Do you see this? This is what madness looks like. Thank you, The Witness, for driving me truly insane.
Pictured above is my notebook, covered with shapes I cut out last night while trying to solve a particularly gruesome late-game puzzle in Jonathan Blow’s new game, which came out last month for PC and PS4. The Witness, as you may know, tasks you with solving a series of increasingly difficult line puzzles whose rules change and evolve as you play. I won’t spoil this one, but it was… hard.
What’s incredible about The Witness, I think, isn’t just that it asked me to cut out shapes to solve its challenges. What’s incredible about The Witness is that it’s actually convinced me that cutting out shapes is a worthwhile use of my time. Powering my way through Blow’s puzzles has become a nightly habit over the past few weeks, and somehow, it never stops feeling rewarding.
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25 responses to “Look At What The Witness Made Me Do”
Bah, weak. Learn to do it in your head!
I don’t know man, I think sometimes you use every tool at your disposal to make it easy on your “head”. Other times tools just make the problem unnecessarily complicated. Which approach is smarter?
I just think it’s debatable.
I’ve heard a few reports of The Witness giving people pretty bad motion sickness. Can anybody who’s played the game offer an opinion on that? I’m keen to give it a go (when it gets a bit cheaper), but I’ve had issues with motion sickness in some first person (and even a few 3rd person) games in the past, so reluctant to spend the dollars if it’s going to make me sick.
I’ve had no issues personally, but my wife had to leave the room last night because it was giving her motion sickness to watch. However, she’s prone to it, she didn’t have the controller in her hand to instruct where she was looking, and it’s the first time it has happened after a couple of weeks,
I get terrible motion sickness and I did have some issues with The Witness to begin with, but since they added the FOV option in the menu I found it much better. There were a couple of very-late-game puzzles that made me feel sick even with the increased FOV but there were only a few of them so I was happy to push through. Definitely worth it, it’s already a contender for my personal GOTY.
Hmm ok so they’ve at least done something about it. Might take a look when it gets cheap just so I’m not wasting too much money in th event that I can’t play it.
It’s weird, though, in that it’s really hard to predict what games will give me trouble. Something like Mirror’s Edge, which I would have sworn would make me sick, gave me no issues at all. Meanwhile Sleeping Dogs was one that I couldn’t play for more than half an hour without feeling sick, and that wasn’t even first person.
when i first started playing i got instant motion sickness. I think i adjusted the FOV and i was fine. FYI i NEVER get motion sickness while playing games.
I used to get it all the time in pretty much every first person game back in the old days of Doom, Duke 3D, etc.
First one I was able to play for any significant length of time was COD4!
So that is what the problem was … motion sickness!!! I finally found out, after ~20 years. Thou i never had any problems since games went 3d.
Oh god.. I can’t say much without giving anything away, but there is one bit late in the game. It took all my resolve not to barf all over the couch. That bit was the worst.
Hmmm… you’re not really doing a good job of selling it 😛
Oh it’s fantastic. Just a bit.. vomity at that one point.
I know the section you’re talking about. My wife was in the other room while I was playing, and every 5 or 10min when I’d solve a puzzle she’d hear me go from “Yes, finally got it!” to “HOLY CRAP! WTF IS THIS!?” several times. Oddly enough that sequence is all pretty simple, but I can’t imagine how color-blind players could possible solve them. And god forbid if you have epilepsy – GET SOMEONE ELSE TO DO THAT WHOLE SEQUENCE FOR YOU.
Agreed. The curveballs thrown at you become laugh out loud funny. Or maybe that was just me getting hysterical..
FUCK THE TETROMINOES
GAH
I just use a whiteboard marker on my computer monitor. It’s really quick and works for all of the puzzles.
Oh god I know that puzzle, we are well acquainted. We spent quite a lot of time together.
Took one look at the pieces you cut out and knew the exact puzzle you are on! Felt so dumb when I finally got it, seems so simple now.
I did the exact same thing except I cut them out of a crossword book my mum left lying around at my house. solved it straight away, much easier than using my stupid brain
Am I the only one who went with technology? Screenshot, paste into paint and draw it on my second monitor…
You used technology to solve a problem created using technology. I played it on PS4. Otherwise I might have done the same 🙂
Remember when a lot of games made you do things like this?
Drawing complex maps on paper for Zork or Collosal Cave (http://www.spitenet.com/cave/images/AdventureMap.jpg) or just making copious notes and puzzle fragments to be able to work stuff out. Back when games had actual manuals, and often came with glorious maps.
I love it when a game leaks out into the real world…
I’ve done all the puzzles in The Witness. All
523 +135 +6. And even so I can still identify exactly which puzzle those cutouts are referring to.Yeah, I got through to the end game recently and finished it a couple of nights ago. I too know what that exact puzzle is. From the moment I laid eyes on it, I knew it was a Boss Fight!
I am stuck for 3 days now on a tetris one in the swamp where there is a T shape and a on/off piece covering the whole grid. I have no idea what to do. I’ve gone back over the preceding puzzles a number of times and it makes no sense. It just jumps to this random puzzle that I see no understand of how it could work.
It’s making me hate Jonathan Blow and moreso, myself.