#the witnes

Here are my thoughts on The Witness after playing it for 6.5 hours. I intend to keep playing.

Lots of spoilers obviously.

I have finished almost four of the main areas, 160 puzzles in total, and 15 or so "Meta-puzzles".

Overall I like the game. Let's talk about things I don't like first.

The audio logs are kind of odd. You are forced to listen through them and they are scattered and not archived in one place, minus the "Hexagon Videos". They quote things from 700 AD chinese people to einstein to some science historian. They range from confusing hard to glean from almost-nonsense like the chinese person, to sometimes encouraging views on relating to humanity, to disturbing things like 'pro-science anti-art' views, or disturbing ideas like 'we should all just hold hands and be friends.' In short it's a really big mixed bag of names and people . If there is any upside to this, maybe people will google peoples' names and then read books. Although if it's certain peoples' books maybe that is not a good thing. to be honest if i want narrative things or good written arguments i will read book or watch film

I get this sense the game might say something like "work hard, observe, and you can do anything", which is kind of this meritocracy ideology which doesn't really woork in real life

i see a lot of statements about the world science and relgion but nothing about class race or gender

my god if this ends up being about 'pro SCIENCE AND MATH... down with emotional art' i will scream. but i get the sense it is not (at leats completely), given the range of quotes, some dealing with "Zen". there was literally some guy who sort of condescendingly said 'viewing art is a 3rd-hand interpretation... science is facts!" this guy was James Burke by the way in the video "Yesterday tomorrow and you"

speaking of zen, there is an obvious uh... 'eastern' influence in the game. honestly i don't mind, the spaces are interesting and the game hasn't explicitly said any goofy ass shit about eastern ideology, though one audio log was kind of weird.

i hope this isn't about 'pure game design' or whatever. i know blow has very strong opinions.

Let's talk about mixed-feel things

the meta-puzzles. they are kind of cool. they basically involve finding circle-shaped things in the environment (can be as big as a pond) - often you have to line up your perspective just right, then drawing a line through some line-shaped thing in the environment. it's kind of hard to explain but if you've seen those photos of stuff that looks like drawings on walls but from another perspective it is very fragmented, it's that kind of thing

i like th emeta-puzzles because they encourage a more detailed act of looking. I dislike them because it's kind of just about looking for circles and lines. but i like htem because perhaps it can encourage a player - maybe subconsciously - to actively look more in real life? maybe this leas to heightened social sconsciousness. but that is all tenous and hard to really judge.

the meta puzzles and some other weird puzzles i ahvent figured out more or less create  'The Classiest Collectathon".

The game is 'open world' but is composed of modular areas, somehow not awkwardly transitioning from one to another despite their visual differences. these modular areas consist of linear sets of puzzles. so in a way your hand is kind of held, but it's fun and interesting. i don't know. because the puzzles exist on panels in a 3d space, the puzzles usually have you or give you a chance to look at the 3d environment or walk around it while you think, which is a nice feeling and emulates working on problems in real life to an extent - like writers block or coding problems or email writing etc

the game is very heavily designed and detailed. idk if i like or dislike this yet. it's cool. but also kind of like, stuff could almost be anywhere. right now, i perceive this as a tasteful and more interesting version of how castlevania hides shit in walls.

and now some positives.

there's some cool environment observation puzzles! boiling down to gimmicks usually - but idk they've been pretty fun and interesting uses of lighting, textures, shadows.

the open world format is neat because you can kind of relax and step away from stuff that is hard. idk i liek this. it grants value to spaces in the game without any 'puzzle elements'

puzzles are fun!!! even if they are linear

pretty art!

good sound effects!