Kolzig

The Witness by Jonathan Blow

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You should check out the final area, at least. Some of the puzzles there have quite interesting twists to them.

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How does the final part of the game work?

There isn't a point of no return; the game makes a save at the end.  I can see that someone would load that save and panic, thinking they can't go back and explore the island anymore from that point but you can.  (Look down.)

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21h in and I just found the greenhouse. It just never occurred to me to wander to that corner of the island before. 

 

I've got more than enough to go to the final area right now, I think, but the puzzle to open it is driving me mad. I've got 2/3 of the solution down but the last one is infuriating (and it's not even the kind of puzzle you can think about when you're not playing). Other than that, there is one very specific puzzle that has been bothering me forever and it still doesn't make sense to me, even if I think I understand all the puzzle mechanics in the game.

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Wait, what was your solution then? I had the opposite experience, I spent a bunch of time trying to make separate shapes and then eventually found a solution by putting them in the center.

 

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:

 

The credits are only accessible in the starting area of a new game. If you've opened the gate without seeing the credits then you've gone too far.

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I'm at 398, went back and did the quarry and the colourful green house (fuck that area) today. I think I only have one laser to go now, the town, and that's almost all done, I've managed to get all the doors on the tower open bar the first one :tup: I also need to do those pressure puzzles near the hedge maze.

Oh yeah, and the ship. YAY PUZZLES!

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I'm currently stuck on a puzzle in what I guess is the tetris tutorial area (which btw, I don't like how they close of paths there).

It's what I think is the last of those 'delete' block (hollow blue ones) tutorials, underneath the red staircase. There's a square block and a corner block (3-piece), you need to delete them both but when I look at the board I just conclude it's impossible xD not sure if I misunderstand the rules again or I'm just being daft. Will sleep on it.

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I just finished the game. Yes there is a point of no return, but when I went back into the game there was a save in the load menu right before the break happens.

 

Excellent.

 

Does anyone know if there's a "bibliography" anywhere for the various audio/visual content?

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I'm almost at the end of this game now, I just have the treehouse and jungle left of the main puzzles. I really dislike the audio based ones so I'll probably skip those.

I've done everything I can find in the treehouse except

I need to open a door, which I can do but it's not possible for me to run there in time before it closes, which suggests that I'm missing something. Can anyone advise?

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I'm almost at the end of this game now, I just have the treehouse and jungle left of the main puzzles. I really dislike the audio based ones so I'll probably skip those.

I've done everything I can find in the treehouse except

I need to open a door, which I can do but it's not possible for me to run there in time before it closes, which suggests that I'm missing something. Can anyone advise?

 

The tree house bridges

have some puzzles with multiple ends to draw the line into, which dictate the direction the bridge will turn. So you need to make yourself a shortcut to the timed door

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I'm at 321 +12 and I still think this game is fantastic, but the honeymoon period of complete infatuation is over. At this point, two facts that I already knew about but did not think would bother me are starting to wear on me anyway: (1) there are a ton of puzzles ahead of me yet, and I doubt if I have the intelligence or patience to solve all of them, (2) there isn't (according to all of you, and the Internet at large) a satisfying end point that the game builds towards.

It sucks because I truly didn't think I'd care about the lack of reward or climax... But without it, I'm afraid the rest of the game will be a slow petering out of my patience until I arbitrarily decide I'm done. And with that in the back of mind the game is suddenly much less engrossing.

That said, the hours I've already put in are some of the most satisfying I've had in a game in a while. So it still gets my endorsement, big time.

 

That's how I felt a few pages ago too. For what it's worth, I actually found the end (and the credits sequence that I found immediately after) weirdly moving, though it's hard to articulate why.

 

I immediately jumped back in, looking to get more of those + puzzles, and ended up finding a hidden area with more boards. I was ecstatic and quickly blew past my old total. I'm at 467+111+1 and I STILL feel I'm genuinely enjoying solving stuff. I feel less urgency than before I beat it, but I can definitely see myself hopping in for an hour or two after work to finish a few more puzzles each night until I've gotten them all.

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Does anyone know if there's a "bibliography" anywhere for the various audio/visual content?

This youtube channel has a partial one: https://www.youtube.com/user/Sandamnit/videos (contains spoilers in some videos)

It's not great, but it feels like it will be a while before searching 'the witness' provides anything better than the Harrison Ford movie about the Amish.

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385+50, I thought I'd try to find everything before doing the mountain puzzle, but gave up mostly because that windmill is so infuriating, seems the last one just doesn't work. And I realized that if I just start hunting for every last + "puzzle" I'll just get sick of the game, so I entered the "final area" as well.

 

One thing I'm having trouble with is the puzzles with hollow squares.

I did the swamp/tetris area relatively early and actually forgot what the hollow squares even did after that. I guess I should go back there and remind myself more about how they work exactly, but the thought of having to manipulate those stupid bridges again fills me with dread, even though I thought they were quite cool when I was first doing the area.

 

One more annoyance I have with the game is that besides the boat, everything that moves moves at a really glacial pace. There's even a few + puzzles where this is used, but fuck that.

 

PS. I'm really glad I haven't looked for any spoilers so far. There have been some really cool moments when I've finally figured out a puzzle that has had me stumped for a while, but on the other hand, sometimes it's boringly primitive like getting a glimpse of something new when walking through a point and going, "oh, you can also look at that thing from this angle that I just didn't notice before and now the puzzle is solved".

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Captain's log, Day 6. Everything is a clue, if not, perhaps a puzzle itself.

Send help.

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Ok, I want to mention one more annoyance with the game: the sound. It's head-ache inducing. As I said, I'm not getting motion sickness or at least I'm not aware that I am, but I've been getting headaches. While I thought it was mostly because I have a bit of a cold, I think the game is also contributing by in a subtle way playing exactly the kind background noise that I would do everything to avoid in real life. Especially annoying is being near a laser after it has been activated. Really, while I admire the overall structure of the game, I think some decisions made are rather dubious considering how much polishing time they had. Or maybe there wasn't a lot of polishing time, it is a rather complex game.

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Yeah, the sounds started to drive me crazy today too.  The one that gets me the most is the high pitch noise that starts up when you start to solve a puzzle.  I used to leave puzzles active while I thought about them, but I can't take it anymore.  Perhaps they are trying to encourage you to think about the puzzles in your head rather than probing them out visually?  Whatever the case, it's annoying.

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One more annoyance I have with the game is that besides the boat, everything that moves moves at a really glacial pace. There's even a few + puzzles where this is used, but fuck that.

 

Yeah... and some of them require you to be moving to solve.  I'm not sure if I'll ever have the patience for it.

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Finished the game yesterday. Loved it! Probably the best puzzle game I have ever played.

 

I never got the feeling that the game or the developers hated me, or were trying to make me feel dumb. On the contrary, I really appreciated how much trust they put on the intelligence of the player, by not only letting them solve the puzzles without any hints but making them figure out the actual rules as well. I think it helped a lot that I knew (or assumed I knew) that each new concept has a tutorial area somewhere, so when I came across a complicated puzzle with concepts I was not familiar with yet, I moved along. The complexity of the puzzles was just right in that brute-forcing the solution was rarely a viable option, but you did not feel exchausted by the number of (wrong) options either. I was definitely stuck a few times, but never felt that the solution was unfair. Most importantly, the feeling I got after finally solving a tough puzzle was always "Fuck yeah!" and not "Fuck this game!" That feeling combined with unlocking a laser after clearing each area was reward enough for me.

 

The only puzzles I did not like very much were the sound-based ones, but fortunately there weren't that many of those.

 

The collectibles were a bit silly, but they did not bother me at all. I would have been perfectly happy without them, and their inclusion did not detract from the experience at all. I think it helps to assume that the developers were not seriously trying to Jonathan Blow your minds with that stuff either. Oh, and I thought the hidden credits thing was hilarious.

 

 

I finished the game after about 19 hours with 420 (+ 15ish) puzzles solved. I know there are a couple of shortcuts and individual doors with

video reels (I have unlocked 3)

to solve still. How many "regular" puzzles am I still missing? Are more unlocked by solving the environmental puzzles? I might came back for the environmental puzzles later, but I did not find them as interesting as the regular ones.

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How many "regular" puzzles am I still missing? Are more unlocked by solving the environmental puzzles? I might came back for the environmental puzzles later, but I did not find them as interesting as the regular ones.

 

Apparently the max is 523+135+6

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I've done about 200 puzzles and got none of the +1s but I've been avoiding most spoiler tags and can only assume the +1s are the panels laying on the ground.

I share played with a friend on ps4 for an hour which was fun. So far I have looked up 2 solutions on some rather basic puzzles. I don't feel so bad about it because I struggled with them for a while and couldn't understand what they were trying to teach me.

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I think I finally got to grips with the Tetris mechanics; I just got to the orange background ones before stopping for the evening. There's some other ones that I am fairly stumped by for the moment, and I'm having trouble even finding the next puzzle in one area! 

 

I'm flitting around rather than sticking at particular places, so I have only completed one area. I'm having a great time though!

 

I accidentally clicked the spoilered answer to the question above before the question, oops! Oh well

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Question about the marsh looking area

You solve a tetris puzzle to make a bridge take you over to the other side, then down in one of the basements there's an identical puzzle that I presumed would let me go back over, but it doesn't do anything. Is the bridge locked in position or can you move it back?

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Question about the marsh looking area

You solve a tetris puzzle to make a bridge take you over to the other side, then down in one of the basements there's an identical puzzle that I presumed would let me go back over, but it doesn't do anything. Is the bridge locked in position or can you move it back?

Hint:

Look at the shape you drew and think how that might relate to what happened after you drew it

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I'm at 323+55. I've continued to really enjoy myself. I just wanted to mention one of my favorite +1 moments (it's for the Keep area).

In the Keep, with the pressure plate puzzles, they are also +1 puzzles when viewed from the top of the tower, but from that view it imposes additional constraints on the solutions due to pillars and whatnot obstructing your view of certain paths. Most of the other +n puzzles I've encountered so far are just about being observant and I like how this layered extra challenge on existing puzzles. Pretty neat!

 

There's some people down on the sound puzzles, but they provided one of my favorite ah-ha moments so far

when I realized the sound I assumed was "interference" was actually the solution. Not necessarily the hardest puzzle, but I laughed at myself when I realized the solution (I was stuck on it for a while).

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