Undoubtedly, the success of Braid key role played by the personality of Jonathan, a man of inflexible inner core, an idealist, willing to spend on a risky venture 3 years of his life. Braid was reflected Blow perfectionism, his boundless faith in the game as the media and the desire to realize the untapped potential of the format.
And none of the millions is not knocked out of him starving artist – to create The Witness he spent all earned with Braid funds (about $ 6 million) and 8 years of life, during which bring the concept of the game to perfection. And he did it because he can. Because such a philosophy, and he is such a categorical imperative.
The Witness – development of views Blow on video games and their place in the modern world, an experiment that dance around a bold, brazen idea (who can even afford to let such things in the era of Assassin’s Creed and Call of Duty?).
The Witness, if simplified, – a puzzle with a first-person. You are free to roam around the island, divided by areas (deserts, swamps, mountains and so on) and in any order to solve puzzles, which can not be so if not ashamed to leave until better times.
Mechanics puzzles extremely minimalist, you just connect the different distance terms, spending “snake” through the proposed cursor maze. In this case, Blow constantly introduces conditions which once again challenge your brains creak.
Here it is necessary to control two otzerkalennymi “snakes” and here you need to cover all the points located on the screen, which later will vary in color (each “snake” must close the point of a particular color). And in this task you will prevent distorted screen.
All this is silly, strange and harmful to describe, when you consider that in the context of The Witness puzzle-solving becomes a real spoiler. You are challenged, and guides and tips deprive intellectual “awards”, which is built around the game design.
Therefore, the interaction with the player The Witness turns very special. You work hard head, sketched intractable problems on paper and “digest” them for some time.
Optionally even stuck at the screen, I dragged around with a metered shreds and burn their eyes on the subway on the way to work.
I returned home happy, with a ready solution, here is a kind of cover application. Moreover, attempts to stir up the head with something tangible and visible, sooner or later come to a lot of players – some even use laser cutting to recreate the puzzle in the real tree.
What is curious, in a certain sense, this materialism calls a player and developer. Blow your puzzle invented by drawing on graph paper – pencil in hand. So everything is fair. But be aware of the scope of the creative madness Jonathan: The Witness offers 650 puzzles, the passage of which will need approximately 80 hours (to complete the game you need to solve not all, exhale). It is hard to imagine how many man-hours to create them has been spent. If people have a soul, Jonathan divided it in digital form.
But 80 hours – this is a very optimistic figure. According to Blow, the game has puzzles that decides on the strength of 1% had launched The Witness.
I’m afraid to imagine that in his travels around the island I met one of these puzzles, because at times The Witness causes incredible pain, reminding, what I’m stupid and slow of wit. In the moments when the brain is completely go crazy, the game becomes intellectual Dark Souls, from which also affects the nerves and self-esteem.
Here you go around the house, smiling, someone something nod and twist Wert next puzzle in his mind. If a retired detective, who does not let a series of mysterious, unsolved murders but – in my thoughts you return again and again to his main business, looking for clues, puzzles rekonstruiruesh in the halls of reason. I
nevitably going crazy, buying a board and threads of everything-everything connects. Oboruduesh separate table and plate with a proud “Pinkerton,” drink bourbon, knock glass and smoke a cigarette, “Peter” for the common tragedy. But it does not help. Mental plugging. On the wall I want to climb. Or forget.
And when the decision finally comes, internally immediately let go, the tension disappears, Buddhism and feel the love.
And the feeling that you are here this all he has achieved, and here it is, this feeling any more achivki. Because at the heart of completeness comes, if finished writing a novel, and leaned back in his chair, aware of the distance traveled.
