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The Witness by Jonathan Blow

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http://the-witness.net/The Witness is an exploration-puzzle game, to be released on multiple platforms in late 2011, when the game will hopefully be finished.

It’s a game by a small independent development team, headed up by Jonathan Blow, designer of the critically-acclaimed game Braid, which is of course well known here at Thumbs.

Now please share your opinions about this, I think the concept art looks very interesting and I hope Jonathan Blow can achieve his goals with this project.

The development blog is here:

http://the-witness.net/news/

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Just going by the concept art and not really reading about the game iteslf, I'd say it looks very plain at the moment, but not every set piece is like this.

I'm sure this is all work in progress and it will be pulled off in the end. I do like the thumbnails for the backgrounds.

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That's some programmer art.

Indeed, it's quite better than the average CPA.

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Looks Mysty. Don't know if that's good or bad. I still haven't played any of the Myst games (well I once started but by then the graphics looked outdated).

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The website could do without the horrid poem.
Agreed.

I don't know what to make of this. I assume that JB is not going to make a simple point-and-click adventure game - it's a fair bet that he's at least going to attempt to produce something revolutionary. We just don't yet have enough information about it.

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I wonder though how big is his indie development team this time?

Braid took about four years to make from the initial idea to the final product so it's a tight schedule to have this come out sometime in 2011.

It will be interesting to see how this develops during the production.

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I'm sure the original is just wonderful. Not that amazing translated.

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The concept art makes it seem like a combination of Myst and one of those Japanese (?) flash games where you are supposed to figure out how to get out of the room you wake up in. The Witness will likely be more interesting than that, though.

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The website could do without the horrid poem.

That's like saying Jonathan Blow could do with his horrid pretension! *ducks*

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The website could do without the horrid poem.

I dunno, I think I'm the only person in the world that think Jon Blow is a neat game designer but horribly annoying conceptualist. Pseudo(or real? I dunno) pretentious presentation made me vomit on braid a dozen times over.

Also, I prefer that programmer art above then what was in the final product, I really thought it was an aweful style and a horrible mishmash of imagery.

From the concept of the Witness, I'd agree it's a bit plain, but there's a real intent there and focus on colour which already goes farther then what braid presented; in my opinion of course, I know there are others.

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That's like saying Jonathan Blow could do with his horrid pretension! *ducks*

Now, that's a low blow.

(get it? :getmecoat)

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Geez, Braid is gorgeous. Can't agree with that at all.

Yeah, like I said, it's a matter of artistic opinion and there is no right answer. I've heard people say it looks amazing, but i don't really dig that artists style.

Not like i'm trying to convince you that it's ugly, but I figured I'd back up my comments rather then coming off as a hater, but at the end of the day it's totally what ever your drawn to art wise and I'm ok with that.

1. "texture quality" This might be a diliberate style of Hellmens, but I really relate it to quick, sloppy, beginner photoshop work. It's smudgy and inconsistent in detail in random places that looks like it's coming from a very uninformed artist.

2. Colour. Holy crap, this guy does not know colour at all. He's trying to keep it simple but not adding a lot of complexity in his object which comes off a bit toonish, but since he's playing in the "painterly" realm it's comes off as super beginner type stuff. His tone is good and he knows how to turn the form, but without adding colour depth to a painting(even if its slightly impressionistic) you get a very flat dead looking thing.

Furthermore with colour, he doesn't have any direction in colour temperature, it's all over the place, so it's coming off extremely flat and dead. In fact, I'd say he takes his darks to black and I wouldn't be surprised if he worked in grey scale and then just added colour overlays as the whole thing feels like that void dead feeling you get when you do that(not cold, not warm, just dead)

3. Lighting: This could be more technology and how the art is being reused in modular bits, but the light source in a single level or screen seems to be really in consistent.

4. Noisy: Again this could be a dilberate style choice to try to achieve what I hear people cateogrize it as impressionist style, but it seems very uninformed about shape, composition, and focus.

That's my thoughts and what I'm seeing; I'm only right towards my own opinion and that shouldn't stop anyone from not liking it, I'm pretty open to art beauty is in the eye of the beholder. And I'll give the guy credit for his art skill and I'll extend that to saying that his choices are dilberate and not mistakes of a novice, I just don't "get" what hes trying to say with that diliberate attempt.

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Now, obviously you have some background in this, but I can't be convinced by words after being stunned by his art time and time again in the comic (www.alessonislearned.com) and Braid. Those comments don't seem to apply to what I've seen.

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Now, obviously you have some background in this, but I can't be convinced by words after being stunned by his art time and time again in the comic (www.alessonislearned.com) and Braid. Those comments don't seem to apply to what I've seen.

Oh totally, like I said I'm not trying to one up you or convince you other wise.

You and a million other people like it, that's cool, I'm totally not right other then in the context of my own opinion. I just didn't want to come in and be "It sucks." and just end it there,figured I'd at least support my opinion with my thought process so I'm not just a hater or a dick.

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Okay, that's definitely appreciated. I rarely have the patience.

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I can kind of see where you're coming from, but personally I really like Hellman's style. It's got a very dreamlike quality that I think fits what Blow what trying to say with Braid. Anyway, this is a thread about The Witness, so I'll leave it at that.

Agreed that I prefer Blow as a designer and not as much as a speaker/voice/expresser of ideas. He's clearly very thoughtful, but at times those thoughts read as pretentious or perhaps just at the expense of the user. Hard to put a finger on, but his design work is brilliant.

Let me be clear when I call out Myst as an influence here that I'm not suggesting this is a point and click adventure game per se, or even that I think this will have puzzles along those lines...

The look of these prototype lighting renders just evokes a very material-centric "Rand Bros." kind of feeling. Myst and Riven didn't feature what I'd traditionally call beautiful art direction, but the worlds they created could definitely be described as beautiful. Like those games, these rough concepts evoke a sense of place that seems to be less based on color theory or aesthetic beauty so much as a well grounded sense of weight based on materials. It has something to do with raw wood and metal and stone.

It's very possible that when the art direction actually kicks in it will lose these Mystlike qualities. I'm not familiar with Ignacio Castaño's work, but he strikes me as more of a technical artist than Hellman...

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Agreed that I prefer Blow as a designer and not as much as a speaker/voice/expresser of ideas. He's clearly very thoughtful, but at times those thoughts read as pretentious or perhaps just at the expense of the user. Hard to put a finger on, but his design work is brilliant.

I've never understood why people criticize Braid for being pretentious. What Blow says about Braid, I can absolutely understand, but the game itself, why? Because it puts some cryptic text in between levels?

Having said that, I love ambitious projects/designers/etc. and to say that someone or something is pretentious is often only another way of saying that they were ambitious and failed to achieve their goals. It never strikes me as a valid criticism. Just laziness in place of articulating how they failed to meet those goals.

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I've never understood why people criticize Braid for being pretentious. What Blow says about Braid, I can absolutely understand, but the game itself, why? Because it puts some cryptic text in between levels?

Having said that, I love ambitious projects/designers/etc. and to say that someone or something is pretentious is often only another way of saying that they were ambitious and failed to achieve their goals. It never strikes me as a valid criticism. Just laziness in place of articulating how they failed to meet those goals.

Yeah, I completely agree. Braid is, in my view, modest above pretentious. I haven't heard or read anything of Blow himself. Whereas with something like Heavy Rain you have David 'Jake Rodkin' Cage furiously masturbating over the product.

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This guy certainly enjoys re-inventing the wheel. I wonder how much faster development on this game would be if he just used LightMass.

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