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The Witness |OT|

Somewhat related to that mystery is another one that I'm sure many probably noticed as well:
In the dojo, or ornate room with the big tree in the center, you can line up the holes in the back wall perfectly with figures in shadow (or was it light?) on the stone slab behind it (where the laser emits from)

There's also a tiny little
dog statue
that is by itself among some pillows off a beaten path with nothing around. There's also of course all the pillows, with a very particular pattern on them. The lounge location
on top of the ceiling of a room in the starting fort has a prism-like gem resting gently on one of it's pillows which makes me think of some sort of shrine business or something

You know, I didn't even open the back wall of the monastery.
Thanks for reminding me.

As for the pillows...
Have you seen where they're from? That's the easy part.

But... That reminds me.
All the pillows, couches, and chairs are facing a particular direction. Why does the game want you to look in those directions? I don't think they correspond to +1s.
 

WilyRook

Member
puzzle help, relatively early
in the town, there's a panel on a roof that looks like 3 stacked hexagons, activated by inputting three different lines on a single panel in the room below it. my brain apparently broke because I can't make heads or tails of it. I thought maybe each hexagon had to match how they are shaped on the bottom panel. pointers?
 
I'm still fairly early on and doing some backtracking and I am stuck on a puzzle and not sure why. It's a black and white puzzle that is blocking a door pretty early in the game (just when you leave the first area). IT's a hexagon and black/white dot puzzle, and my understanding is that you just have to pass through all of the hexagons and separate the black/white dots but that doesn't seem to be working here.
 
puzzle help, relatively early
in the town, there's a panel on a roof that looks like 3 stacked hexagons, activated by inputting three different lines on a single panel in the room below it. my brain apparently broke because I can't make heads or tails of it. I thought maybe each hexagon had to match how they are shaped on the bottom panel. pointers?

If you are relatively early in the game you might want to
come back to the town much later
.

I'm still fairly early on and doing some backtracking and I am stuck on a puzzle and not sure why. It's a black and white puzzle that is blocking a door pretty early in the game (just when you leave the first area). IT's a hexagon and black/white dot puzzle, and my understanding is that you just have to pass through all of the hexagons and separate the black/white dots but that doesn't seem to be working here.

I think i know which one you're talking about. That one should be pretty easy if you know the rules, which you seem to do.
There are several starting points, but due to having to pass through all the hexagons you should be able to rule out all but one. Anfrom there it's pretty straightforward as well.
 
yes, I just reached the southeast area (don't know how to call it yet), encountered the first two color puzzles and already could not solve them.

Same. I just youtubed them and moved on. Not going to let a few puzzles ruin my enjoyment of the game. Still sucks there is no colorblind option.
 

collige

Banned
Beautiful OT OP!! But is it true that people with colorblind will face difficulties with the game?

EDIT: Looks like what I heard was right :(

http://kotaku.com/colorblind-and-hearing-impaired-players-wont-be-able-to-1755459642
I was thinking about this earlier today and it's quite unfortunate how accessibility-unfriendly the game is. There's an entire area of the game dedicated to color and another dedicated to sound. I'm sure Blow could have come up with other puzzle formats that weren't so alienating.
 

Mista

Banned
yes, I just reached the southeast area (don't know how to call it yet), encountered the first two color puzzles and already could not solve them.

This sucks big time. I have a colorblind problem but not a big one! I can tell each color when I see it alone. But if you put like green next to brown or blue next to purple, I get confused and might say green is brown or the opposite. I just have a problem seeing similar colors next to each other and say the color correctly. Colorblind sucks breh :(

I was thinking about this earlier today and it's quite unfortunate how accessibility-unfriendly the game is. There's an entire area of the game dedicated to color and another dedicated to sound. I'm sure Blow could have come up with other puzzle formats that weren't so alienating.

Indeed. Its like you're making it more hard to people with color blind and hearing problems

I'm colour blind and had no problem with the colour puzzles (until the last bunch during the end-game stuff). Obviously people have different degrees of severity though.

Good to know that. Yeah it has different degrees! Like my cousin he always see the black & yellow sidewalks black and white! I dont
 
I'm backtracking after the endgame actually. it's the last laser for me (if there are only 11). am I just dumb? lol

I don't think so. I haven't solved that one either. It looks
similar to the panels at the desert ruins though
so I think that's the method you should be using.
Try to find different vantage points perhaps?
I haven't really gotten far enough in that area to do so myself
 

WilyRook

Member
I don't think so. I haven't solved that one either. It looks
similar to the panels at the desert ruins though
so I think that's the method you should be using.
Try to find different vantage points perhaps?
I haven't really gotten far enough in that area to do so myself

Yeah I'll go back to it later
 
Also of note with that:

The shadow of it - which is very prominent - appears to show him brandishing the goblet - in a sense the opposite of the tableau as viewed normally.
Exactly. It's there to be noticed.

It reminds me of a quote from Jonathan I read a while back, something about how part of the art design philosophy for The Witness revolved around not making things stand out visually if they weren't intrinsic to the puzzle-solving.

Just about everything in the game that stands out visually that you think MIGHT be important, generally has some importance, even if it's just a tape player being nearby, or something that will help with a
+ puzzle
.

But the statues (and other visual representations of people/animals)? They stand out, and yet they don't seem to have a role in the puzzle-solving. That would seem to deliberately contradict the statement about the art design. That is, unless, there is something more to them than meets the eye...
 

RoadHazard

Gold Member
Game finished with
378+7
panels solved.

Regarding the ending (SPOILERS, obviously):
Was that it? What was the big THING reviews and other people were teasing? I was really expecting some OMG ending, and then it was... nothing? The island was reset (as were you), and there was some philosophical talk. A phantom, a dream, I don't know. Guess I just don't get it. I didn't finish with 100% completion though, if that makes any difference.
 

Mistle

Member
Thought there would be some subtle cue that one could pick up on, e.g. the order in which the screens light up or something. But still, that's good advice, thanks! May I also ask you if you have any suggestions for the labyrinth part? That's by far the worst time-sink.
The maze path and panel locations match up with
the panel on the podium in the second room of the challenge.
 

Wok

Member
I'm especially curious about the statues, and if something special can be derived with how you frame them in your field of view.

For example, from the right perspective you can line up a statue of a man in the marsh area to look like it's reaching his hand out for the huge female statue on the side of the mountain. When I lined them up, I expected to see a "+ puzzle" pattern in the background somewhere that I could draw, but I didn't notice anything.

Then there's a whole area of the island seemingly dedicated to only a statue of a man kneeling before a gold goblet.

I've got to believe that stuff is there for a reason, but what that reason is, I have no idea.

Also of note with that:

The shadow of it - which is very prominent - appears to show him brandishing the goblet - in a sense the opposite of the tableau as viewed normally.

The guy is
a symbol for Icarus of some sort
.

See my post about it in the SPOILER thread.


See also my pictures
with perspectives and shadows
:


Exactly. It's there to be noticed.

It reminds me of a quote from Jonathan I read a while back, something about how part of the art design philosophy for The Witness revolved around not making things stand out visually if they weren't intrinsic to the puzzle-solving.

Just about everything in the game that stands out visually that you think MIGHT be important, generally has some importance, even if it's just a tape player being nearby, or something that will help with a
+ puzzle
.

But the statues (and other visual representations of people/animals)? They stand out, and yet they don't seem to have a role in the puzzle-solving. That would seem to deliberately contradict the statement about the art design. That is, unless, there is something more to them than meets the eye...
 
Regarding the ending (SPOILERS, obviously):
Was that it? What was the big THING reviews and other people were teasing? I was really expecting some OMG ending, and then it was... nothing? The island was reset (as were you), and there was some philosophical talk. A phantom, a dream, I don't know. Guess I just don't get it. I didn't finish with 100% completion though, if that makes any difference.

There's more, if you have all the lasers.

There's something you didn't activate in the mountain.

Yeah, this seems about the sort of thing Jon Blow would be into. I like this stuff but I'll be damned if it doesn't go over my head.

I can't even identify
the source of video #5. Probably somebody famous in the field, but I'm not really about to go research the topic to figure it out!
 
I was thinking about this earlier today and it's quite unfortunate how accessibility-unfriendly the game is. There's an entire area of the game dedicated to color and another dedicated to sound. I'm sure Blow could have come up with other puzzle formats that weren't so alienating.

I see what you are saying but at the same time should developers simply abandon any cool ideas they have that require sound to work? That's not something I would want the industry to pursue.
 

Wok

Member
I see what you are saying but at the same time should developers simply abandon any cool ideas they have that require sound to work? That's not something I would want the industry to pursue.

Make it skippable.

Oh wait, this is what Blow did.
 

RoadHazard

Gold Member
There's more, if you have all the lasers.

There's something you didn't activate in the mountain.

Hmm, guess I should do the remaining lasers then. Is the thing in the mountain also dependent on that? I thought I did everything in the mountain. Well, not in that separate side entrance. Had no idea how to even get in there.
 
Hmm, guess I should do the remaining lasers then. Is the thing in the mountain also dependent on that? I thought I did everything in the mountain. Well, not in that separate side entrance. Had no idea how to even get in there.

Pay attention as you go back up. Your next goal becomes obvious when you see it.
 

danthefan

Member
I've hit a tetris puzzle that just has me stumped. It's one of the ones that you need to
subtract squares
from but the three tetris pieces won't
naturally fit on the puzzle board without subtracting. So (I think) I have to fit two of them in then in my head subtract the bit that needs subtracting then add in the remaining tetris piece. Blargh. Need to sleep on it I think.
 

JerkShep

Member
The
labyrinth
part of the Challenge is so unfair. It's totally doable but
so many perfect runs wasted because I can't find the panels
. Dammit.
 
Haha, I hope we can see more puzzles for the sake of puzzles as DLC.

Damn, just make an app game otherwise. I enjoy these puzzles. Blow created these himself right? I mean, as far as classic puzzle games go, I'd love to see this in a newspaper or something
 
The
labyrinth
part of the Challenge is so unfair. It's totally doable but
so many perfect runs wasted because I can't find the panels
. Dammit.

There's a trick.

I've hit a tetris puzzle that just has me stumped. It's one of the ones that you need to
subtract squares
from but the three tetris pieces won't
naturally fit on the puzzle board without subtracting. So (I think) I have to fit two of them in then in my head subtract the bit that needs subtracting then add in the remaining tetris piece. Blargh. Need to sleep on it I think.

You can also try the opposite:
place the subtraction piece first, then place other pieces until the subtraction piece is cancelled out.
 

thefil

Member
Had an epiphany today about the beach puzzle, and solved it in less than a minute when I went back during my lunch. I did have to realize something new about the tetromino mechanics.

Also figured out what the hexagon maps are for, finally. I had been to the location before, but completely forgot about it. I have four maps, and I'm assuming there's one more behind the ship door, and no idea on the last one.

Keep hearing rumours about more stuff on top of the mountain, but went back up there with 11
lasers
and found nothing new, including when I went through endgame again.
 
Keep hearing rumours about more stuff on top of the mountain, but went back up there with 11
lasers
and found nothing new, including when I went through endgame again.

Hint 1:
There's something there that's not activated yet.

Hint 2:
One cable leading out of the box is still off.
 

BeeDog

Member
I'm officially a broken man, the challenge has destroyed me :'( Worse than any Souls game, ever.

Might give it a crack tomorrow/next week, might abandon the game altogether.
 
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