The Witness

Completing The Witness served to remind me that it had been over a year since I started the game which is quite a scary thought. However, it’s also been reassuring to see the game show up on a few ‘best games of the decade’ lists which is a far cry from most of the other games I’ve finished recently.

The Witness is an open world puzzle game with a difference. Where most games like this give you a linear path with progressively more difficult puzzles, The Witness dumps you on an island with some tutorial puzzles to teach you the basic concepts and then you’re off to explore.

The island itself has 11 lasers on it which need to be activated and directed towards a mountain to unlock the final set of puzzles. To activate the lasers, you need to master some line puzzles. These vary from simple mazes to complex puzzles where the solutions are found by manipulating the scenery to see the solution or by figuring out the complex rules involving dots on the lines and coloured squares. None of these are explained, it’s up to you to figure out and managing to do so is very rewarding.

In terms of navigation, this can be quite slow and frustrating at times, even more for me when I forgot that there was a sprint button. Even with the sprint button though, it still takes ages getting anywhere and then there is the element of not knowing where you are going that adds to this. In addition, there is also a boat which you can activate and use at various locations as a sort of fast travel. It’s also the only way to reach one of the areas so needs to done at some point.

Everything about the island is deliberate and well-crafted and I didn’t get scenery stuck or trapped at any point and the same can’t be said for many other triple A titles. In addition, the music is atmospheric and clear – and it has to be as some of the puzzles are based on the sounds in the environment so if there was overbearing background music, it would destroy this game mechanic.

Achievements – 1,000 Points – 13 Achievements

It’s a short list and simple enough for the most part. 11 of the achievements are for activating the lasers scattered around the island and all of these need to be activated to unlock the final challenge in the game – and that’s where the real challenge is.

Activating the lasers is simple enough in that if you get stuck you can use a video or picture guide to get past any overly difficult bits and to assist with the navigation of the island. I’ll admit to resorting to this when I revisited the game after a long hiatus as it helped me get my bearings and point me in the right direction.

So that just leaves the last two achievements. The next one is just for completing the game and there is small taste of what’s to come with this one. You have to solve two puzzles to open a door that combine some of the elements from the puzzles you’ve already played. The issue? These puzzles are random and they reset after a very short amount of time so there’s an element of luck, where you can get a really basic puzzle, and an element of skill, if you are quick enough to solve the puzzle that comes up regardless of difficulty. To show my ineptitude at the game at this point, I swear some of these weren’t even solvable.

Anyway, this door pales in comparison to the last achievement, simply titled Challenge. This area is in the same area as the end game but doesn’t unlock until you’ve unlocked all of the lasers. Essentially, it’s a sequence of 14 randomly generated puzzles that get progressively harder. Oh, and this time, you’re on a timer too as you have to complete it before the music stops, which is two pieces of classic music that comes in at just under 7 minutes. Oh, and you can’t pause it otherwise the challenge resets.

I’m pretty sure I got lucky as I managed to complete this on my tenth run after getting progressively better at it over time. Though I did have some help. One part of the challenge requires you to enter a maze which is actually a mirror image of one the puzzles you’ve solved before. I got my partner to take a picture and guide me through the maze. Essentially, it’s a solid challenge, one that a guide can’t help with and one that is very rewarding once completed.

Downloadable Content – N/A

The Witness is one of the best puzzle games about and critically acclaimed by many sources as well. It’s well worth a play and even after completing the achievements, there are still more puzzles and secrets hidden by the island for you to find.