The witness puzzle solutions lumber series#

The Witness‘ audio matches its excellence in mechanical design, for the most part. Ultimately, The Witness explores its mechanics to a greater depth than Braid did, and it’s much more satisfying as a result. Often, solutions in both games require an extra bit of lateral thought to continue Braid explored the limits of traditional platforming mechanics, while The Witness takes a similar approach with puzzle design. Both games feature a simple core mechanic that grows in complexity as gameplay progresses, challenging players to use the knowledge they’ve absorbed from previous puzzles in order to tackle new challenges. While the parallels between The Witness and Blow’s previous project Braid are not immediately apparent, they both take a similar approach to mechanical depth. As you progress and your puzzle-solving vocabulary grows, the process becomes less experimental and more intuitive, making for a constantly evolving gameplay dynamic. Where other games might reward progress with new character abilities or weapons, The Witness instead arms you with new puzzle-solving strategies. This effectively gates player progress while reinforcing the puzzle-solving skills you’ll learn throughout.īy the end of The Witness, you’ll approach puzzles very differently than how you might have approached them at the game’s outset. Many of the riddles you’ll encounter require solutions learned by exploring elsewhere, and several areas feature back-to-back puzzles that serve as instructions for solving specific maze layouts seen later in the game. Hitting a sudden roadblock after solving dozens of these puzzles in a row is frustrating, and knowing that several more difficult puzzles await after devising a particularly hard-fought solution is demoralizing.įortunately, these moments are rare, and The Witness’ open-ended design encourages players to abandon in-progress puzzles and return to them later. If you’re unable to solve any of these puzzles, your progress is blocked until you can brute-force a solution. One especially tiresome stretch of gameplay involves creating walkways that unfold, tile-by-tile, for every puzzle solved.

Some puzzle sequences have a better sense of pacing than others, however. The Witness effectively turns every puzzle’s solution into an epiphany, making gameplay incredibly satisfying.

Upon activating one of these panels, players must draw an unbroken line through a maze of twisting circuits, tracing a path from entrance to exit while fulfilling unspoken requirements unique to each puzzle.

The witness puzzle solutions lumber series#

Puzzles in The Witness consist of a series of electrical panels scattered throughout the abandoned island. After escaping from an introductory gameplay area, players discover a vast open world filled with snaking, interconnected pathways that are unlocked by solving puzzles. Like Myst before it, The Witness takes place on an abandoned island that players explore from a first-person perspective. The result is a deeply enthralling game that rewards logic, exploration, and patience, and it’s one of the PlayStation 4’s most fascinating releases to date. The Witness, the latest game from Braid creator Jonathan Blow, aims to recreate Myst‘s successes while avoiding its missteps. Many criticized its overwrought and nonsensical puzzles, which bogged down its central exploration elements and soured its sense of mystery. As the adventure game genre evolved, however, Myst‘s faults overshadowed its achievements. Known for its distinctive otherworldly setting and effective use of pre-rendered video, Myst challenged players to explore every inch of their surroundings and solve esoteric puzzles while piecing together a backing narrative. Myst kicked off a new wave of adventure games in 1993, and its influence on modern game design is undeniable.