assumed that they were hints to the panel puzzles as opposed to being interactive puzzles themselves. It never occurred to me to try clicking on one. That's a good chunk of the game that I've missed.

That discovery at least made me understand the subtext/theme of the game. That different perspectives - sometimes backed by new knowledge - produce different results from the same starting point. So the game wants you to be a witness to that change - that shift in perspective that makes you look at the (game) world differently.

While these are great principles to build a game upon, the last thing I want to bring up is a sense of excess. The Witness takes the principles behind it and stretches them to a point that I think is insane. It's difficult to point this out without spoiling the game, but there are three things that drive it home - 1) the complexity (the puzzles involving the boat); 2) the time investment (the puzzle involving the eclipse movie, at least); and 3) the ending itself. The Witness would probably be the first puzzle game that I would describe as 'grindy'.

In a nutshell, The Witness is the hero that lived long enough to see itself become the villain. ;-)

There is a critique/video essay of this game by Joseph Anderson: 'The Witness - A Great Game That You Shouldn't Play'. I recommend it, and you can watch it here:

Much as it looks like there might be, there is no story or conceit here to discover. There are lots of puzzles (like the loose tiles around the map) that seem like they might be part of something or add up and never do.

All the puzzles are the same type. You are staring at a small screen doing maze puzzles the whole game, and there are hundreds of them. Some will make you feel smart, most are a pain.

Unlike others, I like the experience of figuring out the rules on my own. I didn't use hints except on one puzzle and beat the game and did everything except the inner mountain that unlocks after all 11 lasers, so this isn't because I don't like puzzles or couldn't figure it out. I was bored halfway in but thought that the world might have an interesting pay off due to the way it is set up. Or that some things would add up in a meaningful way.

It doesn't, you will be doing line puzzles forever and you will be rewarded with some very monotone datapads and videos you find talking about philosophy and life and whatever. Again, my dismissal here isn't the topic, it's the presentation. There are many more compelling talks out there and way better presentations thereof, it's obtuse with the point of being obtuse.

Also, if I'm going to be running the whole time (even running doesn't seem fast enough, but walking is WAAAY too slow) just make me faster, don't make me hold down a button the entire time I play. And a map and fast travel please. It is annoying to finally know how to do a puzzle on the other side of the island and your best bet is either walking there or taking a boat long ways around.

There are some puzzles that you need to have the sound high up for and some you need to not be colorblind for. There's a few that rely on memory of puzzles you just did (i ended up just taking pictures for some) and some that really require you to work your spatial perception (like a puzzle wrapped around a column or spread out over a large area, not really a great test if you understand the logic of the puzzle and more an annoying exercise for me. Doesn't help that I'm bad at spatial stuff). Also a lot of elements of the game require you to stand in just this precise spot, and that is pretty annoying since you don't know where that spot is except by trial and error.

I kept seeing this on must-play lists and I like puzzles and I have fond memories of Myst back in the day and this seemed inspired by it. It isn't. It's like someone asked "what is myst" and someone said "mysterious island with puzzles" and they tried to do the most boring version of that possible.

You really don't have to play this.

If I had to mention my favorite puzzle games the list right now would be as follows:

-The talos principle -Fire n' ice (nes) -Adventure of lolo 3 (nes) -Portal 2 -The witness

OK so the witness is #5 for me but it is still a really good puzzle game, not as good as the others I mentioned but good. The basic mechanics of tile/board puzzles is a little bit shallow in my opinion (but well exploited) compared with other great mechanics as the ones in talos principle or portal.

Logic puzzles are very good and kinda challenging but there are other styles of puzzles based on observation or about looking at the right angle, those are just plain BS, those puzzles are completely forgettable in my opinion, they are based on keep trying more than on good logic reasoning. Nevertheless, the game makes a great work teaching you how to play without any tutorial, and you really get a felling of discovery which it is rewarding. The open nature of the game is also great, ir really makes you want to explore and try to understand why are you there. Graphically it is a beautiful game, but hey, it is a puzzle game it does not matter that much.

This game is recommended for anybody that likes puzzles games, it is not a masterpiece (as many people claim) but it is still very enjoyable.

I just "finished" (main story only) The Witness, and I am conflicted.

If I judge this game as purely a work of art, my reactions are overwhelmingly positive. It's beautiful, mysterious, occasionally provocative (in the most zen way possible). At its best, its puzzles gain a rhythmic, meditative quality that goes hand-in-hand with the game's style and recurring themes.

As entertainment, though?

¯\_(ツ)_/¯

It really comes down to whether or not you like the puzzles The Witness consists of. Even when I was a kid, I found mazes to be pretty tedious. And while the mazes in this game are the most well-designed and clever I've ever experienced, they're still just mazes. The handful of "ah ha" moments I experienced while solving them were satisfying, but they were far outnumbered by a feeling of "oh, I guess that's what they wanted that symbol to mean. All righty."

My personal favorite moments from the game involved observing or manipulating the surrounding environment to reveal solutions. But after some thought, I think that's mainly because they're the only time the island and its puzzles felt truly connected.

Here's a weird metaphor: I wanted it to taste like a cherry lifesaver, but it kept tasting a bit more like cherry cough medicine. Less enjoyable, better for you? 😅

All that said, I bet everyone's experience will be a bit different. People who fanatically adore this game aren't wrong. Their brains just like different puzzles than I do.

Yeesh, and I had high hopes for this one.

If a game can be dwarfed by its utter pretentiousness and boredom, it's this one. But let's get the good, stellar, "10/10" stuff out of the way first.

Strong puzzle design is found throughout this game. From a single line traced from one side to another expanded to a variety of different aspects such as specular reflections, shadow paths, audio cues, tetronimo and color rules, and everything in between, the game looks as if it's got a wide array of potential.

However, it doesn't know the meaning of diminishing returns. Or rewards, or anything really all that interesting. Mysteries soon lead way to disappointment, as the main prize (save for some very disappointing endings) consists of more puzzles. Its a cycle that may work for some (very niche title) who live for the a-ha! moment, but people looking for fun will be both bored and frustrated at the same time.

I really wanted to like this game, but it pretentiously (gonna use that word for good reason now) tossed audio clips and lectures in a theater into a corner and expected me to dive into its philosophies on the perception of truth (and its a thin layer at most). The game is beautifully rendered, but feels empty and lifeless in every corner. After awhile, you get used to the fact that there is no mystery, and that the developers only want to bring up the nature of the creation of the game as the point of the game's secrets.

Worldless, the game comes down to a bunch of brain teasers that may delight at first, but are also placed in frustratingly nonlinear locations. Discovering and using puzzles to explore the island is a great idea, but there ends up not being much to explore, even with the optional obelisks.

Is the Witness great? To some, yes. Is it a solid example of game design? Objectively, yes. To me? Another misfire in the attempt to produce a thought-provoking game. I'd honestly rather take the Picross over this one.