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Jonathan Blow's new game, The Witness, is out

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Re: Jonathan Blow's new game, The Witness, is out

#61
>The bulk of the game feels like taking an IQ test.

This is from a negative (but helpful) review of this game and it echoes exactly how I felt about playing Braid. His games feel like they're constructed so everyone will admire the genius of the creator for thinking up these kinds of interesting puzzles. And if the player ends up enjoying the game while they're admiring its creator, well that's an added benefit I guess.

Re: Jonathan Blow's new game, The Witness, is out

#62
post #3

Is that the guy who was unable to install Ubuntu properly, so he declared that supporting Linux versions of his game is not worth the effort? Color me disinterested. "No Tux, no bucks."

I'm 100% sure Jonathan Blow can install Ubuntu. He is writing his own programming language. For a game like that, it just isn't economically feasible to develop for Linux. Especially since the engine was written from scratch. He spent more or less all of the profits on his previous release on this new game. From the videos I've watched about the dev, he is somewhat of a perfectionist. It would likely rankle him to re…

I had a quick look at the trailer and it looked to me like it could have been built with Unity or Unreal Engine... wondering why own engine, given the effort to then port the game to other platforms?

Re: Jonathan Blow's new game, The Witness, is out

#64
post #56

Premise sounds exactly like Myst.

It's quite unlike Myst actually, lacking anything resembling a story, and the interaction with environment is minimal.

I don't know what the game is like, but I've said the premise sounds exactly like Myst. Even the video supports that. Here's a brief from the linked page:

You wake up, alone, on a strange island full of puzzles that will challenge and surprise you.

You don't remember who you are, and you don't remember how you got here, but there's one thing you can do: explore the island in hope of discovering clues, regaining your memory, and somehow finding your way home.

The Witness is a single-player game in an open world with dozens of locations to explore and over 500 puzzles. This game respects you as an intelligent player and it treats your time as precious. There's no filler; each of those puzzles brings its own new idea into the mix. So, this is a game full of ideas.

Difference in the premise being instead of your amnesia and finding about you, there's a book and you're finding about island's characters.

Re: Jonathan Blow's new game, The Witness, is out

#67
post #45

And it is wonderful . It's one of those games that manages to push buttons in your brain you never knew you had, and make you feel like a genius when something finally clicks. And it does all this without ever needing to explain anything. Jonathan Blow's enigma variations. A meandering meditation on the means by which humans gain knowledge and understanding of the world, by standing on the shoulders of a hacking mini…

I just watched a review yesterday that I thoroughly enjoyed: http://youtu.be/xH7nnPnc56Y

Made me very interested in playing it!

Re: Jonathan Blow's new game, The Witness, is out

#68
post #28

For those wondering, Jonathan Blow is the author of the critically acclaimed time travel platform game 'Braid'. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jonathan_Blow

And for all those wondering, YES you should go buy & play Braid if you haven't already. It's an astounding game. A 2D platformer-style game that deals with in-game undo, time travel, time distortion, and multiple realities. It's mind bending, fun, and beautiful. Watch the trailer for it here if you haven't seen it before: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uqtSKkyJgFM

That look at 0:50 perfectly describes how I felt playing Braid.
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