The Witness

The Witness has engaged me in a way that I haven’t experienced in a long time. I should have expected nothing less from the very anticipated puzzle game from the creator of the much loved Braid, but the overall style and intrigue from the moment you first load up the game and encounter your first challenge gripped me instantly and didn’t let me go. Exploring the beautiful and strange island and testing my wit felt like learning another language so that I too was able to communicate in this world, and as I tackled each new area and style of puzzle, the feeling of being out of my depth was eventually replaced with one of pure glee and accomplishment. It’s a feeling that video games don’t often achieve, and the fact that it happens so often here is a testament to its incredibly smart game design.

The motivation behind completing each section is simple but intriguing; once you’ve solved an area, a beam of light shoots from where you are towards the top of a mountain. As you progress, more and more beams shoot towards the ominous endpoint and raise questions about “what happened on the island?” and “what does it all mean?” Piecing it together certainly is intriguing and provides a sort of finish line for those who need it, but honestly my time spent exploring was enjoyable enough in the first place. There is a certain rhythm to completing area after area, and because everything is accessible from the start, you’re free to tackle things in any order you wish, but there are puzzles you’ll encounter as you explore that you quite literally won’t understand.

This suggestion is made even easier to digest when the island itself is so beautifully crafted, with bright colours and varied locations, like the gorgeous pink cherry blossoms, the vibrant green bamboo forest and the vast golden desert with the sun beaming down brightly. The visuals help to define puzzle areas but are more than just that; they are wonderfully crafted and genuinely pretty, and they are further enhanced by the multiple different perspectives you get to enjoy them from when viewing from certain angles and higher vantage points.

When you encounter puzzles late in the game that take advantage of several different rules that you’ve learned and wants you to apply them all as a combination, it is super satisfying to complete these puzzles and reflect on the beginning where you were merely drawing a straight line from one end of a maze to another. Look at how far you’ve come and look at what you’ve achieved.