The Witness Review
Overview
The Witness is an interesting game. I never played Braid, nor do I know much about it, so I came to this without zero knowledge of Jonathan Blow’s previous work. Whether that works for or against someone, I don’t know, but what I’ll say is The Witness is definitely an adventure.
To start, I suck at puzzles. I played Sigils of Elohim, had my fiancé help with me most of them. My brain just doesn’t work like that. But from reading all the info on The Witness, I had to try it, so I bought it at launch. My first thought was, this is an indie game? At $43.99 (CAD), it’s definitely not priced like an indie game. I was a little hesitant, but my willpower lost and I bought it, and it has not been a bad purchase in the least.
In the roughly five hours I’ve played, I’ve gone through several areas; symmetry island, orange forest, the hedge mazes, tree monastery, marsh, desert, quarry, and I’m now heading off to whatever location is next. I’m enjoying what very little information is given in the audio logs you find, but I’ve only found three so far, so there’s definitely a lot more to go. I’m refusing to use a guide and so far have been able to get by without.
Pros
- Puzzles all follow the same basic idea (line puzzles), but the variety is excellent and the sheer amount of them will keep you playing
- Figuring out how puzzles work (using light that casts a shade on the correct path, or aligning your view to a distant object) is the best part, in my opinion
- Bits of story you get from the various audio tapes is interesting
- The world is beautiful in its simplicity, and is a joy to explore
- Sound effects do a great job of immersing you, even ones that aren’t part of the puzzles
- The lack of music works quite well in the game’s favor
Cons
- I’d have liked at least a little bit of info or backstory on why we are here and what we’re doing
- You can’t jump, not even slightly, and there are invisible barriers everywhere, meaning you have to walk along the path, and if you need to go down or up, you need to keep going instead of slightly adjusting your location
- I’ve yet to get to the end, but with two achievements and being single player, it doesn’t seem like there’s a lot of replayability once everything is solved
Summary
The Witness is an excellent game. It’s an excellent experiment, as well. The puzzles are one part of the game, and in order to solve them, you need to figure out how they work, and that’s the real fun. Does this particular tree with its leaning branch indicate a path I should take? Or is this particular tree a red herring, designed to screw with me and further complicate the puzzle?
Jonathan Blow has crafted an excellent world, one I can’t wait to finish exploring. If you’re a fan of puzzles, you’ll enjoy it too. Try not to use a guide unless absolutely necessary, as that will detract from the very point of the game.
(This review was first written on February 6th, 2016, on the Steam store page for The Witness)
