The Witness was in development for a long time. You might think that part of the reason things took so long was that some of the game’s core design ideas mutated along the way. But a video I shot in 2010 shows that Jonathan Blow’s focus was firmly locked into place even then.
The video below comes from IndieCade 2010, which I covered as a freelancer for IFC six years ago. In it, the man who created Braid talks about his aspirations and intention for The Witness. A month before I saw Blow’s talk, Kotaku‘s Stephen Totilo played an early version of the game at PAX Prime. Most of the puzzles in that opening section stayed the same but the overall look the game would evolve more over the next half-decade.
In his Indiecade 2010 talk, Blow said that The Witness wouldn’t be done for at least a year. It took a while longer but the end result is a beautiful one-of-a-kind game that appears to prove out the beliefs that Blow espoused five years ago.
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3 responses to “Five Years Ago, Jonathan Blow Knew Just What The Witness Would Be”
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I’m planning to play this game this weekend (PS4), with beer for for extra difficulty.
Five Years Ago, Jonathan Blow Knew Just What The Witness Would Be….The answer is Pirated 🙂
Game is overpriced. don’t get me wrong it’s a cool game but 50 bucks it aint