You don't need to stand in front of a puzzle board to interact with it, you can be literally 20 meters away and still solve it. This would have made the desert reflection puzzles a lot easier. Speaking of reflection puzzles, they are one of the less interesting ones, at least in the beginning. The "industrial area" near the start (not at all industrial. its the "oasis of mirrors" as i call it) would have been a lot more interesting as you don't have to constantly walk back and forth.
I feel that The Witness is one of those games where you either 'get it' or you don't at all, and there's not a lot between. You either get absorbed in exploring the world and peeling back the layers of the onion to understand the message the game is trying to give, or it's just a bunch of line puzzles in a pretty landscape. I loved this game so much, but I can totally see why somebody else would think 'yeah, it's ok. Pretty though'.
This game made me feel like a genius for the twenty or thirty hours it took me to explore and contemplate it. Very very rare a game can maintain that feeling and exhiliration of continued discovery. It definitely needs to be played in bursts so your brain can have full juice to have another go at what stumped you the afternoon before.
I've done that bit, and I don't know if I skipped ahead a bit but I'm on some multicoloured star shit, and it's really racking my brain. You know if, like, you weren't a physicist and someone threw an equation at you and said "DO IT"? That's how I felt.
VodkaFox With those, each star color has to be separated into groups of two, but multiple different colors can be in a group, each color individually has to be separated into pairs, I think.
This game's reception was split between "this sucks, the reward for solving puzzles is more puzzles" and "this is awesome, the reward for solving puzzles is more puzzles!" If you can get into the mindset of learning the rules of the puzzles, and the fun of having the rules "click," it's great.
Is this a Vault Tec experiment? I mean you DID start underground and you ARE being forced to do largely pointless experiments in a ruined and abandoned environment.
I can't believe you don't know who James Burke is! The Day the Universe Changed and Connections were seminal parts of my childhood! I guess this is where I feel old.
The original Connections series, The Day the University Changed and The Real Thing are three of my favourite exploratory documentaries that make you think deeply about how things work. He did some great popular science stuff on the moon landings and for Tomorrow's world as well. He pioneered an intelligent style of documentary that has been lost in how things are done these days...!
I really liked the style, but I didn't like the open world. To me, it got confusing as I didn't know if I should know how to solve the puzzle, or if I need to know something else first, or if it's in the environment etc.
"...based around one principle which you kind of might just miss, and if you happen to miss it, that whole area is uncompletable". This. This is a fantastic game and all the puzzles come together brilliantly but, as Jon says, if you miss that first one, you miss the rest which then prevents you from completing the game. The reflection puzzle took me ages because I happened to stumble across the right moment when the sun was hitting the board on the 4th revisit to the area. It just needs to make it easier to introduce to the area i.e. a picture to describe the puzzle but not to actually solve it for you. Brilliant game nonetheless but can be irritating beyond belief if you don't get it by luck the first time.
Hahahah oh Jon! Watching you brute force the lattice puzzle was painful: you don't learn the rules for that until a while later. I think the actual thesis of the game doesn't emerge until you've played for several hours, heard some of the audio logs, and begin to understand that absolutely nothing in the game is random. Every shadow and tree is used to further the vision of the author. It has to be one puzzle over and over. When you said in the livestream that you had a moment of "wtf", I assume you mean the video lecture, and not discovering the "secret" (ie the language) of the world as I originally hoped. Have Claire give it a try! Maybe she will take to reading the world in a different way. The Witness is one of my favorite games and possibly the best puzzle game ever made.
I have talked at length about The Witness elsewhere, but this was the first game to open my eyes to what a game can be, to the potential of games as art. Is there a genre of games that is "psychological" without the "horror"? If so, this is probably the only one in that genre I've ever played.
And making statements like "only 1% of the players is capable of solving my puzzle!" like it's something to be proud of doesn't help either. Nor is the fact that a lot of the difficulty in this game seems to come from the game's pathological fear of actually explaining or properly tutorializing things.
Secret Saiyan I think that he's saying that there is no reward for completing puzzles, no reason to continue going through the game except curiosity and in my opinion that can only last so long
you either love it or hate it, I don't think there's much of a middle ground. personally I loved it, got sucked in and lost a month of my life playing it and don't regret a minute. horses for courses .
farranut I thought about that quite a bit while I was playing it, so that's interesting to hear. I'd sort of hoped the colors were selected in a way that it wouldn't be a problem, but apparently not. Do you remember which puzzle or where?
You don't have to complete every puzzle to complete the game. There are 11 total areas and only 8 need to be completed to go to the final area. There is a color area and a sound area so those who are colorblind or deaf wouldn't be able to complete those areas. The developer did that intentionally.
Watching this left my head hurting really really badly cuz I just cant do puzzles all that well.... I have a severe lack of... ummm... like that spatial awareness that people have where you can imagine a thing without seeing it first.
jon, there were multiple solutions to the theatre puzzle! when you input the one you found in the vault, one of several panels lit up. the other panels are other solutions.
"Too many people yell at me for not respecting science in there" Be honest Jon, it's a fair cop! "A lovely day out at the beach and occasionally a lovely archaeology expedition" You'd love Paphos on Cyprus then.
You should play Talos Principle. A brilliant puzzle game with philosophical science fiction story. Like a smarter, longer and more serious version of Portal.
god he completely missed the sun puzzle at the beginning! Excusable. You never change, Nerd. ALSO, I believe the hex paper connects to the tree and cloud that line up in that window.
I think very few people noticed that the first time through. It's really obvious if you know what't going on - I couldn't help just staring at it - but before you find your first hidden thing and have that mind-blowing moment, you don't notice anything odd. It's not about Jon's perception.
Jon, you missed what may be the best part of the game. Spoilers to explain it below. Without spoiling anything the game is open world but some areas build off of things learned in other levels. For example the town is nothing but things learned from other levels, and should pretty much be left for last If you want to try the game start with the 'Industrial area' as Jon called it left of the desert. Once you finish the area follow the obvious signal to where it ends. After that just stare at the river a bit, maybe do some drawing. This is a great game but the open world can get confusing. Rail-roading yourself to get these section done first makes the game much more interesting Spoilers: the game has environmental puzzles. When you press A to bring up the pointer you can interact with the world. There are hundreds lines hidden in the map you can find. For example you talked about how the sun shines on the front of the desert temple, that's a puzzle. You get the sun to shine on the white pillars and the gold disc and it makes a path for you to trace out.
I recommend continuing playing this game MATN. Read your description and thought to myself: "This poor child doesn't know what he's in." Also, if you read this, ignore some of the comments because there is huge spoilers for this game, and it's not just the quirky mechanics.
Jon can clearly see the answer to the puzzle in a reflect of sunlight on the object, but clearly cant see the massive platform across from the final puzzle that would allow him to get an angle on it....
Hey Jon I don't know if you ever played Yu-Gi-Oh but I feel like Yu-Gi-Oh duelist of the roses would be up your alley. It's a strategic chess style game. Just a suggestion, you don't have to play it.
Riffler Underhill the quotes or philosophy of the game isn't the main focus of the game. To summarize all the quotes, it's all about perception, which The Witness is very fond of. The game does make you feel clever though, not going to tell you how because spoilers.
Fuck. Yes. This game is one of my all time favourite games. It's simple enough to just start in, and has it's areas where it challenges you. The surroundings, sounds, dialog bits and just general atmosphere is absolutely amazing.
Yes, but it disappears when you open the gate. It's really obvious if you know what's going on, that's the point. In a way, it leads to the true ending of the game.
so what kind of genre would this be? myst-lyke? i got an eerie feeling ive watched Mr Jon play this or something with very similar mechanics and art style before, and i know the difference between Dan and Jon.
It's a combination of puzzle game and thesis on the concept of puzzles and of human perception. I talked at length with some game dev friends, and this is the kind of game that can only be made with your own money. A huge studio could never create something this thoughtful and personal.
Listen, Jon, the over editing is really OTT when you make it too fast for me to pause and read the subtitles on bizarre older Jon who got a science degree instead of a history degree. There's clearly some time travel, alternate timeline, shenanigans going on here. - Then again Claire does most of the editing. Carry on as you were Jon. 🐳
just wish you played a bit longer. this game is all about the environment and you really just figure it out when getting on the mountain and thinking "ohh, that's a thing..."
I'm really good at puzzles. Jon got the apples a lot, LOT faster than me. After hours and doing other things and going back to it I looked up the answer, "where's the apple" "What apple?" On that set in particular, Jon's negative perception vastly outpaced my own.
That feel when he complains about four floors of sunpuzzle when he gave up on the third when it added a waterbased element. Making it more complex than it was before.
that negative perception for the hex puzzle aparently jon didnt see his solution lit up a lanel one of several meaning there were several other solutions needed
I'm saddened that Jon didn't complete any of the areas. The desert temple or the oasis are easy areas. The town is a compilation of all the game's areas.
+cityuser I don't watch them unless it has Jon, the black and white tutorial I remember specify how Jon talks thru it. Was theirs like that? Or am i going nuts
Jon and a perception game...this is going to be good.
or not im realy pissoff at him
You don't need to stand in front of a puzzle board to interact with it, you can be literally 20 meters away and still solve it. This would have made the desert reflection puzzles a lot easier.
Speaking of reflection puzzles, they are one of the less interesting ones, at least in the beginning. The "industrial area" near the start (not at all industrial. its the "oasis of mirrors" as i call it) would have been a lot more interesting as you don't have to constantly walk back and forth.
'Weird creepy heart tree'
Jon never attempted to get into medicine when he was younger, did he?
I feel that The Witness is one of those games where you either 'get it' or you don't at all, and there's not a lot between. You either get absorbed in exploring the world and peeling back the layers of the onion to understand the message the game is trying to give, or it's just a bunch of line puzzles in a pretty landscape.
I loved this game so much, but I can totally see why somebody else would think 'yeah, it's ok. Pretty though'.
This game made me feel like such a genius to start off with, then about an hour, two hours in, just went NOPE.
VodkaFox Same, I am currently stuck with the puzzles that are mirrored and have black dots
This game made me feel like a genius for the twenty or thirty hours it took me to explore and contemplate it. Very very rare a game can maintain that feeling and exhiliration of continued discovery. It definitely needs to be played in bursts so your brain can have full juice to have another go at what stumped you the afternoon before.
I've done that bit, and I don't know if I skipped ahead a bit but I'm on some multicoloured star shit, and it's really racking my brain. You know if, like, you weren't a physicist and someone threw an equation at you and said "DO IT"? That's how I felt.
VodkaFox With those, each star color has to be separated into groups of two, but multiple different colors can be in a group, each color individually has to be separated into pairs, I think.
You mean like hot and cold colours?
Again, there wasn't a way I was weaned into those, I think I might have jumped ahead.
This game's reception was split between "this sucks, the reward for solving puzzles is more puzzles" and "this is awesome, the reward for solving puzzles is more puzzles!"
If you can get into the mindset of learning the rules of the puzzles, and the fun of having the rules "click," it's great.
Is this a Vault Tec experiment?
I mean you DID start underground and you ARE being forced to do largely pointless experiments in a ruined and abandoned environment.
This is now my headcanon.
This is a simulation of gerrymandering.
That is a very confusing and seemingly out of place statement.
So it's pretty fitting for this game.
I think you meant racial segregation.
JAMES BURKE!! I love James Burke.
“It’s a puzzle game where you solve puzzles.” Wow thanks Jon couldn’t have told that’s what it was about.
It's like if you made the entire crystal maze about one type of puzzle.
I can't believe you don't know who James Burke is! The Day the Universe Changed and Connections were seminal parts of my childhood!
I guess this is where I feel old.
Did you ever play the Connections PC game? I rather enjoyed that.
The original Connections series, The Day the University Changed and The Real Thing are three of my favourite exploratory documentaries that make you think deeply about how things work. He did some great popular science stuff on the moon landings and for Tomorrow's world as well. He pioneered an intelligent style of documentary that has been lost in how things are done these days...!
"This is a puzzle game, where you need to solve puzzles" really detailed description there Jon😉
The screens on the hexes lit up for each new puzzle you solve
Easily my favorite puzzle game of all time, with the possible exception of Myst. But I’m not so sure it’s very well-suited to negative perception.
I really liked the style, but I didn't like the open world. To me, it got confusing as I didn't know if I should know how to solve the puzzle, or if I need to know something else first, or if it's in the environment etc.
It's my second-favourite of all time. Have you heard of Talos Principle?
Portal 2 comes third.
"...based around one principle which you kind of might just miss, and if you happen to miss it, that whole area is uncompletable". This. This is a fantastic game and all the puzzles come together brilliantly but, as Jon says, if you miss that first one, you miss the rest which then prevents you from completing the game. The reflection puzzle took me ages because I happened to stumble across the right moment when the sun was hitting the board on the 4th revisit to the area. It just needs to make it easier to introduce to the area i.e. a picture to describe the puzzle but not to actually solve it for you. Brilliant game nonetheless but can be irritating beyond belief if you don't get it by luck the first time.
Hahahah oh Jon! Watching you brute force the lattice puzzle was painful: you don't learn the rules for that until a while later. I think the actual thesis of the game doesn't emerge until you've played for several hours, heard some of the audio logs, and begin to understand that absolutely nothing in the game is random. Every shadow and tree is used to further the vision of the author. It has to be one puzzle over and over. When you said in the livestream that you had a moment of "wtf", I assume you mean the video lecture, and not discovering the "secret" (ie the language) of the world as I originally hoped. Have Claire give it a try! Maybe she will take to reading the world in a different way. The Witness is one of my favorite games and possibly the best puzzle game ever made.
I have talked at length about The Witness elsewhere, but this was the first game to open my eyes to what a game can be, to the potential of games as art. Is there a genre of games that is "psychological" without the "horror"? If so, this is probably the only one in that genre I've ever played.
And making statements like "only 1% of the players is capable of solving my puzzle!" like it's something to be proud of doesn't help either.
Nor is the fact that a lot of the difficulty in this game seems to come from the game's pathological fear of actually explaining or properly tutorializing things.
Matt, are you complaining that the game made you actually work for an answer, or just the execution? I haven't played it myself.
Secret Saiyan I think that he's saying that there is no reward for completing puzzles, no reason to continue going through the game except curiosity and in my opinion that can only last so long
you either love it or hate it, I don't think there's much of a middle ground. personally I loved it, got sucked in and lost a month of my life playing it and don't regret a minute. horses for courses .
20th century note-taking "i've written it down!"
21st century note-taking "siri! take a photo!"
programmers solution - "screen dump-it!"
hahahaha the black and white squares tutorial......hilarious commentary
A game that uses James Burke from "The Day The Universe Changed"? Well, that's new.
Jon doesn't know how reflections work. D:
See Jon made a video of The Witness
"Oh man this will be good....and frustrating...but mostly good"
I enjoyed this game to start with, then I ran into a puzzle that the colour blind couldn't do. Very disappointing.
farranut I thought about that quite a bit while I was playing it, so that's interesting to hear. I'd sort of hoped the colors were selected in a way that it wouldn't be a problem, but apparently not. Do you remember which puzzle or where?
To be fair sometimes it would be hard to make a difficult puzzle that everyone can do, but still they could but a skip button or something
Well if theres a puzzle you are physically unable to do, you can always just go ahead and look up the solution.
You don't have to complete every puzzle to complete the game. There are 11 total areas and only 8 need to be completed to go to the final area. There is a color area and a sound area so those who are colorblind or deaf wouldn't be able to complete those areas. The developer did that intentionally.
Any video footage of this game always gives me a headache, no matter by whom.
The Witness: The Jon Spatial Perception Test
What did you do with Jon?! That perception was way too high! XD
You missed such a good title pun! "The Witness- An Island of Myst Opportunity"
Any game that comes with James Burke videos is awesome in my book!
The Witnessing of Jon getting his perception kicked.
interesting game. top tip for you take a picture of the solution with your mobile so when you find the puzzle you will have a picture of the solution.
Alan Greenman or screen cap it if you're on Xbox or pc
yes you could I just don't like doing it when I'm recording gameplay
Jon is completely right for once. I never completed the desert puzzles with the sun reflecting off it because I never happened to see the right angle.
The sunshine puzzles can also be done with artificial light and reflections.
Watching this left my head hurting really really badly cuz I just cant do puzzles all that well.... I have a severe lack of... ummm... like that spatial awareness that people have where you can imagine a thing without seeing it first.
Please play Gorogoa! It's the most beautifully-designed, atmospheric and thought-provoking puzzle game I've ever played.
Just looked it up and my God, that has to be the highest ratings I've ever seen for a game. Definietly gonna check it out.
jon, there were multiple solutions to the theatre puzzle! when you input the one you found in the vault, one of several panels lit up. the other panels are other solutions.
The last lecture is The Secret of Psalm 46 by Brian Moriarty from GDC March 2002.
"Too many people yell at me for not respecting science in there" Be honest Jon, it's a fair cop!
"A lovely day out at the beach and occasionally a lovely archaeology expedition" You'd love Paphos on Cyprus then.
You should try the Talos Principle.
Easily the best puzzle game.
You should play Talos Principle. A brilliant puzzle game with philosophical science fiction story. Like a smarter, longer and more serious version of Portal.
Two useful hints to anyone wanting to try this game out: _pen_ and _paper._
"Is it just whites and blacks that need to be divided?" ~ MATN 2018
Negative perception *for the win* !
The Day the Universe Changed! I was like 'WHAAAAAAAAT' (BTW if you haven't ever watched that or 'Connections', you should.)
Presumably the triangle wants to only have one line next to it
More of this game please!! Just one or two more
I think this game is it is continued will teach MITN to look around himself.
jon and reflections.... perception -100
god he completely missed the sun puzzle at the beginning!
Excusable. You never change, Nerd. ALSO, I believe the hex paper connects to the tree and cloud that line up in that window.
You need better perception is basically the problem. There's a mind blowing secret at the start.
I think very few people noticed that the first time through. It's really obvious if you know what't going on - I couldn't help just staring at it - but before you find your first hidden thing and have that mind-blowing moment, you don't notice anything odd. It's not about Jon's perception.
Doesnt keep going down, its a reflection in the water :P
Jon, you missed what may be the best part of the game. Spoilers to explain it below. Without spoiling anything the game is open world but some areas build off of things learned in other levels. For example the town is nothing but things learned from other levels, and should pretty much be left for last If you want to try the game start with the 'Industrial area' as Jon called it left of the desert. Once you finish the area follow the obvious signal to where it ends. After that just stare at the river a bit, maybe do some drawing. This is a great game but the open world can get confusing. Rail-roading yourself to get these section done first makes the game much more interesting
Spoilers: the game has environmental puzzles. When you press A to bring up the pointer you can interact with the world. There are hundreds lines hidden in the map you can find. For example you talked about how the sun shines on the front of the desert temple, that's a puzzle. You get the sun to shine on the white pillars and the gold disc and it makes a path for you to trace out.
I recommend continuing playing this game MATN. Read your description and thought to myself: "This poor child doesn't know what he's in."
Also, if you read this, ignore some of the comments because there is huge spoilers for this game, and it's not just the quirky mechanics.
15:29 if you can't figure it out look around the environment there's a nice red apple that tells you the answer.
Passive aggressive TED Talk 😂
So many things he missed in this video! I was shouting at my tv on numerous occasions. But that's what makes MATN what it is I guess.
-The blacks and the whites must be separated.
-You little ones want to be... touched.
This game's a goldmine.
I want to see him play more of this, either as a live stream or another part or two
No Fallout 3 mega video?
I need more time to make it perfect - it'll be next weekend for certain.
Many A True Nerd ah ok. No worries man.
It's worth it - the Fallout video is currently well over 2 hours long...
I'm fine with that....
I hope these comments keep coming even after the video comes out.
Jon can clearly see the answer to the puzzle in a reflect of sunlight on the object, but clearly cant see the massive platform across from the final puzzle that would allow him to get an angle on it....
"The whites and blacks don't like to be together." -Many A True Nerd
Oh Jon, this video really shows your stats, intelligence 9, perception zero lol
Passive aggressive ted talk lmao
Oh Jon, you've only scratched the surface... :)
Why Jon? why don't you respect science?
Hey Jon I don't know if you ever played Yu-Gi-Oh but I feel like Yu-Gi-Oh duelist of the roses would be up your alley. It's a strategic chess style game. Just a suggestion, you don't have to play it.
What's the over/under on when he hits the wall?
I swear Jon has played this before. Someone please tell me I'm not crazy.
He has not played this before. You may be confusing it with Nerd3's video. (it is of equal -200 perception)
Ok I'm not the only one! I really don't think it was nerd3, i have only seen a few that involved Jon.
I had the same problem with Elex. It was unnerving.
he definitely played something very much like this. you're not crazy. i don't remember what the puzzles were, but yeah...
so, um, ive never played the game but is the sun a starting point and you have to seperate the dark cloud from the lighter clouds?
Wow the desert ruins puzzles were great! Bring us an episode of u going deeper if it is still as intruiging! Thnx Jon!
more!
Woohoo! James Burke! Awesome historian!
Comes across as very "look how clever I am, anything I have to say must be very important". But rather than interesting, it just seems tedious.
Riffler Underhill the quotes or philosophy of the game isn't the main focus of the game. To summarize all the quotes, it's all about perception, which The Witness is very fond of.
The game does make you feel clever though, not going to tell you how because spoilers.
I just felt confused and/or annoyed most of the time.
Makes for a very pretty background though.
it really doesn't
My Summer Line Puzzle
Fuck. Yes.
This game is one of my all time favourite games. It's simple enough to just start in, and has it's areas where it challenges you.
The surroundings, sounds, dialog bits and just general atmosphere is absolutely amazing.
You think you discovered any of the secrets? They require fairly high perception, to be fair.
I was really hoping he would discover the very first one with the light grid, but i shoulda known better
Yes, but it disappears when you open the gate. It's really obvious if you know what's going on, that's the point. In a way, it leads to the true ending of the game.
More! Pls, more!
why does this seem so familiar
so what kind of genre would this be? myst-lyke? i got an eerie feeling ive watched Mr Jon play this or something with very similar mechanics and art style before, and i know the difference between Dan and Jon.
It's just a fancy puzzle-game.
It's a combination of puzzle game and thesis on the concept of puzzles and of human perception. I talked at length with some game dev friends, and this is the kind of game that can only be made with your own money. A huge studio could never create something this thoughtful and personal.
I’m having horrorific flashbacks. Poor Jon
Listen, Jon, the over editing is really OTT when you make it too fast for me to pause and read the subtitles on bizarre older Jon who got a science degree instead of a history degree. There's clearly some time travel, alternate timeline, shenanigans going on here.
- Then again Claire does most of the editing. Carry on as you were Jon. 🐳
just wish you played a bit longer. this game is all about the environment and you really just figure it out when getting on the mountain and thinking "ohh, that's a thing..."
Like cell blocks (32mins)
please please please livestream this
Heavy touching and segregation. Oh my!
Wait... what... Jon is clearly seeing something in these sand level puzzles I am not... which is shocking because Jon generally cant see anything.
I'm really good at puzzles.
Jon got the apples a lot, LOT faster than me. After hours and doing other things and going back to it I looked up the answer, "where's the apple" "What apple?"
On that set in particular, Jon's negative perception vastly outpaced my own.
Jon! you're pretty damn good!
This game is so beautiful
I like your video's
So it's an Apartheid simulator?
That feel when he complains about four floors of sunpuzzle when he gave up on the third when it added a waterbased element. Making it more complex than it was before.
Where's the Fallout video!! :(
Jon! This game is amazing! I wanted an entire series.
I remember playing this game. Brilliantly constructed and a lot of fun to get through but utterly pretentious.
I think my neighbors are wondering why I am yelling about an apple
livestream?
Where’s stellaris?
Stellaris is double length tomorrow due to a RUclips issue where he couldn't upload it on Thursday. He mentioned it on Twitter.
that negative perception for the hex puzzle aparently jon didnt see his solution lit up a lanel one of several meaning there were several other solutions needed
Jon, PLEASE play a playthrough of this, watching your reactions to every puzzle would be amazing
I was hoping he would continue for a bit and stumble on the you know what secret
I'm saddened that Jon didn't complete any of the areas. The desert temple or the oasis are easy areas.
The town is a compilation of all the game's areas.
I'm pretty sure you've played this before. Does matn upload older videos
He has not played this before. You may be confusing it with Nerd3's video.
+cityuser I don't watch them unless it has Jon, the black and white tutorial I remember specify how Jon talks thru it. Was theirs like that? Or am i going nuts