The Witness

This game definitely has its fans and haters, and I am a BIG fan! I love nearly everything about this game, and I can't recommend it enough if you like puzzle games! It gets REALLY hard in later challenges so be patient and willing to take breaks!

I found none of the puzzles satisfying to complete, it felt like a chore of understanding the devs intention. I didn't feel compelled to pick it up again. From reading the reviews it sounds like he's insufferable.

I have no intention of grinding through this game to smell the devs farts.

Great puzzle game tainted by the most pretentious game developer trying so hard to be considered “artsy” while sounding like a tool.

One of my favorite games. If you get stuck you can wander to a new area and find another series of puzzles to interact with. The first time I found and solved an environmental puzzle was really something special - I had to sit back for a moment and reconsider everything. I didn't solve all of them but that's OK. I did complete the Challenge which is one of my proudest gaming moments to date. Not from a Steam achievement point of view, but the actual feat itself. Completely recommend!

How many ways can you think of when drawing the line from A to B?
What is it simple grid 1x2? And if it is 5x6? How Many conditions/obstacles/twists can you think to hide the correct path?
The author of the game certainly took his time to create overwhelmingly complex and numerous number of was to do it.
it starts very simple (and logical), but things escalate quickly.
Sadly i had to use the solutions to go through some puzzles (singing birds, temple and flashing lights say hi), while i am proud to solve the final 3d sequence of puzzles myself.
i certainly recommend this game to test your wits, just be ready to get frustrated soon enough,

If an art gallery was a game, this is it. I've never beaten it though, as I'm too stupid to comprehend the more advanced puzzles. This is more of a middle ground for me in terms of opinion, but I'll give it a like.

It's a strange game. I found myself frequently thinking about the puzzles when I wasn't playing it, and the tetris effect in this game is next level.

The game doesn't explain anything explicitly to you, so part of the puzzle is figuring out the mechanics of the puzzles. This is incredibly satisfying when you get it but pretty frustrating when you don't. The open world mitigates this a lot--when you're frustrated, you can go solve puzzles elsewhere. Often what you learn in the process will help you understand the puzzle you got stuck on. Still, the game involves spending a lot of time on really difficult puzzles, so if that's not appealing to you, don't play it.

This game has no filler. No music, no (clear) story, no platforming. It's just a small open world of interconnected puzzles. There's a feeling that everything in the game is placed intentionally, and even after getting the main ending, there's still so much more to do.

I initially didn't buy this game because line puzzles didn't seem interesting enough, but I'm very glad I did.

Superb puzzle game. Openly roam a beautiful island scattered with puzzles.
The learning curve is expertly managed so that I never feel frustrated.
When I'm stuck, I just move on and come back later, as other simpler puzzles are meant to gently hint at how to solve harder ones.

Pretty good. I enjoyed that it doesn't babysit you, and instead leaves you to deduce the rules of the puzzles.
The hidden audio and video logs were a bit pretentious though.

Awesome game. Some of the puzzles are really hard, and I haven't solved all of them yet, but the world is so beautiful and the game is so well done that I intermittently go back into the game to look for more or retry the ones I didn't solve. I think it also changed my thinking and my ability to solve other puzzles. Solving one of the puzzles that was bugging me for a while is so satisfying. I think this game is definitely worth it for anyone who likes puzzles and wants a challenge.

Very "show, don't tell" kind of game. Go in blind and avoid other reviews and the community tab.

some of the best most complex puzzles ive seen, while also having one of the most simplistic and yet meaningful story, this game utilises its environment as both a means for puzzles and to send a message, creating a simple yet rich world that is beautiful to witness.

This is a weird and hard game, but also one of the greatest video game experiences of my life. On paper this game should suck and in some instances it does, but when it's clicking it is untouchable.

The game is a fine puzzler with mostly functional progression, but held back by how much a tortured artist Jonathan Blow thinks he is.

Great game if you know what you're getting into. The gameplay is expertly paced, the environment is beautiful but unobtrusive, and the narrative is thought-provoking yet minimal and completely optional. The puzzles can be difficult but I took my time with this game and as a result I never felt so frustrated that I wanted to quit. Often I would stop playing after being stuck on a puzzle for 20 minutes, only to return the next day and see the solution instantly.

This game also rewards exploration and experimentation in a way that I hardly ever see in other games. I almost never explore the limits in games because 90% of the time there's nothing to see, and the player's curiosity is not rewarded. This game is different from that and it was surprisingly satisfying to realize the solution to a puzzle had been trivial since the start, I just hadn't been using all the information available. The puzzles progress in an uncannily responsive way, slowly teaching you the intricacies of each puzzle ruleset organically. It often felt like the developers were watching me play and intentionally changing the next puzzle according to how I solved the current one. It feels like an actual dialogue and really makes it clear that the experience has been painstakingly engineered by a master.

I have no complaints about the narrative. I don't really want a big story in a puzzle game. The puzzles are their own reward and having a bunch of people yapping at me while I'm trying to think would be unbelievably annoying. Everyone has had the experience of a non-puzzle-centric game putting a puzzle section in. They can't help adding obnoxious music that loops every 2 minutes with a side character giving you unhelpful and repetitive hints ("Huh? It looks like this stone moves!") every 30 seconds. Come to think of it, even some bad puzzle games do this. A few messages left by ambiguous pseudo-characters with mostly philosophical monologues are just about perfect to give you something to think about other than 5x5 grids while you're trying to figure out why your childhood of kids menu mazes isn't paying off how to solve a new type of puzzle.

This game can be very difficult. I forced myself to resist the temptation to look up guides until I reached the end of the game, and after reaching both endings I now have very little desire to change that. If you get stuck on a single puzzle, explore around, get out a pen and paper, move to a different area, or call it for the night and pick the game up tomorrow. It's far more satisfying to discover the solution after careful scrutiny of the entire surroundings than to see a screenshot of the exact solution in a guide. It's a puzzle game, the fun is in solving it. I played through the first ~20% with a friend over discord, and having two people solving the puzzles was just as satisfying, and not quite as mentally taxing. A sheet of graph paper will also pay dividends for quickly sketching different solutions for certain types of puzzles.

If you're truly willing to give this one a fair shot, you'll probably enjoy it.

Mind grinding puzzles with a lovely soundscape. This game is peaceful and worth discovering.

A great puzzle game that builds up skills to solve more and more difficult puzzles over time. The scenery is peaceful, and the hidden philosophy messages are thought provoking. It makes you wonder if there is some hidden objective you're working towards.

The Witness is a fantastic puzzle game with an emphasis on changing your perspective. If you've never tried this and you're a fan of the genre, it's worth a fair shot.

this game isn't meant for everyone, but if it strikes for you, it is absolutely amazing.

Puzzles within puzzles - not so much a story, but a puzzle of who you are and what is happening. You have to take your time to enjoy each puzzle, or you will find it an exercise in frustration.

Nice puzzles,nice aesthetics,a masterpiece deserves its place.

Take your time and enjoy the quiet atmosphere. The puzzles are fair and the 100% run is fairly different than a regular run.

The empty island with the trophy and the man reaching for it is one of the coolest moments I've ever had in a video game. There is nothing to interact with there, but everything about the statue and the placement and the island around it adds another layer to the statement it makes about the game as a whole. The game is about witnessing what happens when you play it, and then looking up and using that knowledge in your life around you, and you should not stop playing this game until you understand what I'm talking about. 10/10 would Blow again

not finished the game yet but it has be entranced . this game is enrichment for my brain the same as a puzzle feeder or a snuffle mat for a dog, minus the food reward. gorgeous aesthetics in the world, amazing sound design that makes the world around you sound immersive and peaceful without the use of music to try and oversell the point where it definitely isnt needed.(im very fond of the footsteps as i walk across different surfaces, theyre done in a way that is almost satisfying to listen to lol). some puzzles took quite a bit of time and more guessing than really understanding the mechanics until i was halfway thru that area and its gimmick.. but not in a way that made me enjoy myself less. and discovering that there were environmental puzzles has left me wandering and staring at every tiny branch or shadow in case im missing something. its a very well-made game and i can feel the love that went into it

This game is truly a work of art. In addition to all of the puzzles that can be found throughout the island, there are puzzles hidden all throughout the environment that unveil themselves when looked at with the right perspective. There are also hidden art pieces in the world that can be noticed if looked at from a certain perspective. This is a seriously impressive accomplishment considering just how many perspective tricks are present here.

Hands down my favourite puzzle game of all time. The kind of game you wish you could forget everything about just so you can play it again for the first time.

This game sets out to teach you something about yourself and your capacity to do hard things. Not everyone learns the same way, and so this game isn't for everyone, but personally, I thought it was very successful in what it set out to do. It's one of those rare game experiences where I felt different coming out the other side than I did going in. It has stuck with me for a long time, and I think will for a long time more. The puzzles were challenging, engaging, and deliciously crunchy. Finishing it was bittersweet. It wants you to grow beyond it.

That said, it's not perfect. There are some accessibility issues, and there was one section where the lighting was intolerable. I'm not especially prone to flashing light dizziness, but one area affected me so badly I had to look up what the clue was online because I simply couldn't look at the screen long enough to make it out.

I hope this game eventually gets a remaster that addresses its problems, because the thought that went into the rest of the experience deserves for those other aspects to live up to it.

Exploring the world as well as exploring the puzzle mechanics never feel old, remaining interesting throughout the duration of the game. The way the game requires you to apply what you learned creates a powerful sense of completion after working through some of the more difficult puzzles, and after completing the game.

Im Wootnessing. Wootness me wootness. And then I will wootness you wootnessing me wootness you wootnessing me wootness. Truly.
And thats just about all that I can say on the subject. You might think that I am holding back. That there is something else that I could add to the conversation, but I must assure you that that idea is wrong. This is and always has been everything that I think I could think about when it comes to the idea of this kind of idea. I thought about it longer than I spent spending time thinking about how I would even begin to try and think about how I might say it. And this is the result. Resolute in my statement I would like to add that this did add a good amount of joy to my life. Cant get much more clear than that. Couldnt do it if I tried a hundred more times. And you cant blame me for that. You could try, but It wouldnt amount to much.
And as any good person should, I will say one more thing to tie this back into the initial idea that I put out in this review. It is that I am currently wootnessing. Get wootnessed.

an absolute masterpiece. This game is the epitome of what an "open world" non-linear puzzle game should be. The sense of exploration is out of this world and the puzzles are hands down the best I've ever done in my life.

The game is structured in such a way that you even though you find lots of puzzles early on the solutions will only become apparent once you have gone through the different sections on the map. The game does an outstanding job at teaching how to solve each different puzzle type and I personally never found 1 puzzle too hard.

The end of the game does an amazing job at putting everything you've learnt to the test.

10/10 buy on sale it's worth it

I am fully convinced that Jonathan Blow is a genius, and also that he is a total dick. Beautiful environments and impressively designed puzzles. The ending felt anticlimactic, and I had no energy left for post-game/100% activities. Still, a puzzle game experience I will remember for a long time.

I love this game and would say it's probably my favourite puzzle game I've played. It's easy to be snarky about it and call it pretentious, but you needn't look that deep into it if you don't want to. It doesn't have to be anything more than a bunch of satisfying puzzles with an array of difficulties set in a beautiful environment, that allows you to go completely at your own pace and direction. Hidden under the surface is a bit of philosophical musing on various themes. It *does* come across a little pretentious when you start uncovering the first pieces of this but when you completely discover everything (hard to avoid spoilers here) I'd say it is less so, and more just a nice piece of meaning as to what this island you find yourself on "is" and what you attain from spending your time focused on these puzzles with nothing else to distract you. A meaning you can extrapolate out as a broader commentary if you're so inclined. The fact it almost goes out of its way to make you find this meaning yourself rather than force it down your throat arguably makes it very un-pretentious. Just a shame it's taking so long for another title from Jonathan Blow. Braid and the Witness are amongst the closest any games have come for me to replicating the more purely relaxing and Zen-like state of playing classical puzzle and board games.

The Witness is, at its core, a puzzle game where you literally draw straight (or not so straight) lines to solve each puzzle. And basically, it’s quite a decent puzzle game, I’d say. If you just do the minimum required to finish, it will remain the same decent puzzle game you initially thought it was. The level design is pleasing to the eye, and the ambient sound doesn’t require any additional music; it all plays quite calmly, without unnecessary hurry or nerves. I’ll come back to that last point later.

Now, imagine you’re the kind of player who hunts for all sorts of easter eggs (the game will poke fun at this closer to the end, which I’ll also mention), and you start noticing those very easter eggs that you naturally want to collect. I’ll say right away: if you’re expecting some sort of reward for finding them, don’t bother—this game isn’t about giving you anything for your efforts, because the only ‘reward’ you get is the time you spent.

You’ll start noticing tape recorders scattered around the world that can be activated, giving you monologues, typically quotes from books, lectures, or works that touch on various themes like nature, science, religion, politics, human consciousness, and so on—basically, things fans of ‘truly smart people’ love to emulate. “This game has a deep subtext! We’re talking about the nature of human thinking here!” you might think, and maybe you’d be right. But personally, I couldn’t buy into that idea, and all those scattered quotes felt more like a way to waste the player’s time under the guise of ‘profound ideas,’ because the game doesn’t really make you reflect on anything. It doesn’t give you, as a player, anything to care about; it just reads you these dull lectures from the past. And of course, if you collect them all, you gain nothing except a sense of personal satisfaction that you found them, plus a bit of pseudo-intellectualism or a feeling of emptiness from having wasted your time.

Next, the second thing you’ll likely notice is that there are puzzles lying on the ground that lead nowhere but initially create a bit of mystery that you want to solve. Much later, closer to the end of the game, you’ll encounter fairly challenging puzzles based on a mechanic you’ve encountered all over the place but probably haven’t understood yet, since there was never anything truly difficult in those earlier puzzles to help you gain real experience. And this will come back to bite you.

To top it all off, the entire world itself is also composed of puzzles. That wall over there looks just like the familiar little starting circle for a puzzle, plus a line, and the end of that puzzle. You try to use it…and it works, damn it! Yes, the whole world is filled with puzzles not only on panels but all around you—flowers, clouds, buildings, stones, rivers, and absolutely everything are puzzles, even shadows. And then you become obsessed with finding all of them. To keep you from completely losing your mind, the game provides Black Obelisks in each main location. They give you hints about roughly what these puzzles look like and where you can find them. You figure out the rules of the game and set off in search of them all. In theory, this is a very cool and interesting idea. With great enthusiasm, you roam the world looking for these puzzles, watching each Obelisk fill up, and using the logic the game taught you to track down the remaining ones. And then…you find an Obelisk where you’re missing about five or six puzzles, and you start desperately hunting for them throughout the world. “After all, before I finish the game, I must find them all!” you think, making a huge mistake, because those missing puzzles are hidden at the end of the game, which you don’t intend to reach yet, as you don’t know where the true end is—when should you stop and look around for new puzzles, and when will you solve a puzzle only to be shown “Thanks for playing!” because it was the last one in the game? This is a major design flaw in this mechanic, because on the Obelisk, these puzzles aren’t even placed at the end symbolically, but rather somewhere in the middle, which you’d never expect. And there’s also the fact that some puzzles require you to sit for 15 minutes or so, just watching your screen until the image lines up, while others require you to start the puzzle and only after an hour of real time can you complete it—don’t miss your window, or you’ll have to start all over again and wait yet another hour. Another way to waste the player’s time.

Next, there’s a movie theater in the game where you can watch various video clips. I won’t go into the scientific value they try to convey, but the point is there are supposedly about seven of these clips hidden in the secret corners of the world. Then comes the fourth one… I hope you can guess, from the Obelisk experience, that it’s located in…that’s right, the end of the game, where you’re required to complete a certain ‘Challenge’ to unlock this mid-game video—an hour long—which ties into one of the puzzles in the game and is incredibly frustrating.

Speaking of this ‘Challenge’…it’s a subject of heated debate, but it’s specifically what pushed me to write a negative review instead of a positive one. The Witness is otherwise very calm and measured: you can take a piece of paper and a pencil, doodle, and think things through. But the ‘Challenge’ shatters all that with a roughly five-minute time limit in which you have to solve 14 random puzzles, generated anew each time, leaving you no chance to prepare. “You should have played the game honestly, then you’d have no trouble,” you might think, but 10 of these puzzles are essentially the same ones from the very beginning of the game—anyone can solve them. As for the last four, it’s likely only the second time you’ve ever encountered that type of puzzle, and their difficulty spikes tremendously. Any mistake forces you to start over from scratch, with the same 10 not-too-hard-but-annoying puzzles that you need to clear again just to even attempt training on the last ones. And for training, at best, you have three minutes left if you managed to blaze through the first 10 in two minutes. At that point, it’s more luck than logic: either you somehow solve a puzzle practically without looking, or you get so stuck that it’s easier to restart than to keep wasting time on it. And as someone who doesn’t like time limits, this game-changer really turned me off and left me thoroughly disappointed in the game.

From that, I can say the game might be decent and could keep you busy with puzzles for a few evenings, but going for full completion only leads to disappointment and regret over the time spent. That’s why I can’t recommend buying this game.

A classic puzzle game where you explore a 3d world and try to make sense of its rules. There's thematic areas each giving its own spin to the line puzzles it contains, and everything being immersed in a 3d world gives the exploration a different feel than it would have if everything was presented in a dry grid menu, as the world itself has its secrets to navigate.

Plenty of stuff is optional: getting stuck on one puzzle just means you can leave it for later and explore something else in the meantime.

Story wise there kind of is something, but it's in the background to be discovered and perfectly optional. You don't have to think deeply about any quote you might find read at you, you can just go to the next puzzles and things to discover.

It doesn't have many achievements so not to spoil all you can do in the game; each save file does keep track of how many puzzles you solved though, so if you're wondering if there's yet stuff to find that's an indicator, although it's recommended to avoid googling stuff while you still have stuff you can go check.

Arguably being the father of "metroid-branias", or knowledge-gated progression games, it's a must for puzzle enthusiasts, bringing its own flavor to the genre.

This was one of the best puzzle games I've played with a lot of satisfying realizations to some of the problems and non-linear exploration to the island and its secrets. But with some exceptions where I racked my brain, but just had to look the solution up.
Overall a very well crafted game from passionate devs with care to detail. Can recommend it if you like puzzles and exploring on your own to get all the secrets.

I can play this over and over every few years. Knowing how the puzzles and mechanics work on subsequent plays takes a little away from it but the world, sounds, places, and feelings are still there. And it's something you can put down and come back to later and keep finding more challenges.

Great game, and I hope it ends up with a full VR remake someday.

The Witness is an incredible experience, and I absolutely recommend it to anyone who enjoys a good puzzle. However, you will need mental fortitude to deal with this game's challenges, and for that reason, many will turn their noses up at it. My personal experience with this game was incredible, with the Environmental Puzzles giving me schizophrenia hitherto unheard of. My personal highlight was "The Secret of Psalm 46", a normal lecture with absolutely nothing hidden.

My final solve count is 509;135;6.

Ce n'est pas pour tout le monde, mais si vous voulez réfléchir un max alors ce jeu est pour vous! Des heures de casses-têtes pour votre plus grand plaisir. En bonus une dimension philosophique qui fait se remettre en question, alors qu'on est là pour des puzzles: du génie. Bonne chance à ceux qui essaieront!

I probably wouldn't recommend this. Namely the motion-sickness inducing behavior this game has, something to do with the colors, the motion and movement all give the feeling to people not prone to it. If you do get it, check the field of view, lower your monitor's contrast a bit, take breaks.

It has great puzzles, but they're very logic oriented, but slow-paced even if you're not enjoying them. There's issues with the stimuli of the color puzzles and the audio ones for some people.

An absolute masterpiece of a game that can only be overshadowed by its sequel, "The Looker".

I will waste like 15 minutes on a single puzzle, but it's all worth it when i get the rush of solving it. You just keep on going despite knowing how frustrated you'll get. It's like an abusive relationship, but for puzzle gamers

I've already nearly completed this game on another playthrough and it's one of my favorite puzzle games of all time. I enjoy the intuitive way you're supposed to figure out different mechanics and the lack of written guidance or dialogue for the most part.

Do not buy this game. The developer personally created "Dumb Internet Comments" and "Price Complaints" subforums on Steam discussion page to censor and ridicule opinions differing from his own that he judges as undeserving of attention. Please just pirate it, the dev does not deserve your money.

I agree with a lot of negative comments down there. While the game mechanincs are good and the different environments are visually appealing the game is just too tedious to complete.

This game has altered my brain chemistry. I now see Witness puzzles in everything I see and am terrified of In the Hall of the Mountain King.
Best puzzle game I've played ever and I want someone to make me play it if I develop Alzheimer's in my old age.

The Witness is a meditation on intrinsic rewards. There's no fanfare when you solve puzzles, neither the ending nor any of the secrets turn the game on its head, and there's only a middle finger for anyone with a completionist mindset. You play it to learn its rules, make neat observations in the environment, and absorb the Myst-like vibes of a quiet and lonely island.

My biggest negative in the game is the inconsistency of the biomes. Some areas' puzzles are very quick to solve once you know the gimmick. Others are full-blown gauntlets. The desert area in particular is not hard, just tedious and annoying. Thankfully you don't need to complete every puzzle/area to beat the game.

Outside of the game I can't not make a comment about the head developer, Jonathan Blow. In his public speaking appearances he comes off as a really bright and insightful guy. Unfortunately, in the years since this game's release, he has transformed into (or maybe just exposed himself as) an absolutely terminally online, brainrotted individual. I wouldn't blame anyone who can't separate art from artist for not giving money to someone with dipsh*t views.

I've only scratched the surface of The Witness, but even in my short time with it, it has managed to captivate me with its intriguing design and challenging puzzles. From the moment you step into its mysterious world, The Witness invites you to explore, observe, and engage with its intricate environment in ways that feel both organic and deeply rewarding.
The game's minimalist approach—no dialogue, no hand-holding—encourages players to rely on intuition and pattern recognition. The puzzles start simple but quickly evolve, demanding not just logic but a keen eye for details hidden within the world itself. This level of challenge has made me eager to keep playing and push forward to uncover more of its secrets.
Beyond the puzzles, The Witness's world is stunning. The vibrant landscapes, carefully designed pathways, and sense of solitude create an immersive experience that feels almost meditative. It's a game that doesn't just test your problem-solving skills—it invites you to slow down and truly observe.
While I haven't played enough to grasp the mysteries' depth fully. I can already tell this is a game that rewards patience and curiosity. If you enjoy puzzle games that challenge your mind and invite exploration. The Witness is worth checking out

Possibly one of my favourite games of all time. Be warned that it is very much not for everyone, and what one person loves about it may be the same thing that another hates about it. It almost never directly tells you what you need to do, which can be frustrating, but is ultimately one of its greatest strengths.

My advice:
If you are stuck and cant figure out what to do, leave and come back latter; the various parts of the game can be completed in any order.

There is a lot to discover, and figuring stuff out on your own is an amazing feeling, so try to avoid spoilers.

The Witness is the best puzzle game I've ever played.

*SOME SPOILERS BELOW*

The most standout part of the Witness is the game design of the whole thing. Exploring the island is such a great experience the first time because some areas give a preview of what is to come. While the puzzles seem so simple at first, the game expands in brilliant ways and each mechanic is taught in a way that forces you to understand the mechanic. Getting lucky is not enough. Even when I was frustrated with a puzzle and wanted to give up, taking a break for a while or re-examining my knowledge usually turned out to be what I needed to find a solution. Not many games make me feel so satisfied to finish their challenges, but each solved puzzle in The Witness was a triumph that I have displayed on my save file.

The exploration is the second aspect of the game that ties it together. The world is beautiful with each region standing out in its own way. The art design is simple but effective. But most impressive is how the secrets of the game are revealed over time with exploration. You will find doorways and puzzles with no use until later in the game. But the greatest discovery of all is the environmental line puzzles. I am upset that this part of the game was spoiled for me a few years ago, because the moment on the mountain when you look over the edge to see the river thinking, "It can't be ... right?" is just incredible. It brings a whole new layer to the game that was hidden until that point and you start looking for lines and dots in everything. Despite getting all the achievements, I still need to return to the game to find the rest of these puzzles. I look forward to coming back over time to walk around the world and truly finish.

I'd say that if it would be shorter a bit and more linear in how the game may be progressed I'd like it even more. But despite this the game is cool and I think that in future I would even replay it at some point.