The Witness (from Braid developer) confirmed for PS4

I don't understand what this game is, all I saw was a Myst like game with dumb looking line puzzles over and over.
You're not alone! In fact many people in this very thread, and the very page you posted on expressed the same sentiment! Over and over! Some of them got pretty good answers! A related bonus question: why does Blow seem like such an asshole all the time?
 
Reminded me a lot of Zelda Wind Waker graphics style, I don't think any developer matched it before so it's very nice to see.

My thoughts exactly. The only other game I can think of that has a similar aesthetic is Okabu

okabuheaderimg530px2341.jpg


6216758503_03fb624a4b.jpg
 
I'm really hoping there's something beyond the puzzles than what we've seen.. I expected things to be a bit more holistic like Myst/Riven, but nope... what's there looks pretty abstract. Not that I mind or anything, either way.
 
Jonathan Blow bears Witness to getting an indie, PC game on PS4

Jonathan's Blow's next mind-melting puzzler has a bright – and colorful – future in the next generation, as he took center stage at Sony's conference last night to announce The Witness would come to PlayStation 4 as a timed exclusive. After the show, Blow told us that his team is hard at work on the PS4 port of The Witness, and a PC version is still in tow.

"Basically, you'll see The Witness on PS4 before you'll see it on the next Microsoft console or on the Wii U, presuming we eventually do ports to those consoles," Blow said. "Ideally we want the game to be in as many places as we can get it, but since we are a small developer and it's a complicated game, we can only do so much at once."


Blow decided to port The Witness to PS4 because he liked the console, not to snub players on other platforms or simply make a quick buck, he said:

"People are speculating that we did this because of money, but that is not the case at all. We like the console and we like the people we are working with; we were already developing a PS4 port of the game, which prevents us from doing other console ports anyway, again because we can only do so much. So it was only a small step to go from this practical fact of development to a formal agreement signed on paper."

So Jonathan Blow possibly hinting at a Xbox 720 and Wii U version?

The game seems interesting, I might just try this out.
 
Thats not what Blow said. I've already corrected this in the OP, and in the thread, multiple times, and I linked the video of his presentation to the exact section where he says what he says, and I quoted exactly what he said word-for-word.

"In the release window, the Playstation 4 will be the only console that the Witness is on."

That's what he said.

Then on Twitter he said "It is a console [timed] exclusive, not an all-platform exclusive."

I see. I missed the "only console" part when watching the stream.
 
Interesting that Sony contacted him first, and that's why he decided to put it on PS4. He never heard a word from Microsoft.
 
Interesting that Sony contacted him first, and that's why he decided to put it on PS4. He never heard a word from Microsoft.

because MS sucks. Machinarium devs worked with a few people from MS and every time the new guy started very enthusiastically only to dissapear quickly. So they are on PSN now and not on Live.
 
Interesting that Sony contacted him first, and that's why he decided to put it on PS4. He never heard a word from Microsoft.

That's what I hope Sony does to a number of independent developers to get them to develop for the PS4 platform. Gotta love indie games!
 
It's just strange given the big success of Braid on XBLA, and The Witness being one of the buzzier indies coming up. You would think Blow would have heard at least a peep from them.
 
It's just strange given the big success of Braid on XBLA, and The Witness being one of the buzzier indies coming up. You would think Blow would have heard at least a peep from them.

he talked shit about MS. Well, not only Blow, but Team Meat too. Team Meat was more straightforward about it though. Blow only complained about restrictions like leaderboards and so on. It wasn't straight shittalking.
 
I didn't understand the huge praise Braid got either. It was a basic puzzle platformer.
I don't understand the huge praise Mario gets either. All you do is run and jump on shit.

(My point is that having a limited number of mechanics doesn't disqualify a game as being good. It's how far you take it that matters. The Witness might turn out to be repetitive, it might not, but it's too early to judge. Based on how far he took the time mechanic in Braid, though, there's no reason to be worried.)
 
A great move by Sony to include this in the presentation. I'll no doubt buy (and enjoy) most of the other games they showed but this got me genuinely excited about something that wasn't just graphical updates. Looking forward to it.
 
They should have designed their trailer better then. Not my problem their marketing sucks.
Completely agree. Guy said it's a puzzle game, showed many puzzles where you join dots. I mean maybe there is more to it and they're scared to show it.. but what they showed ain't too appealing.

Going to buy it anyway but hoping to be surprised rather than expectant.
A great move by Sony to include this in the presentation. I'll no doubt buy (and enjoy) most of the other games they showed but this got me genuinely excited about something that wasn't just graphical updates. Looking forward to it.
Who knows if it'll be one of those one of trophy gestures like Portal 2.
 
They should have designed their trailer better then. Not my problem their marketing sucks.

Blow already stated in an interview earlier that he had a ridiculously hard time deciding on how to make a trailer for the game, considering it's supposed to be played and not watched.

Just because it didn't have SHITGOINGON.
 
They should have designed their trailer better then. Not my problem their marketing sucks.

It actually is your problem the marketing sucks. This isn't going to simply be a game about connecting dots. Anyone who has played Braid knows to expect some thought provoking puzzles. Anyone seeing this trailer as "connect the dots" is just going to miss out on a great experience. But whatever, their loss.
 
They should have designed their trailer better then. Not my problem their marketing sucks.

Completely agree. Guy said it's a puzzle game, showed many puzzles where you join dots. I mean maybe there is more to it and they're scared to show it.. but what they showed ain't too appealing.

Going to buy it anyway but hoping to be surprised rather than expectant.

Who knows if it'll be one of those one of trophy gestures like Portal 2.

you control environments with dots. they are just like buttons afaik. Puzzles are in environments and how they work.
 
It actually is your problem the marketing sucks. This isn't going to simply be a game about connecting dots. Anyone who has played Braid knows to expect some thought provoking puzzles. Anyone seeing this trailer as "connect the dots" is just going to miss out on a great experience. But whatever, their loss.
The trailer for Braid showed the time mechanics, and even asked you questions that eluded to the type of challenge you will face. It was a simpler game to market, that's all. This trailer expects faith from the viewer and if it was not "from the creator of Braid" then they'd have to do a much better job of showing the game off. Few others would get away with this kind of trailer.
 
Blow already stated in an interview earlier that he had a ridiculously hard time deciding on how to make a trailer for the game, considering it's supposed to be played and not watched.

Just because it didn't have SHITGOINGON.

Then do a stage demo, or show various other puzzles in the trailer, or explain it in more depth, because the initial impression given to me truly was one of just joining dots to make the environment do things.

It actually is your problem the marketing sucks. This isn't going to simply be a game about connecting dots. Anyone who has played Braid knows to expect some thought provoking puzzles. Anyone seeing this trailer as "connect the dots" is just going to miss out on a great experience. But whatever, their loss.

So let me get this straight: it's my fault because I haven't played his other games and I should have deduced that the game is going to be about more than just dots, despite the fact that that was primarily what they showed?

The game might well have more to it, but the fact is that the trailer didn't show any of it. If that was the only thing i'd ever seen of the game, on the PSN store or whatever, it would be a lost sale. As a potential new customer who has never played Braid, it failed to win me over. End of.
 
The game might well have more to it, but the fact is that the trailer didn't show any of it. If that was the only thing i'd ever seen of the game, on the PSN store or whatever, it would be a lost sale. As a potential new customer who has never played Braid, it failed to win me over. End of.

And just like Braid, if it's good Youtube and word of mouth will do all his marketing for him better than any trailer could.
 
Then do a stage demo...

To be fair, I don't think a stage demo of a puzzle game would be very entertaining or get the point across. Either the stage player would know the solution to the puzzles which means the core part of a puzzle game, figuring things out, would not be demonstrated, or the player will take a long time to figure out how to solve the puzzle which is obviously not allowed in a stage demo either.

I agree however that the trailer should have shown more things that weren't the line puzzles. At least the trailer demonstrated that the game will look gorgeous.
 
Blow talked in more detail about platform choices to Kotaku, touching on Durango, Wii U and current gen systems.

http://kotaku.com/5986093/how-the-witness-became-a-ps4-game-and-why-pcios-owners-can-remain-happy

We liked the idea of being on a console, and originally we thought we might be on the PS3 or Xbox 360, but eventually we decided not to target either of those due to the relatively low system specs. After some more time went by, and our release date drifted further into the future, we realized that the next-generation console launch time might be a good time to release the game. (For a while we were hoping to be out substantially earlier than the next consoles, e.g. right now, so we didn't start thinking seriously about this until recently).

"The Wii U still has pretty low system specs, so it came down to a choice between the next Microsoft console or the next Sony console. There were people at Sony who really liked the game and were keeping in touch with us about it, and so we naturally started going to their PS4 developer events, got a dev kit, and started playing with it. I don't have good communication with anyone at Microsoft right now, and haven't been disclosed on their next console, but all our technical people like the PS4 specs a lot more than the leaked Durango specs, and we like the positioning of the PS4 (it's about games) a lot more than what we perceive Microsoft's positioning is going to be.
 
This was surprisingly my favourite game announcement during the PS4 conference. It gave me a myst-like vibe that I haven't been felt in a long time. Can't wait for it to come out.
 
wow what he says at the end, that is thread worthy imo.

I disagree. He states he has no knowledge of the Nextbox and that his thoughts on it versus the PS4 are based on the very same rumours we've been reading. "Blow prefers PS4 over rumoured Nextbox" isn't really news.
 
What surprises me about the quote is if he knows and is involved in PS4 dev (which he obviously is), but has had no communication from MS about Durango.

Do they have a bad relationship? Or is Sony just reaching out to more small devs at this stage?
 
What surprises me about the quote is if he knows and is involved in PS4 dev (which he obviously is), but has had no communication from MS about Durango.

Do they have a bad relationship? Or is Sony just reaching out to more small devs at this stage?

I get the feeling that Sony is actively going after indie devs this time. I mean one of their videos before the PS Meeting talked about indie efforts as well. Looks like it's an important part of their plans going forward
 
Blow has talked so much shit about MS over the last couple of years, he has the highest profile indie game in development, Sony would have been idiotic not to do whatever it took to get the Witness, I don't think you can take from that anything about Sony's broader generation focus when it comes to indies from this deal, it was a no brainer.
 
StuBurns said:
Braid is literally the only puzzle game I've ever played that actually managed to remain engaging for the length of a 'real' game.
I'd change "puzzle" to "platformer" for myself in there. I've seen puzzle games that remained engaging for the whole game before (though not for the last 10 years) - but not a platforming one.

Anyway - Blow stated before how hard it is to make a trailer for this concept (honestly I have a hard time imagining puzzle-game trailer to look interesting, I've yet to see one), but I did appreciate that their visuals felt more "nexgen" than most of the rest of stuff that was shown.
 
My favourite game from the conference. Looks to be my type of game. Also, visually it looks really pleasing. Can't wait to try the next game from the creator of the brilliant Braid.
 
Blow talked in more detail about platform choices to Kotaku, touching on Durango, Wii U and current gen systems.

http://kotaku.com/5986093/how-the-witness-became-a-ps4-game-and-why-pcios-owners-can-remain-happy

"Of course, Sony wants that show to point out things that are going to be exclusive or special to their console. So to be in the show we signed a timed exclusivity for competing consoles. But this was just a formalization of something that was already de facto. We like the PS4 and we like the people at Sony we are working with, so it was an easy choice to make the agreement."

So it's timed exclusive? Damn, that'll piss a few people off. :P

EDIT: I'll make a new thread.
 
Microsoft will have to be more supporting of indie devs or then Blow, the big spokesperson for the indie movement, will encourage a lot more small developers indirectly to go console-exclusive with PS4.

Money and getting their vision into as many hands as possible will dictate where indie devs take their games. Not the supposed "spokesperson".
 
The game is certainly pretty. But I have to wonder what the gameplay is like. The trailer seemed to indicate it was all basically a hacking mini-game of some sort, but I guess we'll see.

What I wouldn't do for a Zelda game in this style.
 
Then do a stage demo, or show various other puzzles in the trailer, or explain it in more depth, because the initial impression given to me truly was one of just joining dots to make the environment do things.

Blow gave a pretty good prelude to the trailer on stage, if that's what you really want.

Totilo today on "repetitive line puzzles":

I've played several hours of the games and the puzzles change a lot. Technically, everything I played was a line-drawing puzzle, but believe it or not, there's a ton of depth. Think of the line-drawing as a mechanic, like platform-jumping. And then think of how many variations you've seen on simple jumping. It's like that. I expected to be bored early. I wasn't. At all. It's good.
 
Does anyone know why this game can't be done on current gen technology?

Fancy shaders and open world, mainly. And it's not that it'd can't be done, but it'd be a pain in the ass for the devs and not look as good as the PC version. As they said on the blog (and on twitter, and on kotaku), they've only got the manpower for one console version anyway so making it a timed exclusive makes sense.
 
Does anyone know if there will be more to this than those line drawing puzzles? I love the concept but I get really bored of those type of puzzles fast. Trailer killed all of my hype with the number of those.
 
Does anyone know if there will be more to this than those line drawing puzzles? I love the concept but I get really bored of those type of puzzles fast. Trailer killed all of my hype with the number of those.
It's all those. However, basically it's all about finding out which line to draw by gathering clues from your surroundings. The line panels are mere interfaces.
 
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