The joy of discovery

Laurenz Moore, Staff Writer

On January 26, Johnathan Blow and his team of game developers released The Witness, an open-world puzzle game that truly highlights the importance of discovery both physically and mentally.

In 2008, Johnathon Blow changed the entire landscape of independently made video games when he released his first video game, Braid, a time-bending platformer that truly challenged the proven formula of video game development. In return, Blow received critical and commercial success, along with forming together an independent video game market within the massive industry. With this money, Blow set out to create a brand new game, The Witness. Now, eight years later, The Witness is trying to accomplish a similar feat: challenging how we, the human race, view and interact with the world around us.

In many modern-day video games, the beginning levels are usually given the task of teaching the player how the game works and basic button inputs and controls. To essentially take the player’s hand and guide him throughout the incredible journey he wishes to begin. In comparison, The Witness chops the player’s hand off and then makes him go search for it. Intuitiveness is a huge concept that constantly arises within the game and is absolutely necessary if a player wants to succeed at the game’s logic puzzles. The player is thrown headlong into this concept as the game begins with the player staring down a dark hallway, left to himself to figure out what to do. There is very little direct instruction on button input and control mostly because there aren’t very many controls in the first place. Use the joystick to walk or run, and use the X and O buttons to turn on and off a maze-solving cursor.

Mazes are the main gameplay element to The Witness. Players are quickly introduced to the concept and are given a first assignment to escape a castle garden by solving mazes. Completing this first obstacle gives the player access to an absolutely breathtaking island setting, full of various land forms and eye-catching pastel colors. Incorporated into this stunning landscape are more mazes that are presented to the players via panels scattered throughout the island. Although the very essence and goal of mazes seem straightforward in nature, players of The Witness will quickly learn that there is more to the mazes than first expected. Many mazes require players to follow certain rules and requirements and even refer to the physical landscape the player is solving the puzzle on. Rules to solving the puzzles are, once again, not given by straightforward instructions but rather by subtly introducing them through more puzzles, allowing the player to decide how the rule affects the maze. Learning rules to puzzles is easy enough but finding them may seem a little daunting and difficult to new players. The Witness absolutely thrives on having a non-linear style of gameplay, forcing the player to actually search throughout the landscape to find answers.

As time continues, the game gets progressively harder as more and more puzzles needing multiple rules and requirements are thrusted onto the player, one onto another. There is no penalty for completing a puzzle wrong or for just quitting a puzzle and going onto another one. In fact, this behavior is encouraged. Often times, players will feel frustrated with one puzzle and will take a break, softly falling out of the game’s constructs and falling into the vast and expansive island. Exploration is a must for those wanting to complete the game. Going off and exploring another region to complete the challenge it holds will usually result in a further progression in the game.  No challenge is truly “unsolvable.” It may take a few tries and long sessions of second-guessing, but completion of the harder puzzles in the game rewards the player with an utmost feeling of satisfaction, before shoving another difficult puzzle into his face.

As mentioned before, The Witness is as non-linear as a game gets. The player has complete autonomy over the way the game is played, as well as full authority over any decision. Every event, obstacle, and reward is triggered by the player and no one else. The game is presented in first-person, meaning that the player sees through the eyes of the character. This, coupled with the fact that the game prefers natural sounds of the in-game environment over music, gives an unprecedented sense of immersion. This is truly the player’s game and no one else’s. It is the player who discovers and learns about the world he is put into. As the player discovers more and more about the strange island, the game flourishes into a much different experience. The Witness is not a game about solving puzzles but rather one that celebrates the joy of discovery and all that comes with it.

The Witness is available for the PC and PS4. The game is digital only, but a physical copy is in the works for those who do not want to wait long hours for a game to load or to waste many gigabytes of memory on one game. This game is truly a masterpiece, and I could easily write many pages on how the great the game plays and the awesome feeling of solving puzzles to discover new objects. The Witness, along with other indie games like Journey and Limbo, belongs in the exclusive category of “Games that Are Played for the Experience.” It’s not really about the game but about what one can find and learn while playing it. The Witness is truly a fantastic game with amazing aesthetic visuals and intuitive gameplay. This game is one that can easily appeal to any kind of player, whether it be one who enjoys a challenge or one who just wants an amazing experience.