The Witness - A Great Game That You Shouldn't Play
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- čas přidán 26. 06. 2024
- Patreon: / josephanderson
Twitter: / jph_anderson
Books: www.amazon.com/Joseph-Anderson...
Part One: Gameplay - 0:46
Part Two: Over "500" Puzzles - 18:07
Part Three: Why is it called The Witness? - 29:47
I've made an effort to avoid swearing in recent videos but I felt like I couldn't avoid it here, so this is a second warning in case you're watching somewhere that it might be an issue.
I get a little ranty in the third section. It's the weakest part in terms of stating actual facts but I felt compelled to include it. This was a difficult script to write. Probably more than any other so far. I'm mostly happy with it.
The title is a little click-baity. If you haven't played the game then it's still (probably) worth your time. Watch the first few minutes if you're on the fence before deciding.
Thanks! Let me know if I'm an idiot or not. - Hry
i just realized, isn't super bunnyhop colorblind? the apple is red and the leaves are green so it's possible he literally couldn't see it
I'm red-green colorblind and I saw it, but only after a while. Those and the color puzzles were super difficult for me
@@benzeller9186 Yeah, The Witness is pretty awful with accessibility. My close friend is quite hard of hearing, and the whole forest/jungle/whatever area was practically impossible for him. He brute-forced through a few but gave up - he didn't realise the mechanic was sound-based and figured he was just missing something.
When I picked up the game for him - I had first advised checking a walkthrough, to which he shamed me for even considering being "that lowly" - I caught the gimmick immediately. He was a bit upset about it, but I finished the area for him and that was more or less the end of it. My personal favorite puzzles were the color ones, which makes me sad because people who are colorblind, with you as a good example, have difficulty solving these puzzles.
But accessibility is very much impossible for these types of things. You can't caption the sound puzzles - it would give the solution away. There isn't a way to re-explain how colors interact with one another if the concept of color itself is muddy. I'm sure there's other examples of how something has poor accessibility but cannot be altered very far towards a more accessible version, but it's been ages since I last played the game and it's 11 PM - not the greatest circumstances to be remembering things.
It's a necessary lack of accessibility, but it's still a damn shame there isn't another way.
@@darksentinel082 some areas depend on color puzzles. Some areas depend on audio. Authors say that you don't need to solve all areas to beat the game. That's their approach to accessibility I guess...
@@evgen5647 what alternative is there? Since the colors are about nothing but color and sound perception, I cant think of any possible way to make them more accessible
@@nin10dorox @nin10dorox it is a good question, because there is an area in the game which relies on color perception and color blending.
However, there are couple (two or three) color issues in other areas which probably could be fixed.
“I know this video is long...”
4 years later...
Witcher Part 1: >4 hours
long man good
Ah, more then my hours of sleep I see
Part 2 is 5+
@@danielebernardi6732 Looking forward to the 10h video for the 3rd game
@@justarandompally me too
The entire time I was playing the Witness I was thinking that if I ever saw another person there it would freak me out. I almost screamed when I saw the first statue person. I really like the eeriness of solitude in a big area in games.
here's something to make it even eerier: the statue in the middle of the town, by the windmill, has a set of stones arranged on the ground so that the statue's *shadow* is juggling. Meaning someone has been there before you
Eh it made the world feel lifeless to me. I didn’t really find it that creepy.
@@ToxicTony15 it is lifeless, that's the point. What are you experiencing? What is the world trying to communicate to you? How are you capable of interacting with it like this? It's metaphysical angst of some kind.
@@Solaire_of_Astora13 Idk it just made the world feel boring to me.
@@ToxicTony15 The Witness is not a game that's meant to excite you, nor is it a horror game, so it's not failing either way. I still agree with many of Anderson's points though, but I wouldn't describe my time with the game as being "boring" (personally).
5:50 Super bunnyhop is also colour blind. Which probably made a lot of the environmental puzzles much more difficult
Wow or impossible as a few look basically just like the test pics they use to diagnose it!
I gave up on this game for two reasons, one being difficulty with colours, the other being that it turns my pc into a furnace despite being theoretically a very simple game graphically
@@RealLargeManTheGiantOne I think that's your pc fault, I don't have any problems and my pc is a potato with a battery.
Yeah, red apple on green background... That's easy to miss assuming he's red-green colorblind. But at least it's possible. There's a whole area of the game dedicated to color puzzles. This game is impossible to beat without looking up solutions with even minor disabilities. Colorblind, deaf, just tone deaf, processing issues, bad visual memory, this game just requires all of your senses to work near flawlessly. Which is what it is, I don't think there's much that could be changed about it that wouldn't give away the puzzles. Though I suppose a warning would've been nice.
@@Huntracony I struggle with some stuff like red-green colorblindness (that apple is definitely difficult to spot at first), ADHD, and auditory processing issues, and because of that the jungle was impossible when they started layering on sounds, the color puzzles with broken screens in the final area was impossible for me to tell them apart, and there's been several times with complex Tetris piece puzzles I've had to take a screenshot and just draw on it in gimp and work out the solution since there's just too many pieces to keep track of them all at once
None of those issues are even too severe for me, but even then the game just requires so much that as much as I enjoy it I do have to pull up a guide every now and then because my body or mind simply isn't perfect and has disorders and deficiencies
Some solutions would be to add accessibility options, some stuff like memory issues would need a more tailored solution than I can come up with on the spot at 4 AM, but other things like colorblindness are as easily solved as adding filters for colorblindness, or subtitles for deaf people, which wouldn't work with the jungle puzzle but there's definitely other times when it'd be useful, like the sound of gates opening out of sight or the footstep sounds changing in the hedge maze. Maybe for the jungle there could be an option to tweak the intensity of the background noise? Since most people with hearing issues can still hear somewhat. Speaking of that, there definitely needs to be audio settings, I found some times when the game was far too loud and being able to tweak the values of environmental sounds, music (god that vinyl player is loud), sounds tied to puzzles, and interaction sounds would be amazing
Title: "you shouldn't play this game"
First minute: "play the game before watching this"
...okay, I guess...
He said it would be contradictory.
@@Envy_May bruh
I was so confused! My yearn to hear this man's perspective on...anything won out though
"Hold on. This whole operation was your idea."
Pretty sure he was saying something like "I don't think you should play it, but if you're already planning on it, I don't want to ruin it for you."
Legit for three fucking hours, I thought this game was a horror game in disguise. I was so terrified to go under the windmill. I swear to god, I heard footsteps that weren't mine around that area. I went down there ONCE, saw the octagonal puzzle, realized I didn't know what to do, and promptly ran out. Later, I found the one paper diagram near the first door in the game, and was so spooked to go back down to the mill. I was certain that I would finally see the monster of the island.
When I put in the puzzle solution, I let out an audible yelp as the video came on. Definitely wasn't what I expected to happen.
This feeling of unease stayed with me for a few more hours until I finally looked online when this beast would show up. Turns out I was just fucking stupid and the silence/serenity of the island was playing tricks on me.
I felt genuinely relieved after finding out there wasn't any monster, but a bit disappointed. I was hoping the whole island was a facade to hide some bigger secret. Turns out there was such a secret, just not what I was expecting...
Evolved Dinosaur lol
This is the funniest shit I've read in a while xD
Holy shit, I just realized how amazing the witness would be as a horror game halfway through.
xD lol
I thought that with Gone Home. Was very confused
The hour long puzzle, and this is my best guess, was only crafted as a big "screw you" to people that feel compelled to complete games just for the sake of completing games. I think it's in the same spirit of the 400+ collectable flags in Assassins Creed that I read were only added as a kind of commentary on collectables and achievements being pointless. All that said I hate the smarmy, mean spirit behind both of them.
Honestly, if that's the point, I kinda enjoy that kind of stuff. I feel it needs to be explicated in some way though. The game doesn't have to go up in your face and say "this is parody of pointless questing" but I generally think of games as an art form that can offer unique experiences by forcing you to engage with it. And if a game had me collect some amount of collectibles before hinting "you are wasting your time for the sake of it" I would feel betrayed, because after all it did make me waste my time, but that feeling of betrayal would then urge me to think more critically about the way games waste my time the next time I play one. Similar to how a mystery TV show might put down a red herring and play with my emotional investment for artistic effect.
I think Blow should release a patch that adds this video to the theater room.
From what I know Blow watched about one minute of this video, called Joe a pretentious idiot and did like a 5 minute rant about "he just doesn't get it" and "don't criticize a game if you don't understand it" so I don't think that'll happen
@@sunbleachedangel Do you have a link ? While I frowned upon and got frustrated a lot about this video, I have seen enough of Jonathan Blow to know that Blow is next level pretentious compared to Joseph.
@@viperhd70
A very simple google search gave me this
czcams.com/video/jr1j9vqXwEQ/video.html&ab_channel=BlowFan
@@sunbleachedangel You don't understand is the defense of a coward with nothing meaningful to say in their art.
@@woomod2445 absolutely, there is also a video of Blow "explaining what the Witness is about" and it's just 15 minutes of "it's about life or something"
Fun fact: Professor Moriarty (the same one whose near hour long presentation is featured in the theater room) never learned while playing that after you click to begin a puzzle, you could let go of the mouse button while you solved the puzzle. He found this out from one of his students approximately two weeks after he had completed all known puzzles in the game.
This means that Professor Moriarty sat in front of his computer, holding down left click, listening to his own lecture for 56 minutes, in order to complete the last environmental puzzle.
i'm not even sure if r/thathappened, but an amusing thought either way
@@Flowtail It's on the internet, so it must be true
Made me snort.
The ult revenege from his students
Fif Gallag ah, yes, because nothing ever happens at all!
It’s been three years since I played The Witness, and even now, rewatching this video, it makes me distrustful of circles. I can still feel the claustrophobia from finishing the game, flying free around the island, and then being shoved back in the tube where the whole ordeal started. On another note, there are also collectibles in Braid which take hours to reach, so I think it’s just something that Blow enjoys doing.
Don't trust circles. Don't call me shapeist, but they're most likely gonna scam you
I'm thinking of one collectible in particular in Braid, which you have to waste your time to reach. You know the one.
@@waluigiisgod3978, Triangles are the scammers, pyramid schemes and all that.
@@waluigiisgod3978 shapeist lmao
Look, never trust circles
A sorcerer once taught me that...
Or something like that
Seeing this after the 5+ hour long videos he puts out these days and hearing him call this one a long video is hilarious beyond explanation.
You did explain it
@@LeastTresCharLargo oh damn. I guess I did.
@@LeastTresCharLargo no no no, it is hilarious beyond *the* explanation, so its funnier then they explained
The only natural conclusion to this would be to make a 4 hour video on the looker, the spiritual successer to the witness, that improves upon many of its shortcomings and flaws, making it a nearly perfect game.
tru...💀
the ending had me in tears it's a masterpiece 10/10
I've never heard of this game, the developer, or seen this CZcamsr before but this video showed up in my reccomended and it was so well put together that I watched the whole thing. And I just realized it's 3 years old lol
4.
Me too
oh wow same, i didn’t even realize how old the video is until i read this comment
Ha, same
you never heard of braid?
5:30. I had so much difficulty with this puzzle because I'm red-green colorblind. I literally did not know there was an apple until you just said it.
thatOne Guy Thanks to your comment I finally figured out that I am red-green colorblind as well. I don't know if I should be happy or not lol
thatOne Guy lol get rekt
GMTK also criticized this game for the fact that it has sound puzzles at all. You have no reason to expect them until partway through the game, so a deaf person would think that they could play this game. And they'd be wrong.
Most guys are colorblind, but not all to the same degree. My colorblindness is a rather minuscule variant of the red/green color blindness and I can see that apple easily, but other people genuinely can’t tell if the apple is red. Also most females aren’t colorblind, unlike men. Idk why though
i feel like that's a problem with many games. a close friend of mine actually has a severe case of colorblindness, so when he got anthem and saw there was a colorblind setting he was overjoyed. i think every game creator should add that in the settings, especially if it's a puzzle game. otherwise colorblind people will struggle a lot more than one without colorblindness.
I played this game with a small group of friends, and the town was one of our first locations we went to. We were, of course, very lost at how to complete almost all the puzzles. But I guess a lot of the parts that felt unintuitive was corrected by the fact that there were a few people paying attention to different things, we always had more than one perspective. We completed every panel puzzle in the town and it was the 2nd laser we activated, and we all found it really interesting and fun to work out the rules through trial and error rather than being taught it later in the tutorials that we had no idea existed. This could absolutely be a point of criticism, but for us it was fun and entertaining, we've all got really calculating brains, so to come up with rules based on what did and didn't flash red after we tried to complete a puzzle we had no idea how to solve was something we all enjoyed.
Sorry man but I call hard bs on that yall figured out those puzzles without ever looking up some of the rules online. Especially the stars are impossible to just guess like that through trial and error.
@@brent8407 nah, we had that exact same situation. It's definitely possible
@@Kochen51 sorry man I don't buy it. Straight up solved all of the town area without having done any of the other areas or looking things up online? nah man.
The rules for the tetris pieces and colors and mayyybe the shadows I can buy you'd find that out in the town itself. But the star puzzles have such specific rules and their variants are too complex in the town to just stumble upon the right answer by yourself. You either bruteforced those or just cheated for that one.
Just admit it.
@@brent8407 are you forgetting the power of 3/4 people brainstorming about the rules/solutions? I don't know why I would want to lie to a random stranger on the internet for non existent clout lmao
@@Kochen51 You'd be surprised how many people do that. The 'I beat this on my 1st try' people. But fine, sorry then. Doesn't matter anyway.
After hearing about the secret ending of the Witness, the ending of the Looker makes so much more sense
a 40 minute video with no ads in it, dude you're a madman. nice review tho
well if you stay till the end you wont want to play the game. Its been ruined. So not a good ad lol
I guess what he was trying to do is compensate for ruining the experience by delivering one of his own. And he must have done something right cause I, and many others from the looks of it, somehow stuck around all the way through.
nah ! He's just poor !
+Sekrit Comrade *CZcamsrs Triggered*
Why would there be ads in it?
"I realize this video is a bit long, so if you need to take a break I'd recommend doing it now" 40 Min video
Years later:
"He guys it's me Lil Anders back again with a 3 hour God of War review"
"back again with a 3-hour God of War video until I finish my 8-hour Witcher video lads"
Lil Anders!!! Oh fuck that got me good!
And he's said the Witcher video will be at least 9 hours long
I once came across a video by ShayMay that's a 7 hour long review of Pokemon Omega Ruby. It's literally twice as long as the speedrun.
czcams.com/video/kFC6mDKF-0c/video.html
2020 still no 8 hour video
The bridge is going slow at 25:30 to give you time to do the line puzzle that is being formed by the shadows at your feet.
When you brought up simple plots being told in a complex way, the first thing that sprang to mind was Majoras Mask. The actual story is very simple: Skull Kid steals spooky mask, causes apocalypse, Link saves the day by collecting a bunch of MacGuffins. But the game gets across the themes of death, grief, and acceptance in so many ways and from so many different perspectives. I think telling a simple plot in a complex way is a great way to do just that; to explore the themes with more depth.
I thought of the movie Memento, which has a similar effect.
as in depth and interesting as joseph can be, this video is proof that he has - or had at one point - a _super_ reductive and unflattering worldview on more thematically oriented and open-ended storytelling.
I literally found that weird secret ending from the beginning. What happened was that my bf told me about a cool puzzle game he was playing and he thought I’d like it. So the next time I went to his place I watched him play. He told me the concept with the pattern of the circle in the line. That’s when I noticed the sun as a circle and the line in the door. I told him and he was like what?! And then he did the line and we freaked out when the door opened. He was like “this is the end of the game and we haven’t even finished it!”. Nutty lol
@@dylanbyrne9591 Cute. Did you wake up on the wrong side of the bed today? 😊
@@Pegasus436 yeah sorry
I actually ended up getting the secret ending on accident before solving any real puzzles just from playing around with controls. Happened to be in the right angle, hit the "start doing an environment puzzle" button and started randomly clicking to see if it did something. Second or third click was on the sun which brought up the line puzzle, and I have to tell you that was the most jarring unintentional speedrun I've ever completed.
Based and circlepilled
so it could be solved at the very beginning? it sounds unbelievable, as it looked so smooth for me. i finished the game, tried to run it one more time just to ensure it was really restarted, walked out of a tunnel to see that giant shiny door. i opened it and found some extra stuff, i was sure i could see it because the game is complete. they cheated me so hard.
It's actually fascinating when Joe says all the sounds sound the same to him, and I wonder if it's because I speak a tonal language that I got it immediately. It's high-high-low-mid, and in the others, the relative pitch of the sound dictates the direction you should approach the point from (high tone means you move down to the point from above, mid means you move to the point from the sides, low means you move up to the point from below).
But yeah, it's because to me, in one of my languages, tone is absolutely crucial to deciphering meaning. If you don't come from that kind of habit, I can totally see how the sound part is a nightmare because it's all 'just chirping'.
Oh me too! My mother tongue is a tonal language so when the audio clips came up I thought immediately, "hey, that's like up, up, down". Interesting point you made
I think this is exactly the point though when he brings up that the developers kind of have to assume that everyone is going to emd up having the same perception of something as them.
I dont speak a tonal language but I attributed my understanding of the concept to growing up in a musical family. I was taught that sound is dimensional. Not just meant to be heard, but listened to like language.
@@Jeremy-se1kp Oh yeah no, I totally agree. There's always a potential problem in any puzzle game, when you have to guess at the developer's train of thought, rather than any reasonable enough logic you can arrive at. I guess it's just that in this case, what is 'reasonable logic' to me due to my background is 'crazy train of thought' for others. Which happens!
I speak french, and the whole language is as flat as the Netherlands. But I got the rule for this area instantly. I think it has more to do with the exposure someone has with music. When you listen to a lot of music, you can instinctively tell wheteher a pitch is relatively higher/lower than the previous/next one. There's no difficulty in that. It's just natural. But if you never listen to music or don't care about it, I can definitly see how it would be a difficult concept to grasp at first.
It's fascinating listening to you basically call puzzles that I had to look up child's play, then hearing you rant about having to look up solutions to puzzles I didn't have much trouble with whatsoever. Just goes to show how different it can be for everybody and how frustrating it can feel when something seems like it should be simply when it's really just a matter of how your brain works
Yep! Believe it or not the ship puzzle wasn't too hard for me since I did all of the other areas first, but when I found the optional color swap puzzle with the colored lights in the town, I just gave up after an hour lol. My GF did it in her head in like 2 minutes... Like you said, everyone has strengths, and this game does a great job at parsing out different types of logical intelligence.
it's always fun to see the difference between visual thinkers and abstract thinkers
Thought the same thing. I had very little problems with the sound puzzles. Well, except for the ship one. I still don’t understand how the noises of the ship correlate, and can’t find any one to explain it LOL
I audibly laughed when he said “I know this video is long”
Ohh Anderson, if you only knew what you would eventually become
I took a bonus semester long class a few years ago(free) where we played and analyzed the Witness. It was really fun but I agree with everything you said and from what I remember, we couldn’t find a secret meaning. That thing about working as a group to solve the game being more fun is also true. We had a blast eating snacks, filling notebooks and trying to beat the game. One of us got farther than the rest on his own time and we all got to see the different endings. I still hadn’t beaten the game at home so my dad and I had fun working through the puzzles together. I got fed up with it at some point and haven’t picked it up since. I think I’ll pick it up tomorrow. Great video!
Yo this sounds like a lit class, where do I sign up?
@@thomaspaine7155 it really was. Unfortunately it was a one off and the teacher left shortly thereafter. Also I loved your username
I feel like the game is about the experience of learning something. The experience of thouroughly getting something and how one might explain this thing. Basicly a game about how to understand the world. Thats why there are all of these audiologs about peoples worldviews in the game.
What class was it? I'm curious if it was game design or something else entirely.
@@nicholasbailey6622 the class was called something along the lines of “The Witness: storytelling through video games”
The youtube volume slider is a puzzle.
The first in the game too... Youtubbs was ahead of it's time, man.
HAHAHA
Nathan Rogers I'm on android so the sliders dont have the semi-circle that is the end of the puzzle. so no, the sliders are a partial puzzle
What I said was true, from a certain point of view... or... if witnessed from a particular perspective.
*Obi-wan mic drop*
Nope, wrong exit. The exit needs to be a half-circle.
I actually really love the witness. Some of the tasks do get a touch repetitive, sure-doing anything over 500X, even with endless variation, will do, but it made a change in my life bigger than the _lines and circles everywhere_ one. It drilled into my head that, if you can’t complete a task, it’s okay. Go, gather more skills, more information, and come back. It’ll keep. I can’t tell you how much that’s helped in everyday life.
Love this. Same. It also taught me to enjoy the heck out of looking for patterns when you look out the window or at a specific view. and also that all i need to be happy is some good puzzles lol
Yes! Also, if you're stuck, just changing tasks for a while, even if you're not learning amything new, might prove useful, because when you come back you'll have a fresh unbiased mind
I saw cirlces and lines everywhere for months after I played it. This game stuck with me.
same
So this isn't a game its meditation
5:56 from my experience, the “intended route” so far is - Tutorial -> (Explore a bit after seeing the curious “double power line” puzzle in tutorial, and follow the power line, and end up finding that first ground puzzle which has a triangle, wonder about that and the odd triangle, then move on). -> complete the mirror dock area, notice another ground puzzle on roof after exploring more after being taught exploring is good, notice the second triangle. Complete puzzle and notice that now it worked. Maybe we should try the previous? -> Head back and complete previous ground puzzle with one triangle. Take note of black and white hard puzzle door btw now or when you first were here. -> move on to the desert mirror area which has a slope from the mirror dock area. Complete it, and Notice the environmental puzzles. Say to self something along the lines of “Hmm, odd. I seem to be doing it “right” but only one environmental piece? Is there more maybe? Hold on let me check” and as you go to check you likely immediately notice the similar looking pillars which seem to need adjusting to fit in. Then proceed along and eventually you do the one that again seems way fucking off. Until yoi look around , likely getting frustrated or confused and lost, and then when desperately checking for something ; you likely happen to notice The trees behind you which have oddly symmetrical reflections. You Give it a go and voila. A lesson taught by yourself. *that one of the whole perspective is in the beholder lesson is HUGE when figured out by yourself, I think a major issue for most is you have to not only BE a critical thinker to like this game, but also ENJOY critical thinking snd stuff that truly racks your brain with all the easy puzzle games out here these days. Though with some points in this game WAYYY WAY WAYY overcompensating on the difficulty when trying to make a good challenging game. I thoroughly enjoy it but sometimes I just simply don’t have enough information on certain ones
That’s as far
It honestly sounds a lot to me like someone experiencing being controlled. Being given the illusion of choice, then being made to follow the path you are intended to follow. You stop trusting your environment. You stop trusting your own perspective. The only truly free choice you have is to walk away, but to do so is to accept loss, so you start to question everything. In the end you're just following somebody else's rules and playing their game, even when they arent there anymore and their rules don't apply. There is no reward. There is no feeling gratified. Just an empty feeling like you wasted your time. You can't quite regret it because parts of it were fun. You also can't celebrate it because you weren't given what you were promised. It's just... unsettling.
Deep
Yes
And paid $40 for it.
me when I was 5 wanting to get Icecream, being sad I didn't get it and crying, then getting it 10 minutes later as a surprise
Wow. That STRONGLY reminds me of the Stanley Parable.
This game unexplainably makes me extremely uncomfortable and panicked. It’s hard to sleep, but something about the anonymity and silence throughout the whole game scares me more than most horror games . It’s like the tension builds like crazy and I can’t ever let go
Same, I immediately searched up for jumpscares after playing for a bit
I'm glad that I"m not the only one. I can play Outlast on mega hard difficulties but I was anxious during my entire playthrough of The Witness, and not only just the first playthrough. I've played it several times searching for collectibles and the dread I feel when walking through the world sends chills down my spine.
You are literally experiencing being The Witness to your own existence, which is a real thing
Eh? It's definitely not supposed to be frightening, aside from lacking background music this doesn't seem different than any other game. Maybe go for a few more nature walks if this game alarms.
It has the same feel as the diner scene in Mulholland Drive. So dreamlike and unnaturally bright light that you can't grasp what time it is.
Watching this right now and I have to say I have the complete opposite experience that you had with the sound and colour puzzles. Hated the colour puzzles and could not understand how they worked but thought the sound puzzles were easy and breezed through them.
Also, from what I recollect, for the bunker puzzles, you really had to have knowledge about how additive and subtractive colors work. I had to take a lot of notes on paper to figure out the effects of colored light, colored symbols and colored glass, to find the results to some puzzles, that I was thinking this was going to be way too hard for a lot of gamers.
The Witness walked so that The Looker could _run._ Am I right Gamers?😔✊🏻
You right fr
Bars
@@NickiRusin 🗿
The ending was certainly better.
You also can jump(in September update). Died when you scream like Mario
It's really hard to make a subjective, argumentative video right. You're one of very few people on CZcams who gets it.
Making a person disagree with you, yet keep listening with genuine interest is a very, _very_ rare skill.
You should check out MauLer then.
@@doommaker4000 I didn't say he was _the only_ one.
@@FiksIIanzO I didn't assume that. I'm just throwing a random recomendation
@@doommaker4000 Oh. Okay.
By the way, check out Vsauce on CZcams, Forager on Steam and Disenchantment on Netflix. I hear those are good.
@@FiksIIanzO Sarcasm lol or did I make the same mistake and assumed
I was watching my brother-in-law play this game when we came to the top of the mountain. I pointed out that the Waterway look like a puzzle and ask him to try and click it. He did, and we both got super excited
Aww haha
We need more wholesome comments like these
It's strange to me that many find the silence and solitude of The Witness terrifying. I'm an introvert and I must say, the solitude is incredibly calming.
Late reply, but I'm very introverted too and yet the very quiet atmosphere was very spooky on my first playthrough lol.
Interesting. It's definitely terrifying to me. I thiiiiink this is the scariest game I've ever played. Just knowing there's a mystery and I don't know what it is. Horrific.
@@karlhendrikse I get that, but the game reveals its humanity during the "true" endgame, if you know what I'm talking about.
People are just little bitches
As an introvert who has extreme anxiety in general, with settings completely devoid of life being one of the most anxiety inducing types of settings for me, it put me on edge the whole time.
10:00 you've probably figured this out by now but the shadows are not broken, and the puzzle works exactly like every other puzzle in that area. You just have to look closer at the path the shadows create.
yeah this is very true
Yeah his complain here makes zero sense
I still have 0 clue what it's trying to convey lol, I don't understand what discernable path you're supposed to follow and the solution seems so random
It's more about the general path the shadow takes. It doesn't follow the grid perfectly but is a suggestion. You just have to notice that the shadows aren't actually broken, and then see where they take you.
fun fact: my brother loves to brag that he was part of a debate club and he also loves the witness. i showed him this video, he yelled at almost every point you made and left half way into the vid. guess that debate club was teaching him to be a politician
Ironically, in order to succeed in LD debate, you have to master the ability to see morally complex scenarios from the perspective of the side you don't agree with.
Tell your brother he's a bitch
the video is moronic and just made to generate comments
@@oscarsalesgirl296 LMAO really
I lol’d
I love the Witness, but I actually had to stop playing it before I reached the full ending because the game messed with my brain so much that it was messing with my ability to sleep properly.
This happened to me as well for a week straight
Duelz wait, what. How?
@@freemang8189 yeah I want to know aswell
Joshua Kapustin I think they just experienced Tetris effect
@@freemang8189 I just googled it. I thought I was the only one who while trying to sleep would do Rubik's cube algs in my head. It was so infuriating. Dang that's crazy
This is one of those videos that I keep coming back to. This video has always been here for me, with all my highs and lows, for going on five years now.
That sound one actually made sense to me really quickly, that one you showed first made the sound “high high low mid” basically, and so you can see the 3 possible elevations on the panel
In the puzzle you showed after that where you move left and right too, it’s really just a 4 elevation system distinguished by pitch again, but this time you also have to hit the dots while getting to those specific elevations
This video is three years old now and I just stumbled across it in my recommended section but it's so interesting I couldn't stop watching it. I haven't even played the game but this video itself is very well put together. You have a great way of explaining things in a way that made me feel...not dumb, like the game would've.
I only just came here from TVoEF and I feel the same way. Joseph is a master class in analysis, and I'm seriously considering asking some professionals I know to review his reviews.
Same here. It's 5 years old now, wow....
Most of his critique makes little sense. See my comment.
Surrounded by a beautiful world but you never get the chance to interact or explore it because you spend the entire time looking at screens doing the same thing over and over.
Sounds familiar.
holy shit
Acute analogy :). Definitely sounds familiar, alas.
NICE
Greatest comment i have ever seen on youtube. Been here since 2006...
Fuck.
This sounds like something that would be in r/im14andthisisdeep
For the puzzle at 10:00 the solution is the only continuous line of shadow you can draw, and the game just taught you before the approximate shadow
yeah that one is super obvious... sigh
DAAAAAMN... Thanks, no matter how i looked at it, i just didn't notice that. TuT
Except it’s literally not continuous. The solution has multiple breaks in the fucking shadow
It's continuous just not overlaped perfectly with the grid
@@mreatboom1314 yeah which is more obvious to some of us that are used to having to mess with perspective in our heads to solve puzzles I guess. The Witness wasn't even the first game to pull that one.
The puzzles that repulsed me where the sounds ones. It was fairly easy to understand that the lines coordinate with the sounds but the listening over and over trying to figure out how. Like literally that sound is higher but is it 2 higher or one, which line denotes that, or they were just plain hard to hear the differences. Audio was the only thing I look up a walk through for.
I have to agree. I enjoyed having to figure out that there was a puzzle based on sound, but it got a little annoying when they try making the sounds impossible to hear with other sounds playing on top.
There are never more than 3 pitches involved in any one puzzle: low, mid, and high. All are clearly distinguishable from each other. Perhaps you’re just tone deaf.
learn to perceive pitch you froglodite
I know this is a year old but i love this so much. This is a calm, respectful view of a game pointing out what was enjoyed and what was not, while still being really interesting. He points out his own ideas and theories for the game and doesn't come across as condensing for liking or disliking the game. There are even people in the comments really intelligently and respectfully putting there opinions down. Thats doesn't happen on the internet often
Yeah no this is like the first time i've seen this
If you think this does not happen often, that says more about you than what you just watched. The internet has always been a buzzy, white-noised place, and it has always been up to you to filter out the bullshit and focusing in on what is worth doing so for. Also, someone getting more angry or whatever is not a problem or a failing.
Fantasy
I know this is a year old but i love this so much.
Yo gay
10:11 If anyone's wondering, the likely rule for this specific puzzle was an unbroken shadow from start to finish. That path is the only path that you can take from the center to the finish which has one continuous shadow along the path, with disregard to there being multiple branches that make up the shadow.
Yes, except for the lower right corner. I saw that too, and then I was like… wait… no…
@@rosed3023 No, it's still unbroken. Like Joseph says, you need to stay both in and out of shadow for the path. However, the path is roughly aligned with a shadow path that goes from the center to the finish without being broken, which is to say if you drew a line using the shadows instead of the grid, that path would be the only way to get from the center to the finish.
I see it, yeah
@@castafiorept7309 no, the line of shadow is unbroken, but the alignment with the path is definitely very broken there
@@coreythepeanut That's why I said "roughly." And even assuming you tried doing a different path than the solution because you couldn't approximate the path from the unbroken shadow, it wouldn't work because it would violate the unbroken shadow rule. If you already know the solution and rule for it, all other paths do not make sense because they would violate the rule, even if the correct path only vaguely aligns with the grid at parts (mainly being the bottom right corner and near the top left). If it makes more sense this way to you, the rule isn't to follow the shadow, but to make sure the path only ever overlaps the single unbroken shadow when it does intersect with shadows (not that it has to be in shadows or light only).
i think this game communicates everything that it wants to communicate pretty clearly (safe for 2, maybe 3 moments); for example, speaking of "tutorial levels" - it is indicated very clearly that a series of simple puzzles with a mechanic you aren't familiar with is indeed a tutorial level, led to explain to you how to solve harder puzzles with this mechanic. it makes so much sense even that whenever i encountered something i hadn't met yet, i used a boat just to travel to a place where i could learn about the puzzle in question, returning afterwards to easily solve the puzzle i had no idea how to solve before. it makes so much sense even, that you see (feel) so much difference when you first arrive to an abandoned town compared to when you come back to it after learning everything and applying your knowledge to solve all the difficult puzzles. so i really don't see where the frustation may come from.
tl;dr - imo the mechanics of the game are clearly presented, i don't think it's frustrating even slightly
I love how you so simply and yet so thoroughly explain a game that would've taken me hours to understand. I appreciate getting to hear your perspective on all these games.
I recommend playing it yourself and forming your own thoughts on it, seriously.
At 25:27 where you're talking about the platforms and boats moving too slowly, did you notice the shadow formed a circle + line on the ground in front of you? Could you perhaps trace that to start a line puzzle somewhere else? Like a bonus puzzle or something? That sticks out to me as a possible reason why it was moving so slowly
The slowness of the platforms makes solving those puzzles a real pain. You noticed the circle? Great, now you have to take 60 second platform ride back to reset it, then 60 seconds again to do it, then you find out you stood in just the wrong spot and blocked the shadow yourself and have to reset and redo it AGAIN at the painstakingly slow speed.
unless you do an accelerated back hop
@@SiisKolkytEuroo Wahoooo
Oh, hey, it's DeSinc.
@@TheGreatHsilgne who?
I saw this video when it came out and decided to wait to watch it until I played the game out of spite, now, four years later, I can finally watch it
hey, me too! I actually really enjoyed the game, and the video had some cool points in it too, for sure
how'd u like the game?
I did the same, I'm finally back.
Mm, I did the same :)
Personally, my opinion on the witness is that it's enjoyable for me to play, but I would never recommend it to anyone.
you explained yourself so clear and good that i can't resist this video regularly. this is the best example for a video essay (kinda)
9:55 the shadows aren't broke, if you look at the correct path, its. the only route between the two points that is not broken!
Holy shit. Thats all i can say. I saw this video pop up in my feed and the title perplexed me, so naturally i clicked on the video. After 40 minutes of pure wonder and enjoyment i felt as if i was sucked into the video itself, experiencing the game through someone else. Normally im not interested in long lengthy game reviews but the depth with which you took it and the information that it held had entranced me and those 40 minutes felt like 5 as i started to formulate ideas of my own about the title and the videos and the island itself.
Well done my sir, amazing video.
Agreed
I agree
Aidan Halliwell Exactly what happened to me.
Same here
Aidan Halliwell
34:08 "the result being like trying to hold a fish with epilepsy, you can't even begin to grasp it"
that's a really good line, my dude! I feel like not enough attention was brought to this!
i’m gonna steal that phrase.
Yahtzee tier
Can't wait for the review on "The Looker", lmao I bet you'll enjoy it a bit more than The Witness
Also yes I spoiled myself watching this video, instead of playing The Witness, but damn that part about the one-hour-puzzle is just a complete yikes from me. Like hell, I told my brother about this puzzle and he reacted in the same way xD
god please let Joseph make a Looker video lmao
Thank you for introducing me to this gem of a game :D
@@anona4682 You're welcome :D
There's one such puzzle in the Braid too. Stanley's Parable has a 4 hour clicking "minigame", and not to mention the achievement for not playing for one year. Don't think any developer wants you to actively complete these puzzles or achievements. They are generally not necessary for completing the game, or at most they open up a hidden ending.
To me the eclipse puzzle is a positive addition to the game that I will never complete.
@@sb-jo2ch the stanley parable one is literally a joke lol. it's a parody of this exact type of pretentious game design.
My dad made the bird calls, so thank him for those "fun" puzzles
I'm surprised at how hard this reviewer found them, I thought they on the easier side compared to most.
@@derfarctor not everyone has a super good perception and therefore intuition with sound. not everyone's good with pitch and not everyone's first assumption is that it involves pitch, especially considering the first teaching example is very easy to brute force which can lead to false positives.
@@pidza_hub7532 That is interesting. I think I had a benefit since I went into the soundproof room in the town earlier on and was in there a while looking at those puzzles, and saw the broken speaker and thought it must be sound related. So when I got to the forest and saw the panel I had an idea.
those puzzles were actually pretty cool, thank you this guys dad
I can never get over that one big line. The way you say “Because I can’t shake the feeling that Jonathan Blow is fucking with us.” never fails to crack a smile outta me.
I was dying at the clip of him moving at snail speed across the river. Never played the game but it's so obvious from that clip, the amount of insultingly easy puzzles, and especially the tone of the developer's description on the steam page that the entire game just exists to fuck with you. He's being so clearly sarcastic, it's wonderful
I think he was messing with us from start to finish. I also believe what the game teaches you is that, no matter what you think the rules are, always question. You almost never have enough evidence. More can always be revealed to help you see how limited your idea of reality is.
9:48 I got stuck on the same exact one, and after coming back to it like 10 times I finally decided to look up the answer cause I looked around the entire place for clues... I had to be missing out on a hint right? NO... it was exactly what I was trying to do except I was making an extra turn where it looked super crooked. :/
10:03 The rule is that you have to follow the only line that is connected all the way through... but it makes such awkward turns
AYYYYYYY IT'S YOU I FOUND YOU (like one year later lmao)
lol I got that probably in a first or second try. The one I hated was the one where you just have to make about a square's length worth of movement to get itright. Also a shadow puzzle.
Literally same
maybe i got lucky but right before he paused the video i tried to search for a solution and i traced the shadow coming from the endpoint and follow it back to the start - it turned out to be correct, seems very straight forward to me
"Communicating poorly then acting smug when misunderstood is not cleverness". This is a hard line to straddle for good puzzle games.
Saying that the game could have just been a menu interface where you select puzzles is at odds with the complaint about the too-long puzzle sequences such as in the treetops. One thing the world does is give you a break from puzzle solving where you can wander around and find environmental puzzles, find secrets, or just look at things.
I get the complaint about how the slow animations and travel time belie the notion that the game respects your time, but remove all the animations and make everything near instant--would that be a better experience? Still, games shouldn't include overly subjective statements like 'respects your time' in their marketing pitches.
10:05 the line’s path runs over the only branches that make a “solid” path to the exit. It’s a maze, but in shadows.
right. the shadows are not all broken. the solution is the only path where the shadows are not broken, despite what Joe says.
But the sound puzzles are weird and i have no idea what the game wants from you.
@@sgtkumpel The sound puzzles is based on pitch, high pitch is the smaller polygons, lower pitch is bigger polygon. also the one with the "waves," high for high pitch, low for low pitch, medium for medium
@@kaykrazzav2431 Also these puzzles are obviously about sound and when it comes to sound there really isn't that many things to try to make the rule. Pitch = frequency = vibration. Then there is volume but all of the sounds are about just as loud so that can be easily cast away. Then you meet some interruptions and change of what you should focus on but again, the rule of drawing stays and so you need to choose one of the sounds to follow with the rule - few different tries and you're done. It wasn't the easiest for me but it definitely wasn't unclear of what to do or try
@@FlambergeRagnarok The issue tho is for people like me that are tone deaf. I knew going into the area that some chirps were different from the others and it was based on pitch, but I couldn't differentiate them enough to know what to do. It was so bad that often times the same pitched chirps that were directly next to each other sounded like different pitches to me. If they wanted good puzzles based on pitch, they could have made it more distinguishable.
@@maverick_os I see, so the problem is mostly because of the ability to tell them apart then. I guess these puzzles were supposed to be at least a bit hard for - I would assume - the average person and so people like you didn't get a fair chance. The thing is tho - is it even possible to make a sound puzzle that would be hard and entertaining at the same time for everyone? I honestly don't think so. It would require a lot of knowledge and testing if it was. So now which was right - not include the whole puzzle section because of the fairness or keep what, imo, is a refreshing and fun concept? I know it sucks to look up answers online not because you don't know how to solve it but because you literally are unable to but complaining about it isn't really justified either is it? Since what you call an issue is a great experience for someone else. I know it was personal and uh, I suppose that is just what a big puzzle game consists of more or less - puzzle concept not everyone will enjoy. If I was the author I would understand the complaints but honestly I don't think there would much to be improved using these.
Hope I didn't sound like an asshole. I understand your pov but I just don't think it matters on a bigger picture
28:27 "I can't resolve it with the prior work that was done in Braid, either."
The Cloud.
I can't imagine somebody hasn't already brought this up, but Johnathan Blow has absolutely fucked with his audience before. The optional Stars in Braid were extra cheallenges that have absolutely no bearing on anything outside of the game, were very easy to miss, and ranged in acquisition method from completing *extremely* refined and finicky puzzles (oftentimes themselves requiring the solving of a meta-puzzle in the main area of the game to get Jim bounced out of the map to where the actual Star puzzle was) to recognizing and creating a Star in the environment before finishing a literal puzzle, as doing so would lock you out of getting that Star forever on that particular save file.
The most infamous, however, is The Cloud. In one of the earlier levels there is a single cloud which requires a little finagling to reach. This cloud moves so slowly as to appear almost static on observation, but in reality is making its way from the far right of the screen to the far left. If Jim jumps on the cloud and rides it to the left, the screen will scroll and give him access to one of the Stars. This cloud takes roughly forty-five minutes to move from its starting position to the point where Jim can actually jump on it; it takes over *two hours* to get all the way to the left side of the screen.
And you just have to sit there and wait. Whether it's for the cloud to reach the point where you can jump on it or for the cloud to actually reach its destination, you are going to plant Jim somewhere in the level and do almost *nothing* for two hours.
Requiring you to sit somewhere for 56 minutes while a moon slowly moves across a screen is, frankly, absurd, but not unprecedented, and I would wager almost anything that this particular puzzle was actually a reference/joke to Braid's cloud.
But is that meant to mean something more or is it purely about making the player mad? What's the point. Is he just chaotic neutral and have no point?
@@evanhenderson9461 he holds a very, very high opinion of himself. If the interviews show anything, it's that he beliefs this is "postmodern phylosophical art", and thinks only simpletons would find it infuriating. Yeah he's one of THOSE artists, the "holier than though" "illuminated" fart sniffing kind. His interviews are genuinely cringe inducing. I love his games but he's a real piece of work.
I don't think it's holier than thou, if you want to fuck with your audience, then you should have every right to.
@@manuelaonida995 You should have that right, but you're still a dickhead if you use it.
Yes, but really no. See, there's a difference between doing something dumb to make someone mad and doing something dumb and just so happening to make someone mad -in this case, you can add "do something pretentiously" to the latter one.
I'm a rude person, but I don't pretend there's some deeper meaning to it, I just don't like being all polite and nice and stuff, if you have something to say, say it. As one of those kinds of people, I can tell you that this The Cloud business isn't that at all -it isn't being mean/boring/dumb/etc for the sake of being that way/because it wants to, it's somewhat clearly an example of someone attaching some deeper meaning to it (likely just seeing "how bad you want it" or, more fittingly, "do you deserve it if you don't go through the trouble?")
9:46
The correct path is the only one, where the shadows are connected all the way.
It seems like it's not about staying under the shadows, rather following the general path of the one that goes to the end.
this video was actually really interesting. I find myself normally not watching these type of analysis videos but I am glad i took a chance on this one
With recent developments, its really funny that Joe apologizes twice for this 40 minute video's extended length.
What recent developments
@@triangularfish6487 go watch the witchers vids
@@triangularfish6487 Joe's most recent video released was 5 hours long and the one before that 4 hours long. He has far surpassed his former record and what any other youtuber would view as a reasonable video length and production time.
@@adirsu2826 well, its not that past what ALL youtubers would dub reasonable length. Patriciantv has an 8 hour video essay on morrowind and a 12 hour one one on Oblivion, for example
Back when he made this 5 years ago, an hour video is probably the equivalent to a 5 hour video now lol. Something something, time inflation.
the first thing i did as i walked out of the tunnel, and found a perspective puzzle that lead me down a 20 minute secret ending.
Yeah, that's an unfortunate possibility. Jonathan Blow, when asked about this, said he wanted to be very careful not to force this to be the last thing players do and accepts that this can happen. If you actually follow the game to completion, this does end up being the last thing you do; leaving the garden area at the beginning disables your ability to complete this environment puzzle, but one of the last things there is to unlock shows you how to undo this and bring that light gate back up.
Yep me too. I saw someone play a few minutes of the game on CZcams so I already knew that you could use the environment
NetherGranite It can be re-enabled, but I'm not spoiling how.
unfasten Yeah I mentioned that, "one of the last things there is to unlock shows you how to undo this and bring that light gate back up". I'd be really interested to see what percentage of players ever actually come across it.
NetherGranite Whoops, sorry I didn't read your comment thoroughly.
Thank you for your honest and clear review. I started playing this game and I love puzzle games which are pretty much the only ones I purchase. This game, though I did like... mostly, I will agree did become tedious. I didn't feel like I was getting much in the way of reward. It felt more like a method of time killing. I've only put in about 10 hours and now that I've seen your review, I just don't feel the sacrifice in time is worth the effort. Again thanks :)
Oh my god, this is the video I first watched on your channel and then I never found your channel again.
I am glad to be back. Really enjoying your thorough reviews and the way your word your reasonings.
10:10 The thing is that there is exactly one way where the shadows stay unbroken to follow them to the exit point. Basically the rule here was "FInd a shadowed way to the exit". I noticed that only after you showed the right way.
im taking a gander here, but at 25:37 you're talking about how slow one of the animations was, but i noticed that a shadow passing by formed a dot and line, so it mightve been a puzzle the game was trying to get you to notice
I noticed that too, and I'm convinced it is
Yep, it is. And that’s why it moves so slow.
But that puzzle doesn't need to exist. Even then, other, more easily screwed up puzzles (like the one with the boat) move much faster. The puzzle isn't warrant enough for that slog.
The problem is that it moves so fucking slow even when you do notice the puzzle, it still takes the full 30 seconds just to draw a line, it's not some complicated puzzle to solve, it's linear and straightforward, but still requires an absurd amount of time to complete. Not only that but there's multiple of these puzzles that take unnecessarily long to complete, in the examples at 25:37 you have to ride that platform both ways, meaning it takes a whole minute and a half to finish both puzzles if you want to continue in the same way. In that swamp section alone there are at least 10 or so puzzles that require waiting for them, but if you know what your looking for it becomes painfully obvious when you get to the next slow-moving platform that there's a secret hidden there. You probably spend a good 30 minutes in this game just waiting for something to line up. Later on in the game there literally puzzles you might have to wait 14 minutes to solve, just because certain things don't line up at that time. After playing the game it was probably the one thing I hated the most, and should have been noticed and fixed in development.
@@kayar8463 You should really look up some of the developers' commentary on this. This game is not supposed to be played at a fast pace. It's sort of like a meditation and sees value in stopping and looking around once in a while. If you want everything to go as efficient as possible, this is absolutely not a game for you, and thats okay of course!
its rare to find small-ish channels that make videos this long who put this much care into the captions, down to correctly marking when youre correcting somewhere you misspoke and adding indications of tone where its important. im not deaf or HoH (i just struggle to process audio in some circumstances) but as a disabled person i really appreciate it :)
When he corrected "point of views" to "[point of view]" I laughed out loud, almost explains why he had trouble with some of the puzzles (especially the musical ones)
Kinda crazy that someone with more than 700k followers can be called small these days
9:46 it is indeed fairly obscure, but I believe the idea is that the intended path is the only fully connected line possible in the branches - then just take the closest lines to that on the puzzle
Since the game uses footage of Rupert Spira, I think by "The Witness" it's referring to the consciousness behind a person. The game doesn't explain itself or its puzzles because it's trying to recreate the feeling of witnessing something without any context, and figuring it out on your own merit. Or something like that.
Yeah, I also started to think that it tried to convey some idea of how the perception of reality is more of an illusion.
The proudest I was playing this game was in the town, there's one line of sight puzzle in a building that requires you to open the door for the line of sight, but I hadn't learned about the rules for the door puzzle yet, so I deduced what the line of sight must have been and solved the puzzle without opening the door.
25:24 there's a half circle in the shadow on the moving platform that eventually becomes a full circle as the platform moves, so I can see how you say that the environment puzzles are extreme time wasters if you have to find all of those.
There aren't very many slow puzzles like that, and all of the environment puzzles are optional (you don't get achievements for them), so it's entirely up to the player how many of these more tedious ones they want to complete. I can see it being irritating for completionists who want to do them all in one go, but for me it means that there's always a few more puzzles to find if I want to return to the island later.
Oh boy, then get ready for that one part in... spoilers,
The theatre where you have to do one of the Enviro Puzzles where you have to wait for almost a FULL F****** HOUR TO FINISH IT LMAO. Im not joking.
Listening to him complain about how slow the platform moves as he disregards the puzzle that is obviously there was pretty funny though.
Like, of course the platform moves slow, so you have enough time to figure out there is a puzzle there.
I just noticed that as well, but if you’ve already completed the puzzle once, it’s a waste of time. Or if you don’t care about the environmental puzzles, it’s a waste of time. I understand the thought behind it, but it likely causes more frustration than it’s worth.
one of my favorite movies, im thinking of ending things, is what i immediately thought of when you said simple story complexly told
"Do you want a piece of cake Joseph?"
Joseph : *proceeds to make an hour long video to explain why he doesn't like cake*
I don't like cake, it's true.
@@JosephAndersonChannel Knew it. Love your videos by the way, even when they're 3 hours long ;)
@@JosephAndersonChannel I thought i was the only one! I have birthday brownies instead cause I hate cake.
The cake is a lie. LOL
@@daedreaming6267 wait, brownies aren't cakes?
before even watching the video i can say my main criticism of the game was i accidentally found the secret ending and finished the game a minute in and it was so confusing at the time
well in all fairness, the game is completely abstract and nonlinear, even if you do all the puzzles its not meant to be *not* confusing, its meant to be up to your interpretation
@@Muzazabi you can call what you want. that’s what happened when i played
@korrok Well, Spyro Enter the Dragonfly sure does 🤭. If you go to the end portal in the beginning and do a headbash you can start the final boss immediately and win in like 2 minutes. I still love that janky game.
More than 1 puzzle!
Do you mean the door with the sun? I walked outside and spotted that about twenty minutes in and got a huge cutscene after where the developer unplugged from the game. Shit was wild, I just kept playing after lol. Very strange narrative.
To me this game was a good puzzle game. And honestly I think the game is Jonathan Blow's homage to the Myst series, as there haven't been any real games like Myst for a while until this game.
Obduction is a thing.
Outer Wilds too!
Both of which came out after this, geniuses..
Besides being set on an island this game really doesn't have anything in common with Myst.
@@ryanporterhouseouter wilds is so much better though. This is just a Sunday newspaper not a game
I watched this video while waiting on the eclipse puzzle
this is one of my comfort videos. i come back to it every few months when i feel particularly depressed. thank you for creating such a nice, detailed review of a beautiful game.
same, absolutely legendary video
any other good video game essays as comfort videos to recomend?
@@kephalai my favourite one is "Pathologic is Genius, And Here's Why" by hbomberguy
that's odd me too
Same!!
This game broke my heart. I got to the end and it reset all my progress. I wanted all the doors to be opened. I wanted to show how far I had come. When I got to the elevator, all my proof of progress was erased.
just load the save smh
You could just load the save and open the elevator door
@@LorenzoLame80085 didn't work on PS5 ☹️
@@Elighght it does work on ps5
Great video! I love coming back here every few years to rewatch it, it's very soothing and well explained. I recently watched aliensrock beat the game, very impressively getting the boat puzzle incredibly quickly (he excelled at pretty much all the puzzles). So i had to come back and rewatch your review!
7:12 I'm glad you acknowledged that it would be very frustrating to not notice that. Indeed it was. I kept thinking there was something in the environment or something to do with the symbols at the entrance. In hindsight I guess you could interpret that hexagon thingy on the entrance and on the panels as a sun, but it's not very clear.
Also even after figuring it out it was probably my least favorite area to chug through so far, but that might just be because I was trying to do it at 3am.
I read the story as an attempt to make people better understand Obsessive Compulsive Disorder. The constant compulsion to find and complete patterns that never pays off but never recedes.
You know it would've actually been amazing if it was about that, mental health is something that's often not talked about.
I know people with OCD and an OCD simulator sounds like a terrible time I dont want to deal with that
That's not what OCD is. It's an anxiety disorder, which means that people who suffer from it are bound by their compulsions to stop something "bad" from happening, which is a kind of torture. Most people mistakenly think it's a case of merely scratching an irresistible itch... if only it were so mundane.
@@FanPhys I think it really has a spectrum. I personally think I have OCD but its just not full blown and I don't really feel like something bad will happen. I just get super irritated and feel like something isn't right, but perhaps that's just perfectionism however I feel like they undoubtedly linked to the same root cause.
@@simonw3858 get yourself checked out by a mental health professional. Undoubtedly there must be degrees of severity of it. But it's like with all mental disorders, something is only a mental disorder if it starts interfering with your ability to live a normal life, and usually they're things that everyone has, just turned up in intensity to the point where it stops people from doing normal things. Like paranoid schizophrenia is regular paranoia and fight or flight response that everyone has, just turned up way too high, and focused on the wrong things (I'd know, I have paranoid schizophrenia). So if you have certain symptoms of OCD but they're only a mild annoyance, then it's not a mental disorder. People with _actual_ OCD think they're going to die and all their family will die if they don't do these specific routines and behaviors. OCD is _not_ just being neat. And the fact people use what can be a very serious illness that leads to suicide as just a joke, or a casual thing to say tongue in cheek like "oh I'm so OCD haha" annoys the hell out of me. People kill themselves over it. It's not just a funny personality quirk. So yeah I'm not at all saying you're one of these kind of people, I'm just saying if these feelings you have are interfering with your life and things that you want to do, please do get medical advice and help. It might be a simple thing that can relatively easily be overcome and your life would be happier because of it.
wow, you kept me engaged for 40 fucking minutes - impressive since I tend to stop doi
😂😂😂😂
theres 666 likes on this comment RUN
All he did was complain about things he didn't understand.
Something The Witness failed to do.
Oh, there they go.
15:45 I just went and double-checked, and this puzzle is both a shadow AND sun-glare puzzle. Without both of those things it couldn't be solved. The shadow line starts and ends in a place where you can't solve the puzzle, which should be a hint that you're missing some information. All of these kinds of puzzles are about gaining new information through changing your perspective - which is basically the entire theme of the game - and whilst I understand they can be frustrating, almost all of the problems people had with these puzzles were because they missed something.
Similarly at 9:48 this one is tricky, but there is a logic to it. Basically you solve these puzzles through a combination of analogy and contradiction. First of all, the shadows are showing you an analogous path. That is, you need to follow the twists & turns that are the closest to the shadows. The shadows can always deviate from the line, but if it's the correct line, then they will rejoin it soon after without actually being discontinuous. If you're not sure, try contradiction, ie, try to break it. Try a different path and see if that path makes more or less sense. Just sort of feel it out, there is always one path that makes more sense than the others.
If just "feeling it out" doesn't work for you, the analogy can be made more explicit: wherever a branch of the shadow terminates in a dead-end, that path is the wrong path. So starting in the middle and going left then down is no good, because that shadow terminates.
For the bottom right corner, which a lot of people struggled with, there are two hints. Using a coordinate grid that starts in the top left corner as my reference, the choice is between the 4,4 junction and the 5,5 junction. The 4,4 junction has a shadow that terminates at it, hinting that it might be the wrong way. Secondly the shadow that continues stays nearer the bottom of that square, hinting that the bottom path towards 5,5 is the way to go.
It's fuzzy, but there is a logic to it. The whole game is about thinking in new ways and understanding rules you didn't before.
And if you had to look up an answer, personally I think that's okay. I don't see it as a personal failing to have to look up an answer every now and then, and I don't see it as a failing of a game that sometimes people have to do this.
Yeah, I thought it was obvious that you weren't meant to solve that puzzle yet and had to look at it from the other rooftop, which is directly across from it.
I had a whole paragraph typed up, but I decided to respect y'alls time: Witness should've just been environmental puzzles, and there should've been fewer of those too.
I don't know you nor do i give a shit about the game your talking about but i still watched the video all way through and liked is very much, great video.
Stejn_ omg same here. video is insanely interesting and done greatly.
Stejn_ the video is much more interesting than the game lol
Jerod Wolf Well, that's for sure.
same lmaooo
Stejn_ Same, maybe the new CZcams algorithm is for the best
Oh my god this freakin game. I remember sending screenshots of puzzles to family, begging them to help me figure out wtf I was supposed to do. I know exactly how this guy feels because half the time I wanted to set my Xbox on fire, and the other half I was delighted.
Not very smart then are you
@@_Pike bruh I wanna see u playing it blind and have no troubles, this game is no joke 😂
I keep getting recommended this video every couple years and its always worth the watch
It's kinda funny, I agree everything said in the first few minutes of the video, but only for a set of completely different puzzles. The moment you said that some puzzles were poorly communicated, I immediately visualized a list of puzzles in my head that ended up having no overlap with the examples you brought up. While our complaints about difficulty are the same, we experienced difficulty at completely different points. I think it's natural that anyone gets stuck in a certain perspective approaching puzzles in The Witness, but labelling that as a flaw of The Witness and not of explorative puzzle games as a whole might imply that games like The Witness shouldn't exist, or can't be well-made. I don't really agree with that, I think that the metroidvania-like nature of the game is uniquely compelling and is better off having an open world than a linear one, (3:25 the game didn't have to be an open island so it's not that forgivable), so let me share my experiences with the puzzles pointed out in the video --
3:06 The panel this is introduced has no symbols on it at all. This is the same for the orchard puzzle. With some reasoning, I was able to figure that the answer doesn't lie within the panel as there's nothing on the panel, and that the information lies elsewhere. The majority of players will first be introduced to these kinds of environmental puzzles in these two places, symmetry and orchard, and both of them seem to be as clear as possible. Symmetry island especially, as with how the game subtly forces you to notice the symmetry reflected in the water with the way the wall opens up in the glass factory, and how the path leading up to that area is on an ocean cliffside.
7:00 Looking at this panel you can see three red stars and three purple stars, which knowing about how the star symbols need to be paired up, would make the panel impossible to solve. Assuming that the players figured out that the town area is an end-level area that they should come back to once they've figured out all the base mechanics, and assuming by now they've found the boat which has a map that points out where all the basic game mechanics can be found, it makes sense the player would understand how the colours of stars can be altered, and how they would begin to look for coloured glass in the environment as I did.
7:22 With the amount of panels in that area, and the fact the answers can be seen in their etching before the panels are usable, I feel like the mechanic of this area would be very difficult for me to miss, especially considering that like other areas, the lack of symbols implies the answer is in the environment. I'm kind of curious though, with all the games subtle pushes, whether there was anything in that area that would push me to find the answer had I not immediately seen it.
7:44 Because this is the second door, and because the first door used a different mechanic, I ended up figuring that the panel wasn't a tutorial panel, and that I was supposed to figure out how to unlock it elsewhere. If this was the first door, I would've definitely had the same complaint as you, but considering the first door is easily solvable for anyone that's explored the first area, I can't help but feel this design choice was intentional.
9:10 I find it interesting that the Black Knight is referenced here. The design intention is that the knight's there to give the player motivation, a challenge to come back to once they're stronger, to allow the player to feel like they've *grown* stronger. It's usually the player who tries to brute force it, just to prove that they can. In that sense, The Witness also works with that power fantasy of gaining knowledge that allows you to overcome previously difficult challenges- but then, is it the fault of Dark Souls if you frustrate yourself to the point of misery by dying to the Black Knight over and over again? Is it the fault of The Witness if you try and brute force a puzzle you clearly don't have the tools to understand? It's a shame that few games apart from Dark Souls don't give you optional challenges early on - because it's that exact form of conceited masochism that discourages designers from including them. The Witness doesn't even introduce them as optional challenges, but in your experiences of the game, it falls for the same problem.
9:47 A ton of comments are about how easy this puzzle was for them, and I've got to agree. You just follow the unbroken line of shadow. In the previous puzzle shown a few seconds earlier in the video, it even shows how that line of shadow can often move away from the grid path, and you just need to follow whatever's closest. I'm not saying that you're dumb if you struggled with this, I had a ridiculous amount of struggle completing puzzles others thought were easy, but I realize that doesn't mean the puzzle isn't logical- it's inevitable I struggle somewhere at some point, and that's not the games fault.
10:54 I also had to look up a guide for this one. The problem for me wasn't that it's unclear what the game wants you to look for though, it felt pretty obvious from the first panel that you're measuring pitch. The problem is the way the game develops on these puzzles, as instead of making the sounds louder or more complex, they instead start overlapping sounds, something I thought the game took way too far as I struggled to hear the soft noise of a sparrow as an orchestra of ringing phones and screeching hawks played repeatedly over and over and WHY would ANY DEVELOPER who claims they're trying to make a "ZEN EXPERIENCE" add something so ANNUERISM INDUCING. HOLY FUCK I can hear the fuses popping in my head. WHY?! . . . This was also the issue I had with the final area of the game, as a lot of the epilepsy flashing colour panels and broken screens felt inaccessible and uncomfortable, like, the sickening kind of uncomfortable that makes you want to quit.
11:30 You know, on a more existential level, this is pretty interesting to me. While the other section of the jungle gave my soul tinnitus, this section was ridiculously easy for me. You just listen to the pitches of the bird sounds, I didn't even think about it much. The fact that you struggled so much with this isn't an issue of perspective , approach, or problem solving ability, but an issue of whether the two of us even experience sound the same way. Colour blindness is well documented, but what about hearing?
11:54 Yeah the sunken ship was sort of a colossus, but it was colossus that was hidden away in the corner of a map, guarding an optional collectible, so I don't mind the game having an extremely difficult puzzle like that. All the mechanics that puzzle uses can be figured out by the symbols on the board though; the different sized hexagons only appeared in sound puzzles, the inability to move your line freely only appears in hidden symmetry puzzles, and the different coloured symbols explain themselves, and the mismatched and odd number of hexagon sizes and colours imply there's two different sounds to look out for. Despite how difficult it was, I wouldn't say the ship puzzle couldn't be solved logically.
15:44 To be honest, this is the reason I'm writing all this, cause this was one of my favourite panels in the game. In order to open up that panel, you need to complete another panel with three separate solutions. The first solution requires you to follow the shadows cast on it. The second solution requires you to look at the panel from above while the light's reflected off of it. And the third solution requires you to look at the panel through a nearby window. This panel is the culmination of all three of the previous panels solutions, requiring you to follow the shadow on the top half of the puzzle, while standing at a specific point to reflect light off of the second half of the puzzle, that point being through an elevated nearby window. It might seem like a leap to do this, but the puzzle is by no means a difficult to solve without making this leap at all, as once again with all environmental puzzles, the fact that no symbols are given makes it clear that the solution will be somewhere in the environment.
Alright, I know that this is all a ridiculous amount to write for a 4-5 year old video - I'd have to write at least half a dozen times this amount if I wanted to touch on the games themes - but I just like writing about games, and the difference in our experiences raises interesting points about designing and playing these games altogether. I mean, at what point does the self-destructive tendencies of a player become a developers problem? No-matter how logical the puzzles are presented, unless the game is extremely linear with little to no subversion of its own mechanics, or no solutions that are discovered rather than solved, the player will inevitably roadblock and frustrate themselves- but if the developer designs specifically around this problem, then the entire game just becomes the treehouse area. A pretty environment, with rows and rows of mobile-game puzzle panels. You said at the start of the video that it's the games fault for not being linear, that it chose to be open world, but I think that's unfair. It's choice to be open world was a necessary one, and by extension, the caveats of that choice were also necessary. To say that the game can't be forgiven for this problem, is to say that The Witness could never work as a game altogether. What I'm afraid of, is the idea that this might actually be true.
I agree with all of your points about how all puzzles can be solved through a process of logical thinking. About the desert area, the puzzles are in the middle of a sun baked temple that is bright and very dry, so there is a heavy emphasis on sunlight. Even walking up to the front of the temple throws blinding reflections at you. However, I will concede that a good amount of the puzzles cater to the "fittest", namely those who can easily determine pitch, are not repulsed by flashing colors, and have excellent spatial awareness. In that way, this game is definitely not for everybody, but instead for someone like me who loves the joy of discovering the secret to a solution half an hour later and weeding out the deepest secrets.
You have an amazing ability to keep the attention of others on something. I'm not interested in this game although, it seems interesting. You're commentary and videos are amazing, keep it up!
Thanks!
the title pulled me in, you kept me
check out Talos Principle ,sir! now that's the puzzle game=)
Agreed. I didn't intend on watching the whole thing, yet here I am, 41 min later. Amazing work Joseph!
Your*
Fun fact: in the sequence where the player wakes up and starts seeing patterns in the kitchen, and picks up a biscuit from the counter, they have something stuck to their left forearm. I don't know what it's supposed to be, but I would recognize that anywhere. It's a 2-way Foley catheter statlok. In other words, it's used to secure urinary catheters to your thigh, so you can't pull them out of your pee-pee and make a big mess.
Some of the puzzles were straightforward, some were so obtuse as to be impossible (for me), but there were a few right on that super-challenging but still gettable line that made the whole experience for me. One in particular was one of the full-size mazes that you have to walk on to solve it, but you can't since the platform has obstacles that break the solution. That one puzzle completely changed my perspective on how to look at solving problems and was one of my fave moments in gaming.
Simple -possible- explanation to the title of the game.
We are the witness, the player, to perspective. That's it, since the game is all about exactly that.
35:35 You see an unlabeled jug of applejuice. But that coder fell asleep at his desk... sofa. Anyways, long story short: That pee.
The Garnet Gamer I just almost woke my wife up laughing. This is best comment
Yes, Jonathan Blow had a famous tweet about the jug on January 22, 2016. Search the web for "jonathan blow twitter jug"
I know this comment is a year old, but - the coder was not "asleep," he was immersed in the VR of the game itself. The bottle has a tube going into it, suggesting he's wearing a catheter. When he sits up he unplugs his headset from the system that was running the simulation. It's like he was plugged into the game, like Neo into the Matrix
@@ojrprobert dont remember this comment, or the co text behind it, but I'll take your word on it and say "good catch!" I clearly missed that
@@ojrprobert good one
Okay. I got to the river part and that's enough, you fucking sold me.
i think its a really good game until it gets ultra hard
After spending the time In the Hall of the Mountain King, I still get anxious and sweaty hearing it again.
Me too. Stopped the video at that point.
Update: I got around to play the game just recently, I think I've been at it for about two weeks. I get stuck a lot, but when I manage to tune my brain to the game's logic, it's... I can hardly think of any other experiences I had with video games that were as rewarding as those moments. Sometimes it's like a treasure hunt, sometimes it feels more like learning a language... I could talk about it for hours.
Just finished it. Past my simultaneous awe and anger, I have so much to comment about.
7:38 Yeah, that bit. Even learning about it in the marsh area, I couldn't work that out. Turned out being the only thing I had to look up. I even got stuck in there, I mean, physically, because I didn't know you could solve again the platform puzzle in a different way to retrace your steps.
9:04 Exact same thing here. I noticed that the boat maps had markings that corresponded to the different tutorial areas, everything went better then.
10:07 It's about the branch connections. You follow the closest you can the shadow of the branch as it gets closer to the goal. But yes, that was fucked up.
11:25 That part, Jesus. First I got fucking stuck after the first panel. Had no damn clue. I thought the birds were just part of the jungle soundscape. Then I noticed the loudspeaker and realized the birdsong was coming from there. That part is about the pitch of the sound. You have either two or three paths, the higher the pitch of the bird tweet, the upper the line you need to go through. Then it's the same thing, only the higher pitch sounds are represented by smaller dots.
12:00 I couldn't figure that out on my own. And I think I couldn't have, either.
Overall, completely agree. Loved it, fuck it.
For the shadow puzzle at 10:06 the pattern is that that shadow is the only one without any breaks that leads to the finish. There are separate branches but they are all the same shadow.
28:00 He pulled something similar to this in Braid. In Braid there are some hidden stars you need to get for a secret ending, one of these stars literally forces you to wait for 2 hours.The other 7 stars were hidden so well that the only real way to find them would be as a community.