Game designer Jonathan Blow explains what his game, The Witness, is actually about. Clipped from: podbay.fm/show/... • Adam Conover interview... • We Play The Witness wi...
Hello Jonathan, i highly encourage you to make a follow up to this game. Out of almost 1000 games i've played across Vita, Ps3 and Ps4 it is in my Top 5 of all time. I completed the game 100%, got platinum and only used a guide for 1 puzzle, which wasn't even hard. The idea to figure out the rules to this game by yourself is just pure gold. All the secrets, the environmental puzzles are so genuine. Full respect! Its a masterpiece. Thanks
I'm not Jonathan Blow and this is just a fan channel. The Witness is great though. :) Should I somehow make it more clear that this is an unofficial fan channel? I don't want to mislead people.
If you want more of this but also totally different. Check out "Outer Wilds". It's even better than The Witness imo and it's my favourite game of all time.
@@mpstudiesI think people tend to exagerate when they say the number,it doesnt matter what is the subject,your height,your pp size,or how many games they played/finished,if i had to come with the number i am probably close to 300 games if not over,and im playing games for a long time since 1999 i would say,i only count games that i finished/played till the credits,and dont count replaying same game,in this case i would probably have much bigger number😂 P.S and yes i do touch grass ocasionally.
Incase you haven't figured it out yet, the person in the FMV sequence is the player, just having awoken from playing the game. You are a developer play testing the game. An alternate theory is that the person in the FMV is Jonathan Blow, and you have been watching him play test his game, hence you being 'The Witness'
Would love to see a Witness+Xing type game with maybe a tiny bit of Obduction thrown in. Xing is obviously extremely linear with well-defined goals. A Witness open world with Xing styled mechanical puzzles would be cool. There's not really anything to spontaneously discover in Xing like the world puzzles in Witness, but it has a relaxing quality I found similar to Witness. Defined rules for increasingly difficult puzzles and combinations of the basic types of puzzles adding new layers. The stories felt more like the audio files found in Witness than a complicated mystery you're presumably trying to solve like Obduction which ultimately wasn't satisfying. Obduction is interesting in that it did have the mind-blowing first discovery of the parallel worlds where an action taken in one world affected the environment in another, but having an open-world doesn't feel meaningful if the majority of the puzzles must be solved in a particular order. It also had the problem of constantly having to click on things just in case they did something. The puzzles in Xing stand on their own in that they are simply fun to solve from the beginning and you figure out early on there's no traditional plot and there isn't going to be one. Witness made you think there was a traditional mystery to solve, but it also remained in the background with the puzzles front and center. I got the sense a few hours in there wasn't going to be a well-defined narrative and that doing the puzzles and exploring the world was the game and that any plot would remain far in the background. Turns out it was very very very very far in the background.
I feel like the appeal to sciences as being the underdog are long preached and is now such a majority. So much so that common discourse is bloated with science hyperbole. This sentiment would make sense for the 2000s. But a big leap in STEM education has made popular science grow too. "Science Proves" and "I only speak the truth" are colloquial examples of how people use science to substantiate their arguments or opinions. Even an actual scientist would push back on the popular science obsession that society now douses in.
If he would tell what the game was about it was less fun. So he’s kinda telling what its about without spoiling the fun. The witness is a meditation state about perceiving without presumption. If you stay in your little panel riddles its on you - the game want’s you to break out of them and “see”.
To me he did. Now I think people except with these kind of questions to have one or two simple sentences explaining the ideas behind. If you could do this in a satisfying way would there be a point in making the game? Isn't the idea behind making a game exploring x and y idea that games is the best medium to do it instead of say spoken language?
@@franciscofarias6385 my guy he was asked a question about what the game was about, either say you don’t wanna give it away or answer the question instead of rambling vaguely about how The Witness is an attempt to explain the world like science and maths(?). Half the stuff he said in this video genuinely means nothing.
@@TheBiomedZed the witness is about trying to find meaning of things around you. The noble quest to find the truth. There your fucking answer. He said it in the first minute you absolute fucking buffoon
It's more spatial awareness. knowing where the sun is, looking at the panel, and figuring out where you WOULD need to stand to get it, rather than aimlessly wandering around until it happens. it's not easy for some people.
By looking at the angle of the sun and the panel Like a laser, the glare hits at the same point if you can imagine that point always being there and you just having to line it up with the puzzle it works. For me... I di feel many of the puzzles are a little broken and I'm very agvrevaged that I found ones that work but the game won't let you solve it that way.
Jon let the initial idea of the Witness slip here: ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-zpufWTt4YY0.html The original idea was much more concise than all these verbose interviews. You'd play separate levels of a seemingly self-sufficient puzzle game and eventually realize how many interconnections there are with hub world. That's it. A game about breaking the wall between 2D levels and 3D hub world. The grid nature helps to come up with many meta mechanics. Jon's found many ways for the hub world to affect puzzle levels. Unfortunately, he didn't come up with as many ways for levels to affect the hub - they mostly serve as classic triggers or signs with instructions. The only original meta mechanic was "tetris effect". Technically it's just another kind of instructions for player to externalize. But "spiritually" it feels different, akin to hacking the mind. For Jon this was the most interesting part of the original idea, so he focused on cognitive aspect of puzzle-solving and didn't pursue the meta-mechanics experiment much further. IMO the game would be more groundbreaking if he did, but alas, we ended up having a less unique game that is OFFICIALLY about waiting for days until your haphazardly trained neural network stumbles upon a working solution.
Uhm you are aware of the enviromental puzzles in the game? I think that counts as breaking the wall between 2D levels and 3D world. Albeit most of the rules from the 2D puzzle panels are barely present in the 3D world, except some of the last levels in the mountain. i think the game made a fantastic job at what it wanted to do without actually overdoing it just for the sake of having more content.
@@SETHthegodofchaos Environmental puzzles are the one type of meta mechanics where 3D world affects 2D world. Sure they are cool, but on their own they feel like gimmicks with no message. That's because they are actually one half of the message. If the game also had another half - those meta mechanics where 2D world affects 3D world as cleverly - this would be the kind of holistic approach that satisfies people like Jon. At least how I see him. If I was him, I'd also grow dissatisfied with the original idea (a game about breaking the wall) somewhere mid-development. Because the breaking doesn't feel meaningful enough when it's just one-way. And that's why, I say, he digressed into unrelated topics like meditation. In order to find a meaning quicker. See, in these interviews Jon says the game is about unfocused learning (experiencing, witnessing, meditating) instead of active analysis inherent to other puzzle games. That seems to be his official stance, right? I personally think this is BS, since the final game can be successfully played the usual way, no meditation, just even more focus and time investment than usually. Maybe it can also be played by mindlessly exploring the island for days and suddenly realizing a solution (what I call "haphazardly trained neural network of your brain"), maybe. I just don't see much innovation in this, and I think the original idea was better. He only had to push for more ideas like Tetris effect, puzzles inside videos, etc. THAT would become masterpiece. But it ended up being just a nice puzzler with "environmental puzzles".
@@nickrett4221 I think the game also wants to be heavily about wonder and how to preserve that in the world. Same as doubt, it seems they are the driving force of the New in the World. So the enviromental puzzles are part of that. I think since the game is also about the scientific approach (which helps the most when trying to figure out the puzzle rules and solving puzzles), so it definitely all works without any Meditation/Spirituality/Zen. But the game also wants to tell us to slow down. Just because something works well doesnt mean we should not stop and look around for a while every now and then. The audio clips all have different views on science and religion/spirituality, some of which try to find a healthy combination of both. The game wants you to memorize, reflect and make concious choices. Question every action you make because it comes with a choice. The game even questions why you play the game. In any case, if you are aware why you play it (or why you would 100% it), then that is okay. But if you rather do something else entirely, then that is probably the better choice. Thats why some of the enviromental puzzles are so slow and tedious. It annoys many people, so reflect on why that is.
@@SETHthegodofchaos Enviromental puzzles are so slow and tedious because Jon wants to prevent player from solving the puzzles analytically and instead let them be solved by neural network in background within a few days (see "epiphany"), bonus points if it happens when the player is outside the game. Everything else sounds to me like a pointless motivational talk. Sorry. - Any artsy game wants to be heavily about wonder and how to preserve that in the world. - Any puzzle game wants you to memorize, reflect and make concious choices. - Any hardcore game makes you question every action you make because it comes with a choice. - Any postmodernistic pretentious game questions why you play the game. All that is irrelevant if we want to find out what's unique about Witness. Jon says (as vaguely as he can) the game's concept is to elicit unfocused thinking by overloading player's brain with unsolvable puzzles and scattering indirect hints elsewhere in the game. I say the shipped game fails to do that, but somewhat succeeds at the concept it started from. So in reality it's just a game about clever connections between two distinct levels of abstraction. A game about environmental puzzles and tetris effect.
@@nickrett4221 I found an unique experience with The Witness. I got "more" out of the game, and if that is all you got out of the game and what it wants to be, then I probably wont be able to change your mind.
The Witness would have been cool if it was finished. Hearing the original idea totally validates my opinion that he just made a good looking world, had a good idea, then slapped a bunch of puzzles in it when the original idea turned out to be too complicated. Any other "Interpretation" is being incredibly generous. If The Witness was made anyone but Blow, nobody would have bought the bullshit and panned the game for being a lazy series of poorly designed puzzles you would see in a mobile game with no meaningful story or real payoff for most of what you do, unless what you want is more puzzles. I can't think of any other game that has such a terrible ratio of content to payoff. It's almost a slap in the face to think I didn't understand, or get the right ending, but then to be told I did understand, that was just the point. At least when I do a sudoku, I know there isn't going to be some narrative that will never be explained, and it's just puzzle, I can stop whenever I want and not miss anything other than the satisfaction of finishing. The Witness tries to make you think there will be a point only to tell you it was just all puzzle with no point and that was the point, it almost feels borderline parody. Despite having things that could have been explained and there being an obvious planned narrative at some time during development. I get that may have been the point, but then I get to complain for you purposefully wasting my time after you take my money. It's like paying for a ride and you wait in line for hours, then when you get to the front and a guy says "That was the ride" and explains how it was actually a philosophical statement on how we spend our time. Next time tell me at the outset because I won't bother wasting my time on a game that is the definition of contrived. There are so many games, especially in the same genre as The Witness, that can get across a thought provoking point and still have gameplay that wasn't pulled out of a book of puzzles at a gas station. If you have to explain what your game was about and can't come up with anything more concrete than a pseudo-intellectual ramble, then your game is entirely founded on bullshit. The Witness is everything bad about puzzle based walking sims, it says nothing, and it gives nothing, the puzzles are probably some of the most convoluted, and contrived I have seen in a recent game. It's probably an accessibility nightmare, having zero options for colorblindness, and a string of puzzles that focus entirely on on sound to name a couple. Worst of all, its all built on this noncommittal philosophical patchwork from lazy voice clips trying to convince you its about something, but also nothing. It's the worst cop-out philosophy you could apply to something. Having finished the main ending, I will proceed to forget everything about this game, other than to never play it again.
@@NukeCloudstalker From the sound of it @Jaymic didn't even play the game. The Challenge in the Mountain is the game. Everything outside of that is part of the Tutorial as you can cheat your way through those puzzled by using tools like Photoshop or RU-vid walkthroughs. It is only if you learn to solve the puzzles in game that you develop the skills to complete the Challenge that consists of solving procedurally generated puzzles under the pressure of a countdown. SPOILERS Even if you complete the Challenge this is just the superficial "game" element of _The Witness._ It is a mystery, you are playing a silent protagonist who is trying to figure out your role in the world. Eventually you realise you are the prisoner of "The Island" and you need to escape, but in realising that it is an epiphany which is both and echo of being trapped like the lines you draw in the maze like panel puzzles, or the mazes within the Keep (which is the Keep not the Castle as you are kept there), or the elevator which just loops back to the beginning and resets every puzzle keeping you imprisoned, until you realise you could escape "The Island" from within the first area and exit via the gate through the Hotel and out into the real world of the development studio where you were testing the VR simulation and forgot your self and the simple code by which to leave via the gate, and that forgetting your self shows that the whole purpose of the simulation is flawed as it is a simulation built for the purposes of Zen Buddhist meditation and ascension to divine immortality as part of the Godhead through developing a pure Buddha nature as your body dies in the real world and your spirit escapes the prison of life within the illusion of Maya which is the cycle of reincarnation to find Nirvana. This is what is revealed to be the story explaining the mystery of the game involving the protagonist (played by Jonathan Blow), through the audio logs which are scattered within the Mountain. Is this story any good? No.
The game is unconscious levels of understanding of autism. It is really a game about autism by an autistic. It is the perspective of masking to unmasking. I love Blow, but it blows my mind that he doesn't see it yet made an entire game about it. Edit: This game gave me unbelievable nightmares and anxiety about unmasking. It is such a left brain all reason fueled catatonic state.
@@NukeCloudstalker Oh it definitely is and Blow is definitely autistic. It's a game about perspectives and it isn't my assessment of him or the game. This have been an idea floated many times about Blow and his game.
@@NukeCloudstalker Believe what you want. I am not the only or first to make that claim. The game is about autism and Blow is almost certainly autistic. Beside have you actually listened to the guy much before? And I say this as someone who loves and respects Blows work and his opinions on game design among other things.
Yeah it's a bummer that there wasn't really any like set goal or message in this game... Braid felt way more personal even though I really hated the story at-least it did something.
@@SaidMetiche-qy9hb If you listen to the final hidden audio clip after The Challenge, it really explains it well. It talks about gematria and easter eggs in the real world. Which is what I think this RU-vid video is really speaking about (e.g. looking for lines you can draw by using a golden apple to trace onto leaves)
It actually is about everything without being vague. It is about our unique ability to understand the world in concepts and being apply to apply them once understood. It is about reflecting on each action you do and realize that each action comes with a choice. If you want it to be, it is teaching you how to become more concious about what you want out of life.
@@SETHthegodofchaos I really don't like the relativist bullshit, it always end up feeling pretentious and leaving you unfulfilled. I liked both games, and even though I've had problems with Naysayer88 I can admit that. The issue is there's no meaning in there like at all, there's no lesson, the game is just about solving a set of problems.
I have a tremendous amount of respect for Jonathan Blow as a programmer But I personally didn't like this game very much (even though I played over 50 hours of it). Puzzle games usually have something intrinsic about the puzzle and game world that lets you discover how to solve it. But most puzzles in the witness felt more about "Can you guess what Jon had in mind when he made this puzzle?". If you can figure that out, then all the panels in the series are easy to solve. If you can't figure it out, then it's just a frustrating experience. Dare I say it's similar to the experience of trying to compile a random open source program.
Really missed the point IMO- it's about awareness, kind of about not being so fixated on goals but on a process and observation- being a witness more than a participant. When you finish the game there's a deeper truth but its a game that loses a lot of value when spoiled, so maybe give it a calm try and just enjoy the vibe and exploration
Yeah, Braid as well left me so sad I actually cried. Not because the meaning was beautiful, but because the game's story is purposefully manipulative and evil, it leads you on for no reason only to say "you did all of that for nothing, here's your castle". I'm sorry but I can't call neither games art even though they are technically interesting. You have to be literally autistic to understand Braid's story on your first play-through on your own.
That's not an argument. You probably don't know what pretentious actually means. Call of duty and marvel films fits the definition of pretentiousness because they try to impress people without any substance.
