We are in full bug extermination mode.
A few months ago, only a few of Jon's friends were playing the game and checking for major problems, but now we have Francis as a game tester, and we have an other guy starting later this month as a tester too. With someone testing the game full time, the bugs are really piling up. This is great because we are getting the game in shape for release, but it's also wearing us down a bit because it's non-creative, discouraging work, since for every bug we solve there are usually more that appear on our list.
There are many different kinds of bugs, some really major and a ton of minor things that can be solved fairly quickly. We are finding errors of all sorts, in lightmaps, shadows, collision, grass planting, reflections, mesh placement, modeling, materials, sound, etc. Not to mention a bunch of weird things that sometimes take a while to track down. We also have to check the game in High, Medium and Low quality, because different errors can happen at the different settings.
The biggest bugs involve spoilers, since they are usually finicky and gameplay related, so I can't share those, but here are some minor ones that wouldn't generally take too long to fix:
-Here we have a bit of collision randomly hanging out in the desert. If you tried to walk through it, you would be blocked and have no idea why. Things like this were really difficult to find, until Casey added some tools to visualize the collision:
-Sometimes, we just get bugs of areas that look unfinished, or wrong, like this corner over here. Francis is supposed to tell us not only about serious errors, but also notify us about things that generally feel wrong to him as a player. By fixing these areas, we hopefully get rid of some potential immersion breaking moments.
-In this shot, some of the little modular rocks were not receiving any sunlight:
-And here we have two separate bugs, the turret that is getting black lightmaps, and an open rock mesh below:
-This is a shot of the player being able to walk into a rock, and seeing through it:
-This is a pretty one, some error with the clusters of the modular catwalk meshes:
-There are tons of cases where the grass is clipping through things:
-And little lightmap errors that mean there is a back-facing triangle somewhere in the mesh:
-In this area the dynamic lights create some really ugly shadows:
-And finally, the bug that haunted us for at least a year, the giant colorful grass bug. It would happen almost always when replanting grass, and would not disappear until you restarted the game. Insanely large, colorful versions of the grass would appear and wave in the wind, blocking you from doing anything. Still not sure if we ever figured this one out:
These are only a tiny sliver of all the different kinds of things that we run into while testing the game. It's a huge island and a lot of things can go wrong, so to make sure we ship a great game, we have to do a really thorough job. However, this and some optimization is pretty much all that's left to do!
And now, here is a bonus a picture of Jon doing something weird with a tape measure taped to a mug:
The perfect blog update: engaging, well-illustrated, interesting, informative, gives the always-appreciated status update, and even a bit whimsical. Good luck in the hunt!
Totally agree, thanks for the update! This is fantastic stuff.
Woohoo! New post! Thanks! Yeah a lot of that looks very tedious, but its great to see the end is in sight. Good luck!
Are you guys still using Casey’s walk monster program to help find bugs?
There is such a look of concentration on Jon’s face that I cannot focus on the amazing blog post and I am instead consumed with trying to imagine what that cup/tape measure is used for.
I’m trying so hard to understand what’s going on here and I cannot wrap my head around it.
Maybe he is modeling for one of the sculptures?
It also could be some kind of martial arts or he is dancing? Both things he enjoys.
Will we ever get to know the truth. . . ?
Indiana Jones game?
Clearly it’s a measuring cup. He’s probably baking ;-)
Nice one :)
Remember how The Witness has thousands of different footstep sounds? Jon is clearly recording some Foley effects. The ceramic mug is partially filled with liquid, which he carefully holds at the proper angle. He pulls the tape, letting it retract and hit to produce a unique sound.
While recording, he is showing off some “totally sick” dance moves to Oswin, who doesn’t look impressed.
How did you fix the last bug? Did you help Jon find his marbles? Just kidding. Ha Great post as usual!
Orsi, thanks for keeping your word! ;D
It’s a funny article and very ilustrative (the photo of Jon it’s perfect. It looks like if he were measuring the weight of the stones of the game).
Keep up the good work!
What a great update. I thoroughly enjoyed reading all of it.
I´m looking forward to the day all your hard work will be rewarded.
Please keep it up. Grind through it and don´t loose heart.
We are all lucky that such an unique game like The Witness exists.
To the whole team. Thank you!
When I played Braid, I had pretty much stopped playing games. I was reading more and had gotten tired of guns and stuff. Braid’s release on Steam caught my attention, and I was hooked. One year later I replayed it and got all the stars. Through that game I had the privilege to learn that indie games existed, and I built a new home PC to play these and other games. Ever since then I have been waiting for Jon’s next game. I have been silently reading this blog for years. It is great to see him joined by such an evidently amazing team. Hearing that you’re nearing completion of the game makes me happy, you must feel proud. Just wanted to say: if we have waited this long play the game, if you have waited this long to show it to us, we can all wait a little bit longer. Make it great!
Me too man. Ever since the first Portal and Braid, I just don’t have a desire to play games anymore. I feel like ever since even the first XBOX came out, games have been going even more so in the wrong direction then they already were (with a flood of first person games, higher graphics, and less imagination).
This is going to be the best game ever. I hope it’s getting a physical release too, ’cause I’ve had the PS4 version on pre-order from Amazon since June… 2013. ;)
Do you think it would ever be possible not needing a debugging fase at all? Or is this something that will allways be needed for every program or game in the future?
(I’m interested in this because in my own job, I’m responsible for reducing the amount of errors over the years. It’s not programming though, but 3D cad design.)
Oh and very interesing post! I enjoyed reading it. Thanx for sharing.
Not a chance, unless you’re building a simple calculator. Debugging will always be around. You can do extensive design before you start the implementation, which could help reduce the number of huge design-related issues, but the smaller bugs will still be there, no matter what you do. It’s like writing a book. You can be a grammar expert and you will still have grammatical errors throughout the book when you proof-read. In fact, when developing software, most developers can’t afford and don’t even intend to make the software 100% bug-free before release. And this isn’t even considered bad practice (unless it’s really buggy) because it’s just impractical to try to get them all. All you can really do is try to reduce the number of bugs through good practices and design.
That said, in software development, having a debugging phase isn’t a bad thing if the team is good at debugging and did a pretty clean and organized job of the implementation beforehand.
As far as I can tell, some manual testing is always a good idea before release. But there all kinds of techniques and tools that can be used to reduce the length of the debugging period. The two most important concepts for this are probably getting all the programmers on the team to have the mindset that they are constantly required to fully test their own code, and doing frequent releases. They make a few small changes, test them, and then release them. Sometimes they start this very early by making version 1 only have a very small number of features. Things like unit testing, and other forms of automated, code driven testing allow you to run all your tests just by running a script or a command. There are code coverage tools that give you insight into how well your code is being exercised by the automated tests. Many teams have a rule that before they fix a known bug, they must write an automated test that exposes the bug. This prevent that same bug from creeping back in later unnoticed. Some teams to pair programming at all times, which has many advantages, one of the being that hopefully if one programmer does not notice a bug or think to test the code in a certain way, hopefully the other one will. Some teams take this a step further and constantly do mob programming (all the relevant people, working on the same thing, at the same time, on the same computer, in the same room (or using remote collaboration tools)). They will design, code, and test an entire feature together. They will all collectively try to think of different tests or scenarios that should be run. Even with all these techniques and tools, having at least a skilled QA person test things before release will often enough reveal problems that should be addressed. Some of these techniques and tools are more difficult to fully take advantage of for certain types of projects.
this is a silly question, it’s like asking “do i not want make my work as good as it can be?” it’s impossible to do any complex thing and have it be completely error-free for all cases on the first run-through.
Best of luck! This is the stage that some developers seem to fail at, as they squash the biggest bugs then rush the game to release. So take all the time you need!
Also, a bit ironically, that “large colorful grass bug” — as any good white whale would — has evaded you once again. The small image for that bug in this blog post links to the previous one ;-)
Here’s the big image!
http://the-witness.net/news/wp-content/uploads/2015/08/shot_2014.12.09__time_15_13_n21.png
I noticed that as well. Here’s the link to the full image:
http://the-witness.net/news/wp-content/uploads/2015/08/shot_2014.12.09__time_15_13_n21.png
Maybe Jon’s just singing about his brand new bag… http://archivesdemontreal.com/documents/2013/07/VM94-TH9-242-011.jpg
I love how James is always so exhausted after performing that he needs a sequined cape/blanket thrown on immediately before leaving the stage!
I love following this blog, and I’m incredibly excited about the great progress! Those hard to find bugs are incredibly annoying, but when you finally get to the root there is such a sense of accomplishment! Best of luck guys, I can’t wait to play this thing. I have my Oculus Rift DK2 ready to go.
Oswin is like, “This guy and his dancing…”
You know what you guys need? A speedrunner. They are notorious about finding glitches. twitch.tv/gocnak finished school a couple month ago and recently stopped speedrunning HL2 after beating the segmented run. Hire him as playtester!
Thanks for the post, Orsi. I like trying to figure out what could be causing that big colorful grass bug. I learned from watching Casey’s Handmade Hero series that whenever there’s unexplained huge values popping out, that sometimes the culprit might be uninitialized array values, either on the CPU side or the GPU shader side.
Or, a grass height-value/scale-value for the grass’ vertices has exceeded their array bounds, and wrapped around to a some really small negative number, or wrapped around the other way to some really large positive number.
Better yet, get Casey to have a look at it!
Good luck in the debugging phase. Looking forward to buying this game. I haven’t purchased one since Portal, and before that, Myst 4! So it’s about time to pick up another! :)
I’m not sure if it is something as simple as that. Uninitialized variables (or arrays) are very easy to find if you use a static code analyzer. And really any programmer should: It is easy to overlook something as a human being, especially if it is one wrong initialization in ten thousand lines of code.
And no matter what it is, Jon’s an experienced programmer himself. I’m sure he could have made his own Handmade Hero series if he wanted.
Oh, and for all we know, Casey’s the one doing it anyway. I remember he wrote a post on his own blog about the grass. I imagine he’s already neck-deep in debugging it.
Well Jon did say that they have a probable release date in mind in his last stream … And that they may announce that date before the end of August!
See here http://youtu.be/4h-0Sc2jK88
(Fast forward to 1:35:40 to hear it straight from him)
So at least their “to do” list is short enough that they know how long it will take to finish it all.
They probably just wanna make 100% sure they can make it before starting that final crunch.
Nice find. Thanks for that! Exciting times, whether that announcement happens this month or not we can indeed say we are living in the year of the Witness.
JINX!!!1!
When the announced date is like March of next year… You’ll owe all of us a dollar.
Way to go buddy lol. XD
Shhhhh! ; )
This is really good news, and a very welcome blog. It sounds like the end is nigh for both yourselves and the people reading these blogs, waiting for a release date.
I would like to ask, though, as we all collectively approach a final conclusion to the game’s development, if you guys could please add more blog posts. Orsi’s contribution is always fantastic, but since last year, the blog posts have been getting a bit sparse, and with little content. I get that you guys are busy, and that no-one has to post anything on here, but even short posts to say “This is finished….now we just have to do that” or any interesting little spoiler-free tidbits about the game, or even how the team are collectively feeling and coping on a week-to-week basis as the end approaches, are always welcome by what appears to be a largely appreciative and supportive community here on the blog.
I hope the bug fixing goes smoothly & quickly for Team Thekla, and can’t wait for a release date!
One of our problems is just that it’s hard to find things to talk about without spoiling the game. Most of what we are working now are massive spoilers. So.
That said, yeah, it is a good idea to post more. You’ll also see us doing more interviews/reveals/etc in the run-up to launch.
The Sad part is, no matter how carefully you are now. One day after launch, YouTube will be filled with “The Witness ending! 1080p High quality” videos… And they will use the most spoilerish shot they can as the thumbnail.
There will be videos of the end before there are even walkthrough videos up… I don’t know which is worse.
At least you can mark the ending as a secret scene on PS4 so it can’t be recorded or broadcasted with the share button.
This is true. But hey.
Almost all of the bugs mentioned here are bugs that exist in tons of humongous triple A titles. They are so common in fact that I have started to accept them as the status quo.
To see the amount of love going into this game and to see you guys nitpicking about EVERYTHING and truly wanting to create perfection is amazing.
I can’t wait to play this. Thank you for taking your time and creating the best experience possible instead of releasing a buggy, unfinished product. You guys remind me of Valve in this regard. And that is never a bad thing.
Good luck ironing out the final kinks and polishing.
What an exciting place to be in the development! Ironing out the final wrinkles. I love posts like this because it explains so clearly what you are working on and why it’s important. I know you couldn’t make posts like this with most of the game because it would have given away too much, but this post illustrates the attention to detail Thekla has been paying to a complicated game engine. This level of care separates the good from the great.
What does Jon want with that motorized camera setup?
Orsi, good luck with your presentation this Wednesday (Aug. 12th) at SIGGRAPH 2015!
http://s2015.siggraph.org/attendees/studio-talks/sessions/building-fantastic-worlds-studio-games-talks-1
https://youtu.be/_Cvfy2-yWzs?t=70
Hey, thanks!
That is an awesome trailer!!
I am so excited for this game! Every now and then I check for updates, it’s good to know that you guys are doing your due diligence and making sure that you ship out a polished game. Can’t wait!
Does anyone know why this game is called The Witness? What are you a witness to?
Who says you are the witness?
*mind blown*
No one is a witness? maybe it’s about The Wit-ness or the everpresence of wit in the environment.
I’d like to suggest revisiting the staff page, since it appears to be sufficiently out of date that Francis and the other unnamed tester don’t appear there.
Could The Witness possibly have a button for sprinting and a button for jumping?
Not sure about jumping, but I know the E3 build from last year had a sprint button.
Bing able to jump might break some of the puzzles anyways if you could just jump to victory.
According to Jon’s last stream on Rapture there is no jump button.
( And no doors you can’t open, or bar you can’t go behind and the windmill in the witness won’t be a communist windmill)
I forgot to ask the obvious question, don’t think anybody has asked it yet:
I know that there will likely be many interviews and publicity for the game leading up into launch, but will there be another Trailer put out approaching the levels of the main one released way back when?
The reason I ask is that I would imagine that that Trailer could indeed suffice you guys up until launch without the need for another one. It pretty accurately demonstrates everything really well. Or is there another one planned that reflects the more recent state of the game these couple years on from the last?
I’d love to see a trailer subtly reflecting the tone of the game, if that wasn’t already the original trailer. It wouldn’t have to give much/any of the story away, but also it might raise questions that people aren’t already getting from what they see.
Basically anything to keep the masses from insisting that this is “like an android lock screen puzzle but on an island”.
What the hell, people. (end rant)
Yeah I think some videos would be good. Even something simple, similar to the long screenshots from FEZ, where you just have a two minute clip of a scene from one spot on the island with the game’s sounds and the trees and grass swaying subtly. Upload to YouTube at 60fps…. Profit!
I know these are not new, but if you want to see some other trailers that might show off the tone, you could check out the concept art trailers that are up on Youtube. They’re pretty neat!
I’m kind of curious to see more memorable/goofing off pictures of the crew in your work space. We’ve seen both but not together. What’s it like to witness those witnessing the Witness come to life?
What I would love to see is an office webcam in the hours up to release… Not seen one of those since telltale did one in like 2007.
Is there any news on the possible release date that Johnathan Blow mentioned on his video?
*Jonathan
Which video is that?
(Fast forward to 1:35:30)
http://youtu.be/4h-0Sc2jK88
http://youtu.be/4h-0Sc2jK88
On his video he said tehe released date would probably be revealed end of August.
So not Yet.
Will The Witness have full controller support on PC at its launch?
While I am not the developer, I am 99.5% certain that it will.
Yes, we’ve been testing and tweaking that just this week as it happens – DS4, Xbox One, and Xbox 360 controllers all work very well (as do the generic pc controllers we’ve tried so far, but there’s so many – I’m sure anything there’s a driver for will be fine)
Hey, just a heads up, the ‘giant floating grass’ image, when clicked, leads to the hires version of the ‘ugly shadows’ image.
Yeah, someone already posted the correct url:
http://the-witness.net/news/wp-content/uploads/2015/08/shot_2014.12.09__time_15_13_n21.png
I am really glad that you treat clipping issues as bugs (and hopefully plan on fixing them). You’d be amazed at how many games have jarring clipping issues which are completely ignored by the dev – Witcher 3, Watch_Dogs, Vanishing of Ethan Carter, to name just a few from the top of my head.
Example in The Vanishing of Ethan Carter (not a bad game by any means, but the clipping really struck me)
https://www.flickr.com/photos/28356206@N06/sets/72157648176424422/
i know i will not get any answer from orsi or jon, but i want to put this question out.
just how there is sun in the game, will there be a moon too? will it ever be night in the game?
if not thelka, oddkins or somebody should tell me something if they know.
thanks (:
Actually, now that I think about it, and now that you have mentioned it, it would definitely be cool if there was a day/night cycle in The Witness.
Well they did bring in architects to make sure the buildings were up to code. I’d be surprised if that level of commitment to realism didn’t necessitate a day/night cycle. That being said, it’s clear that there’s something strange about this island, so whose to say what aspects of it will be rooted in reality or not?
I don’t have a direct source on this, but I remember a while back someone said that it was always daytime, and that there was a reason for that.
LOL! I am flattered that someone thinks I have information! In this case I do!
Quote from Mr. Blow himself, just over 2 years ago:
Jonathan Blow
August 6, 2013 at 1:26 pm
“It’s not a simulation-kind of game so there is no weather or day/night. But when you play the game, it will make sense why this is so.”
There you have it! For a night-time scenario we need to enjoy Braid again ;)
How cool would it be to see the *possible release date information at the end of the month with a video of the team anouncing it?
It would be awesome to see some smiles at having reached that milestone!
Will The Witness have Steam achievements?
Mr. Blow has made it clear in the past as to how he feels about them. I think of an article I’ve read twice now, http://killscreendaily.com/articles/unsurprisingly-jonathan-blow-hates-achievements-friends-lists-and-your-distracted-lifestyle/ .
Although Braid did have them on 36o and later, on Steam. So I would say it is a likely certainty, that the PS4 achievements/trophies will make their way to Steam as well. Not beceause Thekla wants ’em to, but rather to present a fully featured product that, for better or for worse, conforms to the trend of having them present.
Who knows though, the PS4 may REQUIRE trophies nowadays? Either way, this game will certainly stand on its own even not having them included. I find the only actual benefit to them to be had is that they sometimes encourage people to explore the further corners of the game that they might not have otherwise. Speaking for myself, I likely wouldn’t have sought out all of the stars in Braid or beat the game in under an hour and a half if it weren’t for the achievements being there. What I mean is, at best they supplement a game that you have already cleared and incentivise the returning to that game again at a later point in time via the notion of a ‘challenge’ to do something you wouldn’t have otherwise considered. They also give players whom really enjoyed the game, something to show for spending so much time with it.
Now Braid really kept these simple and meaningful and they hinted at things that let you know you might not have done everything that there was to do in that world — I hope too that this is as far as the Witness will go with them as well.
But I would totally expect them to be present, yes. Even though on the other side they are sort of an illusion.
Yeah a certain number of troohies are required for a PS4 game, Sony is oddly strict about that.
IIRC, it was a minimum of 12 for a small downloadable game (or a max of 12 for a DLC)… And every retail title needs to have a platinum, which needs at least 35 or-so trophies to be eligible for one.
Also, while you can release a game on steam without achievements or cards or other BS… They will treat you like a red headed step-child and not give your game the spotlight that it gives others with have those social systems
Yikes. Yeah, that is pretty silly… so obviously — achievement get.
i hope that Sony respects jon and his team enough to let them carry across their vision in whatever way him and his team see fit
I’m sure they will. We already know that there’s no title screen or music to the game, so I doubt there will be achievements if Jon doesn’t want them (or at very least a happy compromise. Sony seems way more respectful than Microsoft was.
Sony is crazy strict about trophies. It’s very sad.
There’s no title screen? How do you save your game then?
Even the bugs are beautiful.
Well Jon said your game has like 11 areas, right? That’s one trophy per area and a 12th for getting 100%.
There are your 12 trophies. Boom, done, easy.
P.S. A puzzle where you hide the solution in a trophy image, so that you need to get a trophy to solve another puzzle… That would be the best puzzle ever.
Ah I miss my old days of writing and designing…
Because this game seems to pay homage to the Myst-genre, I thought it was worth mentioning that Cyan, after quite a few years of not making games, is about to release their “spiritual successor” to Myst. It’s called “Obduction”, and it’s slated for release this year.
I have visited their website, and some of the screenshots look pretty looney. The world looks stylistically disjointed and bizarre. But that doesn’t mean it won’t be a great game. I just like The Witness screenshots a lot more. :)
The art director on the project is actually one of our artists, Eric. He left us to go work on Obduction and we miss him…he’s great! He just has to build a ton of stuff in a very limited time.
Well now I feel like a jerk for referring to his work as “looney”. I was mainly referring to this screenshot:
http://gameblaster64.xandorus.com/sites/default/files/obduction-screenshot_0.png
I am so looking forward to the release of both The Witness and Obduction.
Is there any news on that possible release date that might be released by the end of this month?
Gabriel,
JUST WAIT. It’ll be announced here, when they are ready.
If there is no news here, then there is NO NEWS.
Plenty of other stuff to get on with whilst you wait for the game.
The constant queries for a release date is the equivalent to a child asking “are we there yet?” and likely just as irritating.
Ok, rant over. Have a nice weekend!
:)
I’m sorry for being so impatient. I just really want to play this game.
Just a word of encouragement. This and No Man’s Sky are the only original games I’m looking forward to this year. Make it great.
Anyone else thinking there might be an announcement at PAX? Pure speculation by me, of course, but the timeline is right.
That was my prediction a couple months back. Still have my fingers crossed. Been looking for news related to it this morning, but nothing yet, so far as I can see.
Nope, Jon said on Twitter that they wouldn’t be at PAX this year.
What a perfect piece of work. Fixing such small bugs, lots of puzzles, excellent graphics, thousands of footstep sounds… But I haven’t seen music yet. Will there be none, or is it too… hm… spoilerish?
No, it’s been covered that there is no music in the Witness, hence the many types of footstep noises, since it’s the main thing you’ll hear.
That makes sence. *gone prepairing good headphones
Hi again, I was wondering if Oswing helped or inspired any bit of the game. or if he it’s going to appear on the credits of the game ;D
So, anybody wanna start guessing at that release date before it’s officially announced?
See who can guess the closest…
Keeping in mind that it needs to be delayed at least once, so My guess would be sometime in March next year. Call it March 8th 2016
Hopefully it’s not that late. Maybe it will be November 5th 2015
Simultaneously with Morpheus on PS4, perhaps bundled, April 15, 2015 maybe…
2016
23rd October 2015
I really hope you are right DAS, or that the release date turns out to be before your date.
January 5th 2016 is my guess! What do we get for closest??? XD
You get to play the game on date of release!
Not with Sony onboard
I bet on October 20
September 1 2018
1st February 2016
If it’s possible to say, will any of the content in this game be something you can miss “forever” if you do one thing before another (in the vain of the puzzle piece golden star in Braid)?