The Witness

The game was released on the playstation and Microsoft first and afterwards to the Xbox One. It was then ported on the iOS devices and it was inspired by the Myst. The game is now involving the exploration of the open world island and it is filled with the man-made and natural structures. A player does progress through solving puzzles and they are based at the interaction with the mazes that had been presented in the panels on the island or they are hidden in this environment. A player can determine rules of every puzzle starting from the clues and for audio recording that are found in the island.

The director and the creator of the game called Jonathan Blow wanted to have a game that it is based on non-verbal communication and he wants the players in learning from the observation and coming to the epiphanies while finding the right solution. The game has over 650 puzzles but the player does not have to solve all of them in order to win the game.

The Witness is a game based on the puzzles and on the adventure. It is experienced in first person view and the player is not named.  He explores the island with many structures and natural formation. The island is not divided in the eleven sections and it is arranged around the mountain which represents ultimate goal for the player.  Every section comes with the gold box and it has to be reached and then activated.  It needs the player for completing the sequence puzzles in the section in order to reach to it. When activated, the turret may emerge from a box and it shines the light to the mountain’s top.  This indicates that you had completed that section.  A player has to activate the boxes within the game so that he can be able to access the inside of a mountain and to reach to the final goal of the game. Even if the additional puzzles may be found out as the eleven turrets get activated. You can find some additional puzzles that may be scattered on the island and one optional set of the puzzles is accessible after entering in the mountain and it is called The Challenge.  It is the time based test and it is used to complete over dozen mazes that are generated algorithmically in seven minutes.  They are set to the music of Edvard Grieg known as Anitra’s Dance and for In the Hall of The Mountain King.  The final game has over 650 puzzles and it is said that it may take an average player around 80 hours to solve it.  There are puzzles that he believes that only 1percent of players may solve them.

All games have something in common and that something is that they are all teaching mechanism.  Even if the game may have its own flaws, but The Witness of Jonathan Blow is now the finest game that you can find around. You can spend many hours trying to pass some of the puzzles in the game and to reach to the unlockable places.

What to expect from The Witness game

The Witness is based on the maze puzzles that are at the island and it has a sumptuous and thickly hewn expanse of the swamps, orchards, meadows and cliffs.  There are dotted buildings like logging depot, church, windmill and other buildings that are in disrepair.  This place in the game is a regular era of car crash and the traditions starting from a Japanese temple found near its center with the plush red shutters towards the rusting tanker with shipwreck at the northern coast. However, there are some shared themes and among them there are stone effigies and motley’s population of the rock climbers, photographers, guitarists, kings and priests.  They all have frozen mid-gestures such as trolls that are caught under the sun.

The game has the omnipresent screens where the majority of the puzzles are found. There are bright colors that you can spot them within the gaps of the foliate or on the crest of some distant hills. There are the puzzle that are found in the loose and also on area specific sequences which share the particular mechanic; and each completed puzzle is sending the bolt of the power to a new one.  As you continue further in the game, you meet more complex mechanism up to the time that you reach to the climax of this game. You will have access to the full set of the enigmas that may have not been possible some hours before that.

The greatness of the game is based on the silent elegance which cultivates the understanding in the game and the artfulness that feeds the concept while the layers put the puzzles into the complex problems. The first puzzles do not cause any pain and you only have to hold-click and to zoom the screen and then to activate the cursor. You can then draw the line through the grid layout from the start to the end.  You will start to encounter some symbols found on the squares and in every maze imposes more requirements. They are normally introduced using the banks of five or even more screens that will take to every facet of all new mechanics and it begins with the maze which is square while two wide may demonstrate basic principles.  Besides the couple of the text prompts, you have to explain the controls at the outset and there is no breath of the actual exposition within the game. This game does not require it and its pedagogy is accomplished in this manner.

However, the game is not easy and it is among the toughest games that are around. Each game comes with its premise but there is also the devil in details.  This is also easy when it comes to roving this island and to run in the conundrum where you lack knowledge of solving these problems. However, you do not have to be forced in tackling in one order while it is not important to follow each threat so that you may reach to the final.  The game’s ambiance is restful and there is no need to do make real score.  It is about the seethe caused by the wind at a canopy or the lilt caused by flowing water while at the same time, the views have been developed to be captivating.  Sometime the scenery may looks like a distraction but the game may be less enjoyable if it does not give the player the chance to take a break to watch the clouds moving.

The Witness’s landscape offers more than just the appearance. While the time passes, you may be required to pick up some delicate negotiation from a screen puzzle with the architecture and the geography that surround it.  Some of the puzzles will be mimicking the shapes that are near them so to solve them; you need to make a little artwork.

The Witness reaches the place where it became a dilemma. You are no longer required to use the technique that you have learnt throughout the game and you become more concerned on how to overcome the artificial obstruction.  The example is when you face bullet-sponge boss found in the FPS; you only need the patience to continue and not ingenuity. This has been balanced out by some masterful and also hard specimens and some  have weird interior but the game send off is not exactly what people expected.

The game has a storyline in the audio recordings and the positions of the objects and they may make coherent storyline.  Since it is not necessary to uncover all the secrets in the game, it is difficult to make the conclusion on this game.  Even if the game can be played from the start to the end, the game still has no clear endgame sequence and it is somehow buggy with mild glitches  on some area like reflection.

The recording in the game are  of canonical texts of literature, philosophy and science.   The game will lead to mirror tunnel full of the surmises and allusions which are though provoking and it may daze or it may annoy many players as they play. The game is built around the mechanical challenges and the unambiguous outcomes while it helps the player to get a vantage point and a perspective to the mysteries of life and not just the answers for his questions.