Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

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

store.steampowered.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

121–130 of 273 posts

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

#121

Post by nemof »

AsyncAwait wrote: post #95

I like the potential of the game, but sadly it did not meet my expectations. I saw it as a Myst-style game, where you have puzzles, but you also have a lot of interactive environment around you to explore. Here, I was getting taken it by a lot of beautiful scenarios in the distance, only to realise that there is nothing to do there, but solve more panels. It simply feels like this beautiful island is going to waste,…

I've played about four hours so far and I'm captivated by it.

Slowly as you explore the the island and solve puzzles they become more and more intrinsically linked to the context you find the puzzles in - soon the puzzles demand that you become aware of the environment around you and look at things in new and surprising ways.

for myself i was never really expecting a deeply interactive landscape; i was slightly worried that the puzzles were just silly little doodads like a curio you picked up and soon forgot about, but as i've moved through the game solving them i've marveled at their cleverness and how they have encourage me to think.

perhaps the island is too static, but then again, back in the day so was Myst. the movement and interactions it encourages are up here taps head.

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

#122

Post by j2bax »

seivan wrote: post #94
myth_buster wrote: post #92

JBlow is featured in the documentary Indie Game[0][1] which follows the trials and tribulations of development and launch of two indie games Super Meat Boy and Fez. It's surprising how similar the whole experience is to launching a startup! [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indie_Game:_The_Movie [1] http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1942884/

I feel like it's hard to launch a game as an MVP. You can try it out, but actually selling it without having all the aspects of the game (sound, graphics, performance, etc) might be hard.

It seems that this is the purpose that Steam's Early Access program fulfills. Players know well that the game is unfinished, but there is still enough there to explore. Users even pay for this early access and then they provide valuable feedback to the developers. Sounds like an MVP to me!

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

#123

Post by JabavuAdams »

jslakro wrote: post #115

Nice to have an indie developer exposed by HN. Sad to see there are no other cases. Blow had its relevance due to XBOX but many indies have been out there before on PC, so it sounds unfair when you think in the whole scene

Jon Blow's probably the most famous indie developer, next to notch. Maybe more-so, among game developers. He was at the first indie game jam in 2002, I think he may have written for Game Developer magazine during the nineties, but not sure about that. I keep thinking the nineties were only a decade a away :/

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

#124

Post by no_wave »

The hype machine around this is strange - tons of superficially positive reviews but without a whole lot of passion behind them.

Does anyone else smell something off about the response to the game so far? Have people convinced themselves that this is a great game before they started enjoying it?

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

#125

Post by chc4 »

jslakro wrote: post #115

Nice to have an indie developer exposed by HN. Sad to see there are no other cases. Blow had its relevance due to XBOX but many indies have been out there before on PC, so it sounds unfair when you think in the whole scene

I'd hesitate to call Jon Blow an indie dev anymore, expect in the "not a AAA studio" sense. With the success of Braid and including in Indie Games the movies, he is probably one of the most well recognized game developers. The Witness has a massive budget, multiple developers, and high-end voice actors.

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

#127

Post by oilywater »

This game is the perfect tool for testing your problem solving skills. It puts you in a new framework and tests your cognition.

Portal, The Talos Principle, all have the same goal.

I wonder if people could become excellent problem solver by playing these games instead of honing the skills in the mathematics, physics or similar frameworks.

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

#128

Post by s_kilk »

no_wave wrote: post #124

The hype machine around this is strange - tons of superficially positive reviews but without a whole lot of passion behind them. Does anyone else smell something off about the response to the game so far? Have people convinced themselves that this is a great game before they started enjoying it?

> Have people convinced themselves that this is a great game before they started enjoying it?

Quite possibly. While it is an excellent game, the hype train has been rolling for so long that by this point it can't be seen as anything less than excellent.

See also the review cycle around the similarly hyped and long-awaited "That Dragon, Cancer".

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

#130

Post by swah »

no_wave wrote: post #124

The hype machine around this is strange - tons of superficially positive reviews but without a whole lot of passion behind them. Does anyone else smell something off about the response to the game so far? Have people convinced themselves that this is a great game before they started enjoying it?

I think that is normal - Jon Blow has a big online presence, lots of fans due to Braid... I upvote edw519 before I finish reading his comments all the time...
Post reply on HN