It gets complicated, and there were moments where we found ourselves truly stumped. Of course, as you make progress across the island, your brain will begin to overflow with the intricacies of the myriad panels, as more rules and quirks are thrown at you just as fast as you're sussing them out. Blow has spoken of this idea in interviews and demos, and has made comparisons to door-and-key puzzles in other games: "I need a key to open this door, but the key is only knowledge." The panels are not only puzzles – they are solutions. That door a little further back is now a far less daunting task, because the game has begun to teach you its language in a brilliantly smart, subtle way. In this regard, The Witness is an extremely communicative game, despite the lack of music, dialogue, or tips.
THE MEDIUM REVIEW EMBARGO HOW TO
However, walk a little further down the path, and two series of panels will give you all of the information that you need to open the door – one detailing the squares marked black and white, the other showing you how to deal with the small black dots.
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To give a very early example, an intimidating locked door bears a puzzle full of symbols that, at first, mean nothing. What may surprise people, though, is just how much variety and ingenuity Blow and his team have managed to squeeze out of solving maze puzzles. It also runs as smooth as silk, which shouldn't come as much of a surprise considering the prolonged development time. The sound is just as well crafted, the ambient noises and distinct lack of music instilling a real sense of solitude. We spent most of our time with the game not holding L2 to sprint, just so that we could drink in our surroundings. The visuals are absolutely stunning: the use of colour, the diversity of the environment, the painterly style – it's utterly gorgeous to look at. Once you've unlocked the first gate, the island is yours to explore – and you will want to explore it. The minimalist nature of the interface means that you're left to deal with the first handful of panels yourself, which sounds like the opposite of a tutorial, but it does a fantastic job of conveying the way that the game works, and the way that it expects you to think. Thankfully, you're eased into the game via a short tutorial area.
If you want answers, you have to work for them, just as with the puzzles themselves. It's best to get used to the idea of knowing nothing, as the story's not told in a traditional way. You begin the game with no explanation as to who you are, where you are, or how you got there. The real puzzle is the environment around you – the island itself. They may be puzzles themselves, but they are often part of a bigger picture. However, to view the game as just line puzzles is short-sighted: these puzzles are a means to a far grander end. That's the core interaction that you have with the game world, and it's what you'll spend the bulk of your time doing. Okay, so on a fundamental level this is a game about drawing lines through mazes.
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