Adventure Forums - View Single Post - The Witness - Jonathan Blow (Braid) is making an adventure game

GarageGothic · 09-16-2010, 05:58 PM

Strange, this is the first time I see that screenshot despite following development on Blow's blog for a while - and subscribing to Kotaku's RSS feed. Looks like a golf course with a giant LEGO windmill as painted by Monet

I'm also a bit worried that it will turn out too Myst-like, but I doubt Blow would bother with it unless he had something to add to the genre. If you look at screenshots from Braid, it's an almost archetypal platformer - level layouts based on Donkey Kong and Super Mario, "the Princess is in another castle" etc. Yet the game, when played, is anything but typical.

So, who knows what kind of tricks he has up his sleeve this time? I seem to remember Blow saying that he wanted to explore storytelling, which wasn't really one of Myst's strong points (while I do respect those who enjoyed the narrative in Myst, personally I couldn't care either way about the family squabbles of magic book people).
My guess is that he'll use the Myst-like elements as a recognizable framing device, with the island and logic puzzles spread around to discover, and then somehow subvert our expectations.

Disclaimer: Speculative rambling ahead
The title could indicate that there's some sort of investigative element. Is the player The Witness, if so, what are we witnessing? Perhaps the game is toying with the Myst-clone cliche of exploring an abandoned location where something has happened, and the player gradually expose the facts of said event.
What if the event hasn't happened yet? What if the clues were only evidence of something still underway? Or maybe its about clues being misconstrued entirely? I'm thinking along the lines of meta/anti-mystery films like The Conversation, Blow Up and The Draughtsman's Contract. Though I may just be projecting my own design interests onto Mr. Blow's project, since I now realize two of those movies were among the inspirations for my current game-in-production

Edit: And only after writing all that, I read the article and watch the video

. Puzzles look a bit samey, I had expected more physics stuff. And the journalist already made pretty much the same point about Braid vs. Mario and Witness vs. Myst, sorry for the redundancy.

09-16-2010, 05:58 PM	#20
GarageGothic Senior Member Join Date: Jan 2004 Location: Denmark Posts: 168	Strange, this is the first time I see that screenshot despite following development on Blow's blog for a while - and subscribing to Kotaku's RSS feed. Looks like a golf course with a giant LEGO windmill as painted by Monet I'm also a bit worried that it will turn out too Myst-like, but I doubt Blow would bother with it unless he had something to add to the genre. If you look at screenshots from Braid, it's an almost archetypal platformer - level layouts based on Donkey Kong and Super Mario, "the Princess is in another castle" etc. Yet the game, when played, is anything but typical. So, who knows what kind of tricks he has up his sleeve this time? I seem to remember Blow saying that he wanted to explore storytelling, which wasn't really one of Myst's strong points (while I do respect those who enjoyed the narrative in Myst, personally I couldn't care either way about the family squabbles of magic book people). My guess is that he'll use the Myst-like elements as a recognizable framing device, with the island and logic puzzles spread around to discover, and then somehow subvert our expectations. Disclaimer: Speculative rambling ahead The title could indicate that there's some sort of investigative element. Is the player The Witness, if so, what are we witnessing? Perhaps the game is toying with the Myst-clone cliche of exploring an abandoned location where something has happened, and the player gradually expose the facts of said event. What if the event hasn't happened yet? What if the clues were only evidence of something still underway? Or maybe its about clues being misconstrued entirely? I'm thinking along the lines of meta/anti-mystery films like The Conversation, Blow Up and The Draughtsman's Contract. Though I may just be projecting my own design interests onto Mr. Blow's project, since I now realize two of those movies were among the inspirations for my current game-in-production Edit: And only after writing all that, I read the article and watch the video . Puzzles look a bit samey, I had expected more physics stuff. And the journalist already made pretty much the same point about Braid vs. Mario and Witness vs. Myst, sorry for the redundancy. Last edited by GarageGothic; 09-16-2010 at 07:04 PM.