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The Witness |OT|

G

GhaleonEB

Member
Beacon puzzle for the golden / shadow forest.
There's one side of the gate open. I'm assuming the other half does not open since there is no cord coming to it, and I need to trace the tree on the right side of the gate and carry it over to the actual tree shadow on the left.

Is that correct? The shadow on the right is so cluttered I can't even tell where it starts on the maze, so I'm hoping there's more to it. Been there since Wednesday trying various solutions under that assumption.
Just wanting to see if I have the right idea.

Also, I came home all excited to finish the swamp and immidiately ran into the
tilted tetris pieces, which I figured out....and then the second moving platform with the four dots on the sides, and hit a brick wall. The solutions used in the prior color and tetris puzzles - separate the colors, group the piece to the side I want to go - don't work. Arg.
Just when you think you know the rules....
 
M

Mistle

Member
Ninja Scooter said:
man this fucking game...I'm starting to feel like the puzzles progressively don't follow their own logic, which I know isn't true and I'm just dumb, which makes me even more frustrated. Blow did not give a single fuck when he designed these things lol
Click to expand...
I feel like the game gives you like half the rules, and it's a puzzle in of itself for you to push the concept to its extreme to figure out the complete rule set. It never felt unfair to me, in fact figuring these out were some of my favourite moments.
 
G

GhaleonEB

Member
Get_craycray said:
I found a good guide (A.K.A a lot of puzzles solutions). Maybe you'll find it interesting as well.

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=609603354
Click to expand...

Not clicking through, but my ideal guide for The Witness would be one that provides progressive hints for how the rules for each symbol work, ending with a simple statement of their rules. No puzzle solutions. It's always understanding a rule that causes my failure, not the application of it.
 
T

TheXbox

Member
GhaleonEB said:
Beacon puzzle for the golden / shadow forest.
There's one side of the gate open. I'm assuming the other half does not open since there is no cord coming to it, and I need to trace the tree on the right side of the gate and carry it over to the actual tree shadow on the left.

Is that correct? The shadow on the right is so cluttered I can't even tell where it starts on the maze, so I'm hoping there's more to it. Been there since Wednesday trying various solutions under that assumption.
Just wanting to see if I have the right idea.

Also, I came home all excited to finish the swamp and immidiately ran into the
tilted tetris pieces, which I figured out....and then the second moving platform with the four dots on the sides, and hit a brick wall. The solutions used in the prior color and tetris puzzles - separate the colors, group the piece to the side I want to go - don't work. Arg.
Just when you think you know the rules....
Click to expand...
Both doors open. The last few shadow puzzles are a pain in the ass.
 
F

Feep

Banned
GhaleonEB said:
Beacon puzzle for the golden / shadow forest.
There's one side of the gate open. I'm assuming the other half does not open since there is no cord coming to it, and I need to trace the tree on the right side of the gate and carry it over to the actual tree shadow on the left.

Is that correct? The shadow on the right is so cluttered I can't even tell where it starts on the maze, so I'm hoping there's more to it. Been there since Wednesday trying various solutions under that assumption.
Just wanting to see if I have the right idea.[/spoiler]
Click to expand...
There are more puzzles in that area. Do them all. You know, just in case.

GhaleonEB said:
Also, I came home all excited to finish the swamp and immidiately ran into the
tilted tetris pieces, which I figured out....and then the second moving platform with the four dots on the sides, and hit a brick wall. The solutions used in the prior color and tetris puzzles - separate the colors, group the piece to the side I want to go - don't work. Arg.
Just when you think you know the rules....
Click to expand...
Just focus on the tetris pieces.
 
S

Stampy

Member
GhaleonEB said:
Beacon puzzle for the golden / shadow forest.
There's one side of the gate open. I'm assuming the other half does not open since there is no cord coming to it, and I need to trace the tree on the right side of the gate and carry it over to the actual tree shadow on the left.

Is that correct? The shadow on the right is so cluttered I can't even tell where it starts on the maze, so I'm hoping there's more to it. Been there since Wednesday trying various solutions under that assumption.
Just wanting to see if I have the right idea.
Click to expand...

1. You can open both doors.
It's al loocated in the foresty area and near sawmill.

2.Try to approach this puzzle from a different perspective.
It's not so much about the solution within the puzzle itself, as it is about the...
 
K

Kaiken

Banned
I just now realized you can hold R2 to make the curser speed up. End Game Puzzle:
Well that certainly changes the record player speed run
 
E

Easy_G

Member
Kaiken said:
I just now realized you can hold R2 to make the curser speed up. End Game Puzzle:
Well that certainly changes the record player speed run
Click to expand...


Whaaaaaat.


Also, I think I've figured out (one of) my biggest difficulty(ies) with the puzzles. It isn't that I can't figure out the rules, but that I assume additional rules that don't in fact exist, and they limit what I think is possible. It's noticing patterns that don't actually matter and then applying them everywhere. You can tell Blow was aware of this because several tutorial puzzles are simple ones which show how you can and must break what would have otherwise seemed like an obvious rule.
 
R

Remembrance

Member
Easy_G said:
Also, I think I've figured out (one of) my biggest difficulty(ies) with the puzzles. It isn't that I can't figure out the rules, but that I assume additional rules that don't in fact exist, and they limit what I think is possible. It's noticing patterns that don't actually matter and then applying them everywhere. You can tell Blow was aware of this because several tutorial puzzles are simple ones which show how you can and must break what would have otherwise seemed like an obvious rule.
Click to expand...

In retrospect, a lot of people do this. And it turns out this is what the whole
shipwreck
audio log was about:

but the sincerity of his conviction can in no wise help him, because he had no right to believe on such evidence as was before him. He had acquired his belief not by honestly earning it in patient investigation, but by stifling his doubts. And although in the end he may have felt so sure about it that he could not think otherwise, yet inasmuch as he had knowingly and willingly worked himself into that frame of mind, he must be held responsible for it.
Click to expand...

It's a harsh way to put it, but surprisingly on-point even though the original quote had nothing to do with puzzles.
 
A

Afro

Member
I feel bad for not participating in my own |OT|. I'm waiting for Blow & Co. to iron out some of the PC performance issues before jumping in.
 
RoadHazard

RoadHazard

Gold Member
What is this "challenge" people are talking about? I've finished the game (although not with full completion, going for that now), and I have absolutely no idea what you're on about.
 
M

MetroidPrimeRib

Banned
RoadHazard said:
What is this "challenge" people are talking about? I've finished the game (although not with full completion, going for that now), and I have absolutely no idea what you're on about.
Click to expand...

1. Activate all 11 lasers

2. Check the bottom of the box the people are carrying at the top of the mountain

3. The person before the final room with the puzzle should be accessible now.

4. Find a pillar puzzle and activate it

5. Go through the door it opens. Find the musical box. This is the challenge.
 
RoadHazard

RoadHazard

Gold Member
MetroidPrimeRib said:
1. Activate all 11 lasers

2. Check the bottom of the box the people are carrying at the top of the mountain

3. The person before the final room with the puzzle should be accessible now.

4. Find a pillar puzzle and activate it

5. Go through the door it opens. Find the musical box. This is the challenge.
Click to expand...

Dammit, accidentally saw everything due to quoting, lol. Was just gonna read your first point. Oh well, I'm going for
all the lasers now anyway, and I already knew there's something more about the mountain, so I guess I'd have found out soon enough. I did think there was something odd about that guy sitting there, like I should be able do activate his panel somehow. And I did notice the cable running from it up into the ceiling.
 
Wok

Wok

Member
Quick question regarding the Challenge:

When you get to the part with 3 puzzles and you have to solve one, are all three solvable? I mean, I usually find that 2 of them are not (if not impossible, at least not straightforward), and the other one is super easy.
 
M

MetroidPrimeRib

Banned
Wok said:
Quick question regarding the Challenge:

When you get to the part with 3 puzzles and you have to solve one, are all three solvable? I mean, I usually find that 2 of them are not (if not impossible, at least not straightforward), and the other one is super easy.
Click to expand...

Correct. Only one of the three are solvable.
 
T

Two Words

Member
I don't think I got an answer to this earlier. Has anybody been able to use graph theory to help with any of these puzzles? I'm trying to imagine each puzzle as a graph where each intersection is a vertex and the path from one vertex to another is an edge. Basically, you are drawing a path from one vertex to another where a vertex or edge cannot be used more than once (no cycles). Does thinking about these puzzles in this way tend to help anybody out? Any principles of graph theory that you're using here?
 
J

Jimrpg

Member
TTG said:
Decided to give in and look up what the rules were for blue squares with yellow tetris pieces.
Apparently how the blue squares are grouped or distributed makes no difference.

It's revealing a shortfall with the game. Understanding the rules should not be the bottleneck for any substantial amount of time, but unfortunately that is where about 90% of the frustration in this game lies(so far). As inelegant and insufferable as it would probably seem to Blow, instructions or at least somewhat redundant additional panels should be in the game. Look at the red
underground
area in the marsh. There's no way those first two panels do anything to help the player to decipher or intuit what the ground rules are. Same with the first time you see a block of blue squares.
Click to expand...

I think one of the themes John Blow really wanted to explore was communication without actually saying anything. Part of the fun for me was trying to understand what he is saying through the puzzle. I'm always asking myself what point he's trying to get across. And there's a bit of magic there when I solve the puzzle or understand the rule because we just communicated without using language.
 
Wok

Wok

Member
Two Words said:
I don't think I got an answer to this earlier. Has anybody been able to use graph theory to help with any of these puzzles? I'm trying to imagine each puzzle as a graph where each intersection is a vertex and the path from one vertex to another is an edge. Basically, you are drawing a path from one vertex to another where a vertex or edge cannot be used more than once (no cycles). Does thinking about these puzzles in this way tend to help anybody out? Any principles of graph theory that you're using here?
Click to expand...

It is very situational. Königsberg bridges do help for some.

Otherwise, graph theory is mostly interesting if you want to solve the puzzles with an algorithm. For instance, this program:
https://while.io/witness/ with https://github.com/Overv/TheWitnessSolver
 
O

Ojli

Neo Member
Need help understanding a puzzle in
the mountain
.
The bottom giant floor puzzle. I solved it during a brute force attempt but when I look at it finished I still dont get it. Why does it work?
 
G

Get_craycray

Banned
There's a lot of times, when I finally figure out a puzzle, where I find myself thinking "Blow, you son of a..."

Ae6vwdr.jpg


(For the reference: Parks & Rec - Burt Macklin)
 
G

GhaleonEB

Member
Made a decent amount of progress today, just not in the areas I was expecting. Barely a dent in the swamp, then cleared the five puzzles inside the sawmill (struggled all weekend, but having cut outs to arrange made them very doable) only to
find I don't know how to solve the two it opens up down below. I'm assuming these are the ones I need to open up the second half of the door, as no other panels are open, but I'll find out when I come back.

Working on the treetop area now.

I feel like there are mini-bosses everywhere, and I keep having to retreat to level up in order to beat them. But instead of building up experience, I build up knowledge. It's an enormous breath of fresh air.
 
R

Remembrance

Member
arbok26 said:
I think one of the themes John Blow really wanted to explore was communication without actually saying anything. Part of the fun for me was trying to understand what he is saying through the puzzle. I'm always asking myself what point he's trying to get across. And there's a bit of magic there when I solve the puzzle or understand the rule because we just communicated without using language.
Click to expand...

Looking back, there's a quote in the game for this too:

But it may certainly be predicted that as the result of this scrutiny we shall have lost all inclination we may ever have had to laugh at it. It simply does not do to expose the inner workings of a joke. The classification concerns a symbolic knowledge of humor which preserves all the characteristics of a joke except its laughableness. The real appreciation must come spontaneously, not introspectively.
Click to expand...

Getting a puzzle is like getting a joke, if we go by this analogy.
 
A

AbandonedTrolley

Member
OrbitalBeard said:
Reposting something from earlier:



Thanks to everyone's hints, I was able to finally solve this! Yaaaay!

Every beacon activated, except for the town, which I'm working on now. These are some of the best puzzles in the game!
Click to expand...

Tried that last night and decided that without cutting up paper I'm stuck! Will have to give that method a go I feel.
 
R

RooMHM

Member
Little question about the bamboo area. Don t want a solution nor a hint.

Something tells me the
last animal sounds panel contradicts the previous rules or adapts them
. When you know
the new rule does the puzzle become easy or is it still hard to decipher ?
 
J

Jimrpg

Member
Remembrance said:
Looking back, there's a quote in the game for this too:



Getting a puzzle is like getting a joke, if we go by this analogy.
Click to expand...

Pretty much. I think he said similar things along those lines when he said that he wants us to break thru the brick wall and see the other side.
 
S

Sodding_Gamer

Member
Ok my first tetris puzzle has ruined me.

The panel near the dock area which is on an orange container. I have no icea what to do even though I thought I had an idea what the tetris blocks meant but clearly not lol. It's the one with a black dot in the bottom left, and 3 white ones in each other corner. And it has 4 2-block horizontal tetris pieces

Any clues?
 
Big-ass Ramp

Big-ass Ramp

hella bullets that's true
would someone mind pointing me in the right direction for this one? I really thought I was on the right track but I'm just not getting the logic.

GqWEn9Y.jpg
 
S

Stampy

Member
RooMHM said:
Little question about the bamboo area. Don t want a solution nor a hint.

Something tells me the
last animal sounds panel contradicts the previous rules or adapts them
. When you know
the new rule does the puzzle become easy or is it still hard to decipher ?
Click to expand...

The hard thing is knowing whether there is a new rule which you must apply, or if the old rule is still active and the game is just playing tricks with you... After you are certain about those things, everything else is easy peasy. :)
 
S

Stampy

Member
Big Ass Ramp said:
would someone mind pointing me in the right direction for this one? I really thought I was on the right track but I'm just not getting the logic.

GqWEn9Y.jpg
Click to expand...

How did you draw your lines? Verbalize your thought process. How did you approach this puzzle?

EDIT:
Also, if there are multiple paths you can take, it usually means you are also missing something else. Try to figure out what it is.
 
Big-ass Ramp

Big-ass Ramp

hella bullets that's true
Stampy said:
How did you draw your lines? Verbalize your thought process. How did you approach this puzzle?
Click to expand...

I lined up the start with the bottom round part, and traced up along the unblocked spots. So left one, right all the way, up all the way, down to the branch then around and to the finish.

so this:

E7e090E.jpg
 
C

CarbonFire

Member
Big Ass Ramp said:
I lined up the start with the bottom round part, and traced up along the unblocked spots. So left one, right all the way, up all the way, down to the branch then around and to the finish.

so this:
Click to expand...

You're so close. Pretend you're drawing
an outline of the branches
 
S

Stampy

Member
Big Ass Ramp said:
I lined up the start with the bottom round part, and traced up along the unblocked spots. So left one, right all the way, up all the way, down to the branch then around and to the finish.

so this:

E7e090E.jpg
Click to expand...

Yeah, you are missing the second "rule".
Try to look closely and try to understand why there are multiple paths you can take in some areas.
 
R

rafaelr

Member
Sodding_Gamer said:
Ok my first tetris puzzle has ruined me.

The panel near the dock area which is on an orange container. I have no icea what to do even though I thought I had an idea what the tetris blocks meant but clearly not lol. It's the one with a black dot in the bottom left, and 3 white ones in each other corner. And it has 4 2-block horizontal tetris pieces

Any clues?
Click to expand...

The tetris puzzles are taught in the
Marsh
area, if you haven´t been there yet, you probably won´t know all their rules.
 
Big-ass Ramp

Big-ass Ramp

hella bullets that's true
hmm......edit: I think I'm so stuck trying to solve it the way I originally thought that I can't see it any other way.
 
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