![]() The similarities are overt-again you're a nameless, wordless protagonist exploring a deserted island full of bespoke contraptions and no small amount of mystery-and also tonal, with a softly brooding atmosphere punctuated only by your footsteps and the wind. This game has been dogged by comparisons to Myst throughout its production, but the comparison is so apt that it's hard not to use that old CD-ROM standard as a starting point. The Witness matches and then surpasses the exhilarating a-ha moments of Braid's most unconventional puzzles, while also one-upping the simple, discrete platforming levels of Blow's previous game with a sprawling world that's as impressively interconnected as it is starkly beautiful and laden with secrets. Both games tend toward an austere style of philosophizing that can come off as heavy handed or self-indulgent, but which nonetheless seems to flow directly from the individual consciousness of their creator. ![]() Both have the uncanny ability to alternately make you feel like a genius and an idiot. Both games offer devilishly, sometimes painfully tough puzzles built around detailed logic systems that you're expected to intuit and employ with next to no guidance. The Witness provides further evidence that video games are approaching the same degree of authorship as more traditional forms of media, in the sense that Braid players will immediately recognize this as another game made by Jonathan Blow. There are so, so many things crammed into this island. ![]()
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