The Witness

I figured, heading into my fall semester, that at one point I'd hopelessly derail myself from my studies for a week or two thanks to a video game. But I assumed that game would be Final Fantasy XV, an epic-length JRPG that was supposed to be out in late September, and not a little indie puzzle game from Jonathan Blow. Yet here I am, panic-stressed about everything I've got to do in the next month in order not to fail out of grad school at the proverbial eleventh hour, and what did I spend at least twenty hours over the last week doing? Yep - playing The Witness.

Sween and Trev have already played through this one - I think Trev is waiting to complete it before posting it - but for anyone else curious about this game, it's essentially a sprawling collection of hundreds of line puzzles found across an open world island environment. When I say line puzzles, I mostly mean mazes. Each puzzle consists of a panel with a starting point and an ending point, and you need to traverse a continuous line from the one to the other. Sounds easy, right? Who would spend forty dollars or hours on a bunch of mazes? But here's the rub - there can be hundreds of ways to get from the start to the finish in each puzzle, but most puzzles only have one or two correct solutions. Subtle rules start to pop up in the puzzles. Early on, for instance, you learn that if the grid contains black and white dots on some of its squares, the line you traverse needs to separate the black dots from the white ones. (Insert segregation joke here.) An entire area of the island includes puzzles whose solution becomes apparent only when viewed from a certain angle. One are even includes puzzles whose solutions can be derived by listening to birds chirping nearby.

The beauty of the game is in how well it all builds. Early on, you'll find panels everywhere you have no idea how to solve - doors containing symbols you've never even seen, for instance - and that's your cue to just leave well enough alone and come back later. Every puzzle has an answer you can work through - often with pencil and paper in hand, like in the good old days - and the game offers you no hints whatsoever. That's another great strength; any other game, in today's game design culture, would nudge you along in some way. "Let's check out the quarry," it might say. "Hmm, haven't seen these symbols before - let's come back later." But The Witness trusts you to figure out everything on your own - that's really the entire point of the game - to the point where using a walkthrough for even one puzzle feels tantamount to lying. I'm not opposed to walkthroughs, and use them frequently, but when a game's entire purpose is to be studied and understood and slowly figured out, I mean, what's the point of using a walkthrough at all?

After completing enough puzzles in the same general area of the island that share a similar theme, you unlock what can only be called "lasers." These lasers point directly toward the top of a distant mountain and, after activating seven of them, you can enter the mountain and begin the "end game" puzzles. I found nine such lasers before deciding to tackle the endgame, and I'm aware of at least two more, and possibly more. Will I go back for these? Probably one day - I'd love to. But maybe not until the semester winds down a little.

Anyway, this game absolutely isn't for everyone. It's a very "adult" game, not in its themes or content but in the patience it requires. So much of the game consists of failure, learning from failure, and knowing when to return to the spot of previous failures. There isn't even an in-game map of the island  that lets you see where you are, or where previously unsolved puzzles exist. The island isn't that big - it only feels big at first - and eventually you begin to get a feel for what areas connect to one another and how it all aligns. But it takes time! Hell, individual puzzles - and I think there are over 600 in the game - can take as much as an hour to work through. But it all depends on the person!

Above all, this game - like Blow's Braid before it - seems best enjoyed with friends. Having more eyes on one puzzle speeds up the solve time, and having multiple voices bouncing ideas off of each other can help people see patterns they hadn't considered. Marissa sat next to me and went through probably twenty or thirty puzzles with me, and while she said she mostly felt like "dead weight" as I solved several puzzles without her even understanding them, I can vouch for her solving about five of them well before I did. Sween also watched me play the game for a good four hours or so on Twitch, and while he seemed impressed by the speed at which Trevor and I found lasers and, uh, "hidden environmental puzzles," saying we both found things way faster than he did, I was certainly thankful for his hints and suggestions, sparse though they were; sometimes I'd be stuck on a puzzle for a legitimate half hour before he'd say something like, "the first line is up," and everything would click. I should reiterate - this is a game best enjoyed with friends! In fact, based on the difficulty associated with finding some of the environmental puzzles out there, it might be a game best enjoyed with a community at large - a perfect game for the age of the Internet, where solutions and walkthroughs lurk around every corner.

But it's also a game best encountered totally blind. I knew nothing about this when I began playing it, except that Sween and Trev loved it and it was made by the guy who made Braid. Good enough for me! I've already described, above, far more about the game than a newcomer should probably know going in. I've rambled plenty. If this sounds like something you'd be into, by all means, check it out. I can't say it'll go down as my favorite game of the year or anything, but it's one of the most unique gaming experiences I've ever had. Just be warned - you'll fall down a rabbit hole and wonder where the hours and days have gone.