r/TheWitness

After activating the jungle laser I can still see several inactive panels (camo pattern) around the jungle. How can I activate those? Or are they there just for distraction?

I just realized something poetic about the EPs. Major endgame spoilers because this reveals >!locations of two of them and one is a big deal!<. >!The very beginning tunnel has one, and the secret ending starts with the sun, very close to the beginning. It highlights that you start in the dark and end in the light, but there's something deeper still. Sometimes, going back to the beginning with a deeper understanding of what's out there can unlock secrets of your past, as well as your path forward.!< I love how multilayered this game gets, and I hold it in as high regards as Talos Principle for providing a different perspective on the world and having a huge selection of increasingly challenging puzzles. The EPs were most fun for me, kept me on the lookout like a scavenger hunt.

Any recs for other games like this available on PS5? I also enjoyed Portal, Superliminal, Maquette, and Antechamber, that I can think off the top of my head.

I've been playing this game off and on for about 4-5 years now. It is the best puzzle game I will probably ever play in my life. The way it teaches its fundamental concepts, with no words whatsoever, is f***ing brilliant. The joy I felt learning the game and how the various puzzles worked the first time through was unlike anything I'd ever felt playing a computer game. It didn't hurt how visually stunning it all was, and how serene the landscape sounded, with no soundtrack to force emotion.

In that first playthrough, I found >!one theater code and one audio recording. !< They both felt... unnecessary at the time. (I'll get back to that feeling later)

I "finished" the game and was puzzled by >!the "is that all?"!< feeling it left me, but still happy with what I'd experienced.

Then I found >!the ending!< and loved the game 10x more as i realized what it was trying to get across.

...and then >!I watched the end video!<, and I hated the game for about a year.

I've played it on and off since then, trying to reconcile the two emotions in my head.

I've read enough essays about the game to get the whole idea about >!perspective, and viewpoint, and "searching vs. discovery",!< and I think I've finally determined why I still have such a sour taste in my mouth over it:

Most of it doesn't need to be there.

The discovery of >!the "real" ending.!< The discovery of how >!the sun shines off the archaeology puzzles!<. Finding the first EP >!on top of the mountain (the river).!< These were lessons I gained through my own exploration. Joyous revelations that led to me giggling like Bluey's sister Bingo when she tries a drum set for the first time. To me, these were the heart and soul of the game.

I didn't need >!"deep" quotes, or self-satisfied video lessons!<. I didn't need >!self-styled intellectuals telling me how to learn, or look, or search, !<because it was already all there in what I was experiencing.

If I had simply >!walked through that "dream door" in the ending!< and the game had simply ended to my Windows screen, I'd have been 100% satisfied. The >!"waking up" video!<, just like all the rest of the >!philosophical claptrap cluttering up the experience!<, feel like someone is trying to beat me over the head with capital-M Meaning and Message instead of simply letting me enjoy the experience that already taught me pretty much the same thing.

TL:DR, Jonathan Blow is REALLY good at catastrophically gilding lilies. Beautiful, subtle, artfully designed lilies.

I've been trying this game out for several times during several years, usually getting insecure about my own idiocy and thus losing interest. Now that I'm committed, I got stuck in my usual drop place, and still can't get my head around why some other solutions don't work, even if I eventually find the correct one.

Example being 3rd and 4th puzzles here (correct solutions already drawn):

Puzzle section

If I understand correctly, the whole "gimmick" of this type of puzzles is the fact that figures can be rotated. If so, why is it then, that in the 3rd puzzle neither of these two solutions is correct?:

Incorrect solution 1 for puzzle 3

Incorrect solution 2 for puzzle 3

And for the 4th puzzle this isn't either?:

Incorrect solution for puzzle 4

Thanks in advance.

This is a bit of a two-parter. I want to kind of tell my general story of playing through the game and then I have some general questions I would hope could be answered so you can just skip down to that if you'd like. Also, feel free to ask me anything or share your own story because I'd love any chance to dwell more on this stuff.

This past Sunday I clicked on a random YouTube video essay about puzzle games because I love them and was bored. I couldn't tell you what the video was actually about though because only a couple minutes in they brought up The Witness, I paused the video, checked the Steam page, and saw it had good reviews and was on sale for the summer. So instead of spending an hour of my time watching that video essay, I just spent the last three days of my life starting and completing The Witness.

Excuse my rambling and any varying level of detail I give. My brain is fried and I discovered that the worst part of playing such a wonderful game is not being able to spend every hour of your day with videos or discussions with the community to fill in any gaps of knowledge you know you must have, so this post is my finally being free and I can assure you that I will be spending the rest of this week reading other posts and watching many videos.

Starting the game:

I got through the tutorial area and found my first audio recording and triangle puzzle after investigating what the second solution to that one gate puzzle was for. I did the next set of puzzles when following the trail and then immediately veered off toward the water skipping the tree puzzles for now. I liked the puzzles in the building there that got more droopy and after leaving I saw and promptly ignored what I thought was a pile of tires.

The island where you have to line up the rocks and stuff in the background cemented me into really loving the game especially knowing I had only started. The yin yang koi fish / plant roots also got me into the mindset of appreciating the art and looking at it from different perspectives.

Then I pissed around in the sandy area for 15 minutes without figuring out how to solve any of those puzzles although I suspected it had to do something with the circles that reflected the sun when standing in specific spots although I could not think of a way to translate that to the red puzzle boards.

I believe that was when I made my way to the town area where I spent the rest of my first day. I briefly saw another tire pile and while looking up at the tower saw some suspicious circles and lines and honestly got a bit spooked when the thunder sound played after 'solving' it. I did a few laps around the tower getting a couple more before I followed the trail of embers and found out that they weren't tire piles and I should probably pay more attention moving forward.

I also did something a bit dumb while in the town. I solved maybe 80% of the puzzles before leaving. I don't remember which exactly I didn't solve that first time around, but I remember loving the one where you have to trace out the path through the building with debris in the way and I thought all three solutions to the panel above the shipping crate area were awesome.

Needless to say, I still enjoyed the other areas with similar puzzles, but I regret not waiting until my toolbox was full to tackle the town. This also instilled in me to not make any guesses or any sort of brute forcing if a puzzle had an element I hadn't seen because I wanted the full experience of actually learning the stuff first before using it.

Day two is more of a blur. The colorful marsh and I had a toxic relationship where I would come over, solve a puzzle or two, get frustrated and walk away, and then come crawling back later. I had been activating lasers but still hadn't checked out the mountain. I think around this time I realized how cool it would be for the sun to be used in one of them black pillar puzzles. It felt like a Portal 2 Moon shot moment just waiting to happen, so I glanced up every now and then to see if things seemed to be lining up.

I went and did the apple trees. Was randomly picking up some of the more obvious pillar puzzles every now and then. I did the hedge maze area. Those were fucking sick. I remember getting through the first three and seeing the last one looked normal with a gravel ground and thought "well what could they possibly use to distinguish the right path from the rest of the maze? Maybe sound?" and then I by chance got almost all the way through the correct path without hearing a sound difference or seeing anything so turned back to go to the start to try and again and pay more attention but I took a different way back and the louder gravel sound played and I was ecstatic. Then the secret service guy statue scared the shit out of me and the light up floor puzzles gave me an aneurysm.

In no particular order, I knocked off the quarry place, the tinted glass flower place (I think I left having taught myself rules of additive and subtractive color mixing that just aren't true and disprovable by elementary school arts class), and then I came upon my greatest enemy. I have come to the conclusion that I am much more tone deaf then previously thought.

I thought that first puzzle in the jungle area was neat because of course I can distinguish a high and low note. And then they introduced a mid note and I could not tell you, gun to head, whether a note was high/mid or mid/low. I could distinguish enough of it all that just a little guess and check got me through the upper puzzles, but I spent longer on those second set of puzzles with all the distracting sounds playing then I did on the goddamn record player puzzle (but I'll get into that more later). I spent an hour and a half switching between headphones and speakers, closing my eyes, recording a snippet with my phone and replaying it while I walked around my place, and I debated with myself if it was a better experience to brute force my way through it all just to say I looked nothing up or to just look up hints/solutions. I ended up looking up hints which brought me to Reddit threads just saying to pay attention to the sounds which was less than useless so I just ended up forcing my way through the rest.

There is also the shipwreck puzzle. I don't remember when I stumbled across it but after immediately picking up on the water dropping sound and nothing else after half an hour, I didn't want it to be a repeat of the jungle puzzles so just looked up some hints (useless again. Just saying to listen to the sounds) and ended up on a full solution YouTube video. This video had the fully taken apart sound clips for you to clearly hear the different notes of the two different sounds. If a friend had sent it to me, I would have believed it to be a practical joke because I still could not hear distinct differences between the high/med/low notes even while staring at the literal sound spectrum plots shown in the video. I ended up just trying a handful of combinations of collecting all the dots until it worked.

To wrap up the second day, I finally visited the mountain after turning on all the lasers, I unlocked the door, and got to the second light bridge puzzle before calling it. I remember thinking I was being very smart solving the puzzles in the pile of garbage in the center of the first room and then immediately deflating when I realized it was just a required part to progress to the next room.

Today, my third and final day, started with getting to the bottom of the mountain. The biggest thing that stood out was the column puzzles that made me want to puke from all the motion. It didn't help that my mouse would sometimes just freeze/accelerate and send me spinning around for a second before stopping. The Willy Wonka elevator ride was not what I expected. Once it ended, I reloaded my save and it was while on my way up I noticed the pillar puzzles built into the bottoms of the light bridges so I did those and then then saw extra keyhole puzzle on the bottom of the box at the top while leaving which sent me right back down to do the stuff to end up in the cave area.

The cave area rules. It's got a nice atmosphere, I found the puzzles to be fun because you're just applying everything you've learned like a solid end of semester exam. I think it was when I attempted the orange triangle pillar puzzle and nearly barfed from spinning around that I decided to take a lunch break. When I got back, I tried with it some more, gave up and finished everything else in the area, and then just needed a change of scenery so went back to hunting down the pillar puzzles.

I haven't been pointing them all out but I had been knocking out the pillar puzzles as I went. At this point, I decided to make a directed effort so I went around to each pillar and would take screenshots of a side, go in that direction getting all of them, and then come back to repeat that with another side. I think I had maybe ten left before going back into the caves.

I got lucky with some bullshit on the orange triange pillar. I had given up on thinking like five minutes before so that was a purely vibes based solve. By this point, I was exhausted and could barely hold a thought from two and a half days straight of strainging my brain wrinkles, but that damn record player rejuvanated me.

The first attempt I didn't realize there was more to do after the first three screens. The second I got all the way to the two sets of three before the 'maze'. It was by the fifth attempt I was entering a flow state and was getting into the maze just fine but I think they purposely didn't give you much practice with the triangles throughout the game just so you'll have to learn fast during this bit.

My strat for the maze bit felt a bit wrong but it was working. I was just sprinting full speed into every single wall and barrier and flicking my mouse like I was playing Warzone until I saw a screen lit up. I then wasted a good bit of time after doing both triangle puzzles because I didn't know there were only two until I investigated outside and saw the pillars lit up.

I was probably eight attempts in at that point when I got very very lucky and that fouth puzzle that, as I learned, told you the layout of the maze had a near perfect 90 degree angle solution with the orange dots right next to each other which I noticed lined up with what I saw in the maze and clued me into how that would help.

After a couple more tries, my biggest enemy was just the pillars. I love In the Hall of the Mountain King but Lord it does not help you think like a donut (and cure motion sickness) when trying to solve those pillars. I took a ginger candy and ice cream break to calm my mind and it did wonders because my chakras cleared and I solved that thing first try after that.

Then I loaded up that eclipse video and was immediately suspicious of that perfect white circle on the screen so looked around until I saw the line up and thought I'd get that puzzle done. After five minutes, I realized this would make for a good break to just listen to the lecture. After another five minutes, I realized I couldn't relax because I'm an anxious person and the constant "shimmering" sound of the puzzle line and knowing I could mess it up at the end and have wasted my time meant I couldn't enjoy the lecture, so I instead took a shower, did the dishes, and cleaned up my room while waiting. (I fully intend to actually listen to the lecture which did sound interesting but will do so probably from the comfort of a youtube video playing while I lay down)

I also deduced the use of the code for re enabling the light gate and was giddy that I was right about the sun being used in a puzzle and I assume it was under my nose from the start. What I can't I was excited about was that ending "cutscene". I watched a man detach himself from his piss jug and then walk around while being stoked about circles. This honestly left a bit of a bad taste in my mouth. I've listended to most of the audio logs and picked up on some of the more obvious themes of philosophy and changing your perspective and I think I understand what that scene is getting at, but the complete 180 in mood from playing the game to a guy pogging at the fact that his dick and balls are circles and lines like the puzzles just kind of ripped me out of any emotional feelings I may have been having.

In conclusion, I looked up the number of total puzzles in the game and am apparenlty short a few of the non-pillar puzzles. I'm sure I didn't find every single audio log, and I wrote up this post as a way to take a break and kill time while dinner cooks and plan to jump back in and enjoy the sights while looking for all the leftover bits and maybe pausing to respond if anyone stumbles across this post.

QUESTIONS:

What is the community's idea of the 'story' of the game? It struck me as more about themes than a story so feel free to share anything like that

What were y'all's favorite bits? Whether it be puzzles or cool sights around the island

Did I miss anything obvious? I know I have a few normal puzzles left to do somewhere and will get those and any remaining audio logs on my own time. I did find a few logs in the caves with the cool 'behind the scenes' stuff.

What is the community's thoughts on circle guy at the end? I assume part of it is just the meta joke of that's how the devs/players feel after walking away from the game and seeing 'puzzles' everywhere.

And I can't think of anything else so feel free to ask me any questions because I'd love to talk more about my experience.

OVERALL THOUGHTS:

Beautiful game. Lovely puzzles. Cool subtle mystery. I would have paid double the full price. I wish I could have been there when the game came out and the community was figuring it out hand in hand. And believe me I will be spending the next few days watching and reading plenty about the iceberg of elements I surely overlooked or didn't think as deeply about.

Title. I joined Reddit to seek help here. I've gotten 7 lasers and made progress towards other lasers, and excitedly, I went to the top of the mountain. I got one of the locks solved by pure luck (the foot endpoint one), but now I've spent 3+ hours (about 10% of my total playtime) across multiple days trying to get either of the other perspectives.

I humbly ask for a hint, maybe something in the environment I'm missing. I'm torn because I think I would feel bad if I looked up the remaining two solutions and I've never cheated a puzzle before. But at the same time, is it truly worth it to bang my head against the wall for technically no reason?

I definitely know the rules of the dots, I've tried angles up close and far away, on top of things and next to things. I noticed the singular dark cloud in the sky but maybe that's for a laser I didn't solve? I am not certain as to what the statues can tell me either.

Apologies if this kind of post is discouraged or if it doesn't contribute meaningfully.

Most importantly; I didn't notice the red light while stepping back and looking around. I do normally run with night light on and did have it off at times while looking at the puzzle, but maybe the LCD doesn't help either.

I misunderstood the sounds because I was only listening to the drops alone, I thought the other sounds were just there to obscure them to the point I was looking for options to disable/mask them.

I didn't learn the color theory at all previously where it occurred, I just did those with mathematics(?) after failing in forcing myself to solve the color elevator for around 3 hours through strictly color deductions.

The audio element really ramps it up into feeling like a potential pincode you can interpret wrong, it was definitely my weakest portion of the rest of the game. It creates a bit of contrast with every other puzzle type that can be solved by looking.

Jonathon Blow hurt my feelings and I want a refund because he made me feel stupid, and I don't like that, which can only mean that he's really the stupid one.

Solved, thank you all :D

Hi y'all.

I'm trying to complete all the black obelisks since I've reached the end of the game (and I'm not quick enough to solve the challenge yet). I've completed 19 of the 20 puzzles from the desert obelisk but I'm stumped on how i'm supposed to >!raise the yellow vase!<?

Edit to add: I've done every "main quest" puzzles, I'm currently trying to solve all environmental puzzles

I know I'm not fully alone on this given the proliferation of posts on here (and a sticky) about other puzzle games to try. Many people, it seems, came to The Witness as genre stalwarts. To me, it was part of a short ramp (Portal -> Witness) into a genre that I have not really engaged with for most of my life. I loved the Witness, and ended up sinking 60ish hours into it. I regularly read/post here and watch blind let's plays as a way of kind of re-living the highs from that experience.

Like many of you, I've wanted to branch out into other first person puzzle games; however, so far the attempt to scratch the itch has met with mixed results.

The next thing I played after this was the Talos Principle, which I largely enjoyed. However, I was immediately confronted with the impression that it was far less elegant than The Witness and far more game-y, for lack of a better word. I specifically disliked its reliance on platforming elements and dodging deadly lasers since, in my view, the controls were clunky for those elements and it disrupted the kind of zen-like state of exploring the world and thinking about solutions (I really dug the ending, though).

More recently I played Superliminal, which I felt was an amazing mechanic in search of a game. The idea was so simple and clever and powerful and they, in my view anyway, never really figured out how to use it. I spent so much time just walking through levels that were essentially linear to get to the next checkpoint.

Now I've started Blue Prince. Admittedly, I'm not far enough in yet to fully appreciate what the experience will be. However, the fact that this reminds me of Betrayal at the House on the Hill is not working on its favor. This is a type of board game I don't really click with (no pun intended). Maybe by the time I get 15 hours in I'll have something more to say. But one of the things I loved about The Witness was not having to worry about managing resources or inventory. You just walk around and do stuff.

I don't need any recommendations, just felt like commenting. Does anyone else feel like you had a defining experience with this game that leaves most of its genre brethren looking a bit pale by comparison?

EDIT: I know I said I wasn't asking for recs, but since some people are recommending games anyway, I should mention I only have a Mac running Steam which cuts down on the number of things available to me.

I want to try out The Witness, but I don’t want to support the developer due to his political views. So should I find a free copy somewhere, or just forget this and ignore the game?