Comments on: How many puzzles are in The Witness?

By: Carlos

Carlos — Mon, 16 Jun 2014 13:33:33 +0000

A Linux version would be awesome!

By: Jebril

Jebril — Tue, 12 Feb 2013 22:34:31 +0000

Would love to see a Linux version, thank you so much for porting Braid to Linux. I thoroughly enjoyed it, I like the way you think Mr.Blow.

By: AlexV

AlexV — Wed, 09 Nov 2011 11:37:35 +0000

In reply to Jonathan Blow. Please release this awesome game also for Linux users ;)

By: Richard Flanagan

Richard Flanagan — Mon, 21 Feb 2011 16:33:31 +0000

Hello Jonathan, Jeremy et al,

I’ve been following the witness for a while, and am really excited to explore the world you’re building. I’m a mad fan of Braid (http://www.phosfiend.com/?p=508) and can’t wait to see what you come up with.

Thanks for the kind words regarding FRACT, it was a very personal project and I’m still in shock over the responses I’ve been getting. Jonathan, it is, as you suggest, a sliver of a bigger idea. Calling it a beta was probably a bit generous, as it really is more of a proof of concept. I do plan on finishing it, but I’m in the process of evaluating exactly what that implies. With any luck I’ll be able to get a bit more perspective at the GDC this year. Is The Witness going to be there?

Thanks again,

Richard

By: justin

justin — Sun, 13 Feb 2011 07:46:12 +0000

my favorite was the “Lair” in “Time and Mystery” as son as you enter you know you have to kill yourself to keep going, but no wait… you know you can’t die so you just take advantage of tim’s time and kill yourself in the past so that in the future you can receive the key. it’s just so clever, like an art house movie! not all the puzzles in Braid are as invested as these but hopefully you know that quality is more important than quantity. i wish all of braid’s puzzles were as thought provoking as those but hopefully in the witness every single maze is very communicative or maybe a homage to older games like “Jumpman” puzzle… i’m doing some research into myst, maze building, taoism and the russian space program for this game. very interesting stuff

By: Rich

Rich — Sun, 13 Feb 2011 02:31:28 +0000

One of my favorite puzzles from Braid was “Fragile Companion”. It could certainly be described as bite-sized and quick, and as requiring an epiphany. I think what separated it from many of the other puzzles in the game was that the entirety of it was immediately apparent, and yet it still seemed impossible until you understood the solution, at which point it became trivial. Is that general style of puzzle something that will be more common in The Witness?

By: JonP382

JonP382 — Fri, 11 Feb 2011 15:33:22 +0000

Wow, that’s a lot more than I had imagined. I can’t remember how long it took me to ‘finish’ Braid my first time through, but it was at least 4 hours. 76 versus around 400 puzzles. This game should be much more of a time sink then, even with bite sized puzzles. Less things for reviewers to pick apart, good.

By: Anonymous

Anonymous — Thu, 10 Feb 2011 23:53:22 +0000

I never thought I’d say this, but I’d vote “no” on giving away the puzzles. Your promise of “epiphany” is stunning in itself, and that requires acquiring knowledge over time. I’m not joking when I say that The Witness is my most anticipated title until it lands, in part due to an incredibly bold goal. Even if such goal was to fail miserably, I’d walk away learning something from the designed experience. That said, perhaps I’m not the target market for this blog, and maybe I should simply ignore such disclosures with patience.

By: Larry_Croft

Larry_Croft — Thu, 10 Feb 2011 20:24:06 +0000

In reply to Jonathan Blow.

Jonathan Blow: A puzzle-design posting would be an interesting idea but I am not sure how to do that prior to release without spoiling the game.I’ll think about how to do it…

What about the 25 puzzles you've deleted? :-)

By: Pär Dahlberg

Pär Dahlberg — Thu, 10 Feb 2011 08:55:59 +0000

In reply to Jonathan Blow.

Jonathan Blow ... A puzzle-design posting would be an interesting idea but I am not sure how to do that prior to release without spoiling the game.I’ll think about how to do it…

Sounds good! Just designing puzzels in general would be fine, but it sure would be cool if you wrote about specific stuff in the game. Love that "behind the scenes" stuff!

By: Gary Hawkins

Gary Hawkins — Thu, 10 Feb 2011 00:44:45 +0000

I grow more and more eager as the days count down to “late 2011” :D. Will this game have a soundtrack similar to Braid or will you be experimenting with ambient sounds?

Gary!

By: Phil Willis

Phil Willis — Wed, 09 Feb 2011 22:22:05 +0000

p = puzzle
r = riddle

???

Can’t wait for the release of this game.

By: Jonathan Blow

Jonathan Blow — Wed, 09 Feb 2011 18:15:33 +0000

p vs r puzzles is about an implementation detail that I wanted to report in the console. It’s not really relevant to counting the total number of puzzles in the game.

As for a Linux release, who knows? Maybe!

A puzzle-design posting would be an interesting idea but I am not sure how to do that prior to release without spoiling the game. I’ll think about how to do it…

By: Loren R

Loren R — Wed, 09 Feb 2011 16:35:28 +0000

What is a p puzzle vs an r puzzle (noted from the picture caption)?

By: Alex

Alex — Wed, 09 Feb 2011 16:07:17 +0000

Are you planning to release The Witness on Linux ?

By: Simon

Simon — Wed, 09 Feb 2011 14:53:20 +0000

@Larry_Croft

That’s an artifact from a common method of transparency anti-aliasing, I’ve seen it in many games.

By: Larry_Croft

Larry_Croft — Wed, 09 Feb 2011 11:52:33 +0000

What’s up with the screenshot? The trees on the left look somehow messy. :-/

By: Pär Dahlberg

Pär Dahlberg — Wed, 09 Feb 2011 09:41:04 +0000

Sounds good!

That’s a lot of puzzles… I would be interested to hear you describe how you come up with and design those puzzles. Both for a totally new game as well as adding puzzle number 223 without just re-using an old one. Perhaps material for an article?

By: Jonathan Blow

Jonathan Blow — Wed, 09 Feb 2011 08:20:18 +0000

Yeah, I’ve played FRACT, and I think it’s cool. I hope he builds it out into a full game, because by the time you get to the end of that beta, you just have a glimpse of what the full game could really be.

Rick: I don’t think the DLC model works very well for a game like this. If anything there would be another full game in a series… (though at this time I have no idea what that game would be).

Niche93: The game has to know when you’ve solved a puzzle, right? There’s a means by which it knows that, and the console command is just looking for all instances of those triggers in the world.

By: Thomas Egebæk

Thomas Egebæk — Wed, 09 Feb 2011 06:34:51 +0000

Sweet! It’s nice to know you aren’t just banging it out :D

By: Jeremy

Jeremy — Wed, 09 Feb 2011 06:34:41 +0000

I’m a huge follower of this game, I can’t wait :)

I was wondering if you’d had a chance to check out the small game FRACT by Richard Flanagan. It’s a very stunning and intriguing first person puzzling adventure game. I would decribe it as Myst meets Tron. It does, in my opinion, a fantastic job at presenting the player with absolutely no instruction, and letting them discover the mechanics of this alien world on their own. It’s worth a look, if not for just a little inspiration. Also, the audio is fantastic.

http://richardeflanagan.com/lab/10-fract-beta-come-and-play

By: Niche93

Niche93 — Wed, 09 Feb 2011 06:29:30 +0000

I’m just wondering how you can be counting All the puzzles. Hopefully they are quite varied and then I’d think that it would be pretty hard to count all of them at once with the same statistic. Or are they all blue mazes? :)

By: Rick Kolesar

Rick Kolesar — Wed, 09 Feb 2011 06:26:35 +0000

So what you’re saying is there will be DLC…

By: Wyatt

Wyatt — Wed, 09 Feb 2011 05:47:11 +0000

I think that really speaks volumes about the size of your guys’ studio and efficiency you guys have in designing and making this game.

By: Crambus

Crambus — Wed, 09 Feb 2011 05:26:30 +0000

most definitely NOT bite-sized and quick!?!?!?!?!