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Did you fuckers just call What I'm Made Of garbage Also if you observe you will now see that the "unsolvable" countdown panels you noticed earlier have now changed to solvable panels and, in fact, been solved. Fedule fucked around with this message at 19:12 on Oct 29, 2016 |
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Oct 29, 2016 18:55
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Stellar work on the Challenge. I assume, then, that we'll see the video in the next episode?
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Oct 29, 2016 19:30
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The next episode is going to be a riot, I just know it. Congrats on solving the Challenge, too! I think it took you less attempts than I did originally. I wasn't counting my own but it feels like you figured it all out faster.
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Oct 29, 2016 22:44
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Aaaaa you teasing motherfucker!  ...I think I can forgive you though, on account of that gag.
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Oct 30, 2016 12:46
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cant cook creole bream posted:That pillar may not have been a hail Mary, but it was a cross. You where really lucky with those pillars. Fedule posted:Did you fuckers just call What I'm Made Of garbage And holy poo poo I didn't even notice! ManicVolcanic posted:Stellar work on the Challenge. I assume, then, that we'll see the video in the next episode? Tenebrais posted:The next episode is going to be a riot, I just know it. AlphaKretin posted:Aaaaa you teasing motherfucker! So, got some free time?  Just fair warning, we pretty much just talk over this whole thing. It's actually a nice lecture so go youtube it if you want to actually listen to it. Episode 57a - The Secret of Psalm 46  Episode 57b - So Anyways... (11 Puzzles Solved) I'll post Katies drawings when i'm not at work! homphgomph fucked around with this message at 17:25 on Nov 2, 2016 |
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Nov 2, 2016 16:01
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Watching the first few minutes of that first video was physically painful. BTW, both links go to the same video, should probably like fix that or something. Here is a video of The Secret of Psalm 46. Fedule fucked around with this message at 17:27 on Nov 2, 2016 |
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Nov 2, 2016 16:25
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Fedule posted:Watching the first few minutes of the Psalm 46 video was physically painful. Whoops, all fixed, sorry about that!
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Nov 2, 2016 17:25
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Did I miss it, did you just not think of that pun, or was invoking Jonathans surname with regards to the cocaine doodle to on the nose? 
cant cook creole bream fucked around with this message at 21:23 on Nov 2, 2016 |
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Nov 2, 2016 21:05
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homphgomph posted:If you know the video, you know why I had to cut it right there. I was not. 
AlphaKretin fucked around with this message at 06:28 on Nov 4, 2016 |
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Nov 3, 2016 15:04
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homphgomph posted:Episode 57b - So Anyways... (11 Puzzles Solved) The way I see it, that "secret ending" you get at the beginning is the actual ending, revealing that the island was a Matrix-type simulation. The intention is for the player to miss it the first time because they haven't been exposed to environmental puzzles yet, then if they get all the lasers and explore the caves they finally get the code to re-close the gate and realize what they missed (or they get a game reset via elevator and notice it that way).
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Nov 4, 2016 06:27
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Now that it won't be a double-post, something I remembered too late to edit in and likely be seen: "The Shakespeare/Bach/King James of video games will be [with a pause] Something Awe-full." OK Brian.
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Nov 4, 2016 06:28
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So yeah I said at some point I'd outline some things once we were done with The Challenge. If The Witness is about anything, it could be about this: how much of enlightenment is teachable? The theme that explicitly ties all of the audio readings is Truth Seeking, as mentioned in one Einstein quote about "the society of true searchers". The quotes we've been having read to us are from people deemed to be these legendary true searchers. These people, in all their various domains of art, science, philosophy, theology, and whatever else, who determined that they would task themselves with perceiving the world, and with such clarity that they were then able to relate their findings in a way that made them compelling in and of themselves, without reference to some other assumed truth, or the invalidity of some perceived alternative; nothing but the blinding truth of the thing itself, plain to see and impossible to deny. And all of these readings are window dressing for the island, which is itself one enormous meditation on perception, on investigation, on understanding, on derivation, on connection. One enormous, elaborate, interconnected system waiting for a patient and inquisitive mind to pick it apart and learn, and in doing so learning how to learn. This might have been an answer to James Burke; this is the new manner in which change of the world can be affected, by which not only knowledge but wisdom can be imparted, the technology that will be the new hallmark of power. The island is the experience that will make you wise. It is a distillation of the universal truth. It is the process that grants perception. ...except Jonathan Blow is not that dumb, and is also incapable of making any point wrapped in less than two layers of metaphor, and so we find that all that stuff is just a decoy, and what The Witness is actually about is that of course enlightenment isn't teachable, you moron, what the gently caress did you expect?! The island is an admittedly very impressive VR experience designed by people who believe the things outlined above. It's not VR as we know it today, but more of a lucid dream induced by technology and designed by a designer. A person can enter into this experience and remain in it indefinitely, until they willingly come out. The people we hear from in the underground audiologs are the team that built this thing; driven, resourceful, reasonably well funded and evidently willing to experiment, and very, very convinced that the thing they are building is Important. Notably this could also plausibly describe Blow's studio Thekla Inc, and no doubt a number of events from the game's development inspired some of the fictional conversations of the island builders - most notably the bit about the Sagan quote. It's not made entirely clear - or rather it's not stated explicitly - what the purpose of this thing is, but it seems apparent from context that this experience is designed to be sold to people. I like this interpretation; it seems so typical of the mindset of the entertainers of the unreasonably rich. In a world where you can book a trip to space, why not sell enlightment as a videogame? It's also not clear what exactly is the status of this venture when we, the player, visit the island, but - again - it seems a reasonable supposition that we are the "real first" mentioned by the team; the first person to dive in and remain under until we choose to come out. Notably, exit seems to be conditional on learning. Taken at face value, the island experience is cyclical and neverending. Leaving requires one to learn to perceive the hidden puzzles in the environment, and either catch the one in the starting area at the start of a cycle or activate all the lasers, reach the underground, and learn how to turn the gate back on. At this point they are guided through a fancy lobby with the corporate logo plastered everywhere and read the credits, thanked for their custom, and guided out, whereupon they emerge from the simulation. ...and it becomes very apparent that the player character has been a bit hosed up by the experience. They (portrayed by Blow, incidentally) wake up dazed and confused, stumble around looking for circles and lines, fail to interact with things, wander outside, lie down, and pass out again. It's evident that they've been under for quite a while (see: piss jar), and have left it somewhat the worse off. The particularities of this are unexplored but the message is loud and clear; it didn't work. It doesn't work. It can't work. It could never have worked. We spent so long with our mind turned inwards that we forgot that all we can see that way is ourselves. We were so focused on reaching the center of the thing that we forgot to examine the layers of the thing and how we get from each to the next. We were so fixated on searching for what we wanted that we forgot what we had. We were so absorbed in some quest that it consumed us. Someone tried to put enlightment in a videogame for us to find, and forgot that putting a thing in a videogame for us to find can't be the purpose of the videogame, because the purpose of the videogame can only be the videogame itself; immersing yourself that deep for that long in a search for some elusive truth can never work out, no matter how fine a place you're looking. There's no magic nugget of purpose that justifies this thing, there can only ever be the thing itself, on its own merits, compelling without reference, undeniable. I don't think Blow thinks that The Witness is the game described in The Secret of Psalm 46 that will flash across human culture like lightning and all that, but I do think he tried deliberately to make a game that evokes awe, and I think he succeeded, a little. The island may not be as humbling a thing as the collected works of Shakespeare, but it is astonishingly well designed; a perfect marriage of form and function, of aesthetic and mechanic, of video and game if you will. An incredible amount of work went into the precise shaping and placement of a million different things to create the hidden puzzles and vignettes and other things that look purely visual but actually serve a purpose. To this day I still feel a bit of awe thinking about the puzzle on top of the mountain with the statues on top of it, with everyone's legs and feet placed just right so that the tiny amount of black and white squares and entrance and exit points produce three maddeningly precise puzzles and - how the christ did humans build that?! Is it more or less believable that one person placed everything, or that a separate puzzle designer and artist worked together? And of course, it has a fairly deep cache of secrets to discover, that seem like they ought to be meaningful, but are they, really? Or is it just that searching for them is enjoyable and finding them is rewarding? The Witness is a good videogame.
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Nov 5, 2016 02:16
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Good analysis. I'm not sure I agree on how much the game really invokes Moriarty's awe but I can see that it tries, meticulously crafting as much as possible and peppering it with secrets for the observant. I don't know what the game lacks exactly, but you can see from how this LP has gone that the game doesn't manage to command the respect that games like Dark Souls or Undertale do (which I feel do give that feeling of awe, and are fairly close to the "flashing across culture" effect Moriarty's lecture described, though I wouldn't call any of it the next Shakespeare). The underground secret area is an odd duck. It pulls you out of the world a bit, while also keeping you in it and telling you the backstory. Throwing puzzles at you that purely exist to be fun puzzles rather than serve the broader game, and giving you a bonus challenge. It feels like it's dropping the artistic ambitions and just giving you a more conventional game? So following this with The Secret of Psalm 46, I think this is Blow showing you what inspired him to make The Witness in the first place.
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Nov 5, 2016 14:44
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cant cook creole bream posted:Did I miss it, did you just not think of that pun, or was invoking Jonathans surname with regards to the cocaine doodle to on the nose? AlphaKretin posted:Now that it won't be a double-post, something I remembered too late to edit in and likely be seen: whitehelm posted:The way I see it, that "secret ending" you get at the beginning is the actual ending, revealing that the island was a Matrix-type simulation. The intention is for the player to miss it the first time because they haven't been exposed to environmental puzzles yet, then if they get all the lasers and explore the caves they finally get the code to re-close the gate and realize what they missed (or they get a game reset via elevator and notice it that way). Fedule posted:Lots and lots of really good thoughts I want to reply to these but I'm in the middle of an Extra Life stream and I just need to post the videos real quick! I'll come back to these!  Episode 58a - A Sound Decision (03 Puzzles Solved) Episode 58b - A Lesson in Nonduality Another one where we kinda talk over the whole thing and I figure out some computer issues, you can watch the actual video here.
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Nov 5, 2016 23:18
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homphgomph posted:I want to reply to these but I'm in the middle of an Extra Life stream and I just need to post the videos real quick! I'll come back to these! Well now I feel a bit silly. I tuned into one hours ago for background noise, was wondering why I was thinking about The Witness LP and never made the connection until now.
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Nov 6, 2016 01:12
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I kept waiting for the guy to just start going, "Thoughts ... have a certain sound." (Then a pause for 10 seconds before destroying the camera.) The Brian Moriarty video was long-winded, but at least it had a point. I still found it a lot more bearable to have going in the background with your commentary over it. (There's still a 'kinetic' environmental puzzle that I can't believe has been missed that I hope you find. It's in the monastery.)
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Nov 6, 2016 03:28
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That was painful to sit through, much more so than the clip that was twice as long with practically no video. I'm not sure why I kept going after the halfway mark, to be honest.
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Nov 6, 2016 03:30
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whitehelm posted:The way I see it, that "secret ending" you get at the beginning Did I miss this? I see some posts talking about the secret ending, but I was unable to find where this is covered in the LP videos. It doesn't seem to be in the latest ones, (although at some point you get really close to it. I already got it in my playthough, but I'd be interested to hear comments and reactions from the LP team. Edit: ah, whoops. It was in the bonus video in the beginning of the LP. AbstractNapper fucked around with this message at 03:47 on Nov 6, 2016 |
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Nov 6, 2016 03:45
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It took me a while to think how to put my thoughts into words in response to Fedule's analysis. (Which is really great, by the way.) It made me feel like I missed out on that sort of interpretation of the audio bits prior to The End and The Challenge. The orated quotes didn't stick with me or "inspire" much further thought into their purpose within the entirety of the game. They come off as more of a passing statement rather than something to really make you mull over. It could also be the fact we played it as a group rather than just as one person, which ultimately distracted us from the quotes and their meanings. For me, it's neat to think about all the audio and its meaning in the larger context of the game after the fact, but while you're playing it... not so much. I think, overall, what the game lacks is "life". What we see if very sterile and controlled. We get fed all of these inspirational quotes, but what exactly is inspiring? It's peoples observances of life that brought about these quotes in the first place. I guess if Blow believed that this was an antithesis to "being taught enlightenment" then he's pretty much hit the nail on the head. Who is going to be inspired\creative with an unchanging environment while being force fed some quotes? You can teach someone to learn in a certain, but in this context to what end? The thing is, will the people who play this game care to look into the "whys" and "hows"? Will they even bother going that much further after reaching the first "ending"? On another note, one thing I did find interesting that was brought up in a review I found on Steam is that the description for the game is pretty misleading. quote:You wake up, alone, on a strange island full of puzzles that will challenge and surprise you.
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Nov 6, 2016 08:09
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A big portion of this game is inspired by the Myst series (mainly the original Myst, and probably Riven too) and there are a few easter eggs that pay tribute to that too. The secret (and arguably the "real") ending works in a very similar manner to Myst's ending, in the sense that you can get it without playing the full game (and triggered in the game's starting area. And, technically, it is possible to happen upon it by pure luck. Also, in the final segment of that ending they have included what looks like a suspended (in the starry skybox) "statue" of Atrus falling into the fissure, which is a very recognizable image to any Myst fan. I agree that the steam page description is misleading. I don't know who writes this (is it Blow or some marketing guy?), or how much people would buy a game just based on these descriptions and then feel cheated. In the context of the Myst-tributes, this description reads like how someone who played part of Myst, or didn't bother with its story, would describe the original Myst game to me -- and I am quite certain this is how a few "game reviewers" actually presented Myst when reviewing it in game magazines in my country when it was released. That description would also be misleading for Myst -- Actually, more so for Myst, because it turns out in Myst you are just "yourself". A unnamed stranger who finds themselves on the Myst island (...). No memory loss, no goal to find you way home, (...). In Witness, you could stretch an argument about how you are essentially "yourself" in the game, but according to the secret ending, you are the (developer/ testing) person who is hooked on the VR machine/ experience, which could justify the "memory loss" and ""finding your way home" (the exit of the "VR game") bits. I think an audio log in the caves also implies memory loss side-effects from the game (?). AbstractNapper fucked around with this message at 16:33 on Nov 6, 2016 |
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Nov 6, 2016 16:30
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Fedule posted:I don't think Blow thinks that The Witness is the game described in The Secret of Psalm 46 that will flash across human culture like lightning and all that, but I do think he tried deliberately to make a game that evokes awe, and I think he succeeded, a little. The island may not be as humbling a thing as the collected works of Shakespeare, but it is astonishingly well designed; a perfect marriage of form and function, of aesthetic and mechanic, of video and game if you will. An incredible amount of work went into the precise shaping and placement of a million different things to create the hidden puzzles and vignettes and other things that look purely visual but actually serve a purpose. To this day I still feel a bit of awe thinking about the puzzle on top of the mountain with the statues on top of it, with everyone's legs and feet placed just right so that the tiny amount of black and white squares and entrance and exit points produce three maddeningly precise puzzles and - how the christ did humans build that?! Is it more or less believable that one person placed everything, or that a separate puzzle designer and artist worked together? Bruceski posted:Well now I feel a bit silly. I tuned into one hours ago for background noise, was wondering why I was thinking about The Witness LP and never made the connection until now. Kangra posted:I kept waiting for the guy to just start going, "Thoughts ... have a certain sound." (Then a pause for 10 seconds before destroying the camera.) AlphaKretin posted:That was painful to sit through, much more so than the clip that was twice as long with practically no video. I'm not sure why I kept going after the halfway mark, to be honest. AbstractNapper posted:Did I miss this? I see some posts talking about the secret ending, but I was unable to find where this is covered in the LP videos. It doesn't seem to be in the latest ones, (although at some point you get really close to it. AbstractNapper posted:I agree that the steam page description is misleading. I don't know who writes this (is it Blow or some marketing guy?), or how much people would buy a game just based on these descriptions and then feel cheated. All that being said I'd love to see The Witness marketed in the same vein as Call of Duty because I think that'd be hilarious. But here we are everyone! The last two videos we have for you. One of them is a beefy one, the other is short and sweet.  Episode 59 - Environmental Extravaganza (36 Puzzles Solved) Episode 60 - An End Thank you all for watching! I had a great time doing this, we'll be back with something soon. I'll shamelessly plug our Youtube and our Twitch because we might sprinkle in some videos here and there up until our next "official" LP but that's where you can find us until then!
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Nov 9, 2016 16:51
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Awww, I got a shout out in the credits! Thanks  Absolutely fantastic work. The LP was an entertaining and unique way of showing off the lovely game, and you managed to end it satisfyingly despite seeing both endings of the game some time beforehand. Well done. Love it.
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Nov 10, 2016 05:57
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Thanks, homphgomph (and mooks) for a fantastic LP that was a joy to watch. I can certainly understand why you opted not to Really Truly Actually One Hundred Percent the game, and that's fine. This was a joy to watch, and I really hope to see you guys tackle something else in the future. And that ending 
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Nov 10, 2016 07:52
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Yeah, front and centre in the credits, that's what's up. (There's a second one under the shipwreck, too) I don't remember and can't be bothered to check if I mentioned my issue with the "environmental puzzles". Aside from how everyone calls them "environmental puzzles" when I would sooner call places like Shady Trees, the Desert, some parts of Symmetry Peninsula, etc. environmental puzzles, as they are puzzles that incorporate the environment around them into the solution. Anyway, my issue with what I call the "perspective puzzles" is how there are so many of them, many of them are found in similar batches and every single one is actually there. That is to say, there's never a red herring. If you ever see anything with any sort of curve to it, it is absolutely a perspective puzzle, every single time, it's never a coincidence, and at that point, most of the time, the puzzle is basically solved, barring a handful of seconds to wiggle around and find the exact right perspective. There are cool ones, like the ones in the Keep and those that incorporate the boat, and the layering of puzzles over each other, like on the shipwreck or in the jungle, is really well thought out, but there are so many of them that are little more than "shift over a few metres, there's another one". Considering the obelisks exist, I don't see how it would have been an issue to have some fake ones sprinkled throughout, to make the player have to actually pay attention to the shapes on the obelisks and try to find the unique ones in each area. Especially since the game wanted to touch on the theme of obsession; that never hit me properly because I knew that every single time I saw a slight circular shape I wasn't just imagining it and obsessing over it. It might also be because I regularly engaged in that kind of shape and line play in the real world well, well before playing this game. Wouldn't it have made more sense to have fewer perspective puzzles in total, have the obelisks quickly confirm that you have gotten all or most of them, and then have fake ones that distract the player from maybe one or two really tricky ones per area?
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Nov 10, 2016 11:54
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I probably spent too much time trying to find all of the environmental puzzles, that I totally started seeing circle and tail line patterns everywhere in my real life.
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Nov 10, 2016 13:37
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Thanks for the ride! And the highlight wheel was really well done.
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Nov 10, 2016 17:15
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Aw, didn't make the credits. Still, thank you for the LP! It's been good fun, and a good way to present the game.
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Nov 11, 2016 00:10
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Thanks for the ride, homphgomph. Can't wait to see what you guys end up doing next! edit: I also have to add the triumph of the boat puzzle brightened my whole day DocGator fucked around with this message at 01:58 on Nov 11, 2016 |
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Nov 11, 2016 01:10
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Tenebrais posted:Aw, didn't make the credits. Still, thank you for the LP! It's been good fun, and a good way to present the game. gently caress. Added it via annotation for now, I'm sorry 
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Nov 11, 2016 02:23
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Thanks, Joe, for letting me be a part of this little game journey and thank you everyone for watching! It's been a lot of fun with a lot of interesting thoughts all around.
ginko fucked around with this message at 08:34 on Nov 11, 2016 |
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Nov 11, 2016 05:31
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Finally got around to watching the last few videos. Thanks for showing off this game. I enjoyed both the videos and the discussion, even if my part was just to bloviate.
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Nov 11, 2016 18:11
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homphgomph posted:gently caress. Added it via annotation for now, I'm sorry Aw, thanks for the effort. 
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Nov 11, 2016 21:24
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I feel honoured to be thanked in the same slide with the highlight of your finishing the Challenge. Thanks to you three for doing this, it was a hell of a ride!
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Nov 12, 2016 11:49
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I don't want to double post, but - You never posted Katie's drawings from Psalm 46 (which is a pity because I was going to crop a Snake Goldblum avatar for someone to take) Were you going to submit this to the LP archive?
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Nov 14, 2016 14:43
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AlphaKretin posted:I don't want to double post, but - Dangit, I'll go back and do that later today. And yup! That was pretty much the next step. Well actually let me just throw it right here! Episode 57a Blow Dinosaurs The same picture of Jeff Goldblum Punished Goldblum (w/Kaz) Episode 58b Nonduality Hermit homphgomph fucked around with this message at 18:24 on Nov 14, 2016 |
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Nov 14, 2016 17:18
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