The Witness (from Braid developer) confirmed for PS4

vgJames said:
Bioshock's line maze mini-game: The Game.

That aside I wonder how the final game will pan out, that 25 hour promise seemed absurd to me.
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There are ~550 puzzles--that's an average of 3 minutes per puzzle. Doesn't sound that absurd.

-GJ- said:
He said it'll be exclusive to PS4 in the launchwindow, which is 3 months after the release of the console. It will probably come to the nextbox and PC after that. He won't abandon the Xbox after the huge success of Braid, would he?
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That's not at all what he said.

He said "The PS4 will be the only console that plays The Witness at launch". Nothing about PC or mobile. He then repeated this exact statement on Twitter later on when someone complained about the lack of iOS support.

gHHA1vS.png
 
Purkake4 said:
I liked his "no arbitrary puzzles" comment followed by a door with a maze puzzle on it followed by a floor made out of maze-ish puzzles...
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Yeah, that definitely deflated my hype. Still the game looks gorgeous and hopefully some of the other interactive elements of the game are more nuanced.
 
Drakken said:
Based on what he said about interesting experiences and non-arbitrary puzzles being all around you on the island, I have to believe those maze-like things aren't the actual main puzzles, but unfortunately that's how it came off in the trailer. Really looking forward to this regardless.
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The mazes are the main puzzles, but they connect to the environment--you can see it in the bridge puzzle-- the bridge flips direction to reflect the solution the player has entered in the maze. The mechanic that's around the maze varies by area.
 
Stumpokapow said:
There are ~550 puzzles--that's an average of 3 minutes per puzzle. Doesn't sound that absurd.
Click to expand...

That makes more sense in the time available on the game. But in terms of an actual play through surely he won't subject everyone (not just the dedicated to the game) to completing over 10 hours worth of (apparently similar) puzzles? That is to say the game has a normal structure of progression anyway.
 
vgJames said:
That makes more sense in the time available on the game. But in terms of an actual play through surely he won't subject everyone (not just the dedicated to the game) to completing over 10 hours worth of (apparently similar) puzzles? That is to say the game has a normal structure of progression anyway.
Click to expand...

The island (the game takes place on a single island) has about a dozen different areas which each has a different theme/mechanic. The areas are nonlinear in the order you can tackle them, IIRC. The puzzles are built around the maze signs but differ in how, and Blow hasn't given any further details on it.
 
Game looks gorgeous, almost like a modern-day Myst. I'm just hoping the puzzles amount to more than just drawing those mazes, that part of the trailer didn't do much for me.
 
Can someone explain this game to me. Ever since it was revealed last year all the "puzzles" I've seen in this game are connecting lines to a dot. Is that all there is to The Witness?
 
Of all the games they showed this is the one I'm most hyped for. Braid tried to push the boundaries and I'm expecting the same from this.
 
i had been avoiding media about the game outside of hearing talk on idle thumbs because it was pc exclusive - seeing it now i adore the visual style. very interesting and i'm glad sony is continuing to reach out to indie developers.
 
Got a real Myst vibe from this (or maybe more like Riven, with the single world and puzzles built into the world), which is the most hype-worthy thing of the whole show to me.
 
INTERNET said:
Those maze puzzles are each sort of analogies to something in the game world, or your actions in the world, or your perception of the world. That is, they can't be meaningfully solved if taken out of the world, just as a record album is largely meaningless in lieu of a record player.

e: also welp guess I'm buying a PS4
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Umm, okay?
 
Yeah I suspect the maze puzzles are not what they seem. Clearly there was something to the solution that went beyond simply going through a maze. Will have to see how game actually plays.
 
Stumpokapow said:
There are ~550 puzzles--that's an average of 3 minutes per puzzle. Doesn't sound that absurd.



That's not at all what he said.

He said "The PS4 will be the only console that plays The Witness at launch". Nothing about PC or mobile. He then repeated this exact statement on Twitter later on when someone complained about the lack of iOS support.

gHHA1vS.png
Click to expand...

Oddly stated. So if I get that right, it is PS4 timed-exclusive in terms of consoles, but it will be launching on PC and other platforms, too.

The way he says it, I'd wager it is coming to other consoles but probably a year+ later?

Either way, looked effin' beautiful. Not sure I liked all the line puzzles in the trailer, but good good.
 
jett said:
Can someone explain this game to me. Ever since it was revealed last year all the "puzzles" I've seen in this game are connecting lines to a dot. Is that all there is to The Witness?
Click to expand...

Consider what you do when you play a video game - your actions can be broken down into a series of inputs into your controller prompted by images on the screen. It is, of course, useless to try to look at this series of inputs by themselves to derive an understanding of what you were experiencing as you were playing the game. Now consider the mazes in this game as a controller the player character uses to describe, manipulate, and untangle the world they perceive. Extrapolate from there.
 
Stumpokapow said:
The island (the game takes place on a single island) has about a dozen different areas which each has a different theme/mechanic. The areas are nonlinear in the order you can tackle them, IIRC. The puzzles are built around the maze signs but differ in how, and Blow hasn't given any further details on it.
Click to expand...

Sounds like do x number of puzzles to unlock area two and so on so forth. Wonder how they'll handle difficulty with that system, because I doubt Blow will do it as simply as area one = easy, area two = medium etc. Of course they'll be an aspect of increasing difficulty but will we see varied difficulty of puzzles scattered throughout the game? Or perhaps difficulty levels altering the whole island. For example 'easy mode' might present ten puzzles in area one without certain puzzles locked out, fifteen in area two and keep upping it by five but if you played it on a harder difficulty there might be fifty (more difficult) available puzzles in area one, sixty in two and go from there. I'm just guessing the open world nature of the game will mean that some puzzles will remain locked until you've completed others so there could be a chain of say five puzzles that you can't access until you beat the first. Just some brain storming.
 
Oh wow. Great trailer. I feel like its been years of seeing that shorty offscreen prototype. Man, cannot wait.
 
vgJames said:
That makes more sense in the time available on the game. But in terms of an actual play through surely he won't subject everyone (not just the dedicated to the game) to completing over 10 hours worth of (apparently similar) puzzles? That is to say the game has a normal structure of progression anyway.
Click to expand...

It may be similar to Fez, in that you can "Beat the game" without completing all the puzzles. I wonder if it will be similar to Braid, though, where you can only unlock the "ending" of the game after completing all the puzzles.
 
jett said:
Can someone explain this game to me. Ever since it was revealed last year all the "puzzles" I've seen in this game are connecting lines to a dot. Is that all there is to The Witness?
Click to expand...

same as you, I don't get this at all.
 
As I saw another poster say, this looks like some sort of spiritual successor to Myst, and the art is beautiful. It also represents a some of the variety shown. Considering how early it is, there is some great stuff in the pipeline.
 
Beautuful trailer. I've been following the development on the blog, and been looking forward to it. Glad to see it hitting console(s?) as well.
 
Huge braid lover... and i just don't quite get it yet.

i wish the graphics were a little more solid and sophisticated. i'm sure when i get my hands on it the experience will get to me... i'm just not quite there yet.

with the simultaneous multiplatform launch, i might nab this on my macbook air if possible on steam for mac, as an excuse to push back a ps4 purchase for other various reasons.
 
catfish said:
same as you, I don't get this at all.
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jonathon blow is all about conditioning the player. He wants you to understand the game by playing it, not by having it described to you. As you explore and develop the game develops deeper meaning then watching someone esle do it.

You solve puzzles and explore the world.
 
Had to watch the trailer again to make sure I wasn't missing something obvious, but do all of the puzzles in this game revolve around maze/line tracing? Seems like a weird gimmick to hang a "25 hour" game around. Guess I'm curious to see how the game turns out, but I don't understand the rapturous response some people have to this first look.
 
This is probably what I am most excited about after the PS conference. Is it sad that it could easily be on 360 or ps3? Goes to show you games are what it's all about
 
zashga said:
Had to watch the trailer again to make sure I wasn't missing something obvious, but do all of the puzzles in this game revolve around maze/line tracing? Seems like a weird gimmick to hang a "25 hour" game around. Guess I'm curious to see how the game turns out, but I don't understand the rapturous response some people have to this first look.
Click to expand...
No, they don't.
 
zashga said:
Had to watch the trailer again to make sure I wasn't missing something obvious, but do all of the puzzles in this game revolve around maze/line tracing? Seems like a weird gimmick to hang a "25 hour" game around. Guess I'm curious to see how the game turns out, but I don't understand the rapturous response some people have to this first look.
Click to expand...

Yes, drawing lines is the main play mechanic of this game. But how you come to learn which lines to draw is where the ingenuity comes in. Changing your perspective in a 3D space, listening for audio clues, pattern recognition etc all come into play in learning how to solve the puzzles.

Evidently, as you solve the puzzles you learn new lessons about how the game mechanics work and you use this knowledge in more complicated puzzles. So, instead of a typical puzzle game where you do task A and task B to open up C, then move onto the next different puzzle .. this is one where you are progressively learning and that knowledge makes the next puzzle easier/more understandable.

I don't think the game is going to be for everybody, but there is a huge swath of people out there that love Myst and other Point and Click games that will eat this up.
 
ToxicAdam said:
Yes, drawing lines is the main play mechanic of this game. But how you come to learn which lines to draw is where the ingenuity comes in. Changing your perspective in a 3D space, listening for audio clues, pattern recognition etc all come into play in learning how to solve the puzzles.

Evidently, as you solve the puzzles you learn new lessons about how the game mechanics work and you use this knowledge in more complicated puzzles. So, instead of a typical puzzle game where you do task A and task B to open up C, then move onto the next different puzzle .. this is one where you are progressively learning and that knowledge makes the next puzzle easier/more understandable.

I don't think the game is going to be for everybody, but there is a huge swath of people out there that love Myst and other Point and Click games that will eat this up.
Click to expand...

Just like Braid.
 
It reminded me a lot of Myst. The puzzles did seem pretty arbitrary unlike what he said, but that's the point of puzzle games. This was probably the most interesting game at the conference.
 
The only game that truly impressed me tonight. Well, that's not exactly true- Blow's comments were more what impressed me, I guess. In general, I hate open world design and it's nice to hear a game designer who actually understands that openness is not inherently good just as linearity is not inherently evil. Furthermore, he also seemed to get the real issues with the style. I was also pleased with his thoughts re:content, but I'll be extremely surprised if the game is actually 25 hours and even more so if it somehow can justify that length. That said, a nice intro. I'm excited to see more.
 
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