This games tries to be too clever and ends up just turning you off instead.

At the beginning, the game is clear about how you are meant to solve puzzles. It steps you through logically the rules of each puzzle and how you are meant to approach them.

Then, it lets you out into the open world, that all completely goes away, and the difficulty curve just takes off like a rocket.

All of a sudden, you are given a slew of puzzles with no obvious way of solving them and no way of figuring out how you're meant to solve them. The solutions to these puzzles are often incredibly obscure and take FOREVER to figure out because you largely just have to wander around the world until you stumble upon the solution.

That isn't clever or good game design - it's just tedious and cryptic for the sake of it. The game could easily explain to you the mechanic of each puzzle and the puzzles would STILL be challenging to solve. The withholding of this information is just frustrating.

I liken it to this scenario - imagine you are asked to solve a jigsaw of a Chinese character without knowing Chinese, without being allowed to see what a Chinese character looks like, and without knowing what a jigsaw is. Of course, the puzzle is still solvable because all of the pieces can only go into one valid position, but the process of solving it is infinitely longer simply because key information is being withheld from you.

Playing The Witness is like being a rat trapped in an art exhibit maze, where you never know if you can trust your own eyes. I've never seen blurring level design and level art together like this.

At first glance that sounds awesome, yet this title seriously ♥♥♥♥♥ with your brain. The game is all about perspectives, and that's beautiful by concept. However, often you'll be stuck for long - until you'll see things from that one perfect setup, which requires time. The game is unforgivable for your mistakes, poorly teaches its rules, allows to make hurtfull mistakes - execution is far from perfect.

Even though it's not a horror game, I've always been terrified by the emptiness we experience in this game. Combined with the feeling of being watched (and judged) #liminal-space

It's biggest flaw it that despite testing human perception it is one of the most unaccessible games I've ever seen. If you know one sense of yours won't allow you to progress through certain challange, you should have alternative or to simply get a refund. The witness doesn't warn of its puzzles being inaccessible on such different ways - "will challenge and surprise you" my ass.
If you are affected by any form of impairment (not even required) you may have hard time to complete the basic ending and may find it impossible to get through final challenge .
- One of the most motion sickness triggering experiences we heard about, even when comparing to similar titles.
- Some puzzles are color based only, so color blindness makes it harder that it should be. Funny cause colors in puzzles are rarely mixed with other rules, so it's hard to find any excuse.
- Even without hard of hearing Jungle may be literally unplayable for many.
- For some reason control scheme designed to be based on WASD + Mause only, lacking any alternatives. That is simply insulting, in a game with "over 500 puzzles" in which you mostly move in 2D panels.
- Some people simply won't complete the final Challenge due to time limit and random generation. What's funny that it could be workarounded on PS4 until they patchet it out. Uncompromising for the player's mistakes in the game, yet allowing themselves to release it with a way to cheat final difficulty achievement; double standard :)

I kinda admire The Witness and I had great time, but I cannot recommend it to anyone. Most people won't enjoy it for too long. When you play it, you feel like you're not just trying to overcome your own limitations, but also some other artificial elements of the game itself.

PS, For me The Witness caused Tetris effect more than the Tetris itself. That's ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ awesome.

Jonathan Blow is a ♥♥♥♥ sympathizer