Hey! I’m going to play this.
I haven’t bought a game on release in years. And I’m not even sure I like puzzles. But there seems to be enough hidden layers to explore here that I want to experience it simultaneously with everyone else.
Downloading about half done (PC).
It’s really interesting because you can find puzzles that are obviously about learning the puzzle vocabulary and training the player, but as you progress you’ll realize a lot more of them were about that than you first thought.
And it works both ways, you’re trained to assume things that may end up wrong once you get through more puzzles, and it contributes a lot to the “locks”, ie some puzzles are closed off because you don’t know the puzzle vocabulary yet, but others are closed off because you’re thinking about them in a wrong way that the game deliberately encouraged, while still giving you the ideas that’ll eventually lead to hidden depths.
It’s a whole lot more like a Riven successor than it seems at first glance.
I agree, but your last sentence scares me! I found Riven rather impenetrable after the first few puzzles. The Witness seems a lot more inviting to me, but maybe it’s just slowly pulling me into the deep end.
This is the kind of vague, naive supposedly “social justice”-driven criticism that drives me nuts but i don’t see why you posted it, am i supposed to point and laugh? because that seems mean-spirited and it’s not like there’s anything to really engage with.
What makes Riven interesting and good is that it is one big puzzle that you spend 95% of the game gathering information for and the other 5% actually solving. It’s practically open-world in that you have specific goals but no single direction you need to follow to pursue those goals.
i still haven’t played The Witness, i’m just throwing that out there for people who want to consider the analogue.
I mean, yeah, the very first thing you do is draw a phallus.
This is strange because I think the dead-ness of the author is part of the game. It’s not about JBlow or his cohorts. It’s (so far) a completely empirical exercise in learning how the island works.
Yeah, The core to Riven is really obtuse, solving it depended on observation of secondary things, while in The Witness I feel all the puzzles are actively training you and cluing you in to the elements you’ll need to tackle the core. I can feel it in every area I visit (at least for the Big Thing I’ve realized, as I said there may be something even bigger, I think I’m around 15% in and it was a lucky intuition that made me get it. I’ll eventually be really interested in at which point and after how much time other players got it) and it’s really great. It’s a pleasure going back to a group of puzzles and being able to say “so that’s what you’ve been trying to tell me”.
pretty sure I just figured this out while walking my dog but I’m too busy today to try to get to it until late at night
also this was not lost on me:
I’m maybe 90 panels in, but I have solved more puzzles than that, if that makes sense. In addition to the audio recordings you can play around the island, I’ve also located a movie theater, where I was able to play one of several movies. Mine was the woman who traveled to Australia. I also have solved some puzzles which required… dexterity? Timing? Both? There’s gonna be some real tricky ones to come, too!
I never really saw the appeal of dick doodles. or dicks.
Sometimes a line with a bulb at its base is just a line.
I get really stressed out at all the places to put my line, you know?
I’ve taken to calling the beginning and ends of the maze nodes, the points where the grid meets intersections, and the contents of the grid cells. Is anyone else starting a scrawl-y notebook? I’ve been using screenshots so far.
Is this the theater with the hexagonal panel outside? I got a very different movie that I think is Important but that’s interesting if different inputs may change the video.
i think it’s normally a joke, exactly because dicks are so wholly unappealing.
I think it’s one of those jokes that people continue to make because they secretly revere the power of patriarchy. They don’t just see the D…they want the D.
dicks look funny
Yeah, that’s what I’m talking about. I’d solved a puzzle which gave me a clue to use somewhere else, and as soon as I found the panel at that location, the rest became obvious. Looks like providing one valid solution gives you a control panel for the resulting interaction; if we assume the blank panels correspond to different possible correct solutions, there should be six different results to get, if I’m recalling correctly.
To change gears a bit, where’s everybody stuck? Don’t really want to resort to hints yet, but I’d like to know what other people are getting caught on.
For my part, the areas where I walked away from a puzzle I should be able to figure out how to complete, but haven’t yet solved include:
-panels on the coast by some rock columns jutting out of the water
-the severed cable in the elevator in the greenhouse on the seaward side of the mountain
Otherwise, I’ve either encountered panels prior to learning the vocabulary to solve them, or I haven’t explored that area yet. (Or I solved every panel in that area.)
Semi-layman’s example?
I’m stuck whenever I meet tetraminos, working my way towards the section that’ll explain them. I’ve got heavy progress in a lot of zones though (4 regions where I’ve opened yellow boxes).
Nice! I’ve only opened one yellow box so far, but I spent a lot of time lighting up patterns on obelisks.