huh. well, I think this is probably a significant part of why I finished this game relatively quickly whereas I never had remotely enough patience or intuition for myst or riven (also why I still don’t know how the obelisks work) – I have to make a very significant effort to not focus on what’s in front of me.
I don’t think it’s a question of your personal quirk, the game purposely overtrains the player to only focus on panels, then challenges the player to break from that training and be proud of themselves for doing so. It’s an interesting way of toying with player psychology. In a way, the entire obelisk reveal is a bit of a psychological trick and wouldn’t be so notable if the game was open with it from the beginning.
well, I’m also not that enthusiastic about the idea of doing so
like, knowing it’s there without having discovered it myself up to this point … hard to want to go after that, now. seems arbitrary at best. I’m terrible about exploration for its own sake.
There’s a lot of meaty substance to the obelisk stuff even after you’ve learned on the basic rule. It becomes something you can mostly approach systematically like the rest of the game, rather than intuition, at that point. I think a basic principle of most of the stuff in the Witness is intuition-only-as-initial-spark, and then logic carrying you to the depths from there.
Personally I think the point of discovery is a bit overdone as a key moment and I don’t really regret getting spoiled on it. If you want a semi-spoiler, there are some locations in the game which appear intended to be places where many players discover obelisk principles. The most obvious one is on the mountaintop, so if you want a starting point without needing to explore aimlessly through the whole game, go look closely there and see what you find.
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Holy moly I found the true final boss.
And then was blown away by its last barrage. It’s glorious and furious. So it still stands between me and, maybe, a true end.
Current score is 506+129+3
Felix> Actually I feel it’s a bit of a pity the obelisks have been mentioned outside of spoilers by people without a second thought but I stand by what I said, there’s an obelisk tutorial on the island and I’m sure you’ve solved it. You just didn’t realize what you were looking at. Also if it’s the allure of mystery you’re missing, there’s still something big to find that’s unrelated to them.
thanks folks. I’ll have a go at it tonight, probably.
So what were your first obelisk puzzle discoveries, all
I’d talk about mine but I don’t know how to spoilertext. Help
just type [ spoiler][/spoiler] without the space after the first bracket.
Thanks!
So I had found the boat, and thought that it was a weirdly inefficient fast travel method and there had to be something more about it. The 5 different boat speeds were super suspicious.
I then noticed the big obvious line at the pier between the tutorial area and the greenhouse. I thought I had unlocked amazing but slowly realized that these things were absolutely everywhere
For me, it was the desert temple. I still haven’t solved the first actual panel puzzle in that place because I haven’t figured out what it’s referring to. But while trying to figure that out, I was looking down on the sun diagram/steps from above, and my wife said, “Why don’t you just draw right on that?” My jaw dropped a little. I knew I kept her around for a reason.
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Mine was the view from the tower in the village. My fiancée pointed it out. The sound effect and particles are amazing and really contribute to the feeling of awe.
Yeah I found a bunch of them on accident and they’ve all been pretty neat feeling. Just nice little revelations.
I feel sort of underwhelmed by mine; it was the gourds in the zen temple, which was like the 2nd or 3rd area I did. I legitimately thought it was just another puzzle necessary to beat the temple (because it involved opening the temple windows like the others did), and because it was presented so plainly. It wasn’t until I got to the top of the mountain that I realized it was a different class of puzzle, but by that time it didn’t feel that revolutionary. I think I would have been much more excited had I found them later and in a different way.
Yeah, likewise, I ignited the one on the mountaintop on my first or second time there – not pressing the button to complete it, so it didn’t light the obelisk – and it didn’t register as a tutorial for a global mechanic, I thought it was part of the puzzle to open the mountain later on. So I just kind of forgot about it. I was later suspicious of the shapes in the shipwreck and tried to do it, but my positioning was slightly wrong so that attempt just made me believe this wasn’t a thing you could do. Then I got it spoiled by watching a stream of somebody else playing.
Mine was the one at the bottom of the sun temple, two hours after starting the game. As soon as i took the elevator up I knew I had to go back down to examine the tunnel behind it, and then I chanced upon the pattern which I think is very easily mistakable for a legit panel there.
Still stuck at the “final boss”, whenever I think I’m good I discover a new twist. I’ll try again tomorrow.
Oh, yep, I can’t count. I do have all the beacons. Don’t really know what to do with them, though. Ending spoilers / possibly post-ending spoilers: I tried to end the game again; I guess maybe the object is to turn off all the lasers when you’re flying around? Four of mine were still active when it does the little look over the wall. I’m not sure what changes what lasers get turned off. There were a couple times it looks like the elevator flies through doors, so maybe I’m meant to open more doors? Idk!
I think the ending cutscene is just buggy in terms of stuff like this. I wouldn’t read too much into it.
Hmm, I sort of doubt it; the lasers that turn off have an animation when they do it, and the camera very intentionally shows you the mountain with the remaining lasers, right before the rest turn off.
did the sun palace and finally got a couple of obelisk puzzles (the one on top of the mountain, and the shipwreck, were both really obvious, I just didn’t register them as possible). feeling a little like I’m on cleanup duty though; think I’m content with having seen the ending.
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You haven’t even seen the secret ending though! Which, ridiculously, has much higher production values than the main ending. I’m not even talking about the true ultimate 100% ending chevluh is on the warpath for, there’s one available to you right now. I’m not actually sure how many people on this thread have seen it, only one person alluded to it so far.