Indie Game: The Movie

http://buy.indiegamethemovie.com/

Ha, no joke! Actually beat him yesterday, and he was pretty simple after I realized most of the above things you said. If I get stuck again I’ll make sure to come back here for tips, LOL

you can take out those bell ringing ladies on the balcony, took me a few times to realize that. after that it’s not so bad, just slash away at him, jump back when he pukes acid or does that red explosion thing, and jump back in.

look at this, Bloodborne strategy tips on the Witness blog. We’re dying here guys!

never tried the series. I’ve heard good things, but I tend to stick to new IPs or something I’ve been with from the ground up. unless you REALLY didn’t need to play the others to get into it.

never tried the series. I’ve heard good things, but I tend to stick to new IPs or something I’ve been with from the ground up. unless you REALLY didn’t need to play the others to get into it.

What was the name of this documentary?

I have another stupid question, will the game be Mac compatible on release?

Good Point.

The Witcher 3? That will be something to tie you over.

I feel like I’ve been waiting forever since I first heard about The Witness. I honestly can’t wait.

But for all the negativity that you guys seem to have drawn from impatient gamers, due to release delays etc, I just wanted to wish you all every success with this game.
I just watched Indie Games: The Movie on Netflix, which really does give an insight into what you are all going through professionally, and personally. No surprise that the documentary did focus a fair bit on Jonathan Blow as he developed Braid. It really put things in perspective, and I felt a bit guilty for feeling so frustrated about the delay in the release.

Rest assured, I’ll be one of the first in line for this game, no matter how long it takes. Even if it’s not as good as I think it will be (doubtful, considering how good a game Braid was), for the efforts and work you are all putting in on this, I genuinely feel you deserve a success and support from the gaming community instead of all the impatience and frustration of some people.

All the best, guys!

Lol, I hear ya man. I’m stretching out Bloodborne as LOOONG as possible though, in case this game is going to take a bit longer. I’m currently stuck on The One Reborn, that boss fight is a bit of a challenge, to say the least.

No nighttime? That’s a bit of a bummer. I would love to see sunrise and sunset on this beautiful island.

I know you’re pretty busy with finishing the game now.
But besides the HUGE anticipation for the game itself I also enjoyed the various blog post giving insight into different parts and processes of the game.
Most of these have focused either on design issues or graphical stuff.
I’d love to read something about the whole audio design, especially since you said the game will not feature any (background) music.
Yeah, if you can manage to dish out a little post or two on that topic, that’d be killer!

Otherwise, just keep on doing what you are doing!

Jonathan has a twitter account. He is pretty active there. If your question is short and impersonal (an interesting) chances are he’ll shoot you a tweet.

I don’t think that you can directly. When people have said similar things, JonBlow has said leave whatever questions you have in the comments on this blog, and that he reviews all of them.

So if you’ve got something to say, your best bet for it being seen is to leave it here. I believe he has your e-mail when you post, so if he is interested he would contact you.

I will say though that this is EXTREMELY unlikely.

Good luck all the same!

Thanks in advance

In fact, im in architecture, developing the final project to get the degree, and its been 1 year and 8 months of development time so far. I dont know what to answer to people when they ask me for my “release date” cause it is not clear. So I understand it.

By the way, your attempting deep work talk on how to survive long projects really helped. In addition, it was funny realizing both dancing and martial arts are my stress relief hobbies as well.

I actually would be blessed If I could help with one of your future projects, even for free, if my skills would be useful.

Potentially threatening to take down the blog if a subset of individuals don’t behave is… polite? :)

And by love and respect, I simply meant that if he was here anyway, why not comment on virtually any other response? Why fixate on an annoying one? Y’know like, “Thanks for the support and for potentially helping to make the game a success when it launches! We’re doing our best.” Something like that.

Anyway. He’s allowed to do whatever he wants. He is the most important living game designer.

PC > PS4.

PC = PS4+++

:)

I have to disagree.

Regarding the constant nagging about a release date, I would have been far less patient and polite than Jon.
It was a minor and hardly offensive comment at all – get over it.
No one is disrespecting the fans and support, just blowin off some steam, I’d say.

So, Jon, take your time – I don’t really care about a release date that much…
I got so used to looking at the beautiful screenshots, I’d probably be overchallenged with it being released an me actually being able to play it ;-)

I hope this is facetious.

Beyond PS4? I…that…I don’t even….is that possible?

I’ve heard from plenty of authors/creative types that this sort of thing is probably the hardest to not kick someone over.

You’ve taken it really well so far, actually. I don’t think that those people will ever not exist– the impatient, the uninformed. I can’t say I have experience with this problem though, so I can’t say that there’s a definitive way to deal with it. But I might bring up some alternate solutions:

Alt solutions: Ignore comments, disable comments, volunteer comment moderator (whoever’s active/helpful in the comments a lot), or improbably gain the composure/tolerance of Atlas himself.

Best wishes.

it’s not like the rock band, because in that case, they already prepared the songs, while the witness clearly has a way to go before it’s ready for any sort of release announcement.

I mean, he may have been being sarcastic for all we know, it is text after all (and tone can be a very hard thing to convey through text, as me and my wife have found out the hard way). But overall, I do agree with Oddkins, being angry over fans clamoring to get your game is kind of…well…silly. It would be like if a major rock band came out on stage right before the big show and was like “STOP SCREAMING FOR US TO COME OUT DAMMIT! WE’LL START PLAYING WHEN WE DAMN WELL PLEASE!” Lol. But then again, being looked up to and put on a pedestal can be frustrating, especially in times of pressure and stress, so I can see both sides of the coin :)

Having such an intimate look at a game’s development, as well as direct access to the developers, is a tremendous privilege. Developers are in no way obligated to share their creative effort with others. Having a relationship like this with the public is time consuming, thankless, and dangerous. If we want to continue to be in this position of privilege, we must speak responsibly.

On the flipside, Jon, hopefully the team has been able to filter out the negativity and hear the underlying motive for these questions: people are excited to play the Witness.

Jonathan, this is from the bottom of my heart bro, I mean it. I have an enormous amount of respect for you, and in some ways you are like an idol to me. I definitely look up to you as the zen-master of video-gaming and the ideas of how to perceive it. But it comes to this bluntness I am afraid:

If you can no longer be bothered to respond to the positive comments that are contained here and to instead focus on the negativity of what you perceive as the single worst blight to the comments section – a release date – then perhaps you should shut the blog down.

We get the point man. If a comment doesn’t either discuss some deep aspect of programming logic, or deal with the minutiae of how a rocket fails to land on a platform at sea for the hundredth time, that you are just not going to be bothered or interested in showing the fans some love, or respect.

We come here to comment and discuss the game in a positive way. This is a direct result of your labours in making it. So I would suggest to you that you see the excitement factor for your game for what it is — a positive thing.

If the fans are such a goddamned annoyance to you that you want to take away the blog, then I heartily suggest that you do so. Before you have a chance to further alienate those of us that have been here since the first post went up and you delve deeper into acknowledging the basal and primal need to distance yourself from those asking for a release date.

As I said man, I have tremendous respect for you and in the past have simply chalked up my disagreements with what you say as that you are a simply smarter man than I and that you must know what you are doing. But hey, if your lack of tact and temperance translates directly into your game being better for it, than I guess my whole argument is moot.

My point is, give the people here a fucking break. As they are some of the truest supporters of what you are doing here in the first place. And maybe attempt to engage on another level that you maybe haven’t before.

I understand this is the home stretch and that tensions may be high and that you are under pressures from sources I can’t even begin to imagine, least of which I am sure is a dwindling bank account.

I love what you are doing here. I think this game is important. I couldn’t even tell you why, only that I know that it is. And if you need help finishing this thing, give me a PayPal account where I can send in 500.00 dollars so I can help with the stress brother. I mean it. And I am sure a lot of the others here would do the same.

So please. Consider your positions on this blog a little more thoroughly before you rush to conclusions and decisions. If flippant is who you are, I accept that. But I know you aren’t.

Nothing but love.

THEKLA FAN for life.

:)

Hahaha, Jon does not seem to be in a good mood today! But I agree, that would get on my nerves as well. I would definitely not shut down the blog though, most of the people who occupy this site (like myself) are rooting for the games success, and although some of us get impatient at times, we definitely want the best experience and not a rushed one. And I would be mortified if one day I tried to access the site it just didn’t exist anymore…

Half Life 3 confirmed!!!

I either need to make an anti-spam bot that stops people from bugging me about the Witness release date, or I need to shut down this blog.

Haha, nah man, you’re good. That might be overboard considering we’ll hopefully be playing the thing itself soon enough.

Awesome job on the slideshow! It is helping with the stress of waiting for the game. It is great to look at and speculate on the things that are evolving.

Thanks. Yeah, well I tried. I’m sure there could be something more in-depth done to it to make it more smooth, since I really only tried to match the mountain in the foreground. One could perhaps have done some morphs between the shots to try to match as many points as possible between the transitions.

I played Braid when it was released in 2008 and it had a profound affect on me. Mainly from how the mechanics correlate with the story and the emotions and thoughts they evoke in combination. Still to this day I learn from Braid and understand new things about it, and even in my own life from it. Having Indie Game to watch, the way you talk about Braid, really solidifies the message and emotions I received from it.

I was watching Indie Game again this evening and decided to finally look around about The Witness. I only read the Wikipedia page, website home page, and this and the office tour blog posts(and some very interesting? comments haha). I think I may understand where you are going with the title, I wonder what aesthetics you guys are using for us to experience with.

I’m hoping for xbox one controller support on iOS. Also, a way to sign up to receive a plain text email notification on the day The Witness is released, specifically to keep the experience as unadulterated as possible.

Thank you very much for your time,
Chase Smith

I am figuratively dying waiting for this game.

He even corrected for shifts in perspective!

https://youtu.be/DHf99cCCRs8

YES! AWESOME! THANK YOU SIR!

I made a time-lapse of every island snapshot: https://youtu.be/DHf99cCCRs8

Is there gonna be a Schwarzgerät in the Witness?

Is the island itself a Schwarzgerät for Jon’s ideas regarding observation and path to understanding one’s existence?

Okay, two things!

00000, :)

My opinion is that it depends on the artist(s). Some people actually do release things when they think it’s done.

“A work of art is never finished, it is abandoned.

A work of art is a living accumulation of creative judgments. Each judgment is a reflection on, and change to, the existing accumulation.

It is never quite clear when a work is finished because it can only be finished when the artist can’t find anything to improve. Sooner or later, however, it must be done with.

Creation, by its nature, is never complete.”

Cheers then, to this wonderful accumulation! I eagerly await its abandonment.

It would be nice to have, not necessarily a release date, but an indication of how long prior to release we will be seeing an announcement. A month maybe? Two weeks?

I totally understand not revealing, or even being able to pin down a date, nor am I interested in having one where it simply isnt possible. That said, it would be great to know Jon’s mind for what the timeframe for announcement would be before release!

:)

It definitely helps to have something to wait for during a depressive episode; really cool to read that The Witness was the thing that kept you going.

Best of luck to you.

I second that. The idea of this game has been a bright light in times of darkness. A very welcome constant.

:)

Really happy to see progress and can’t wait for the release :)

I second the pre-order notion. As soon as you all are closing in on a solid date, I’ll put my money up ahead of time. :)

jon pretty much said what I was implying. 3 months after release was an arbitrary timeframe, 6 months later, 1 yr later, whatever. You sell as much as you can at your release price and then discount to pull in the ones on the fence once game sales slow. Expands your base and exposes even more to the game. Then reduce to your lowest cost before rolling it into promotions to recoup the final payouts. Hollywood is like this, charge high price on release, less for rental, then to HBO before dishing it to TV for final sales value. Oil wells are like this, put a lot of money up front into drilling and fracking and then watch proceeds slowly trend downward until you drill your next one. Braid was in the Humble Bundle stuff and you could of paid very little to acquire it, but the value of the game stands high. Jonathan is a visionary but he’s also a businessman who wants to make more games… I will buy on day one because I want the game and am happy to pay a premium. Others will unfortunately wait for a discount but on the bright side, at least they’ll get to play the game, just later than me…

No one is saying the price would go to zero. That’s a straw man argument.

Price is (or should be) a business decision, not based on some arbitrary definition of value. It makes business sense to charge a high price at launch because then you’ll get as much money as possible from people who want to play it right away. And then later when you lower the price, the people who are unwilling to spend more than $15 on the game (after all, they probably already have 100 games in their backlogs) will purchase as well. Keeping your prices high will equate to lost sales and lower revenues. No one benefits from that.

Are you saying that a game that you havent even played yet becomes more and more worthless after a 3 months span of time? Since time is relative, you could have in fact said this same thing last year. So by now you would get the game for free? Nope. The game is still worth what ever they decide to sell it at as it would have been 5 months ago or 5 months from now.

Just because the game is an Indie game doesnt mean that the quality of the game wont be as good as a Corporate studio. I think Jon is a far better game developer than most large studios anyway. He just knows how to make a game by himself better than a large studio team (speaking of braid that is).

I can only image a team that Jon would choose to develop with would be as good as Jon’s game development ability.

I’m expecting it to be more than $20. $20 seems like it would be an unfairly good deal.

I know they created hundreds (thousands?) of variations in footstep sounds, so clearly ambient sounds are a focus. I don’t think we know how much this extends to other ambient sounds (eg from the environment).

Start at $40, 3 months later drop to $30, 3 months later to $20 and leave it at that… Next year, Bundle with a Morpheus tie in with Sony. 3 months later tie in to PS Plus promotion to scoop up some more. I plan to pick it up on Steam and iOS as well just to support the hard work!

I know right! The most I’ve ever payed for an indie is $20 so i expect it to be around there, but this game is huge and expensive. I’d pay $60 no problem, just hoping to find out soon. any info on the game would be nice, it’s like crack when they post something new.

I’d definitely be willing to buy The Witness for 60 dollars, though it might make the game harder to suggest to friends.

Hi Ryan,
Yes the scenery, branches, trees sway in the wind. You can see it in Jonathan’s (alpha?) playthrough when he approaches a puzzle panel. The shadows of the tree limbs and leaves sway back and forth over the puzzle panels. As for ambient sound however, I believe Jonathan said he didn’t want too much extraneous noises to take away focus on the puzzles at hand. This may have changed over the final months of development though.

Between $0 and $59. Just expect something in that range.

@stijn: you could use a browser extension like Chrome’s “Page Monitor”

If Sony is smart they will bundle this with Morpheus. Nintendo’s light gun had duck hunt, Morpheus with The Witness would be a game changer. I can’t wait to put on the goggles and enter the island, I would happily pay now and wait until that time to play as I bet it’s incredibly immersive. Does the scenery move in the wind or is it still? I hope the wind blows and branches rustle. Can’t wait to play!

Thanks Stuart, cool video!

NOTE about the video I linked. Dropbox’s browser video player is terrible, so you want to hit the button above it marked download instead.

I made this video of the island screenshots about a year ago, so it’s a bit out of date, but still worth a look.
https://www.dropbox.com/s/qypur3nutx21x4i/witnessfantrailer.mp4?dl=0

No, it’s always daytime.

Well don’t let me hold you back, I still haven’t gotten around to it. Haha.

这个游戏开发了很长时间啊，所以它的品质应该很有保证啊。程序猿们够执着的

貌似好像是先出ps版本的。如果能上steam那就太爽了

thank you

yes, it was in a short stream jonathan did

Wait… can’t wait to play it? This is a game that can be played? Nonsense! (At least that is what I am telling myself until it is out ;))

the wasp factory by iain bank
http://www.amazon.com/The-WASP-FACTORY-A-NOVEL/dp/0684853159s

Dude, I’ve been waiting on this game since 2009. Have some more patience. The game is nearing release now, and is not some nebulous thing like The Last Guardian or Half Life 3. It’s going to come out. :)

At this point, I don’t think we will see a release date set until it’s absolutely certain. I remember expecting the game to be done in 2012. But the game has gotten bigger and better, and I am happy to see them take as much time as they can afford.

I was going to make one too :-)

Which books have been recommended as pre-Witness reading?

OSWIN UNLOCKABLE CHARACTER

I think that they should at least set a more specific date than just “2015”. Fireproof Games set their release date of The Room 3 to spring and even that is a four month gap. Although it’s good to take your time, you should at least have some pressure to finish your game so that you don’t take too long in doing so.

It was never actually announced as a launch title. I am sure they will give us a release date when they feel confident enough to choose an accurate one, nothing is worse than having to push back the release date because things took longer than expected imo

Its just been so long since it was originally promised. It was supposed to be a launch title for the ps4 and the main reason I bought one. Whats frustrating is we still dont have a date on it, thats all I want. Perfect doesnt exist and without the team having a clearly defined deadline, development can and has gone on forever. I think at this point in development they should have a clear timeline or at least a good estimate for when it will be done. Give us a release date, thats all it would take to make me happy.

I think it’s obvious that the old ones had some clear repetition going on, so that’d be a worthwhile thing to improve. They’ll be visible from most places outside, after all.

What I find odd is that the island seems to be somewhat foggier again…hmm…