The Witness is almost here

The Witness is now available for pre-purchase on Steam and Humble Store. It comes out in 6 days.

I don’t normally buy games at launch these days, let alone pre-purchase games, but I had no reason to hold back from pre-purchasing The Witness. If you’re purchasing from Humble Store, as I did, just be aware that you have to choose between a Steam key or DRM-free option; unlike other Humble Store games, they don’t give you access to both unfortunately.

Jonathan Blow’s previous game, Braid, is probably the best indie game I’ve ever played, and has one of the cleverest endings in the video game. If you haven’t played it yet, I certainly recommend giving it a try (and not giving up when the puzzles become difficult).

It remains to be seen whether The Witness will an innovative as Braid. Jonathan Blow has been particularly secretive about the game. The art style sure is beautiful though.

Who else is looking forward to The Witness? I will let you all know what I think of the game sometime after the 27th.

I’m mildly interested in this game. I think for now I’ll wait for a few reviews before I buy. If the puzzles are too overly complicated with ridiculous solutions, it will turn me off. Also, music is everything to me, I’m hoping it has a good soundtrack…

Over 700 puzzles!

I’m not very far into the game, but here are my initial impressions:

Visuals - absolutely stunning. It’s not the most graphically impressive game, but the use of single colours to represent elements of the world gives the game a very unique and immersive feeling unlike anything else I’ve played. Just look at the screenshots. Moreover, there is quite a lot of diversity to the game’s environments, so that each area feels unique and you will easily recognise it when you return. The environments feel very handcrafted.

Gameplay - the pacing is excellent. Each puzzle builds on the last, adding a little bit of extra complexity, and building upon the knowledge you gained from solving the previous puzzle. However, the game is also non-linear, so after the tutorial area you are free to explore the island and solve the puzzles in whatever order you wish.

The gameplay consists primarily of line connection puzzles, as part of a large, interconnected power grid which appears to cover the whole island. Indeed, the theme of the game appears to be about connections and larger things formed out of individual pieces. So far my curiosity is sparked.

@legaiaflame You will be disappointed to hear that the game has no music. I guess this is to create a sense of isolation - the game is set on a deserted island, and what humans there are are frozen/turned to stone. The sound effects are well done.

I can’t comment on the story so far. I have only encountered one audio log. Possibly the story will be similar to Braid’s in that it will be subject to interpretation. I get the sense that more of the story will fall into place once I connect more of whatever it is that I’m connecting. But it’s too early to tell.

So far I’m enjoying The Witness. It seems slower paced and slightly more repetitive than Braid - there are more puzzles that are similar to one another, but each puzzle is quite short, and the non-linear aspect of the game means that if I get stuck there are plenty of other puzzles to try. I can see this being a game that I’ll chip away at, a few puzzles at a time, rather than rush through.

That’s unfortunate. I was hopeful a moving musical score would add to the atmosphere. Oh well…

Like Solo, I too have been awaiting The Witness for the past 6+ years (Braid being probably my favourite game of all time dethroning PDS after much careful mental-debating).

I racked up almost 40 hours in the first 4 days :anjou_embarrassed: and so far I really like it. Not really sure what’s going on at the moment, but I love open-world games, and puzzle games, and the graphics are really pleasant. I keep finding myself opening up steam and continuing to play all the time!

I still haven’t played much of The Witness, but it’s great to hear that you’re enjoying it @Scott. Indeed Braid is a fantastic game too.