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Jonathan Blow has spent the past decade designing 1,400 puzzles

arstechnica.com

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Re: Jonathan Blow has spent the past decade designing 1,400 puzzles

#411

Post by [deleted] »

skeskinen wrote: post #324
dsego wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How do you compare it to the Portal games or the Talos principle? I find those superior in puzzle mechanics, sense of achievement and playing dynamics. They can be challenging but you never feel aimlessly going around without a purpose like the Witness. There is good review of the game on youtube by the title "The Witness - A Great Game That You Shouldn't Play", it covers a lot and resonates well with my experience,…

I love the Witness, like the Portal games and hate the Talos Principle. To each their own, I guess.

[deleted]

Re: Jonathan Blow has spent the past decade designing 1,400 puzzles

#412

Post by onraglanroad »

psyopsy wrote: post #391
__alexs wrote: post #156

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The difference in participation within STEM between men and women is not well explained by biological differences. Blow has repeatedly claimed that it is actually the primary factor and seems actively disinterested in other explanations. This is "controversial" in that it's a position that is not well supported by evidence and he has repeatedly used his platform in the past to make unsupported claims to the contrary.

When you say, "not well support by evidence," you're either wrong, anti-science, or lying. Numerous studies absolutely show very large average differences in interests based on sex. And those carry over into occupation preferences. Just one more recent study: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S016726812... Plus: Jon never said it's the "primary" factor, as you claim. He said it's a large factor, that…

Well, no, you're the one that is "wrong, anti-science, or lying".

The very first sentence of the article you linked to says, "Occupational choices remain strongly segregated by gender, for reasons not yet fully understood."

So claiming that its for biological reasons is bullshit. You have no idea whether it is or not. And neither does Blow.

Re: Jonathan Blow has spent the past decade designing 1,400 puzzles

#413

Post by jayd16 »

mvkel wrote: post #251
EvilTrout wrote: post #204

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Blow and Muratori gained a following of engineers by bashing existing popular languages and engines, claiming they were all garbage. They both started this after the Witness came out, 10 years ago. Since then, guess how many games Muratori has shipped? 0. (He cancelled his announced game.) Guess how many Blow has shipped? 0 so far, but it sounds close now. These engineers spent their time ragging on other developers…

I think you'll find that most development -teams- ship about one game every decade. It's hard to find examples of that not being the case.

What? Its about 3-5 years for a AAA game and you ideally pipeline things such that a studio is shipping somewhat frequently. Almost no one can front a decade worth of development without shipping anything.

Where are you getting a decade from? Consoles ship more often then that.

Re: Jonathan Blow has spent the past decade designing 1,400 puzzles

#414

Post by sunrunner »

sxzygz wrote: post #2

In case you assume novelty, a comment [1] from ArsTechnica reader Jensen404 explains otherwise by linking to [2] a post on Bluesky. [1] https://arstechnica.com/gaming/2025/12/jonathan-blow-has-spe... [2] https://bsky.app/profile/draknek.bsky.social/post/3m7qybidq7...

I’m a fan of Alan Hazelden and Draknek’s work but stating upfront that he a) wasn’t involved with the work directly but b) agreed for it to be used years ago, while then going on to write what seems to read as a light hit-piece for Blow himself, and then using that to launch into a point about how his politics and Blow’s don’t align (not relevant for puzzle game progeny) feels like more like him using the trailer for Blow’s game as a trampoline for his own personal beliefs and politics.

He also used the same thread to mention his own grant fund while not acknowledging that Thekla (Blow’s company) also has (or had at some point) a similar scheme [1]

Meanwhile the various accusations about Blow’s politics beliefs are mysteriously missing, or at least seem to be large extrapolations from other Twitter comments also not cited. Is there something in the thread I missed?

[1] https://www.gamesindustry.biz/thekla-raises-grant-money-for-...

Re: Jonathan Blow has spent the past decade designing 1,400 puzzles

#415

Post by KittenInABox »

CupricTea wrote: post #388
swiftcoder wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They have a nice collation of his greatest hits over on Reddit[1] [1]: https://www.redditmedia.com/r/SubredditDrama/comments/1jh275...

Do you think it is acceptable to link to a submission to a place called "SubredditDrama" filled with bad faith links to secondary reactionary sources? Am I supposed to take this seriously?

What is the good faith way to link to "(It doesn't help that all males currently under the age of 40 were raised to be supercucks.)"? The link exists in the post but you object to that link as a bad faith way to link. So what is a good faith way to link to this tweet?

Re: Jonathan Blow has spent the past decade designing 1,400 puzzles

#416

Post by orthoxerox »

magicalhippo wrote: post #225

A side note, if you've played The Witness but not yet The Looker[1], you probably have been missing out. I quite enjoyed The Witness but The Looker was just great. [1]: https://store.steampowered.com/app/1985690/The_Looker/

I ragequit the Looker when it spawned an apple in the snake game inside my snake.

Re: Jonathan Blow has spent the past decade designing 1,400 puzzles

#417

Post by socalgal2 »

I hate this kind of headline. No, Jonathan Blow did not spend the past decade designing 1,400 puzzles. A team of developers made 1,400 puzzles and Blow directed them.

This headline is like writing "Walt Disney hand drew 60,000 frames of Snow White".

(correct me if I'm wrong)

Re: Jonathan Blow has spent the past decade designing 1,400 puzzles

#418

Post by biophysboy »

dismalaf wrote: post #359
biophysboy wrote: post #272

Earlier quoted context omitted.

He gets political.. Just as an example, he claimed that it was obvious that COVID was a lab leak in 2021. This is not obvious at all if you read Michael Worobey's rigorous work instead of rely on Blow's arrogant intuitions. I will still play Jonathan Blow's next game, but I think he is a bit of a hack outside of game design.

The lab leak theory was always credible. Here in Canada there was a big scandal with Chinese scientists who worked for one of our labs who secretly transferred specimens from Winnipeg to Wuhan in 2019 and the subsequent police investigation went public in 2020. Here's a good article that's basically a summary of events (as well as teaser for a book): https://www.thestar.com/news/insight/from-our-lab-to-theirs-...

(Apologies to the thread..)

Its not credible: two viral lineages emerged from the market ~1 week apart before the world knew what covid was; they differ by 2 nucleotides; mutation rates are 1e-6 per base per passage; doubling time is about half a week. A group of sick animals better explains the phylogenetics w/ these constraints. Everything points against lab leak: location, timing, and genetics.

Re: Jonathan Blow has spent the past decade designing 1,400 puzzles

#419

Post by _aavaa_ »

phantasmish wrote: post #202
_aavaa_ wrote: post #155

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because as a statement is functions to excuse the representation in the field. It completely neglects the actual history of the field of computing, even just the 20th century, where the field was filled with women. It’s only once it became a prestigious field that women suddenly developed a “biological” inclination against it.

I… super hesitate to wade into this, but: 1) It was way before it became prestigious. And 2) An explanation of this needs to account for a great and rapid shift in favor of women, as far as proportion-of-practitioners, that was happening at exactly the same time as the opposite shift in programming, in both law and medicine. I don’t know what the actual reason is but “it got prestigious so women got pushed out” makes…

As others have pointed out, prestigious is too strong of a word, what I actually meant was "a job a man could be seen as doing".

Re: Jonathan Blow has spent the past decade designing 1,400 puzzles

#420

Post by socalgal2 »

calmbonsai wrote: post #268
magicalhippo wrote: post #225

A side note, if you've played The Witness but not yet The Looker[1], you probably have been missing out. I quite enjoyed The Witness but The Looker was just great. [1]: https://store.steampowered.com/app/1985690/The_Looker/

I played The Witness and didn't find it remotely fun. I've enjoyed all of Blow's other titles. I suppose I was coming in with expectations of a modern Myst and/or Riven, but it was not that. There was not enough active narrative to keep me engaged with the puzzles and there wasn't enough "reward" in completing them.

I enjoyed the Witness to a degree.

* spoiler *

I did not notice the environmental puzzles, even after the obvious one at the top of the mountain looking down. I didn't get that that wasn't a one off. Someone had to point them out. I've had other friends who also missed that. It's arguably the game's single biggest reveal / surprise. It was pretty amazing!

That said, only found maybe 20 of them and was not compelled to keep looking for all of the rest.

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