Category Archives: Development

iPad video update #1

By Jonathan Blow | Published: March 13, 2013

Andy’s got the iPad port far enough along that you can sort of play the game now. Here’s a short video: There are some basic hacks going on; for example, right now, we are not drawing the real sky; it’s just solid blue. Also, right now we are just loading this starting area, but it [...]

Posted in Development | 50 Comments

The Witness Audio: 1000 Subtle Layers

By Andrew Lackey | Published: February 19, 2013

(This is a crosspost from WabiSabi Sound’s blog). I didn’t think Witness was going to be an easy project by any stretch, but I certainly didn’t expect it to be one of our biggest creative challenges. I’ve worked on nearly 80 projects spanning feature film, games, ads and other sorts, and my job as sound [...]

Posted in Development | 10 Comments

Interview about The Witness and related design topics

By Jonathan Blow | Published: February 1, 2013

On January 31, 2013, Tom McShea of Gamespot interviewed me as part of their Break Room Interview series. It was an interesting conversation! Here’s the interview.

Also posted in Ill-Advised Rants | 72 Comments

How do you say “plane” in The Witness?

By Casey Muratori | Published: January 20, 2013
witness3_yworks

Just before Christmas break, I fixed a bug in the transform manipulator and checked it in. Having a transform manipulator is a nice addition to any editor, and we were all happy to have it working. But shortly thereafter, I had to leave for a cross-country family Christmas trip. This meant no more real Witness [...]

Posted in Development | 28 Comments

Island Partition

By Jonathan Blow | Published: January 16, 2013

This week we’ve been having discussions about how it’s almost time to move into full-on Production Mode and start cranking out final-ish 3D models and textures … following schedules, and all kinds of organized stuff like that. Up until now we have not been in that kind of work mode, because we were figuring out [...]

Posted in Development | 48 Comments

Island Snapshot

By Jonathan Blow | Published: January 3, 2013

Current puzzle count: 505.

Also posted in Progress Shots | 27 Comments

What I Did on My Christmas Vacation

By Jonathan Blow | Published: December 30, 2012

I apologize in advance that this posting is a rambling mess. The Background Way back in 2008 when I came upon the core idea of this game, the design was the exciting part. Though I started in games mainly as a technical person who was excited about technical challenges, I have shifted into a mode [...]

Posted in Development | 55 Comments

A Cliffside Cliffhanger

By Casey Muratori | Published: December 24, 2012
witness3_rock

This is a little mystery about a rock that refused to move. The rock lives off the coast of The Witness, just beyond the desert cliffs: I do not know who made this rock or how long it has been there, but when I first happened upon it, I found that it resides in a [...]

Posted in Development | 83 Comments

Finding and Fixing a Five Second Stall

By Casey Muratori | Published: December 18, 2012
witness_2_windowskeys

The great thing about programming on Windows is that it is the only commercially viable platform where you can ship software to users without getting approval from a giant bureaucracy (well, perhaps I should say it used to be). The not-so-great thing about programming on Windows is that, well, the Windows API is a horrific [...]

Posted in Development | 45 Comments

Collecting Playtest Data

By Jonathan Blow | Published: December 2, 2012

In The Witness, when progress in your game is saved, we also save a thumbnail that shows you where you were. This makes it easier to load a particular game later if you had multiple saves. Here is our current, very unpolished load screen: Right now, we save the thumbnail and the game data as [...]

Also posted in Engine Tech | 25 Comments

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