I got the urge to play the witness for the 3rd (or maybe even 4th) time again after being slightly disappointed by the Talos Principle 2, and man I cannot express enough how much I enjoy this game. It just satisfies something deep inside me every time I play it. And I know a LOT of people (probably some here) strongly dislike this game, but for me it’s just sublime to play. Relaxing yet challenging, mysterious and layered, it’s great in my opinion.
It does however deeply annoy me how misunderstood the game is. Mostly from people who didn’t play it all the way through. You’d be surprised how many times I’ve heard somebody complain about an aspect being “useless” or not making any sense when it IS useful and DOES make sense as long as you just keep playing the game. Also what’s frustrating is when somebody complains about stumbling onto a puzzle they haven’t learned yet in an open world puzzle game and then refusing to use the open world to go and find where it teaches you… idk. Anyway, LOVE this game. If there’s anybody reading this who’s into puzzles, especially 2D puzzle games, you may love the witness (but your computer might hate you, it’s surprisingly graphically intense at times)
I can say I was put off at first glance by the “realistic” aesthetic, with props like jammers and minigun turrets that have an unnecessarily detailed, grounded look when as a puzzle game, graphics should not be the focus of the experience. A stylised, or minimal, graphical style would put the focus firmly where it belongs - on the puzzles themselves.
Huh, OK. That never crossed my mind while playing TTP / TTP2 but I can see how that would be distracting from the puzzle solving.
Funny thing is, after I finished Witness, I went back to play Braid, the earlier game by the same creator and its look & feel just never worked for me at all. So yeah
Let me add one thing more, that a realistic aesthetic brings with it certain expectations. For example, I don’t question how Security Bots in Bioshock refuel themselves, or fly, or recognise intruders. I don’t ask how come the turrets in Portal never run out of bullets (though it’s answered as a gag in one of the videos). They’re not presented as realistic, and I don’t expect them to be. But when you make the choice to use realistic miniguns in Talos, those questions are going to bubble up to the surface, like “Where’s the ammo box on that thing?” and “Who’s maintaining these on islands in the middle of nowhere?” and “Scratch that, who’s making them?” and “If Elohim (yeah real subtle name there) did all this then why bother with a machine that requires maintenance in the first place instead of a magic pillar of fire or smth?”