Toward the back you can see some of the stuff that was being worked on in the previous post (but from a different angle!)
The current puzzle count is 251. That's pretty good, but on top of the increase from last time, another 25 of the old puzzles were rewritten. So a bunch of stuff has gotten done!
Over the next couple of weeks, I will be hammering on the puzzles even more, as we get the game to a new level of completion and playability.
Wow! Those are a lot of puzzles. I wonder where do you get inspiration to elaborate all of them. Do you think they are similar to Braid’s puzzles (in difficulty and design)? I imagine that jumping to 3D must demand some new designing elements.
Regards from Brazil! :)
Looks more and more awesome for each update. And there has been a lot of updates recently! I really hope that you will continue writing these posts for the whole run of the development process. I believe that they will be half the game experience for me!
Good luck and thank you for this blog!
I’m wondering what texturing you do to the ocean water. Will there be big or small waves or rings in the water? Fish or deep underground texturing?
Every so often your blog and the progress shots make my day(s)! Playing this game will make a slightly different (even more interesting) game experience ;-)
Every time I see it, the island looks more and more populated. It reminds me of Myst sometimes (I’m sure people have said that). Love the blog, keep up the good work.
A bit off-topic BUT:
I hate Myst. I have never played it, nor do I know what it is about. But I hate it, for it is lame.
Never The Less, I am very much looking forward to playing this game of yours, Jonathan. I’m addressing you with your first name because that’s what CS people did at the college I went to for some time. And although your next game reminds people of Myst (which I think sucks, although I have no idea what it is about) I am confident that “The Witness” will rock my socks off, because it is made by you: a man of good taste, of integrity and high intellect. To me, you’re to the games industry what Steve Albini is to the music industry: an island of purity in a sea of scumbags. I admit that I’ve had a few glasses of Scotch, but I am very serious when I say that the way you conduct your business has an impact on the way I conduct (or am going to conduct) mine, and a few other people probably share this sentiment with me. So you’ve had a significant impact on other’s people lifes, is what I want to say.
I hope this comment brings you some kind of satisfaction or at least a chuckle. If it makes you cringe or feel awkward, I apologize.
– Michael
PS: I don’t hate Myst at all. How could I? I’ve never played it!
PPS: Your “The Inner Product” articles provide me with immense pleasure. If nothing else, they provide me with stuff I can talk about with my dad. You bring families together, man. Be aware of that!
It certainly isn’t a lame game. I think The Witness will have a very different kind of gameplay, but the puzzles in the Myst games were usually well thought-out and logical. The story was also a key part to those games, you were basically thrown into a mysterious island with no clue what’s going on and no clue where to go. You slowly piece together pieces of the puzzle and go to different “Ages”, with Myst island being just one of them. You learn there’s a race of people called the D’ni that can build worlds simply by writing them down in books. You open a book and are transferred to that world. The man who wrote Myst and a collection of other Ages is trapped in one of his own books, and his two sons are trapped in two separate ages as well. He discovered his sons were going into his ages and terrorizing the people that lived there for their own personal gain; even burning many of the ages he had already built – so he imprisoned them. You travel to these ages where his sons had been and see the aftermath of what transpired there. By the end you have a choice to make – free one of the two sons, or free their father Atrus. It’s a free decision and the ending is different depending on what you choose. The entire Myst series had a choice like this when you had reached the end.
The Myst parallels are frightening – remember Rand and Robyn toying with originally including no music in it? Then sadly as the series progressed onward the music became its own beast, drawing too much focus away from the game (as much as I love Jack Wall, his approach to it was just wrong) and really sullying the overall experience.
If The Witness can lure me in with nothing but environmental sound cues (somewhat akin to Enemy Zero) then I’m sold already.
Hey Jonathan, just a curious question about what method you’re gonna go with for The Witness in regards to the music. Braid had an amazing track that really immersed you, and kid you not i listen to it on my iPod all the time.
So just wondering if there will be music to set the atmosphere and even though i very much doubt this, any sample we could have of the music that will be played.
Thanks.
Dear Jonathan,
I read a recent interview with you and it was great! You mention that The Witness is your own take on how to “re-boot” (my own words) the adventure genre, and that it’s just one of the many ways possible.
Would you please like to tell fellow designers what you think other ways might be? Clearly the touch panels are a nifty way to multiply interactivity in the world while getting rid of inventory systems – pretty neat! Do you have any other ideas that won’t be in the Witness but that you’d think could be good? My biggest question I am thinking these days about is: How do I add interactivity/depth to the world (viewed in first person) while avoiding inventory systems/dialog interfaces and using objects?
I must really say that your touch panel idea is great – not only that it’s pretty symbolic what the things in the touch screen mazes might be (the point that beeps there and that you must trace your way to – maybe another person existing elsewhere ;-) etc..) but also that it makes the word around connected and pretty digital – makes it a “system” – I wish I had this idea!
You’re very inspiring – thank you for that and for answering.
Jakub
hey, can you upload the voice overs from the game? like a music file or something?
be cool if you posted of pictures of you getting emotional every time yo do a puzzle! lol jk or idk
So far there’s no music in The Witness. In general that is the plan. The game is about being immersed in a space, so it’s more about environmental sound effects.
As for ways to make something evolutionarily different from adventure games… there are just lots and lots of ways. If you play Double Fine’s new game Stacking, for instance, that definitely has an adventure game sensibility, yet they have fused in a certain idea of core gameplay and built the game around that. I think it’s a pretty good example of a very different direction one could go from The Witness that is inspired by adventure games but in the process of design has become something different.
Hi there!
I´ve just finished Braid and was looking for some info about the game and the “Game-builder” himself, so I end up here.
My only cuestion is: is buddhism something to do with the plot?
Indeed, even in Braid there´s some stuff that makes you think on the subject; time, impermanence, and self…
Or am I simply confused by some many lectures… ;)
Cheers!
The most frustrating part of the Myst series is that you start with very little information and few clear-cut goals. In my experience that is also the greatest part of those games, because it forces you to observe and explore very carefully. The sense of satisfaction from discovering something yourself doesn’t hurt either. So I hope that I’m correct in my guess that The Witness doesn’t give you much information, forcing you to figure things out yourself.
I guess I should stop talking about Myst on your blog about The Witness though, since they are quite obviously going to be different games. So, a question: Is the water working as a completely sealed boundary, or will there be something to find, or maybe just to see, a little ways off the coast?
interesting reads:
http://granades.com/2011/02/17/what-these-adventure-games-need-is-a-jonathan-blow/
http://emshort.wordpress.com/2011/02/17/you-can-also-see-some-marketing-here/
You were making an RPG? Oh my goodness, please do that next. I want your modern take on Ultima IV. Or anything really.
Of course, I can’t wait for The Witness, but I’ll go Nintendo 64 if you make an RPG.
i don’t know why they got all mad? its true! why are they so offended? b/c there games are dying or broken with out repair. those games are good, we need them. they are an important part of gaming and we will need people to be interested in them to expand and have more variety. but omg, it’s like those nerds junkies that went mad after you told them the truth about WOW.
those people are blinded by these things they are too proud of things that are not true of not there or whatever. they will never respect what you are doing and they can not see things from other points of view, like religious people. thank god you are better than that jonathan!
Well, let’s not get carried away here. I see where they are coming from, and a defense of one’s corner of the gaming world is not exactly an unusual or unexpected thing. As I mentioned in the thread, I seem to agree with the folks there about most things regarding the current state of the art in IF games, the fact that they have improved, etc. The place where our viewpoints differ just has to do with the meaning of the status quo and expectations for the near future. Not that big a deal, really!
I like adventure games, but the truth is there has been very little evolution in the genre. And like Jonathan alluded to: a lot of the time you are trying to get in the devs head rather than think out the puzzle in relation to the game world. The examples that article mentions are marginal things that are barely worth mentioning. Twenty-plus years of adventure games and we now have highlighted key-words..wow!
Now to completely change topics; Jonathan – I’ve seen your key-note address and interviews where you slam MMO’s. Here I couldn’t disagree with you more. The key thing you miss about these games is the social experiment aspect and the friendships you build over the years. It’s slightly less true in WoW but you have a large populations fighting over a limited amount of resources. This makes for all kinds of interesting social quirks. The actual gameplay is only uninteresting if you hate the old Dungeons & Dragons motif – but many others like myself have always enjoyed it.