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The Witness |OT|

rudds

Name 10 better posters this year
(VERY mild spoilers for what the "object/goal" of the game is - which most people will pick up on early or even from the trailers):

I turned on my 7th laser last night and ascended to the top of the mountain to begin what I assumed would be the end-game.

What happens up there elevates the game from "beautiful, satisfying, brilliant puzzle game" into 10/10 GOTY territory. I dunno what I expected... but it wasn't that. Blow is now two for two when it comes to late-game reveals.

Everyone owes it to themselves to experience this on their own, without being spoiled, so if you see people start to talk about anything like this in the next coming days, run in the opposite direction until you're there.

And if anyone is curious about which 7 I turned on (spoilers equivalent to the trophy/achievement list):

(Desert, Quarry, Woods, Keep, Monastery, Jungle, Symmetry Island)

I'm curious what you found so revelatory there because I'd say what happened is more or less exactly what I expected to happen.
 
Been chewing through some of this since this morning on PS4 annnnnnd I'm already stuck...but geographically, not puzzle-wise...If anyone can help I'd greatly appreciate it. Early game spoilers. I don't know much about what is happening in the world, but I somehow managed to get myself trapped in a location. More details, with as few spoilers as possible below:

I'm in the colorful swam area with metal platforms suspended over the water. I triggered a platform to move me across some water, but I cannot get it to go back! There is a gate that looks like an exit, but I cannot figure out the damned puzzle to get out. I want to explore around some more but I'm stuck in this one tiny section of the map with two difficult puzzles trapping me

If that is not enough info for someone to help, let me know and I'll maybe PM you.
 

gofreak

GAF's Bob Woodward
Woah, I never even knew you could use an Amazon server for gaming. Not that it matters for this, since I have a PS4, but I'll have to remember that for the future.

I've done this a few times. You can use Steam's in-home streaming with a vpn to do it. Though obviously your mileage may vary per game and connection...

May give this a go myself later and report back on replayability. Hopefully nothing is too twitch-based.
 

The Technomancer

card-carrying scientician
Man, yeah, the Myst and Riven scores are something else.

Fun story, I had to make an 11 hour car trip to Las Vegas with my friends during CES and we arrived at like 2am and as we drove through Vegas in the early morning I had the Riven soundtrack playing and it just made the whole place seem sinister and eerie in a really awesome way
 
I just loaded my save file and the game opened to a black screen. It's not frozen since I can press X and move the cursor. Is this a problem or am I just dumb?

Edit: Reset and it fixed itself, weird but oh well!
 
You may disagree with part of the reasoning that got him there, but does that change how the game functions without music? The audio was clearly designed around not having music so it seems far more productive to criticize the work itself and how well you feel that design choice pays off, rather than getting upset about how he arrived at the decision to not have it.

I don't particularly agree with his assertion of how music works either but that doesn't really have much bearing on what I think of the game's audio. I also don't agree with Quentin Tarantino's opinion that film is always "more magical" than digital video but I do think his choice to always use film yields good looking results. Do you see what I'm trying to get at here? It's generally futile to reason with creators about their aesthetic preferences.

I'm certain the game works fine as is, but would work better with proper music. I think that's pretty mild criticism, but the response to people questioning the lack of music has been "it's a feature, he's a genius, you can't criticize him," which is totally without merit (regardless of the fact that Blow's reasoning is scientifically wrong).

If it were just an "aesthetic preference," I'd have no problem with it. Bathing it in some deeper and incorrect notion of music theory is my issue, especially when people are already latching onto Blow's explanation that it would "detract from perception."
 

Jb

Member
Been chewing through some of this since this morning on PS4 annnnnnd I'm already stuck...but geographically, not puzzle-wise...If anyone can help I'd greatly appreciate it. Early game spoilers. I don't know much about what is happening in the world, but I somehow managed to get myself trapped in a location. More details, with as few spoilers as possible below:

I'm in the colorful swam area with metal platforms suspended over the water. I triggered a platform to move me across some water, but I cannot get it to go back! There is a gate that looks like an exit, but I cannot figure out the damned puzzle to get out. I want to explore around some more but I'm stuck in this one tiny section of the map with two difficult puzzles trapping me

If that is not enough info for someone to help, let me know and I'll maybe PM you.

The panel on the moving platform is the way you control it: two vertical bars and a horizontal one between them (which represents the platform). Except there's a space that basically lets you chose if the horizontal bar should be closer to the left vertical bar or the right one. To go back just re-do the panel by "selecting" the left vertical bar and the horizontal one together.
 

Yurikerr

This post isn't by me, it's by a guy with the same username as me.
The twitch stream with Blow is very good. A lot of good snippets about the development of the game.
 

viveks86

Member
Steam says the game doesn't support controllers but it works just fine. Using steam controller with analog as well as kb/m bindings
 

Kalor

Member
I've played this for about a hour now and I'm really enjoying it. I've gotten stuck on a few puzzles so far but nothing that I haven't been able to overcome yet.
 
The panel on the moving platform is the way you control it: two vertical bars and a horizontal one between them (which represents the platform). Except there's a space that basically lets you chose if the horizontal bar should be closer to the left vertical bar or the right one. To go back just re-do the panel by "selecting" the left vertical bar and the horizontal one together.

Ahh, holy shit. Brilliant. Thank you. I've been banging my head against two puzzles for hours now. I'm free to explore more and come back later now.
 

Gold_Loot

Member
Wow! I just triggered something bizzar only due to mental conditioning and instict.. Scared the shit out of me, but it was awesome.
 
This stream is a pretty great insight to a portion of game development we rarely see, particularly from an indie studio, publishing the game and talking about it the moment it is available. Love it.
 

Rosur

Member
damn those tetris puzzles I thought I've finally got the hang of them then I come across one with 3 2 pieces and a white thing and can't seem to do it...
 

GDJustin

stuck my tongue deep inside Atlus' cookies
They actually do quite a bit more with that concept, it's super cool. I can't come close to figuring out the hardest one of those, which is in the
shipwreck

Unless I'm missing something, the
shipwreck
puzzle doesn't actually use footsteps or anything?

It works like the puzzles on symmetry island - when you draw a line, a corresponding invisible line is coming out of the opposite start point.

I'm curious what you found so revelatory there because I'd say what happened is more or less exactly what I expected to happen.

(end-game spoilers here! DO NOT READ!)

Well for starters I mostly expected the game to end. So... the fact that it doesn't was my first pleasant surprise.

Second, I just found it a huge shock how LOST-y (or Portal-y if you prefer) it becomes. The island is such a pleasant and warm place. It just feels so nice, no matter where you are. Despite some hints that it's all artificial (many of the rocks and trees are literally PAINTED, if you look closey).

And then to contrast that with a sterile, crumbling interior. It gives such a vibe that you're not supposed to be there, despite everything LEADING you there.

IDK... I was really surprised. I'm not through it all yet.
 

d00d3n

Member
So, the PC options are quite disappointing. Not possible to choose resolution. One general quality setting, fullscreen/windowed and vsync/off - that is it. Screenshot:
witness8grk7.png

In-game settings are the same.
 

Yurikerr

This post isn't by me, it's by a guy with the same username as me.
Will there be an archive? I can't watch now but would love to listen in during lunch.

I don't know. Will try to ask in the stream. I would like to rewatch it later too, as i'm multitasking with work.
 

Nzyme32

Member
Controller stick sensitivity to be added in a later patch for PS4. PC has settings for sensitivity for mouse, but it doesn't sound like they have it for controllers either

21:9 support should be there, but they haven't tested it and will keep an eye out for feedback
 
So, the PC options are quite disappointing. Not possible to choose resolution. One general quality setting, fullscreen/windowed and vsync/off - that is it. Screenshot:
witness8grk7.png

In-game settings are the same.

That is brutal. Anyone with a 21:9 monitor able to test what happens when you play the game in fullscreen mode?
 

Yurikerr

This post isn't by me, it's by a guy with the same username as me.
Yup it is. Surprised how early they still are with the iOS version. Sounds like they haven't even determined the base-level device they're going to target.

Yeah, but listening to he speaking about the differences between the PS4 and PC version i think that only the newest iPads are going to be powerful enough to run the game well, because of the memory constraints.
 

Flandy

Member
So, the PC options are quite disappointing. Not possible to choose resolution. One general quality setting, fullscreen/windowed and vsync/off - that is it. Screenshot:
witness8grk7.png

In-game settings are the same.

I just asked about the resolution in the stream. He said there might be some commands we can use to change it
 
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