New gameplay video surfaces for The Witness, narrated by Jonathan Blow
Hey, remember The Witness? No, I’m not talking about that movie with Harrison Ford and Kelly McGillis, both at the height of their smoldering sexuality. I’m talking about the new game by Jonathan Blow, creator of Braid. He’s put out a new gameplay video that takes us inside his new creation, and shows us what the game is all about. So read on for the details, and to see it for yourself.
If you’re wondering who Jonathan Blow is, I can help you out. If you’re wondering what the movie “Witness” is all about, you should probably just watch it because it’s great, and after you’ve seen it, one of The Simpsons funniest moments will finally make sense to you. Anyway, back to Jonathan Blow. He’s the guy who made Braid, which you might remember set the indie games scene a flutter a few years back. Blow spent three years and close to $200,000 of his own money creating the game, which became a commercial and critical success. For his next game, The Witness, he has returned to the familiar mechanic of puzzle solving. But as you’ll see in the video below, he’s trying to greatly expand and redefine what a puzzle game can be.
The Witness takes place on an island, and through a first person perspective, the player is free to explore its entirety from the very beginning. Exploration is just as big an element in The Witness as puzzle solving, and Blow hopes that the two will compliment and balance eachother throughout the experience. For the most part, the game is non-verbal, meaning that there is no dialog to listen to, and no text to read. Players will deduce the game’s goals through the interpretation of visual clues, scattered across the island. I know this is sounding very Myst-ish, but don’t get too excited yet. The puzzles on display in the video are all fairly straightforward. So no fiddling with rocketship buttons in this game… at least, not yet. Whether the game becomes more esoteric as it progresses remains to be seen. Check out the video for yourself below.
As stated in the video, The Witness will include between 20 to 30 hours of gameplay when it gets released, perhaps even more. While no concrete release date was given, the game should be available by the middle of this year. Simultaneous releases on PS4 and PC are planned, with versions for iOS and othe mobile platforms to follow.