Kolzig

The Witness by Jonathan Blow

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I've done the quarry and I swear I have no idea what makes the pointy triangle things click and work. Sometimes they work in just two squares, usually they need space. No need to spoil it for me, I just feel dumb at the moment.

 

The possibility of brute-forcing some of these puzzles makes me break out into a cold sweat. How??? Why???

 

For the +1s:

 

I've found the monoliths are actually very helpful. It gives you the general direction, absolutely, but considering how tight the effective monolith area is that makes for a small pie slice in which you're searching for a circle.

 

I'd start with the one nearest the quarry; it seems like the easiest to completely fill up.

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The possibility of brute-forcing some of these puzzles makes me break out into a cold sweat. How??? Why???

 

For the +1s:

Do they matter for the endings? Because I don't enjoy hunting them.

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I've now witnessed.

 

This puzzle.

 

I've cut out tiny little paper pieces and I still can't figure it out.

 

I'm going mad.

 

I should take a break, but I'm almost done with this area, I'm pretty sure.

 

Please send help.

 

I'm dying.

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Do they matter for the endings? Because I don't enjoy hunting them.

 

The game's structured so that you can basically decide for yourself when you're done. It only acknowledges a handful of actions as stopping points.

 

(Also I don't know, there's this one 'ending' thing that feels like it might respond to increasingly esoteric actions, and it seems likely that there's lots of little things embedded in the world for the super-fans.)

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Oh, god, trying to quote shows me spoilers. Just managed to avoid them. Anyway, I wouldn't say I brute forced them. It was still quick to find when they work and the puzzle was usually in figuring out the rest. Only two of them got me stuck for a while. But I'm still not sure about the mechanism. Going back in tonight.

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Yup, I went back to the simpler ones and I think I have it now. I'm at five lasers.

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Just figured out the "+" component!!! I think. The latest Crate & Crowbar had a clue that made me figure it out. I was already ruminating over it in the back of my mind, so I didn't mind.

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My save file now reads 494 +86 +1

I needed a hint that was in spoiler tags here to open up a new area.

I also looked up the rules to those triangle puzzles, even though I've done like 10 of them I never actually figured out how... :)

Still haven't used any hints or paper to solve any actual puzzle boards

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So I think I'm done for now, sitting at 518 +45. I'm not really doing the + puzzles. They are often quite clever, but some of them are really tedious to execute and actively looking for them feels a little bit too grindy for my tastes.

Actually, this ties to a small issue I have with the game (minor potential spoiler about the nature of the + puzzles).

There is this weird conflict I've felt throughout the game, but maybe it's a conscious decision... The game presents itself as this meditative experience a lot, but it's often the opposite of that. It feels like it wants me to sometimes stop by the lake or something and contemplate the nature of reality for a while and at the same time it pushes me to obsessively look for puzzles at all times.

I also needed the same hint as you Mington, not sure if it would ever occur to me to do this thing. Even when I saw some hints for it, I just didn't put them together.

 

One other thing I had to sort of look up was the wreck puzzle as I wanted to make sure I know how it's supposed to work.

Turns out I did, I just have trouble picking up tones from the sound effects, even some puzzles in the much simpler forest area gave me a lot of trouble, especially the pipe one. I didn't hear an obvious solution in it, I had to try a range of solutions that I thought could be it, one of them worked.

 

Also, even while being careful not to read any spoilers, I've read about the

credits area

somewhere, but I think I'm glad I did.

 

And yes, I also didn't have to use paper for any panels, except

the two colored ones in a container stuck on a house in the central "village". You have to change the color of the light three times and remember how the puzzles look like under these conditions.

I was actually pleasantly surprised by my spatial intelligence at times :-)

 

Anyway, yes, this game is good! Not sure if I have anything new to add to the discussion except adding some more superlatives.

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I'm stuck on a puzzle. I think I need a hint. ): EDIT: In case you need a reference for my current progress and where I might be without opening up the spoiler: I've activated seven lasers.

 

I'm inside the mountain. I'm at a puzzle where there are four tiny puzzles, and the shapes I make with them end up being the shapes I need for the bigger puzzle they're revealed to be a part of.

 

It's drivin' me nuts.

 

I don't want a hint, though. I've solved everything up to this point all on my own (besides one puzzle I accidentally solved and didn't realize why it was a solution until someone helped me understand a mechanic I didn't realize existed).

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I see...

NEED VS WANT ):

 

 

Yeah I was stuck there for a day

 
Damn. I've had the game running for a few hours now, just looking at it. It's awful. ):

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You should go solve some of the other lasers and come back to it

...won't help with this puzzle, just might be more satisfying use of you time. The quarry was fun, go do the quarry if you haven't done the quarry yet quarry

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I'd already done the quarry.

 

I solved it anyway! Yay me!

 

So I beat the game!

 

...When it finished, it went to a screen with "Start a New Game" as the only option. Can I go back, to go do the areas I didn't finish before?

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I'm now at 523+82, so pretty end game spoilers here:

 

The Challenge was fun, just barely got the last puzzle in my last attempt. I think I got quite lucky that run, I definitely wasn't confident going in to the pillars. 

 

I needed a little help mopping up panels. I couldn't identify some of the pitches in the ship sound puzzle and I missed a panel in the quarry control room. Also I see now how you get the credits sequence without restarting a new game, and you need that panel for the total count.

 

I guess all I need to do now is mop up +1s and any missing audio logs. It still seems kind of daunting to find them in the wild but I am still finding new ones on my own occasionally. Also I still like randomly coming across hidden/perspective based artwork in the game that just feels like a special bonus.

 

Also apparently there's another interesting way to track your progress in the game:

 

Look at the lake.

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Hah yeah I did figure it out.

 

Now I'm stuck in the desert thing. I don't like these puzzles. They're annoying/tedious. ):

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Aaaaand now I'm stuck on both the temple-thing and the cluster-of-buildings.

 

I think that's all I have left, as far as Main Puzzles go.

 

I tell you what I have not been this into a video game in a long time. And I definitely have not felt this determined to solve it on my own in a long time. That moment when I finally get the trick to a specific type of puzzle, and then I breeze through the rest of that section, it's always so good. I have a feeling I'll fall off once I have to start looking for SECRETS because besides a few things for the thing, I haven't found any.

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Got a question about the ++ puzzles

Is one of them related to the machinery that you can move in the lumber mill building in the quarry? I can move some things around in suspicious ways that don't seem related to any line puzzle on a screen.

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prawks:

I think it is, I've moved the crane outside the window and it makes the "this is a + puzzle, but you're not in the correct spot" sound when I stand on the floor of the building and click just under the crane. I haven't figured out how to get it, but I also didn't spend much time on it.

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So the second + on the save file relates to...

finshed first + areas, so when you have all the line puzzles solved on one of the black pillars. Kinda boring really. The one i finished is the one on the shady forest

I've just spent the last 2 hour trying to get into this cocking room

the-witness-jon-blow-indie-gameplay-cave

Aghagahahghghaghagahhahagahha. I know what to do and have got very close a couple times. I think I might give it rest for a few weeks a play some other stuff. Feel like I've wasted my Sunday afternoon now :(

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Haha, I remember grining like an idiot when trying to get into that room, the whole thing felt so silly in a good way. Managed to get there before it started to feel frustrating. There's certainly an element of luck to it as I think

there's no way for the computer to know and balance the difficulty of the generated puzzles.

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Small thing that you may have missed that makes the area a bit less frustrating (but not by much)

The fourth puzzle (the one on the table) shows you the location of the maze puzzles.

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