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

251–260 of 273 posts

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

#251

Post by xedarius »

rangibaby wrote: post #36
Tepix wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The main reason these days is that Macs don't have good GPUs for games.

That's not true. Even current Macs with IGPs can play nearly any game at low settings adequately.

Sadly it is true, MAC GPU's are often the same hardware used in laptops. Also, Apple sprinkle a special kind of awfulness onto their drivers.

I tested this with Quake III (a game from 1999!). My 2011 iMac could not render the game at 120fps, it managed somewhere between 50 and 70. I bootcamp into Windows, and I get a rock solid 120fps.

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

#252

Post by clentaminator »

sdrothrock wrote: post #241
unimpressive wrote: post #233

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To elaborate on what was said in other replies to this comment. Jonathan Blow has said previously that he got around some of the puzzles being fiendishly hard by not requiring all of them to be completed to get to the end of the game. He didn't want somebody to get stuck on one puzzle and then not be able to see the rest of the game over it, so you should be able to complete the vast majority of the game including th…

I've read that, but it's still a bit of a shoddy response to people who want to get 100% or get the rewards for completing non-critical subsections. Imagine if you paid for a book and there were appendices about characters or something extra, but written in a language you didn't know. It would kind of suck. Edit: As a side note, these comments seem to be the internet equivalent of: A: =~#$())##~ B: Sorry, what was th…

>Imagine if you paid for a book and there were appendices about characters or something extra, but written in a language you didn't know.

If you don't already know about it, you may want to check out the book Finnegan's Wake :)

Joking aside, I think you're right that there should be some kind of notice somewhere, in-game or out (even on the Steam page) that indicates that some parts of the game are difficult or inaccessible for players with a degree of hearing loss.

Even better might be to have an option in the game that turns on an additional visual cue that could augment whatever the original audio cue was. Actually designing it to make sense in the same way would of course be difficult, but I don't doubt that there are enough players that would appreciate that option.

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

#253

Post by ionised »

chrismbarr wrote: post #40
nailer wrote: 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

I got it in a Humble Indie Bundle a while back.

I tried my best to enjoy it (Fez too) but I can't seem to get past the fact that they are platformers, which I have discovered I just flat-out do not like.

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

#254

Post by remybach »

danso wrote: post #55

I've been wanting to play this ever since Casey Muratori wrote about the process of generating grass for the terrain in an eye-pleasing distribution: http://mollyrocket.com/casey/stream_0015.html ( https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7692332 )

Well there goes my afternoon.

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

#255

Post by ghusbands »

ACow_Adonis wrote: post #210
samatman wrote: post #160

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A000027 almost certainly has a lower Kolmogorov complexity. Nothing wrong with the other sequence, per se... the maxim "When you hear hoofbeats, think horses, not zebras" appiles.

Unless you're in Africa? By which I mean, I think it's a common misconception amongst those that argue this is a common misconception that the knowledge which they possess and view as straightforward, natural and obvious, is neither straightforward, natural, or obvious. Common sense is really just another phrase for popular bias...

The counting numbers are simpler by every feasible measure than the other suggestions.

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

#256

Post by DominikR »

sdrothrock wrote: post #216
mwill wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've solved ~300 puzzles (out of 600) but am able to trigger the ending, so I am finished but not 100% completed yet. I haven't found ANY puzzles where I feel like you're guessing at the solution. Every puzzle I've solved has had well defined rules. I don't want to give too much away, but broadly speaking there are two types of puzzles: Those that rely on the symbols, where whats on the screen in front of you is all…

> I think deaf players will be unable to 100% this game because of a handful of puzzles, and theres no indication that the piece of the puzzle you're missing is sound. This is the first time I've seen this mentioned, so thank you. I've been thinking about buying a PS4 just for this game, so that's a major bummer. I hope there's a patch in the future for some kind of visual indicator or subtitle to make it a bit easie…

I would write him a mail, might just be that it wasn't a conscious choice but he really didn't think about this.

I must admit that I also sometimes fail to remember making the software I create accessible to deaf or blind persons. It's never because I don't want to, it's just that there's often nobody on the team that has this particular problem and so it is forgotten.

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

#257

Post by jaegerpicker »

cpach wrote: post #106
chrismbarr wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

Great to see OS X-compatible game recommendations on HN. Personally I find it quite challenging to find interesting games for OS X.

Steam has a growing and vastly improving group of games. However indie games tend to be your best bet. I have a 100+ steam games for mac and around 80 for linux. It's getting better!

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

#258

Post by tdsamardzhiev »

Mahn wrote: post #66

Looks like it's getting panned in steam reviews as people play it. Very surprising.

I think posting a review of a game after playing it for 1 hour is awkward. But what is more awkward is upvoting reviews of other people that played it for 1 hour.

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

#259

Post by nilkn »

tgb wrote: post #35

Some of my absolute favorite memories are playing Myst as a kid with my family. We'd huddle around the computer, take notes, kibitz about where to explore, be amazed at the visuals (those gondola-style rides were breathtaking at the time!). Riven might have been the high point of the series for us with the feeling of exploration it had being so great and involving. I wish modern exploration/puzzle adventures in the M…

I'm just waiting for the inevitable Myst game in VR. It's pretty much the perfect medium for it, since it solves the locomotion problem by just removing locomotion and replacing it with a set of discrete locations to stand at.

The only downside is that it would be a very solo experience and certainly couldn't be enjoyed as a family.

Post reply on HN