When it comes to creating and releasing a video game, or any other form of entertainment for that matter, there’s a tendency for the creator to build their game around a marketable ‘twist’. That twist can be anything from “It’s a military shooter, but with vehicles” to more complex ideas like “It’s a standard role-playing game, but you don’t have to kill anyone”, but the goal with all of them is the same: to try and make what’s old feel new again by presenting it with a different coat of paint. Admittedly, this is more of a nitpick than an actual problem, as whether the idea behind a game’s creation is good or not has no bearing on whether said game is actually good, but my point is that most works of commercial art are built from the same DNA, with very few, but use twists to hide these roots from the consumer.
It’s refreshing then to find that “The Witness” has absolutely no intentions of hiding what it is and what it is trying to be: a puzzle game. It is a gorgeous, calming, and incredibly well-crafted game about solving maze puzzles. There is a thin outline of story layered on top to give the world more dimension and mystery, but everything that could potentially distract the player from solving puzzles is absent. The game is a puzzle, the goal is to solve puzzles, and the reward for solving them is more puzzles. If that isn’t the type of game that appeals to you, then feel free to let this title slip through your fingers without judgment. But for those who are still interested, allow me to tell you why ‘The Witness’ is an absolutely fantastic puzzle game.
As was eluded to earlier, the key to this game’s success is in its inherent simplicity. As the player, you are tasked with finding a way off of a mysterious island, which is seemingly abandoned due to a nebulous and unexplained tragedy that’s left the environment in ruin. Your main method of interacting with said environment is through solving various maze puzzles scattered throughout, with many of the mazes having a very utilitarian design that wouldn’t look out of place on a low-budget iphone game. What keeps them consistently interesting is that the puzzles in each of the game’s many connected zones have their own rules and quirks to them, and those rules are never explicitly told to the player. This means that, in most cases, the challenge of a new zone comes just as much from understanding what makes the mazes in the zone unique as it is actually finding the solutions to those mazes.
Make no mistake, ‘The Witness’ is a hard game, and it has no intentions whatsoever of explaining itself or holding the player’s hand, which will come as frustrating to some. That being said, the game is rarely unfair about its challenges since, outside of some tutorial puzzles and some final challenges at the end, you’re never forced to solve any one puzzle at a given time. Most of the island can be explored from the get-go, so if a puzzle’s too hard or includes a mechanic you haven’t come across yet, it’s only a thirty second walk over to a different set of puzzles you might have a better grasp of. And even though it doesn’t directly communicate with the player at any point, the level design is smart enough to teach you the rules of the world intuitively whether through easier mazes that allow for experimentation with new mechanics or through environmental clues.
While we’re on the subject of the environment, it’d be foolish not to bring up how drop-dead gorgeous the world of ‘The Witness’ is. Admittedly the game is low on texture detail and isn’t going to push your computer’s processing power by any means, but what it sacrifices in precise detail it makes up for with swaths of color. The variety of distinctive locations on display is impressive, to the point where half the fun of finding a new area was getting to add to my collection of potential pictures to go with this article. I’d also like to give quick props to the sound design which, while somewhat limited because of a surprising lack of background music, fills in the space excellently with fitting background noise which dynamically changed based on where on the island I was at any given time.
‘The Witness’ is one of the most unique puzzle games I’ve ever played, and quite possibly one of the best. It’s simple to understand but hard to master puzzle design and beautiful world had me glued to the screen for the thirty hours it took to complete it. If this game is any indication of what to expect from 2016, this is going to be a great year. ‘The Witness’ is available on the Playstation 4 and PC for $40.
