Cosplayers Cinderys and CosplayXia just used The Cosmodrome, Bungie's community showcase, to reveal their cosplay of The Witness, one of the most otherworldly-looking characters in the history of Destiny, and it looks so good it could feature on a Destiny movie adaptation right now.

I’ll be the first to admit that I clowned hard on the appearance of Destiny 2's The Witness, a.k.a. The Entity, when Bungie first revealed the villain that would lead the charge in The Final Shape. The weir??d space unibrow plus the cloud of heads hovering over their own head just seemed too goofy and impractical for an enemy that wanted to seem menacing, f?or players who'd already been up against half the galaxy. I was very wrong.

The video above shows both the final work and the making of the promotional video showcase. And sure, there are some effects done in post to add the background with the flying pyramids, VFX to make The Witness' weird movements come to live, and even some CG to bring The Witness' cloud of smoke look more realistic. Still, there are a lot of practical effects, high-tech animatronics, and even practical smoke involved. The whole thing works very well even without all the CGI smoke-and-mirrors. The make-up, the shiny Gre?y Alien-looking eyes, the costume design and fabric all look spectacular.

There's no better way to prove that a character could actually kick ass in real life than having a cosplayer actually embodying it, and Cinderys pulled it ??off perfectly. From now on, I'll refrain from writing off any idea of a cosplay as "i?mpossible."

You can now face off against the real video game Witness on Destiny 2: The Final Shape on PC, PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, Xbox One, and Xbox Series X|S.

The post D??estiny 2 fan shows off incredible Witness cosplay appeared first on Destructoid.

It's best if you've got past experience to pull from, but this parody game also holds up on its own

One of Steam's popular new releases this week is a parody of The Witness, and whether you liked that game or ended up bouncing off it, there's fun to be had. The Looker goes to surprisingly great lengths to capture that island-exploring puzzle-solving experience, except it's much more concise �above all, it just wants to make you laugh??. Also, it's free!

I think it's something anyone could enjoy, but you'll likely appreciate it more if you've cracked far enough into The Witness to know t??hat it's not just a typical "puzzle game."

[caption id="attachment_331999" align="alignnone" width="1920"] _{The Looker's main game mechanic.}[/caption]

Just like in the source ??material, you'll walk around an island and look for puzzle panels to solve so that you can expand the game's explorable area, rinse and repeat.

The Looker's puzzle mechanic is the equivalent of a maze on a kid's placemat, and also similar to The Witness, it's a simple premise that goes to some unexpected places. If you've finished The Witness and know how its puzzles progress, you'll know what I mean to a certain extent �bu??t it also goes a step further with some funny games within a game.

It's a parody game through and through, but Subcreation Studio put enough time, energy, and care into The Looker that i??t also holds up as its own thing. I'm... impressed!

The Looker isn't too long, and it sticks the landing

[caption id="attachment_332000" align="alignnone" width="1920"] _{One of many amusingly long-winded audio logs.}[/caption]

While not every joke or gag hit its mark, I ended up chuckling or outright laughing at a handful of them �an early one being a hint button that just kept giving me friendly non-advice. And there are some good a-ha moments, too. As much as The Looker leans into Big Shitpost Energy when there's an opportunity, it's an honest-to-goodness video ??game.

If you've got an hour (or less if you're smart!) to burn, The Looker is worth checking out. Or if you've only got five minutes to spare, Dunkey has an abbreviated playthrough.

The post The Looker is a funny, free take on The Witness appeared first on Destructoid.

Braid 2: Electroic Boogaloo

For the last couple of years over in Croatia, the Reboot Develop Conference has been host to speeches and discussions with some of the games industry's leading figures. While Jonathan Blow may not be a household name, he certainly helped shape the indie development scene with his breakout hit Braid in 2008. Its only natural that he would be hosting a talk at Reboot De?vel??op, but I'm sure most people weren't expecting him to show off anything about a new game.

In the below video (at the 5:32:45 mark), Blow gives us a small glimpse at the next game he's working on. It looks to be another puzzle game in the vein of his past projects, although very little is even known about the concept behind it. Blow mentioned that, "It's a nice little grid-based game. I've got a guy who can run around and push blocks and stuff." Along with that, he said ?he has planned out around 25 hours of single-player g??ameplay.

I've been a huge fan of Blow's since Braid and even saw his keynote speech at PAX East 2015. He seems like the type of guy who is constantly trying to concoct cool ways to interact with virtual spaces and I'm happy his success with Braid allowed him to further explore gaming. I probably should try The Witness at some point.

Jonathan Blow teases prototype of his next game [Eurogamer]

The post Jonathan Bl?ow gives us a small glimpse of his next game appeared first on Destructoid.

Options! And benefits for both 1080p and 4K TVs

We're starting to see patches trickle out that set games up for next week's PlayStation 4 Pro launch. While The Witness isn't quite ready for its? 4K and high-dynamic range update, it will be one of the early games to use Sony's higher-end console to pull off improved visuals.

Designer Jonathan Blow has walked us through the update comi??ng to the intricate island puzzle game later this month, and the way the team is handling Pro support makes a lot of sense. They're giving players a couple of options, which is a strategy I'd love to see other titles adopt going forward.

With a PlayStation 4 Pro outputting to a 1080p TV, "The Witness will render at 1080p, 60fps, 4??x MSAA ??(which is substantially higher than the base PS4's 900p, 60fps, 2x MSAA)."

With a PS4 Pro outputting to a 4K TV, you have the choice between:

1) "1440p 2x MSAA rendering of the game world, upscaled to 4k, text and UI rendered at 4k, 60fps" or
2) "4k 2x MSAA rendering for everything, 30fps."

Again, I think this sets the bar. There's also HDR support baked into these options, and even if you don't have a PS4 Pro (but you do have ??a compatible television), you'l?l be able to play in HDR mode.

PS4 Pro patch update [The Witness]

The post The Witness shows?? how PS4 Pro patches should be done appeared first on Destructoid.

Try adjusting the field of view, among other things

It sure does feel odd to boot up The Witness again. I had intended to continue solving optional puzzles after earning the platinum Trophy, albeit at a much laxer, much more sane pace, but ended up stopping completely. Why go back now? A PlayStation 4 update! And a beefy on??e at ??that.

The update adds a few new options presumably meant to help quell motion sickness. I've never felt nauseous while playing The Witness, so I ??can't comment on their effectiveness first-hand.

Under the Settings menu, you can now find a toggle for a reticule as well as "vignetting," an effect that essentially darkens the screen around the edges. There??'s also a field-of-view slider (adjustable from "80" up to "100"), which is something the PC versio?n already received via update.

I'm unsure if ??there are any other less-obvious changes, but that wouldn't surprise me.

Jonathan Blow [Twitter]

The post New PS4 update for The Witne?ss might help with motion sickness appeared first on Destructoid.

Sup Holmes every Sunday at 2:30pm EST!

_{[Sup Holmes is a weekly talk show for people that make great video games. It ai??rs live every Sunday at 4:00pm EST on YouTube, and can be found in Podcast form on Libsyn and iTunes.]}

Normally I wa??it for each episode of Sup Holmes to be available on Libsyn and iTunes before I post the rerun here on Dtoid, but since so much of our recent chat with Jonathan Blow could be construed as "news", I figured it w??ould be better not to wait.

The show started off with me trying not to sound creepy as I talked to Jonathan about how The Witness truly felt like an extension of his brain, or at least, the way I've come to think and feel about his brain. That wasn't Jonathan's intention in the end, but as it turns out, I was more on point than I initially believed. There was a time when The Witness was going to contain content that was meant to directly reflect events from his life. Over the years that the game was in development, that content no longer felt right for the game as was cut, leaving most of the linear media left in The Witness (mostly audio and video logs) to come f?rom outside sources.

This led us on all sorts of tangents, like discussions of a few modern games that Jonathan considers to be "genius" like 1001 Spikes and Steven's Sausage Roll, a new game he's been working on that's already has over 40 hours of gameplay, his idea for a new Earth Defense Force, the new programming language h??e's designing, and a lot more. 

Thanks again to Jonathan for spending the time with us and answering so many viewer questions. Make sure you tune in this Sunday at 2:30pm EST when we welcome Heidi Mandelin, Tony Kuchar, and Dan Moore from Fangamer to the show to talk about Legends of Localization, the Bloodstained Kickstarter, the Mother 3 handbook, and many of ?their other?? projects. It should be a hoot!

The post Jon B??low on The Witness, plans for new games, and Earth Defense Force appeared first on Destructoid.

You smart. You very smart. We the best.

I've been playing through Jonathan Blow and gang's The Witness of which I have very mixed feelings -- unlike Brett who gave the game a perfect score in his review?? -- but that hasn't stopped me from falling in love with this amazing video.

While it is marked as having spoilers, it really doesn't. This is a mod where someone some brilliant genius replaced one of the in-game videos with an inspirational video by DJ Khaled. For those of you who haven't played the game, this is the video that normally plays here. And if you're unfamiliar with DJ Khaled, all he is does is win, win, win no matter what, and he is the god of Snapchat. 

You're welcome for another one.

The post Somehow DJ Khaled fits perfectly in The Witness appeared first on Destructoid.

It's a secret!

In the last few months, two games were released that I feel might be among my favorite games of all time, Undertale and The Witness. But what exactly mak??es them two of the greatest gaming experiences I've had in recent memory? Well, it's difficult for me to say.

That's not because I don't know why, mind you. I could explain exactly why I think both are incredible. I could easily describe one, singular moment from each game where I thought, "Damn, this is amazing!" But I don't want to to talk about these things, because they would have a much greater impact on players who figure them out for themselves. In essence, the greatest strengths of Undertale and The Witness can be considered major spoilers.

That's unusu?al though, right? It seems like a new phenomenon. I don't usually come across games where I can't discuss some of the core? mechanics without ruining it for others.

The Witness creator Jonathan Blow made a point to warn prospective buyers that some reviews were full of spoilers, and I can definitely understand why he did. On the other side of the coin, in Destructoid's review of the game, Brett Makedonski was noticeably vague and short on details, and I know exactly why he wrote it that way. When I wrote my Undertale review, I had to dance around the ???parts of the game that excited me most.

But Undertale and The Witness can't be the only games like this. While trying to think of other examples, the first that came to mind was Frog Fractions. Now, that's kind of an extr?eme example for a number of reasons, but I think the point still stands.

If you've completed Frog Fractions, think about how you might describe the experience to someone who hasn't pl??ayed it. It would be a challenge. You would likely have to convince them to try it without saying anything about it other than, "You're a ??frog, and you eat bugs to make fractions. Just play it!"

Admittedly, Frog Fractions is a little different than Undertale and The Witness. There are many interesting aspects of those games one could discuss without giving everything away. But at best, I can imagine only being able to describe what sounds like an average to above-average video game. And then someone would (understandably) ask, “Well that all sounds okay, but what exactly makes it so special?" And that's a question you couldn't answer, even if you really wanted to, with anything other other tha?n "Just believe?? me."

It's even more onerous to justify the high praise to players who actually completed Undertale or The Witness, and somehow missed their hidden strengths. This could easily happen with either game. Even though I managed to discover Undertale's most unique element befor??e even leaving the tutorial area, I've spoken to other players who had no idea what I was talking about, or had only noticed it in the game's final few boss battles. It's much more apparent once you start a second playthrough, but a lot of people that didn't get it the first time around probably wouldn't have much interest in playing the game again, so they might never know about it.

In The Witness, I still hadn't discovered the coolest thing the game has to offer before the end. Brett actually had to? nudge me in the right direction, and, when I finally found it, I was blown away. I was actually surprised I hadn't figured it out myself somewhere along the way, as it seems like something I should have noticed at one point or another, even if by accident. But it's ??certainly no surprise that, once again, many players will never stumble upon it.

Some might argue this is bad ?design. 'Why hide an experience's greatest strengths to such a degree that some players might never find it?' you might ask. However, I've come to believ?e the reason these games leave such an impact on players is precisely because these secrets can be difficult to find.

Undertale and The Witness start off as great games (or average, or bad, whatever your view), until something unexpected happens that elevates them to another level. And suddenly they might have you thinking, "Whoa, what?! This changes everything!' and make you want to excitedly tell everyone about how amazing they are before realizing, "Wait, maybe it's best to let ?them discover this on their ow?n."

If I've had a conversation with someone about Undertale or The Witness and it seemed as though I was deliberately vague or leaving out information, this is exactly why. I want to talk about them so badly, but at the same time, I know I shouldn't and it kills me. They really are amazing experi?ences, but unfortunately you'll just have to take my word for it!

The post What’s so great about Undertale and The Witness? appeared first on Destructoid.

I think...

Once The Witness has its hooks in you, it really has its hooks in you. Chances are, there's no turning back. There is only playing, dreaming, and day-dreaming. Everything is a Witness puzzle waiting to happen, as I realized when I drove past Domino's.

Me? I'm having conversations about it with no fewer ?than seven different people every day. Around here, Chris, Jordan, Ben, Patrick, and Zack have all fallen under the game's spell. It's fascinating to hear them recount their progress an??d revelations.

We aren't the only ones unknowingly losing hours in chunks. As we recounted last week, The Witness has a pretty active community. One of those engrossed in the game is Read Only Memories lead programmer Ted DiNola. He came up with his own Witness puzzle, and it's a doozy:

Look at that behemoth! An eight-by-eight grid, every single box with some sort of constraint. At first glance, it looks like a parody -- a haphazard smattering of symbols that says "haha, this game can be really goddamn hard sometimes!"

But, that's not the case. This is totally solvable. Anyone looking to best it will need to have put some serious time into The Witness, though. Completing this requires knowledge of almost every set of rules in the game, ?and a mindset that's unflinching in the face of a good challenge.

Here's the solution, by the way (linked instead of embedded, so as to not spoil it). Getting some real solid fan puzzles seems like it's going to be an unforeseen secondary benefit of The Witness. That'll be perfectly fine with me.

I may be too into this game... [reddit]

The post Holy shit, this fan-made Witness puzzle is to??tally solvable appeared first on Destructoid.

Popularity isn't always a good thing

The Witness is very popular this week, but popularity and revenue don't always correlate directly. There's a whole subset of people out there who prefer to get their games through nefarious, illegal means and The Witness has found itself as a prime target.

According to lead creator Jonathan Blow, The Witness is the top-pirated video game on a "certain popular torrent site" which he declined to name. Blow lamented that "Unfortunately, this will not help us afford to make another game." In a subsequent tweet, Blow expressed the slightest of silver linings in that more people will be able to play it. Still, that consolati?on doesn't help his bottom line or his ability to start another project.

It's not a new phenomenon for Blow who stated that Braid, his first game, saw the same degree of illegal downloading. It's enough to make him consider some sort of DRM protective measures for whatever he does next, although Blow said he "[Doesn't] ?like DRM because [he thinks] people should have the freedom ??to own things."

Undoubtedly, The Witness' piracy popularity is a combination between people being curious because of its critical acclaim, mixed with an unwillingness to pay $40 for an "indie" digital-only title. It isn't ideal, but it's also the inevitable cost of doing bu??siness on the Internet. The only way to cut back on it, like Blow says, is to implement some sort of DRM for his next title -- hopefully Blowplay ??or Blowrigin.

@Jonathan_Blow [Twitter]

The post Jonathan Blow says The Witness is ve?ry pop?ular among pirates appeared first on Destructoid.

Again, puzzled

[Update: Jonathan Blow answered our inquiry. Here's what he had to say, edited? slightly to? omit anything that could be the most minor of spoilers:

"Yes, I pretty much figured that one to be one of the hardest individual puzzles in the game. It was one of the early puzzles I designed, way ba?ck in 2009 even. A few puzzles in the game were sparked by ideas from other team members? (for example, the pressure plate puzzles -- designed by me but the idea came from a conversation with someone) and a small fraction were designed primarily by Orsi rather than me (I did the first three puzzles [spoiler location], but she wanted to make it bigger so she designed most of the rest and I gave feedback on them)."]

The Witness is chock-full of puzzles. Hundreds upon hundreds, in fac??t. As you'd expect, some are easy and some are tough. More accurately, different people are finding different puzzles easy and/or tough. That's just sort of the way the human brain works, I guess. But, there's one puzzle that is absolutely giving everyone fits right now.

I reviewed The Witness, which means that I've earlier access to the game than? most people. Last night, I earned the Platinum Trophy (although, I'll spare you the details of earning it, so as to not spoil anything at all). I was quite proud of this accomplishment, especially considering that I didn't have the option of using any sort of guide to nudge me along.

I was ecstatic. I wanted to tell someone, anyone. I figured that The Witness' official subreddit would be a good place to post a screenshot of the Trophy; I assumed they could appreciate it. (As an aside, I do not rec?ommend visiting the subreddit if you have any inte?rest in the game. They are spoiling things with reckless abandon.)

What I was met with was unfortunate, yet expected. Apart from a few congratulatory messages, almost everyone just wanted help. They wanted knowledge about every aspect of the game. The Witness has a way of doing that to you. It makes?? you yearn to learn its secrets, and it's antithetical to the process to have another person just spill the beans.

An odd outlier was people who didn't necessarily want help with the game at-large, they wanted help with a specific puzzle. The thing is, even if I were willing to offer assistance (I'm not), I wouldn't be able to actually help.

The puzzle in question is on the ship that's wrecked just off the coast of the island. Exploring its depths, you can find a door that's locked by one of the game's many grid puzzles. Take a look at this solut?ion-free video I slapped together:

This shows the mechanics of the puzzle. It looks simple enough, although it's anything but. T?here are two possible starting points. All those dots need to be collected before reaching the end. However, there's an invisible mirrored line that makes this task ridiculously tough. And, the big ol' cherry on top is that the dots need to be nabbed in some mysterious order.

I know the order. I brute-forced my way through this puzzle, having tried unsuccessfully enough times to finally get it right. Wh??en the door opened, I jumped because I was so startled by the sound of not-failure. But, I have absolutely no idea why what I did makes sense, why it makes the puzzle work. I just got lucky.

Looking at those?? comments on reddit made me realize I'm not alone. I started asking around. Some peers have solved it, but none of them know how they solved it. Like me, they just got lucky and moved on. That seems to be the only common denominator thus far.

I ??reached out to creator Jonathan Blow before writing this story. The puzzle solution isn't something I asked for because I know it isn't something I'd get. He has been very quiet about giving aw?ay any sort of specifics.

Instead, I asked for some in??sight as to this puzzle. Did he anticipate that this would be one of the most troublesome puzzles? Actually, does he actually even consider it one of the most troublesome ?puzzles? How was it made -- as a solo effort or collaboratively? Was anyone on his staff stumped by this? When you think about it, that isn't much of a leap considering it's currently stumping the Internet sleuths, even if his staff did help create the game.

I was warned that there's a good chance Blow wouldn't want to comment if the questions were for an article. That much isn't surprising; it goes hand-in-hand with him abstaining from talking about The Witness with any degree of specificity. As of writing, I haven't received a response, and I'm not really expecting one. I guess one of The Witness' most vexing pu??zzles and its backstory will remain unso??lved. Well, for now, at least.

The post The Witness puzzle that’s vexing everyone [Update] appeared first on Destructoid.

Blow won't hold your hand

I've been playing The Witness for the past day or so. Although I don't like it as much as Brett (yet, at least) I think it's pretty damn great, and if you even remotely like puzzle games you should get it -- it's like a modern day Myst.

In this era of instant gratificatio??n I suspect a lot of people are going to be turned off by it, but for me, it couldn't have come at a better time.

_{[It's best to go in this game blind, but if you need convincing, read ahead.]}

The Witness is an unconventional game from the start. It drops you in the world with no context, and no ?overarching intro cutscene. You're just there, ready to solve puzzles. For a good while, all of the story is inferred, and even after experiencing some of it by way of audio logs, none of it is over-explained.

I'm roughly 10 hours through the game at the moment. But you know what? That's not a barometer of anything, as Witness is a completely non-linear title. There's no gamey "progress" indicator, no breadcrumb trail to tell you exactly where to go next, and no hint system -- hell there's barely even a menu. And that's arguably the best part. Although there is a small hump at the start that you'll climb to access the main hub, from there, the world is your oyster. If you see something cool and want to go there, you just go, and start d?oing the puzzles?? within.

Since each area is themed, most will alter the rules of the game and force you to think differently. But the beauty of Witness is that since there's no set progression, you can simply leave if you feel overwhelmed, go to another zone, and come back later with new logic in tow. There's no leveling up or item acquisition -- the only thing you're acquiring is personal know??ledge of how the game works. It won't come easy either, even if you're particularly versed in the genre, because The Witness is relentless. It will stump you on a single puzzle for a good 15 minutes, then throw 10 other more difficult puzzles at you just like it in rapid succession. It te??sts ?every part of your brain, and your patience level.

Rewards are also never immediate. After working your way through each area, sometimes over the course of a few hours to best a tiny little shack for example, you almost never see the benefits of your success in the slightest. That's going to piss off a lot of people -- without positive reinforcement, some will lose the will to go on. But that's just another draw for me. The game is riddled with secrets, and it compels me to solve all of them. 70 hours for everything? I believe it. I don't need a cluttered UI to pop up and lead me to each objective, Assassin's Creed s??tyle -- there's already enough games like that out the??re.

I'm not going to act like hand-holding and streamlined design is inherently a bad thing -- far from it. We've come a long way in gaming when it comes to a lot of archaic and alienating mechanics, and lots of projects have incorporated some rather great concepts that have brought in droves of people into the hobby -- the more the merrier. But in an increasingly streamlined era where most games err on the side of breadcrumbing you every single step of the way, games like The Witness and series like From Software's Souls ?;series practically stand alone, peerless -- as long as you?? have the patience for them.

The post The Witness has no need for impatient players, and that’s awesome appeared first on Destructoid.

Come see

I am worthless. I am garbage. I am a dolt.

I am brilliant. I am special. I am a genius.

Those are the two extremes of self-value that The Witness constantly inflicts. It's a continuous loop of not getting it until you totally g??et it. Then, you don't get it again.

The Witness (PC, PS4 [reviewed])
Developer: Thekla, Inc.
Publisher: Thekla, Inc.
MSRP: $39.99
Released: January 26, 2016 

I have vivid memories of sitting in geometry class in ?ninth grade and listening to the teacher explain why geometry is a different beast than the other maths we had already learned. "Don't feel bad if you can't do this yet," he said. "The reason is because it's chemically impossible for you. We're doing theorems and proofs -- your brain hasn't ever been asked to think like that before. The synapses in your brain need ?to fire off in order to be able to understand this; when that happens, you'll get it and this will all be easy for you."

That "A-HA!" moment my geometry teacher spoke of -- all those synapses firing to form a revelation -- is the greatest reward The Witness has to offer and it happens countless times. It never grows old. After a bit, it's no longer new, but it's? always fresh.

The fundamentals of The Witness are line puzzles. Grids, often in the shape of a rectangle, require navigating in a specific fashion to satisfy certain constraints and to reach the end-point. This is repeated hundreds of time over as the basic building block of the game. Through clever subversion, ever-evolving rule sets, and alternative methods, repetition never becomes cause for concern. Again, just like the many many moments of epiphany, th?e puzzles cease being new before long, bu?t they are always fresh.

Well, that comes with a caveat. They are fresh as long as you want them to be. The Witness is largely fueled by your desire to discover??. Once that wanes, so will your interest. The game's island is drenched in mystery and detail, not all of which is able to be immediately appreciated. When that happens, it's just another revelation that hasn't formed yet. For what it's worth, I'm 40-some hours in, and my interest hasn't waned in the slightest; it has only grown considerably.

The reason for this is because The Witness smartly preys on the curiosity of human nature. Every direction has an inviting setting just begging to be explored. It's a given tha?t those settings will contain challenges -- challenges that are imperative to continue exploring. It's cyclical and gives way to a competiti?ve mindset to not be bested even if we're not necessarily mentally equipped yet. It's all in the pursuit of just seeing more. We want to see more because seeing is learning, and that's in the fiber of our being.

What truly makes The Witness everything that it is lies somewhere between the fundamentals of the puzzles and the deeply philosophical of everything else. These two work in tandem, complementing each other even when they seem worlds apart. There are so many layers of separation between the two that it's almost impossible to perceive or even conceive. But, they're there, working hand-in-hand and, on some level, one in the same. You'd be hard-pressed to declare that one of these components is closer to defining The Witness than the other.

Truthfully, I wish I didn't have to score The Witness. I don't want to set people up for that expectation; I don't want a voice in the back of their head that says "Okay, when does this become a ten?" In a way, that's unfair and detrimental to how the game should be experienced, which is as open-minded and unassuming as possible. Don't go to The Witness. Let The Witness come to you.

_{[This review is based on a retail build of the game provided by the publisher.]Â} 

The post Review: The Witness appeared first on Destructoid.

Due next week on PC and PS4

Development for The Witness began back in 2008??, and now, we're finally going to see the game in action next week when it launches on PC and PS4. But wait!

According to the ESRB, it's coming out on Xbox One as well at some point. M?aybe it has ??something to do with Microsoft's wonky exclusivity deals, but either way this looks like a concrete confirmation.

Expect our review and extended coverage of The Witness next week.

The Witness [ESRB]

The post The Witness is com?ing to ??Xbox One too, according to the ESRB appeared first on Destructoid.

Still putting on finishing touches

Although The Witness is set to release next month, Jonathan Blow is still putting on the finishing touches as we speak. Voiceover i??s apparently done outside of some minor work in early January, at which point the team will reveal the final voice cast. You can also get a look at the near final build above.

Finally, there may be a physical box coming, and Thekla Inc., the developer, has been in ??talks with "a couple of parties for a while" on?? that subject. The announcement probably wouldn't come until after the digital release though.

I'm not sure what I think about The Witness yet, but I'm definitely interested.

The post The Witness ‘might’ get a physical release appeared first on Destructoid.

The so-called 'long screenshot' returns

We're not far from the January 26, 2016 release of The Witness (PC, PS4), but going off this latest blog post from designer Jon??athan Blow, there's plenty of work left to be done on the puzzling adventure. The first test readings with the? actors haven't even started yet! (They begin tomorrow.)

Scanning the post, I was?? most interested to learn?? that "there is (almost) no music in the game," and there never will be. It's a stylistic choice.

According to Blow, "If we sl??ather on a layer of music that is just arbitrarily playing, and not really coming from the world, then we're adding a layer of stuff that works against the game." So instead of focusing on that, the team "put a great deal of care into the sounds of the world around you."

Here's a sample.

I liked when Polytron did a "long screenshot" for Fez, and I like this?? serene style of video here, too.

If you're as curious about The Witness as I am and want to keep tabs on its development, the full post has expanded thoughts ??abou??t the story, voicework, localization, and sound design.

On Music, Sound Effects, Story [The Witness]

The post A tranquil moment with The Witness appeared first on Destructoid.

Or just critical path it

The largest puzzle game ever? It feels like every time we hear an estimate for The Witness' length, the number grows. A lot. Designer Jonathan Blow expects "the average time of 100%ing the game to be over 70 hours." That would help explain why it's taking so long to finish the pro?ject.

"Lately, we have someone in the office playtesting The Witness," Blow said. "He had ?? never seen the game before, but he was really good at figuring out how to solve things; a lot faster than average, I think. Today he finished the game, after 8 full-time days?? of playing. So, that is about 64 hours of gameplay. He didn't quite 100% the game, but he is at maybe 97%."

He continued, saying, "This is in a game with no repetition or filler ... everything you solve is different and has its own reason for being there. (If you are not a completionist, yo??u can get to the end in much less time; it's just that there's tons of optional stuff.)"

If I'm ever the last man on earth and time loses its meaning, I'll be sure to go for 100%. Actually, knowing me, I'll get swept up in The Witness, because it looks fantastic, and try anyway.

[Via reddit]

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Slow and steady

There's no news on when The Witness is releasing. Designer Jonathan Blow is standing by his "when it's done" policy, which will serve us well when we finally have this exploration-puzzle game ?at long last. But until then, more painful?? waiting around. At least we've got a status update.

According to Blow, "'when it's done' is getting closer and closer." The team is working on several areas still, including design of extra content beyond the "main line" of The Witness, additional modeling and texturing, frame rate optimizations (1080p, 60 FPS is the plan), making sure graphics don't have that jarring pop-in effect when loading, and ?audio design.

"It's a lot of work, but we are now in the downhill? stretch of the race and looking forward to tying the game up completely." So that's good. Feeling antsy?, PS4 owners?

The Witness on PS4: New Development Details [PlayStation Blog]

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Jonathan Blow's being a tease

The Witness, Jonathan Blow's follow-up to the universally well-received Braid, is definitely a highly anticipated game. It's been in the wo?rks for quite some time, and the hype surrounding it has sort of just kept building. It will be a PlayStation 4 timed-exclusive, and as such, it might be the guinea pig for some new technology on the Sony platform.

Blow took to The Witness' website recently to post a couple of teaser images under the caption "What could it mean??" The look of the photos lends itself to the theory that the game might have Oculus Rift or some sort of virtual reality peripheral support. Further backing that thought process is the fact that Blow named the files "v??r1" and "vr2".

The Witness seems like it would be a great title for Sony to test the waters for a virtual reality headset. If these rumors are true, The Witness migh??t end up as an even more remarkable and monumental tit??le than it was already shaping up to be.

What could it mean?? [The Witness via PlayStation Official Magazine - UK]

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PlayStation 4 launch title sports 25-40 hours of gameplay

Jonathan Blow's next project sounds absolutely massive. The Braid designer and his team are currently putting the finishing touches on The Witness, an open? world puzzle game coming to PlayStation 4 that is reportedly somewhere in the neighborhood of 25 to 4??0 hours in duration.

That's a far cry from the eight hour? campaign Blow envisioned when?? he embarked on this journey. In a recent update on the PlayStation Blog, the designer suggested the title might just be "the biggest and most-intricate world ever built for a puzzle game."

In addition to detailing The Witness' massive environments and tweaking its puzzles, the developer is presently focused on creating a "smooth and solid frame rate, making the graphics look as nice a??s possible, and ensuring t??hat the streaming system loads things quickly."

The Witness on PS4: Tiny Details i??n a Very Big World [PlayStation Blog]

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Bear witness

Braid creator Jonathan Blow's The Witness is probably my most anticipated PS4 game -- almost definitely among games th?at are coming to the system this year. It, in its own way, stole the show at Sony's PlayStation 4 announcement co??nference and stole E3 for me, too.

In a behind closed doors, hands-off demo, Blow took members of the press through a live explanation of the game, using his small team's working build of the game. No "careful??ly manicured E3 thing" here. It was running on the PlayStation 4, looking quite close to completion, and I'm excited to delve deeply into its mysterious ??depths later this year.

The Witness (PS4 [timed exclusive], PC, iOS)
Developer: Thekla, Inc.
Publisher: Thekla, Inc.
Release: 2013

The Witness is a puzzle game couched in an explorable world, emphasis on exploration. It's "not about rushing? through the environments as quickly as possible," Blow explained. Indeed, this isn't just a claim being made to encourage a meditative pace befitting of the atmosphere. The game's puzzles require some consideration and they are design??ed in such a way to slowly teach you how to solve them.

The most consistent thing the game is about is nonverbal communication. You "build an explanation to yourself of what you're doing. The game never tells you." In fact, aside from some optional collectible audio logs that fill in the island's backstory, The Witness is almost entirely reticent.

You start the game in a dark corridor and the only t??hing to do is go forward and begin opening doors with simple line puzzles through simple mazes, setting precedent for all the subsequent puzzles to come. In one of the early areas you will encounter, two rows of puzzles of increasing complexity sit near each other. Earlier still, there is a door with a nonsensical-seeming, incomprehensible lock barring you from entry.

After you complete the first row of puzzles, and then the second, you'll find that,?? "nothing actually happened. Nothing obvious," Blow said. In the first set of puzzles, you try to guide a line through a maze while covering all the black blips o screen before getting to the end. You can't run into yourself, so this gets more challenging. In the second set, you intuitively begin to realize you have ??to separate blips of different colors on your way to the maze's exit.

Each set of puzzle starts out simple and gets more challenging. You can theoretically blow by the first few quickly and by luck, but you've not gained any understanding o??f how they work and would subsequently be stuck when solutions become less clear and less prone to guesswork. You're tasked with figuring? out the rules of the puzzle and then applying them.

While it seems nothing obvious has resulted from solving those two sets of puzzles, you've actually organically learned how to operate those puzzles?? and then, eureka, you've developed the skill set necessary to solve the aforementioned, seemingly incomprehensible puzzle that locks the door.

"The key was in my head the entire time," Blow explained. It's a fascinating concept. The Witness bears simi?larities to adventure games, but the differences are paramount. It is entirely open and explorable, rather than linear. The puzzles are obviously present and divided into palpable sections, keeping the logic from spir??aling out of control. "As a game designer who was ideas about games I look at [adventure games] now and just think they're all bad," Blow explained.

When I asked him how he felt about comparisons to the well-known Myst, Blow told me that his game bore important similarities to Myst, minus all of the things people -- or Blow himself -- dislike about t?he game.

The idea that solving puzzles can give you actual intuition -- a metaphorical key inside your head -- rather than a throwaway inventory item is an interesting refutation of cliche game mechanics and systems. It also seems emblematic of the general theme of The Witness as a game that encour??ages more consideration than is typical.

The Witness is not, however, arcane or intentional obfuscating. Puzzles and other elements in the environment are constantly linked through cable??s that light up when active, keeping you from circling areas trying to figure out what you're supposed to do. You know: you're supposed to do the puzzles, and the game teaches you to do them.

You're fr?ee to wander the isl??and, but there is a goal that reveals itself clearly upon clearing the first of ten areas. Within these areas, progress is relatively linear, making you feel forward momentum, yet not locking you into a certain area if you're stuck. In fact, only seven of the ten areas need to be cleared, though "something better happens" if you clear all ten, solving all the puzzles. Your level of engagement decides how much you understand the game and its underlying intent, but Blow is "preparing for variable levels of engagement," partially through intuitive design.

"When you go in, if you just are interested in a puzzle game and you're not really looking at story or philosophy or anything like that, there is a really good puzzle game," Jonathan Blow said here in this developer video. "But if you want to read further than that, ?? there's other layers."

I believe it. The puzzles we were shown were varied and clever, though often mech?anically simple. One segment that necessitated completing three similar puzzles to continue made you start from the ??first if you messed up on the second. "You can't brute force it or you end up having to keep walking back and forth like an idiot," Blow explained.

Every element of the game's design seems intricately considered to serve Blow's intentions (Blow "designed 95% of the puzzles" in addition to programming for the game and serving as its figurehead) and through this fastidiousness a plainly interesting puzzle game was borne for those only in it for the surface level. And it's a damn fine surface level. Beyond the puzzles, the game looks absolutely stunning with it's almost 3D vector art aesthetic and gorgeous cherry blossom trees, among other geography -- I'm a sucker for cherry blossoms. And I can't wait for The Witness.

The post Blow’s enigmatic The Witness is the highlight of the PS4 appeared first on Destructoid.

The Witness developer is also impressed by the Share feature

I think many eyebrows were raised when Braid developer Jonathan Blow came on stage at the Sony Pre??ss c??onference last month and announced his upcoming title, The Witness, would be a "timed exclusive" for the PlayStation 4. Speaking to Edge, Blow praised the PS4's hardware, especially compared to the PC. "??Rendering stuff through Windows has an impact on performance," he said. "Since a console is just about games, that doesn't happen, and the equivalent game will run faster."

Blow must be impressed with the specs if he's making The Witness an exclusive on the PS4 for a while, at least. He also seems fairly positive on the system's Share button functionality calling it "super-interesting" and commenting that YouTube and livecasting are things that developers are paying attention to. I just really want to get my hands on The Witness and ?unravel its mysteries, regardless of what platform it's on.

Jonathan Blow on the? power of the PS4 and how sharing will change the way we play [Edge] [Image]

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