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Perhaps they were not aware you had not played the game? Sometimes its hard to tell when it someone pointing out something they just figured out instead of already knowing the answer because they played it. After seeing a number of people playing this I'm finally sold on getting this, it looks really good and the puzzles seem totally my kind of thing. The game has probably my two favorite kinds of puzzles in it and honestly that was good enough for me. The puzzles themselves remind me of completing a circuit, anybody else get that impression or is it only me?
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Feb 13, 2016 19:00
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Zoig posted:The puzzles themselves remind me of completing a circuit, anybody else get that impression or is it only me? I would say that's explicitly what they're going for, especially in the introduction (as seen in video 1 there). Completing the line from one end to the other literally channels power through a glowing cable to the next puzzle or piece of machinery. The bulk of the gameplay in The Witness comes down to two things: 1) Figuring out what the rules are, 2) Applying those rules. There is some amount of feedback between those two steps, of course. If that sounds interesting to you, you'll love The Witness. I sure did. Gameplay-wise.
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Feb 13, 2016 19:49
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Hyper Crab Tank posted:I would say that's explicitly what they're going for, especially in the introduction (as seen in video 1 there). Completing the line from one end to the other literally channels power through a glowing cable to the next puzzle or piece of machinery. That's pretty ominous.
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Feb 13, 2016 20:41
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Echophonic posted:That's pretty ominous. Any elaboration on that point would probably constitute spoilers.
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Feb 13, 2016 20:43
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Hyper Crab Tank posted:Any elaboration on that point would probably constitute spoilers. Well, I mean, it's a Jonathan Blow game, it's not entirely unexpected that it may end up being a weird, badly explained clusterfuck when the 'story' kicks in.
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Feb 13, 2016 20:48
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Air is lava! posted:If you try to brute force a solution, it's usually the wrong approach. Those terminals go out again so that it takes more time and is discouraged.
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Feb 13, 2016 23:12
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Bobbin Threadbare posted:I think you aren't supposed to cross the line the triangle is pointing to. The other two points are aimed at corners instead, so there's only the one. Alternately (although I think this is leading to the same solution), the arrow may be telling you to go in that direction until you are forced to go a different way, then resume going left as soon as you are able to do so. I'm pretty sure this will get you to the goal, at least, even if it doesn't turn out to be the puzzle solution. Need to rewatch the tree puzzle to see if I can figure out the logic behind that one... or just buy the game, holy poo poo.
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Feb 14, 2016 01:05
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The tree puzzle is pretty good, they do a good job of conveying the concept. I think my favorite thing about this game is just how clever it gets with its puzzles, because it does a lot. Also apparently the official count of puzzles in this game is 667, should one of us try keeping track?
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Feb 14, 2016 06:15
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I'm pretty sure the triangle puzzle on the floor is a tutorial puzzle since there are only four possible paths: Up left left; up left down; left up left; and left left up. So once we know which of those paths is the correct one, maybe then we can figure out what the triangle means. Unless the triangle means we have to solve a puzzle somewhere else, but you didn't try every path.
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Feb 14, 2016 09:23
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I am impressed by how much this game continues to convey without words, diagrams, or forcing the camera angle a certain way.
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Feb 14, 2016 15:23
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having a lot of fun doing the puzzles along with you. my favorite moment is when it takes me 10 minutes to solve a puzzle and i unpause and Amy solves it in ten seconds. I don't have either of the platforms this is on, so please, keep going!
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Feb 14, 2016 21:10
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I'm really excited about how into this people seem to be getting.  I didn't know what to expect, myself, but I've been loving the hell out of this game so far. It's amazing what you can do with just a few lines and dots.CuwiKhons posted:Is this something you don't want us saying? I mean one poster made it much more obvious, but the rest of us just pointed out that there was a solution and it wasn't random guessing. Is even that something you don't want us to post about? Genuine question here, it's hard to tell where the line for spoilers is in this. I haven't played the Witness, and I probably never will because I don't like difficult puzzle games, but while posting solutions for something you're stuck on is an obvious no-no, are observations out of line? No, that's fine. Observations, especially one you've made while watching our LP, are completely fine. In fact, I think figuring everything out together is part of the fun. metalloid posted:having a lot of fun doing the puzzles along with you. my favorite moment is when it takes me 10 minutes to solve a puzzle and i unpause and Amy solves it in ten seconds. Heh, we have our long moments, too, hence the speedups. Also, I think this game is going to eventually end up on everything, so you'll definitely be able to do the stuff that we don't find. pedrovay2003 fucked around with this message at 18:29 on Feb 15, 2016 |
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Feb 15, 2016 18:26
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You should really post a link to your little bonus video from sunday. I randomly found that and without spoiling anything, it's something special.
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Feb 16, 2016 22:00
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Okay, guys, here's you're part 3 of The Witness! We took the time to get this posted even though we're driving from Utah to Missouri, because we love you THAT MUCH! We think that this episode is much more exploratory than get-stuff-done-atory, but there's a really weird video at the end, so I think it might be worth it just to watch that (and then ponder it). We had some technical issues, as you'll be able to see by some of the frames as the video plays, but we don't think that'll happen again. Also, as requested, I'll post this here: Before we started to move, I wanted to do a couple videos with friends of mine. With my friend Kyle and his brother Shane, we did a one-shot LP of Babysitting Mama for the Wii, which I'm sure all of you were asking for! pedrovay2003 fucked around with this message at 08:25 on Feb 17, 2016 |
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Feb 17, 2016 07:06
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So I think you can solve those hexagon puzzles that turned off. The reason it turned off was because you got it wrong and so would have to solve an 'earlier' puzzle like in the pink trees. The second hexagon puzzle was different. I assume that as you got them wrong, you'd eventually get to one that would teach you the solution. This doesn't seem like the kind of game where you only get one shot at a puzzle either. In contrast, I think the puzzles that you end with aren't solvable with what we know now. That place reeks of late game to me. I think there are more patterns in the honeycomb puzzle that would play different videos and so the smaller panels are just so you can replay videos you have seen. Not sure what the palm tree puzzle unlocked. My guesses are something near the hexagon puzzles since you are facing that way or, I think more likely, that panel in the shack since it's the only thing left in that area.
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Feb 17, 2016 08:05
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Man, Amy is smart. It took me forever to get that one rock puzzle.
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Feb 17, 2016 08:16
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The British guy in that video is James Burke, probably best known, in the States at least, as the host of the Connections series. That show would take one idea and follow the innovations that it influenced, and then the ones that built off THAT and so on and see where they go. The one I remember is a long chain between polaroids and car engines, so "the reason you can have a photo finish of the Indy 500, is because you can have a photo finish of the Indy 500."
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Feb 17, 2016 08:18
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Congrats on figuring out the rock reflection puzzles, in record time no less. It is also alright that you two didn't notice the Desert puzzle gimmick, most people starting out don't notice it right away. You can always go back to the Tree puzzles or you can do the other Tree puzzles near the Quarry or the puzzles in the Jungle full of trees. Any way you two go about it there is a LOT more to do. So keep your attention out to ANY detail out of the ordinary.
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Feb 17, 2016 08:29
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It took me forever to notice the rock reflection puzzles were even there, which actually caused a problem later down the line. Regarding the sun temple, it requires no prior knowledge but does have a fiddly mechanic. As a hint: rewatch that part of the video closely, and see if you spot anything unusual. Paul.Power fucked around with this message at 14:28 on Feb 17, 2016 |
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Feb 17, 2016 14:17
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That video of the British dude was incredibly pretentious and for as interesting as the puzzles are, I don't like that Blow felt the need to add 5 minute videos of British dudes talking about why science is better than art to his video game.
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Feb 17, 2016 15:26
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CuwiKhons posted:That video of the British dude was incredibly pretentious and for as interesting as the puzzles are, I don't like that Blow felt the need to add 5 minute videos of British dudes talking about why science is better than art to his video game. Pretty much this. "Man, I wanna show everyone how smarter I am than everyone, better embed tons of science lectures into my game as the only reward for my harder puzzles!"
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Feb 17, 2016 19:01
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I only have one thing to say about this game so far.
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Feb 17, 2016 20:00
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I hate this game. I hate it a lot. I hate the lack of music and for whatever reason the motion makes me slightly nauseous when I play. I would probably tell Jonathan Blow he's a pretentious schmuck who made a lovely game if ever I met him. I watched part one last night and enjoyed it. So good job.
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Feb 17, 2016 20:52
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Yeah, the pretentious crap is the part of this game that I somewhat nebulously referred to earlier. And, actually, James Burke is on the acceptable end of the spectrum you'll witness (ha) in this game. There is one more video you can unlock that I think is also pretty good - you'll find it eventually, I'm sure - but from there on, the videos and audio logs are mostly just a rapid descent into the rabbit hole of pretentious wank that epitomizes Blow's ideas about what makes something good and interesting. Fortunately, the puzzle mechanics are really good. By the way, it's impossible to get stuck in this game. If a puzzle turns off, it usually just means you have to re-solve the one before. That one hexagon is actually pretty weird, and possibly a glitch - it would make way more sense given the rest of the puzzle layout in that area for it to start off. I don't know. Anyway, if a puzzle panel is turned on and not obstructed by locks or anything, that also means you can solve it. All you need is to figure out how. Observation, trial and error are key. Hyper Crab Tank fucked around with this message at 21:53 on Feb 17, 2016 |
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Feb 17, 2016 21:50
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Hyper Crab Tank posted:Yeah, the pretentious crap is the part of this game that I somewhat nebulously referred to earlier. And, actually, James Burke is on the acceptable end of the spectrum you'll witness (ha) in this game. There is one more video you can unlock that I think is also pretty good - you'll find it eventually, I'm sure - but from there on, the videos and audio logs are mostly just a rapid descent into the rabbit hole of pretentious wank that epitomizes Blow's ideas about what makes something good and interesting. I found a lot of the quotes really interesting, but their placement in the game is nonsensical at best because it tries to hang them in a metastory context. Not only do they not have any relationship to the game, they usually don't have any relationship with each other.
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Feb 17, 2016 23:05
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I think the picture of flowers in the sand actually does tell you something, namely the obfuscated nature in which some textures may reveal something depending on the angle of lighting ...this may come in handy in the vicinity.
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Feb 17, 2016 23:52
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Bruceski posted:I found a lot of the quotes really interesting, but their placement in the game is nonsensical at best because it tries to hang them in a metastory context. Not only do they not have any relationship to the game, they usually don't have any relationship with each other. e: given the message of Braid, I'm pretty sure Jonathan Blow doesn't want people to take that James Burke video completely uncritically. But it definitely plays into general Witness themes of science, discovery, learning and teaching. The dude likes comparing the act of solving puzzles with the scientific method. Paul.Power fucked around with this message at 00:09 on Feb 18, 2016 |
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Feb 17, 2016 23:59
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"Science is better than art, because science is about hard-to-understand facts while art is about communicating perspectives. Now if only we had some way of communicating a scientific perspective, hmm..."
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Feb 18, 2016 00:17
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I got really, really happy when it turned out to be Burke in that video. Haven't heard him talk science in a while, the Connections computer game was my favorite puzzle game for a long, long time.  Bobbin Threadbare posted:"Science is better than art, because science is about hard-to-understand facts while art is about communicating perspectives. Now if only we had some way of communicating a scientific perspective, hmm..." Okay Bobbin, that's really neat and all, but I feel like it actually helps illustrate Burke's point here. Burke is saying that Art, Politics, and Literature are less objective because you are viewing information through the artists interpretation of that information, which you in turn have to interpret for yourself. Unless you know to look for a brain in the painting you're not looking for a brain in the painting, you're looking at a painting of a naked dude and a robed dude touching fingers. The second picture makes the hidden meaning obvious by both removing aspects of the artists work that obfuscate the hidden message and also highlighting and labeling said message. Armed with this knowledge you can now go back and appreciate the original image with its hidden meaning, but only because you removed a layer or two of interpretation to more directly give the information to the viewer.
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Feb 18, 2016 00:58
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RickVoid posted:I got really, really happy when it turned out to be Burke in that video. Haven't heard him talk science in a while, the Connections computer game was my favorite puzzle game for a long, long time. You don't really "remove" layers of interpretation so much as you slather them on. Really, though, all I'm trying to say is that arts and entertainment are the solution to this odd little puzzle Burke created for himself. How do you communicate complicated ideas to a mass audience? You remake them into a series of simple explanations that build off one another, you use images and demonstrations to show the principles at work, and you use the personality of a likable presenter to draw in the audience and make sure they pay attention. In short, you turn science into art and entertainment. Hell, Burke's doing it himself, apparently without realizing it.
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Feb 18, 2016 01:28
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RickVoid posted:I got really, really happy when it turned out to be Burke in that video. Haven't heard him talk science in a while, the Connections computer game was my favorite puzzle game for a long, long time. noooot yeeeeeeet
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Feb 18, 2016 01:39
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I don't think Science versus Art is really the point of the Burke clip, at least, not the primary one. The point he's making is about the availability of - and ability to transfer - knowledge, and how it grants us the power to change the world. The scientists and technologists, he says, are the ones effecting change, because they're experimenting, proving, advancing what is known. This is not to say that art cannot change the world, or even that art has a lesser worth, but merely that art is primarily personal while science and technology are not only furthering direct knowledge but making it readily available and applicable. Among other things, The Witness is a game about the most abstract form of the transference of knowledge; notice how it never explains or accounts for itself, but still you end up with a complete and concrete understanding of the various puzzle rules. Yes, this is done through experimentation of the player, but the design of the puzzles themselves is what facilitates the process, and the realization, and resulting knowledge, is wholly owned by the player - as opposed to just getting a popup early on saying "draw a line to separate black and white squares!".
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Feb 18, 2016 02:18
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I wonder if that windmill's going to be some kind of warp zone. Every time you learn some new element of puzzle grammar you can get a little deeper in and come out somewhere else.Bobbin Threadbare posted:Really, though, all I'm trying to say is that arts and entertainment are the solution to this odd little puzzle Burke created for himself. How do you communicate complicated ideas to a mass audience? You remake them into a series of simple explanations that build off one another, you use images and demonstrations to show the principles at work, and you use the personality of a likable presenter to draw in the audience and make sure they pay attention. In short, you turn science into art and entertainment. Hell, Burke's doing it himself, apparently without realizing it. Which works if you a) want to get to the place where Burke is going, b) are starting from someplace near enough to him that you can start following, and c) can follow him every step of the way. a) is a fairly relatable problem, you just need sufficient indexing capability. ...and to teach people to use the index. ...which includes getting them to frame their queries in such a way that the index is sufficiently responsive, b) is an issue of acculturation, of overcoming language barriers and providing remedial education and sufficient cultural grounding. c) is the thorniest of these, since even assuming you can pull off a) and b), what are you going to do if you don't understand? Rewind the tape and watch it again? Diminishing returns are probably going to set in on that.
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Feb 18, 2016 03:56
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Epistemology And Maybe Line Puzzles, Let's Play The Witness For real though I felt like that clip could've talked about its point in a much easier way but then it wouldn't be in this game I guess
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Feb 18, 2016 04:18
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While I think it's fair to analyze the reason the video was excerpted in this game, I don't think it's quite fair to Burke to look at it out of context. That bit is from the very end of Connections, in which he's spent most of the show talking about how different scientific ideas spark other ones by not only changing the way society works, but changing the way people actually think. In other words, how science and technology shift perspective. He even went on to do a whole show focusing on that theme, The Day the Universe Changed. So while he does seem to be arguing for a somewhat objectivist view of Science, the quote is not intended as some screed against the liberal arts which it seems to be when seen on its own. At that point I think he wanted to make the point, "Yes, we've gone on a lot about changing perspectives and human interpretation of Science, but merely choosing a perspective is insufficient - there really is something underlying this field in particular that is triggering the actual change." Connections is quite a good series, and while TDTUC isn't so bad, the unfortunate thing is that Burke essentially continued to remake the same exact show, doing it more poorly each time. I'll be waiting to see what happens later on, but at this point the quotes almost seem to be intentionally pretentious, as if as a joke. Kangra fucked around with this message at 05:11 on Feb 18, 2016 |
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Feb 18, 2016 05:08
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Regardless of whether you agree with the clip's philosophy or if you think Blow is pretentious for including it in the game, I think the fact that the first thing you hear after getting (for most players) the initial solution to the only puzzle in the game that's completely arbitrary with no logic other than that you find the solution written on a paper elsewhere is "Well, that's no better a solution than any of the others, isn't it?" is a great little touch.
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Feb 18, 2016 06:45
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orenronen posted:I think the fact that the first thing you hear after getting (for most players) the initial solution to the only puzzle in the game that's completely arbitrary with no logic other than that you find the solution written on a paper elsewhere is "Well, that's no better a solution than any of the others, isn't it?" is a great little touch. I really love that part. It made me instantly intrigued when I solved and got a freaking nuclear explosion and then Burke saying that. For what it's worth, as implied earlier, I do like the Burke video (and the one following it, which I shan't spoil). There is an underlying theme which isn't readily apparent right now, but will probably get moreso as we get more into it. I still hold fiercely that the game gets increasingly pretentious. Burke is not that bad. We haven't come close to seeing the really bad audio logs yet, either. But by the sixth video...
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Feb 18, 2016 08:20
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CuwiKhons posted:That video of the British dude was incredibly pretentious and for as interesting as the puzzles are, I don't like that Blow felt the need to add 5 minute videos of British dudes talking about why science is better than art to his video game. ApeHawk posted:Pretty much this. "Man, I wanna show everyone how smarter I am than everyone, better embed tons of science lectures into my game as the only reward for my harder puzzles!" FairGame posted:I hate this game. I hate it a lot. I hate the lack of music and for whatever reason the motion makes me slightly nauseous when I play. I would probably tell Jonathan Blow he's a pretentious schmuck who made a lovely game if ever I met him. Bruceski posted:I found a lot of the quotes really interesting, but their placement in the game is nonsensical at best because it tries to hang them in a metastory context. Not only do they not have any relationship to the game, they usually don't have any relationship with each other.
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Feb 18, 2016 09:04
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I smirked when I saw the explosion and Burke's following line. It felt like a little joke at the misinterpretations of the ending of Braid, though it's probably not.
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Feb 18, 2016 18:48
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orenronen posted:Regardless of whether you agree with the clip's philosophy or if you think Blow is pretentious for including it in the game, I think the fact that the first thing you hear after getting (for most players) the initial solution to the only puzzle in the game that's completely arbitrary with no logic other than that you find the solution written on a paper elsewhere is "Well, that's no better a solution than any of the others, isn't it?" is a great little touch. It is something which makes you jump because it is the first time in my play through when solving a puzzle made something BIG happen. It is the point when I started to get the game...the whole thing at that point felt like a quest for knowledge - a lot of it knowledge for knowledges sake and finding the "face of god" (Mind of Blow) in the game. A lot of the game make me think of the "Watchmaker Argument" but in this case it is the "Puzzle maker argument" when you think you are finding puzzles in the environment (The temple/desert area is a good example of this) but can not tell which parts of the world are puzzles or just parts of the world. Edit: also thinking about the actual video - The "people who have the knowledge" now is basically educators/entertainers on The Internet. The Scientists and the Technologists don't have the knowledge - the Science Communicators - the Technologists who create ways for people to connect to. Shaded Spriter fucked around with this message at 14:10 on Feb 19, 2016 |
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Feb 19, 2016 13:58
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