This review is really way too long, but here’s the TL;DR: great game, challenging puzzles create challenge fun, big mysterious map creates discovery fun, but I have no idea what’s going on.
The Witness is a puzzle game and walking simulator known not for its plot, but for its incredible, and challenging, puzzle design. It forces players to take their time, explore, and struggle.
And that I did. Along the way, I collected a few insights about what the game does well… and not so well.
Things it Does Well:
- Almost all the puzzles in the game are based on a grid whereupon the player must draw the correct path to solve the puzzle. While the game varies the rules that govern this mechanic depending upon the area or puzzle, this is the core mechanic. I personally think it was a good choice, as it means the player quickly develops at least a basic intuition for how to solve every puzzle on the island.
There are no instructions. Anywhere. This, combined with the wide variety of puzzles you encounter makes the game very challenging. You often run across puzzles with mechanics you don’t recognize at all. While this can be a little frustrating at times, it effectively creates challenge fun. It also respects its audience to be patient enough and clever enough to figure it out, which few games really commit to. I often found myself drawing the puzzles by hand to glean some sort of insights out of the context of the game, as shown in the image above.
The map is very large and there are a lot of interesting locations to discover. Thus, it creates a lot of discovery fun. I am horrible at navigating this island, but I am saved by the fact that the game scatters different types of puzzles across the different areas. Thus, you can be somewhere entirely new, but have some sense of confidence it is where you are meant to be simply because you recognize the type of puzzles in that area.
The environmental puzzles are really cool. They rely upon patience and keen observation skills to notice the variety of visual and auditory clues you need to solve many of the puzzles. It is this environmental problem solving that makes the grid format a genius design choice. It means that, even with a familiar format, the player is still challenged to explore the world looking for clues in the light, sound, and colors of the scenery. Awesome game and puzzle design!
- There are mysterious things to be discovered on the island that pique your interest, including thought-provoking audio recordings and statues that give the impression that the island’s residents were turned to stone. Again, I think this contributes to discovery fun and makes the island magical, and sometimes creepy, to explore. Many of the empty buildings, hallways, tunnels, and broken structures lend the game a very liminal feeling. It’s perfect for a walking simulator.
Things it Does Not Do Well:
It should be noted that The Witness was made by an independent developer, and runs on a custom engine. It is very impressive and I do enjoy this game quite a bit. However, I love to critically analyze things, and I think there’s a lot of elements to this game that make it frustrating rather than challenging.
There is no narrative, at least as far as I can tell after playing for 5 hours. While this is not a problem per se, I think it makes the game a little more challenging in a bad way. For example, the Shady Trees area forces the player to use the shadows of trees, and the light pouring through them, to solve a series of grid puzzles. This is a cool environmental mechanic… but why? Why am I solving puzzles in the middle of a forest that rely upon the sun being at the perfect angle for the light to shine through the trees and give me the environmental hint I need to solve a grid puzzle that unlocks a gate that reveals another puzzle that sets off a laser? I’m being a little silly, but my point is that by having no structured narrative, the game often left me asking, “Why am I on this island? What’s the point of being here? Who set up all these puzzles? This is really frustrating.“- You might be thinking, “Elizabeth! That’s not the point of this game. The point is to take your time, observe your surroundings, and solve puzzles.” It’s a fair comment, but I argue that having a little bit of narrative to guide your exploration would encourage more interest and discovery fun, and perhaps provide a motivation for doing puzzles like those in the Shady Trees area. A good example of a game that does this well is Myst (1993). The Witness is clearly inspired by Myst, but there’s a key difference: Myst has a story that you get to learn and interact with by exploring the world. It still has no instructions and many environmental-observation based puzzles, but the narrative sometimes provides hints for puzzles and points you in the right direction to go. While this makes Myst a little easier than The Witness, it also means that players have a means of getting themselves unstuck without looking at a walkthrough. On the other hand, The Witness has stronger logical puzzle design BY FAR than Myst, but often left me floundering when I had no intuition or idea on how to start solving a puzzle. This can be fun, but is sometimes demoralizing and frustrating.
The skill progression is really good… when you can find it. The island is large and unless you find the map (which I have not, sadly), you have no way of knowing where you are except your own memory. You can draw the map as you go, but that’s a hard task in itself. As a result, the skill progression can be missed entirely. Some areas are clearly there to teach the player how to solve a particular type of puzzle, but it is really easy to walk past those spots without even knowing it existed. However, if you find the right areas, the puzzles increase in difficulty perfectly, and that is an achievement in itself.
- The visual design is gorgeous, but sometimes makes it hard to complete the puzzles. The graphics aren’t amazing, which contributes to this problem. It’s a little nitpicky, but after 5 hours of playing, I was getting annoyed with having to squint to see a grid clearly. This wouldn’t be such a big issue if so many puzzles did not rely upon noticing small visual details.
- Finally, this is a personal pet peeve, but the controls suck if you’re playing with a controller. I learned to play video games on console, so I suck at keyboard controls. The Witness was clearly designed for keyboard and mouse. It’s not a big deal, but its something for game designers to think about: what kinds of controls best fit your game?
All in all, this review is way too long, but I had a lot of thoughts while I was playing so now you all can read them. I highly recommend this game, especially if you love puzzles and want a real challenge.
