jonathan blows the witness

King of Posters
#109

Okay, about an hour and a half in. Found the movie theater. Also found one of the hexagonal notes earlier, but on my way back there my girlfriend started feeling really sick. She’s not normally into games, but this is something that’ll run on my laptop, so I thought it’d be something to enjoy together on the couch. And having two people staring at the puzzles seems helpful too.

Looking online, a lot of people are feeling queasy playing this, and there’s talk about patching in a FOV slider and reticule. Hmm. Anyway, might continue alone in a bit.

Opened one yellow box so far, on a cliff by the water near the boathouse-thing.

I got stumped (ha ha) on the puzzles in the area with the pink trees near the windmill just after figuring it out when there was a tree without an apple. I’m guessing the tree the panel represents is somewhere on the other side of the island…

There was a panel on the ground near the movie theater that looked exactly like one on the ground in a hidden area near the starting area. I solved them both but I don’t know what they do or what the yellow triangle/arrow on them means.

Really enjoying it so far, but I hope this motion sickness issue gets fixed. Not sure if I’ll be able to stick to it without company.

What should be the spoiler policy in this thread, btw?

#110

I am also playing this on the couch with my fiance and it’s very helpful to have a second set of eyes. She lost the thread and went back to reading Ringworld when I was in the swamp, though.

I think discrete descriptions of the section followed by spoilers works. I appreciate @Chevluh concealing The Big Thing.

RE: panels on the ground I’m not so sure those are arrows. I’ve found several more.

Hint RE: trees look at the shape of the pictogram on the panel.

#111

It looks like the FOV is adjustable in some settings file; that could help!

Spoiler anything that talks about the process of solving puzzles (or surprising discoveries). Talking generally about areas I think is fine!

#112

Re: pink trees, that one took me a while to realize what I needed to do to solve it. The one thing I might say is that you’re already looking at the right tree; you don’t need to second-guess that aspect.

Has anybody opened the yellow box above the greenhouse? I can move the elevator inside, but I think I’m one floor shy of my destination.

#113

Whoops, yeah, got it now. That was easier than I thought.

I got a movie that wasn’t the one that’s been mentioned. It was a clip from a BBC documentary with a guy talking.

Messing around with the FOV a bit now. We’ll see how it goes…

#114

i can’t believe you managed a tmkfpost about dick doodles :B

I can relate to the rejection of/disgust at “maleness” from a young age. it’s why i’m now genderqueer! that said i’m also bi sooo it’s safe to say i’m okay with dicks

I had a friend in college who was an RA and she put up a big sheet of paper on the wall of her hall for people to draw their dicks/boobies/etc. on instead of on the bathroom mirrors and stalls

tmkf dishes on dicks
#115

Yeah, I’m nonbinary myself. I was mostly joking in that previous post of mine, but I’m glad it led to those gender posts, because they were super good.

tmkf dishes on dicks
#116

I am entirely comfortable with my bog-standard masculinity and – to quote stuart murdoch – heterosexual to the point of boring myself, but I still think they were good!

#117

I’m planning to spend most of my evening playing this game. Puzzles were sort of rolling around in my head at work. I’m very excited to see what else is in the swamp area! That’s definitely been my favorite sequence so far; maybe because it sort of reminds me of Slitherlink or Picross.

Oh, I want to figure out the tree temple, too. I got stuck on what I think is the last puzzle in that area.

#120

My evening is set, too.

I have a craving for novelty in exploration so this game is holding my interest like very little else in a long time. I also enjoy the puzzles intrinsically, which seems to be the determining factor in enjoying the package.

1 Like
#121

This post was flagged by the community and is temporarily hidden.

tmkf dishes on dicks
#122

This post was flagged by the community and is temporarily hidden.

#123

Studies have shown that huge throbbing cocks are one of the most exciting things for straight-identifying men when watching porn

Penises and butts are cool

I dunno about this game but it sure seems like a lot of people were ready to instantly damn it to H.E.L.L. and back again because Blow has said a lot of stupid stuff (??)

2 Likes
#124

I’ve got seven boxes now, ie enough for the endgame (314 puzzles+64), will try tomorrow. I’ve found exactly one frustrating puzzle so far, in that the placement is really finnicky (EDIT: looks like it may be a bug, other people are encountering the same issue). I know i’m doing the right thing as I completed a harder variant of the exact same puzzle but for some reason it just does not want to place the line where it should - I see it jumping back and forth.

Well, there’s also the fact I’m color blind so a recent wave of puzzles that rely on red/green icons have been a problem. Otherwise, still super enjoyable.

1 Like
#125

Good work! I’m super envious; this work schedule of mine limits me to about two hours of play a day. I am guessing that the glitchy path is one necessary to illuminate a symbol on an obelisk, solved while on a boat?

#126

How much time have you put in so far?

I find this game super peaceful and almost meditative; I’ve got 5 hours in and 160ish puzzles done.

#127

I don’t even know how you check how many puzzles you’ve done

so yeah I’ve played this a bit, at any rate. I like how you can just leave a puzzle to go somewhere else. my attention span for a single spatial puzzle in front of my face is pretty low, and I would rate myself as Bad at this kind of shit, so that’s appreciated.

but no, I don’t think a game where you walk into signs that say DO PUZZLE HERE can be as good as Riven. presumably it comes together a bit, as this thread has hinted at, but it’s still too clinical in the moment to moment. I need to see how the island develops as an actual construct. there’s an optional string of puzzles at the beginning that felt fun to find, but the end result is just a door opening that doesn’t seem to do anything and an einstein audio log. zzzz.

1 Like
#128

Press “load game” and your save file will be named with how many puzzles you’ve completed.

#129

I know how the tetris pieces work now!

though I’m stuck on the third in a string of four of them…

at like 119/3hrs, by the way.

#130

Oof yeah, those Tetris puzzles get rather tricky, especially when they add the empty blocks. I had to walk away from that area and tackle some other types of puzzles to clear my head a bit.

It feels like they take a lot of spacial reasoning to do them in your head, and graph paper isn’t terribly helpful either because of how dynamic they can be.

I really like how they introduce you to the different facets of them through example and counter-example. There were multiple times when I thought the initial state was impossible, and I had to rework the rules of them in my head to cover that case as well.