The Witness and Limitations

The Witness idealistically adheres to logic and rule. Eschewing a cinematic narrative, it provides the player with abstract audio logs and environments to piece together social, political, and scientific philosophy. But the game does not reward you with narrative for accomplishments. Instead the reward is found in a set of opaque line puzzles, their rules, and using the environments to solve them. By design, most puzzles rarely have more than one solution and thus require a strict understanding of their rules. It lacks any sort of dexterity skill, focusing instead on a player's limits concerning learning and applying its systems.

The game's director Jon Blow has made it very clear that his games are not there to reinforce one's self-esteem or ego. His twitter use demonstrates this via his sharing of the Atlantic article, "You Can Do Anything: Must Every Kids' Movie Reinforce the Cult of Self-Esteem?" In accordance to the thesis of the article, he made The Witness reveal the limitations of the player. You either solve a puzzle or your progress in an area stops because you can't figure out the solution. To remedy being stuck, you must study tutorial puzzles to understand their rules and apply them. But as the rules and the size of the puzzle grids become unwieldy, passive players will grow frustrated as the opaqueness of the game overtakes them. You can shout, curse, and feel bad as your self-esteem is bruised, but the game remains silent as you wrestle with your limits.

The way the game tests the player is analogous in approach to other formal games such as Super Mario 64. Players solved Super Mario 64's platforming challenges by using the correct move and being able to execute it with short frame windows to traverse the world. The game world only existed to serve the mechanics and test the player.

One of my favorite stars growing up was Wall Kicks Will Work on Cool, Cool Mountain. There are two platforms. The first one is on an incline leading to a gap in front of a raised flat wall. The other is overhead and harbors a star. The only way to access the star is to do a triple jump with the 3rd jump near the edge of the lower platform. The triple jump allows the player to reach the raised flat wall, on which he must perform a wall kick over to the overhead platform. These are the only moves that allow the player to move on and must be practiced until one can properly execute them in succession. The player must learn the space between each jump depending on how long one holds the A button and the frame window the game allows to complete a successive jump. Then comes learning the frame window for the wall kick, mercifully announced by the groan Mario makes when hitting the wall. Landing these two techniques in succession solves the platforming challenge and puts the player one step closer to reaching the star.

The Witness is formal in much the same way without testing dexterity. Instead of learning the rules to execute triple jumps and wall kicks, one learns the rules behind symbols on each line puzzle. One learns the difference between a tetronimo symbol parallel to the puzzle board and one tilted 45 degrees. One learns how to separate white dots from black ones. But even more profound is how the environment provides the key to solving puzzles. A highlight early in the game was a sequence of puzzles whose solution required using rock structures in the ocean. The player aligns the transparent panel over the rocks and outlines them along with their reflections.

Blow's misdirection on the last panel in this section made for a memorable twist to the rules. Blow placed a panel in between some bushes with rock formations clearly visible through the panel. The player cannot trace these rocks as they do not line up on the panel no matter how the player looks at them. They're a red herring. The player has to think beyond the assumed rules and cross past the bushes to look through the opposite side of the panel. Doing so reveals palm trees of varying height. Tracing these trees solves the puzzle and puts the player closer to activating the laser. Once again, the level works to serve the gameplay.

Misdirections, interacting with the environment, and shifting perspectives all permute the same logic over and over. If one does not actively give the game attention, then it looms unbeaten. It hinders the player with its opacity until he puts in the effort to study the rules and examine the environment for the solution. To overcome the game, the player must grapple to make The Witness transparent. Only once seen through will it silently kneel before him.