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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

#221

Post by rangibaby »

fluxquanta wrote: post #161
rangibaby wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

I'm sure game developers are really looking to capture the "low setting adequacy" market.

They certainly are. Look at the current top 10 for Steam; there are exactly two games, Fallout and GTA, that require anything more than the world's crappiest computer to play. I have no clue about the games not represented on Steam (basically Battlefield and the Star Wars edition of Battlefield), but I bet they follow the same pattern.

The Witness has has a peak of less than 5,000 players at one time so far.

The top two games (and basically the only active "pro" games at the moment), which together have about one million players playing at any given time are both carefully tuned to run on toasters according to Valve's hardware survey.

I like Valve's current micro transaction model. You can buy cosmetic items, but that's it. I can't speak for DOTA2, but in CS:GO they don't impact the game negatively like they did with TF2. Trading from free drops also allows kids and poor people to participate in the economy, which allows them to make more money for Valve than begging mom to buy a $60 game would.

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

#223

Post by pewpewlasergun »

eridius wrote: post #201
webkike wrote: post #112

One of the things I did not like is the sometimes incredibly obfuscated association of symbols with mechanics. For example, the panels with sun symbols. [Spoilers] It didn't take me incredibly long to figure out that they needed to be grouped in twos, but it did take me longer to figure out than to solve the first ~8 introductory panels. And the worst part, how is a star in any way connected with grouping by twos????

Please please please do NOT PUT SPOILERS INTO THE SECOND COMMENT IN THE THREAD. That's incredibly rude. At the very least, if you're going to do something like that, rot13 it, because people like me will see the spoiler before they read the word "[Spoilers]".

We are discussing a puzzle games. Part of that will be discussing puzzles. Maybe don't read comment threads talking about things you don't want any more information about.

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

#224

Post by evan_ »

hibikir wrote: post #209
amichail wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Isn't it like those ill-defined puzzles where you need to say what number comes next? Any number can come next.

There are two major kinds of puzzles: 1)Puzzles about getting a solution that follows a set of rules, which can be deduced, and are reused from puzzle to puzzle. The game just checks that the rules are followed, so there is more than one valid solution sometimes. The different solutions might even have different effects. 2)Environmental puzzles, where the right solution is indicated by the environment. Without giving…

> The different solutions might even have different effects.

I'm only about 100 puzzles in but so far some of the coolest "aha!" moments have been from this realization.

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

#225

Post by evan_ »

prawn wrote: post #217
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,…

Would it be appropriate to share with a smart 3yo watching alongside? Is there anything likely to be nightmare-inducing?

I don't think so, but obviously you know your 3yo better than I do.

The only thing that I could even imagine coming close are some marble statues of men and women that appear throughout the island. They aren't all that creepy but an imaginative child see them that way.

It's rated E for Everyone:

https://www.esrb.org/ratings/Synopsis.aspx?Certificate=34184...

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

#227

Post by dharma1 »

alowe wrote: post #205
dharma1 wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

The trailer is intentionally vague to avoid spoilers. I thought the same thing playing through the game for the first hour or so until I got to a puzzle that made me realize why they built their own engine. MINOR SPOILERS: Some of the later puzzle mechanics rely on playing with lighting and perspective in a way that seems to me would be difficult to implement in a stock engine.

ah, interesting, will have to buy to see what all the chatter is about :)

I seem to be downvoted to death - the comments weren't meant in a disrespectful way - just wondered why the gargantuan effort with a DIY engine. The game itself looks really interesting.

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

#228

Post by StavrosK »

Tarrosion wrote: post #120
kdamken wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think a lot of times people tend to over-exaggerate when using terms like 'masterpiece', but in this case it's warranted. The puzzles and gameplay are brilliant, and then when you discover what the story is actually about it really blows you away.

I don't mean to invoke any sort of death of the author, the story isn't about anything except what you bring to it kind of vagueness...but part of the genius of Braid is that it's intentionally unclear what the story is about. The famous quote in the epilogue makes you think of an important historical event, but plausibly that's metaphorical and the game is about something more personal, existential. Maybe the game i…

I agree, I've played through it twice now and don't think there's anything concrete. Even the "real" ending is just confusing. Still, it's one of the best games I've ever played, for the puzzles alone.

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

#229

Post by saluk »

aaronsnoswell wrote: post #220

I have two questions that the steam page didn't answer; Can I play this in VR, and if not, why not? Jonathan Blow is a master artisan - I can't wait to try this game.

You kind of can with a hack, but it's not a comfortable experience. The game was not really developed with VR in mind, though the team experimented with VR support.

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

#230

Post by saluk »

edem wrote: post #39

It is interesting that the game's rating is very positive but no one recommends it if I read the reviews. It seems that this game is not like Myst but a sterile puzzle collection without a story. Did I miss something?

Sterile puzzle collection; or clean, pure set of puzzles that interplay on each other within a larger interlocking puzzle.
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