The Witness by Jonathan Blow

[Sno]

Cyan's been talking about having Oculus Rift support for Obduction too.

These kinds of first-person puzzle games that are fully about the immersion of letting a player explore a place seem like the best kind of showpieces for this new wave of VR tech.

[jmbossy]

VR Miasmata?

[juv3nal]

Coming to VR goggles

http://the-witness.net/news/2014/01/what-that-vr-post-was-about/

Also, nice write up of valves VR headset which blow links too

http://www.3delement.com/?p=332

In my brain the witness has been the flagship VR title, even if Blow himself wasn't convinced until very recently. Ever since first seeing the game around the same time VR started to get traction I wanted to experience the witness in VR. Annoyingly the VR version will probably come a lot later than the games initial release?

 

VR is cool and all, but how practical, really is it if you need a room set up like this:

http://www.alientrap.org/images/ValveVRRoom.png

[toblix]

I think Crystal Cove comes with a room like that.

[Forbin]

I've really wanted to play it on a VR headset. Glad to see he'll be adding support

[Nachimir]

VR is cool and all, but how practical, really is it if you need a room set up like this:

http://www.alientrap.org/images/ValveVRRoom.png

 

That's their first prototype, which building in itself, even that messily, is no small thing. The aim is to have something as unobtrusive as the wii sensor bar, but computer vision isn't a simple problem yet.

[Merus]

Yeah, it seems fairly obvious they're not going to ship the headset with the need to plaster your wall with tracking codes.

[BadHat]

10 minute gameplay video narrated by Blow. I want this game inside me.

 

[BigJKO]

I want to play this right now.

[N1njaSquirrel]

I have only ever seen that picture of the witness which is just a picture of the island, and knew it was a game that I'd like.

 

Now I've seen that 10 min vid I feverishly want this game. mid 2014 isn't specific enough god darn it!

[Merus]

I don't even know if I should watch that video because I'm already on board and would like to see it all fresh. But then it's like getting to play some of it early!

[thorn]

I don't even know if I should watch that video because I'm already on board and would like to see it all fresh. But then it's like getting to play some of it early!

I'm like that too. Normally I don't give a crap about spoilers, but everything I've read says that this game is about the mental experience of solving the puzzles, so I don't want any of them solved for me.

[toblix]

It's more about him showing the very first puzzles, and showing an example of how the player will be taught their rules by gradually increasing complexity, much like Braid did with its mechanics. He doesn't spoil any great revelation or anything, though he is very cavalier about just debugging up into the sky and panning across the whole island. I like how he's completely confident in the core design of his game, and doesn't keep stuff hidden or mysterious just for the sake of marketing or whatever. Instead of promising to let you explore hundreds of unique and exotic locations he just goes «here, I'll show you where you'll go».

[brkl]

He doesn't even solve the first actual proper puzzle in the video, just some tutorials.

[mikemariano]

I am still too dumb to figure out what is going on puzzle-wise in this game.

 

 

Four months to go!  Firewatch will already be out by then!

[Erkki]

Wow, has it really been this long? I was looking at some previous trailer here, thought it was new, realized it was from 2013. I guess the game has been mostly done for a while considering Blow seems to spend a lot of his time on his programming language project?

[eot]

Happy to hear it's finally coming out. One of the few games I've been anticipating.

Wow, has it really been this long? I was looking at some previous trailer here, thought it was new, realized it was from 2013. I guess the game has been mostly done for a while considering Blow seems to spend a lot of his time on his programming language project?

My sense is that it's been "mostly done" for ages, but that Blow is a perfectionist who's not going to put something out where every single detail isn't something he's thought through.

[Reyturner]

Four months to go!  Firewatch will already be out by then!

 

Well, they would "love" for it to be out by then.

 

Unless they've announced an actual date? 

[Ninety-Three]

My sense is that it's been "mostly done" for ages, but that Blow is a perfectionist who's not going to put something out where every single detail isn't something he's thought through.

 

Yeah. I follow his devblog, I think it was over a year ago now that he said something to the effect of "The game is in a state where, if for some reason we needed to, we could fill out the uncompleted stuff and ship it in three months."

[juv3nal]

I thought this was pretty neat (from

):

 

[Ninety-Three]

I thought this was pretty neat (from

):

 

I don't get it. Is there something in particular I'm supposed to be noticing?

[juv3nal]

rotate it 90 degrees clockwise

[mikemariano]

I don't get it. Is there something in particular I'm supposed to be noticing?

 

[Twig]

oh goddamnit mike

[Merus]

excellent