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Easter eggs of The Witness

The reason people are even having the conversation of whether the Witness is teaching a skill is because the game is exactly about how video games teach concepts and how people learn them. You generally don't think about it with other games because that's not what other games are about. The specific skills taught in the Witness aren't particularly useful unless you're pursuing a degree in certain branches of mathematics, but I'd say just directly addressing the concepts of learning and problem solving is what makes The Witness and other puzzle games fun and interesting.

My guess is that

You're making a fundamental assumption about how things should work, that solutions follow a simple constructive set of rules, and your problem is that assumption is contradicted by an example of how things actually work. Also I don't find it too strange that this is the only puzzle where this principle applies for the only possible solution, I think if you dig around you can find a few more examples of single-use mechanic puzzles in the game. What's interesting would be to think about the programmed logic of how the game actually knows what solutions to a puzzle are correct since there isn't always only one pre-designed correct answer. I suspect part of the reason this puzzle exists is that the game had to support the most general possible solutions for all the puzzles since those could be valid solutions a player would try with minimal assumptions for other similar puzzles. Also the game logic just has to check if a solution is compatible with the rules of the game, not if there is some constructive way of forming that solution.

Since you've got all the lasers then: To be more specific, the hint is: Also the extra + puzzle count just refers to

Hah, well I don't think that ending is intended to be a punishment but sure. There is another ending in the game.

I'm now at 523+82, so pretty end game spoilers here: Also apparently there's another interesting way to track your progress in the game:

Yes, people can still play Wild but Blizzard will emphasize Standard as the main way to play for new players and all official sponsored tournaments will be in Standard, so it's likely that streamers and pro players will be playing Standard and it will become the norm. I think most people who've stuck with the game, myself included, are still happy with the change because it will shake up the way the game is played in Standard significantly. We're already the audience that buys into every new expansion and this will actually make some of the cards we've bought that were "useless" before more viable in the new format. I will miss some of the cards rotating out, but I'm also kind of sick of seeing some of those cards as well. dium is in the position that most of their cards will be useless in Standard and they're also probably missing many of the cards that would make a viable Wild deck. Although many people consider Naxx and GvG to be the highest power level expansions at this point, so they probably contain many of the cards you'll need for a Wild deck and their removal will significantly change Standard. The best time to get back into Hearthstone if you ever want to do so in the future will be when the first expansion of the year comes out and Standard shifts, even if it obsoletes all your cards you'll still be at a more even playing field now if you buy into just that latest expansion with everyone else. I do think they'll put the adventure back up for sale at some point, they just should have figured out how they're going to do that ahead of time.

Thanks for the tip, I also stalled out a little after getting the lasers. I also still need to find a few more hexagons and a bunch more +1s. Regarding the +1s

Weird. I didn't save the image I was using for scratch paper but I think this is the solution I had (link behind spoiler tag): I agree that the final area itself is worth exploring even if you're getting burnt out on all the other remaining puzzles. Also I think the credit sequence is worth experiencing. Apparently there's a hint where it is in the game, but if you don't mind here's some more detailed hints on where to find it:

Also, I like this tweet: "You are smart, you can do it! If you don't know now, sleep on it. Take a walk. Watch a good movie or go to a different puzzle!" - Jonathan Blow

Yeah, I also just finished and found the end sequence a little underwhelming. I didn't mind the sparsity of rewards minute to minute, but you do expect a little something more at the finale. But the puzzles leading up to it were pretty good. I finally had to crack and break out MS Paint to sketch out ideas for one of the last ones, although the solution was actually easier than I thought. Anyway, I'm still looking forward to going back and sweeping up the puzzles I skipped. Edit: Just went back and saw the credits, I saw a Kotaku article that had a hint about where it is. I actually liked it.

I finished the tetris area, the remaining puzzles were pretty damn difficult. Then I go back to the final area puzzle and just realized the reason I'm having so much trouble is not the tetris part but because... Spoiler for property of one of the puzzle elements. That terrible feeling when you realize it's all your fault.

So I just had a funny story about the tetris puzzles (I guess we're calling them that even though not all of them are tetraminos.) After giving up on those introductory puzzles I just went ahead and solved a bunch of other areas to unlock the final area, this included solving some other related tetris puzzles in different areas. In the final area I came across a puzzle with a tetris component that I just couldn't figure out and thought "damn, I have to go back and actually solve the tetris tutorial area to get to the minimal ending". So I trudge all the way there, get to these puzzles that I thought were so freaking hard the first time I saw them, and then solve them within a couple of seconds. Turns out I did learn the key to them while solving other puzzles and just didn't realize it! I feel like a lot of the negative reviews of this game fundamentally misunderstand something related to this about the game. The Witness is fundamentally more of a puzzle game than an adventure game. The lack of major rewards and story progression after most puzzle solutions seem quite deliberate. It puts more emphasis on the reward being the solution of the puzzle rather than a feeling of progression, which is obviously at odds with most other modern games. And what distinguishes a great puzzle game from a mediocre one is variety and challenge, which The Witness has both of in spades. I'm willing to accept puzzles I can't solve immediately and stay away from for days at a time because there's really substantial punishment for doing so. The amazing thing about hard puzzles is that not thinking about them for a while can actually help you solve them because you're able to come in with a fresh perspective! I think that in itself is a valuable life lesson worth the temporary frustration. Also a lot of this philosophy about the game is actually contained within the hidden messages in the game itself, the truth is out there! (However I don't think The Witness is a faultless game. For example. the slow bridge in the tetris area is a really annoying punishment if you have turn back there. There's also some aesthetic choices with a good number of puzzles that I don't really like, even though I liked some of those puzzles they have problems terms of ethics of accessibility that's kind of distasteful. For example I'm surprised that the game doesn't come with a warning for people with photosensitive epilepsy like other major games, or that I even think it needs one.) By the way, the clue you need to solve the harder tetris puzzles is in the first set of tutorial puzzles in that area. You just have to take that clue to another level. But yeah, that definitely seems to be one of the hardest mental leaps in the game and I still think some of these tetris puzzles are really hard.

Yeah, I got stuck in exactly the same place there. You can get back across the bridge, you just have to frob it the right way. The +X in the puzzle count are a specific type of puzzle. Here's a hint if you want to know where to get started on these:

You can see the puzzle count when you select Load Game from the menu. (Kinda weird since there doesn't seem to be an explicit save game option and the game autosaves.) I'm really enjoying the game but there have certainly been some frustrating moments. It's hard to say anything without spoilers because the game is really nonlinear. There's an awkward moment after beating one or two sections where it seems really difficult to progress, most games wouldn't let you have that moment, but here the solution is to just strike out for somewhere new and you'll probably learn something that will help you. It can be frustrating but this really makes the game feel expansive and not just a linear string of puzzle worlds. I did get a little nauseous a few times while playing, but that was mostly from things unnatural things like rapid camera movement, vertical movement, and reflections. There's definitely something about the combination of art style and perspective that makes these things a little more noticeable here. Jonathan Blow said in a Twitch stream today that they'd address this post-launch by maybe adding a FoV slider, they're taking suggestions for possible solutions since they didn't seem to have anyone get particularly motion sick during testing. Some more spoilery discussion: Yellow Brick Panels Bamboo Forest Channelwood Age (Treehouses) Black Obelisks

My top ten: 1. Hearthstone (Blackrock Mountain, The Grand Tournament, League of Explorers) 2. Her Story 3. Crypt of the Necrodancer 4. Undertale 5. Rocket League 6. Heroes of the Storm 7. Ori and the Blind Forest 8. Shovel Knight 9. Evolve 10. Titan Souls Dragonfliet: I agree that the underlying story in Her Story didn't hold up to my expectations, but I actually disagree that the game is fundamentally a story-based game and should be judged ultimately based on it. In fact for me the game is much more about the process of reconstructing what's in there from the limited resources you have and the fact that you have some entertaining melodramatic FMVs as rewards for figuring things out is just gravy. As a game it reminds me a lot of Gone Home in that way, but in a completely different format and genre. Gone Home was also criticized by some for its story, being too simple or straightforward, which is fair but again not what I found most enjoyable about the game. (As for how the story here fails, I'm not quite sure what you mean about the story being ultimately meaningless because of the twist.)

Yes, it seems they've gotten rid of flash sales and daily deals. From a notice Valve sent to developers and publishers: Source: http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/2015-11-20-no-flash-or-daily-deals-during-steam-autumn-winter-sales

Yeah, Tim has also said it's not Notch. Here's some elaboration on the anonymous investor from the Polygon article:

The image is rubbish because you can actually tell that there's a hose in the background that you have to pick up. If it's that easy to tell what you need to interact with then that just takes all the skill out of the game.

I'll agree that it's plausible, and from an ethical perspective it's the right course of action, personally I would also appreciate an apology. However I still think it's a riskier move to acknowledge failure, something that other video game companies and other content producers very rarely do, than to just stay silent. It's precisely because the cost-benefit analysis may be impossible that the more conservative choice is the rational one. Although Double Fine may actually have some way of quantifying from feedback just how many people feel like you do. I certainly don't think you're alone in your point of view, I'm just not sure there are that many people in Double Fine's core audience who feel the same way. I guess we'll see how Psychonauts 2 does since I feel like $3.3 million is a pretty big ask and if they really have alienated a big chunk of their audience they may not reach that goal, but right now it looks like they're on track. Personally despite my reservations I think I'll still end up backing Psychonauts 2 just because I like the types of games Double Fine tries to make even if they don't always live up to my expectations.

I agree from a customer's perspective that discontinuation of the development of Spacebase is certainly a disappointment and failure compared to the project's initial goals. However think of it from Double Fine's perspective as a business, is it more in their interest to issue an apology and basically acknowledge that Spacebase is a failure or to cut their losses and just accept Spacebase as a subpar but complete product that they will continue to sell with their name on it? I actually think it would be a bigger hit to their reputation if they did issue an apology. The only time you'll see a game company actually recall a game is when it's completely broken as software, for example the recent Batman game on PC. Also you'll notice that in the studio demo reel they released with their new campaign that every single Double Fine game is shown, including Spacebase, so they're owning as their own game whatever the end product became. Also there's an important distinction between the funding models for Spacebase and Double Fine's other recent games. Spacebase used a purely early access model which relies solely on revenues from sales of alpha versions of the game to sustain development, the initial budget is mostly an estimate of expected sales. Broken Age, Massive Chalice, and now Psychonauts 2 all use a crowd funding model that requires them to achieve a lump sum funding goal for the project to go forward and they can budget that more appropriately. Spacebase was a bet on an unproven funding model and niche game genre that just didn't pay off. Because of this difference it's not at all clear that the funding problem that happened with Spacebase would also be replicated in Psychonauts 2. Although I will say I do have some concerns and issues with how Double Fine has been making games recently. I haven't really loved a Double Fine game wholeheartedly since the original Psychonauts and I think it's in part because they've become dedicated to making smaller games with more limited budgets. It just seems they can't afford to put in the time to really polish their games to a higher standard. There's even a part in the Broken Age documentary where they're discussing their expected Metacritic rating and how much more time it would take to improve it and whether they could afford it in their budget and I think they basically decided they had to live with a rating in the 70s or 80s.

I'm enjoying the game. Actually rather than vanilla TF2, because of the range of possible heroes it actually feels more like TF2 after the initial loadout updates that opened up new playstyles to the TF2 classes. I've seen people complain about the lack of progression hooks and loadouts, but I'd much rather just have a larger roster of characters that are unlocked from the get go. My concern now is just having a regular group of players to play with. I never found a gaming group for Titanfall or Evolve and so those games quickly went by the wayside. TF2 I played a lot because the GamersWithJobs server had regular packed game nights with 12v12 teams. For Overwatch it seems you're limited to matchmaking with a group of 6.