Do these games ever change?

[lir7]

I mean the format. I've played for a couple of hours now and they're all track and trace type games on a little TV. OK they've got a wee bit more difficult, but it's the same principle. Can I look forward to any variation? At all? FYI I'm comparing to Myst, The Room, Aporia, The House of Da Vinci which all have a variety of types of puzzles.

[MASTAN]

Change into what, another genre? Then it would be other games made into other genre which are plenty.

[lir7]

Originally posted by MASTAN:

Change into what, another genre? Then it would be other games made into other genre which are plenty.

I take it the answer is 'no' then?

[Pesky]

Most of the game is puzzleboards. The nature of the puzzles change: you get different shapes which mean you have to do different things, some of which depend on colours. And in many cases not all the puzzle is on the board: you have to understand the environment around you to be able to solve the puzzle.

But yes, it's hundreds of puzzles, some of which enable another puzzle, some of which open doors or activate machines. If you don't want to solve hundreds of puzzles, you're playing the wrong game.

[lir7]

Originally posted by PeskyTheTroll:

The nature of the puzzles change

I'm not seeing a change so far. I can only describe the format as track and trace, trace a line round the screen to get from one point to another. I've played all Myst, The Room, and other games which have a huge variety of formats. A sound puzzle here, a date puzzle there, so much more variety in format. Maybe I'll come back but for now I'm going to try something else I'm afraid.

[Pesky]

That's cool. The Witness isn't a game for everyone. Few games are.

Those puzzles are all about lines. It's the things which tell you the right route for the line that change. If you haven't yet found anything in there that interests you -- a door you want to get past or something that looks useful -- then it's reasonable to leave it for another time.

Have fun playing whatever you play next.

[lir7]

Originally posted by PeskyTheTroll:

Have fun playing whatever you play next.

Thanks! An hour of Eyes of Ara is much more my cup of tea. I do like trace puzzles, cover all the lines without taking your pen off the paper type stuff, just not all the time. I might have to play in small doses. Until next time.

[Pesky]

I hate that game. Solve a puzzle, walk two paces, and you have another puzzle. It never lets up. Try Epitasis. Or Aporia.

[Sputnik]

So many complaints on Steam forums. I wonder about their usefulness.

[lir7]

Originally posted by Pesky:

Try Epitasis. Or Aporia.

I liked Aporia, although I thought it took a lot of walking around before getting to the first actual puzzle. Worth the wait though.

I hadn't heard of Epitasis but it looks good. Another one on my wishlist. Thanks

[Contracrostics]

Maybe the feeling of 'never changing' is due to a lack of discernment?

[lir7]

Originally posted by Contracrostics:

Maybe the feeling of 'never changing' is due to a lack of discernment?

If I find something that doesn't look like tracing a line on a TV screen I'll let you know. ;0)

[ODevil]

Originally posted by lir7:

Originally posted by Contracrostics:

Maybe the feeling of 'never changing' is due to a lack of discernment?

If I find something that doesn't look like tracing a line on a TV screen I'll let you know. ;0)

It's still tracing a line, but there are indeed quite a few of them not on monitors. You most likely just haven't noticed them yet...

[Bracht]

Originally posted by lir7:

I mean the format. I've played for a couple of hours now and they're all track and trace type games on a little TV. OK they've got a wee bit more difficult, but it's the same principle. Can I look forward to any variation? At all? FYI I'm comparing to Myst, The Room, Aporia, The House of Da Vinci which all have a variety of types of puzzles.

Hi!

This is my favorite game of all time, so please take my opinions with a grain of salt. That said, I wanted to comment to perhaps nudge your thinking in the right direction: The Witness is a puzzle game that uses the "tracing a line through a path" sort of like a language. So, yes, they are indeed all "like that", in the sense that all puzzles in the entire game involve tracing a line through a path.

Crucially, though, they are not all "the same".

Every single puzzle anyone has ever found printed on a newspaper involves tracing lines, doesn't it? Yet, they are not all the same. It's just that they are all based on this concept we call "writing", or tracing lines with a pen or pencil. With this common framework, many different puzzles can be proposed and solved, from crosswords to sudoku and many others.

In The Witness, the puzzles all involve tracing lines, but they get incredibly diverse within this framework. If you keep playing, you'll see. The game first establishes a kind of "puzzle language", with every single puzzle panel teaching you a specific aspect or nuance in this language (especially the first ones you can find on each area of the island), then it gets incredibly creative in using this language you've been learning to propose many different kinds of puzzles.

Hopefully this helps you. :)

(PS.: This game has some of the most incredible discovery moments I ever had playing video games in my life, but they can only work if you discover them yourself. So, I would strongly advise you to keep very much away from looking stuff up on the internet, or reading forum discussions about it. If you ever need help, your best bet is just talking to someone who has already beat the game. If you don't know anyone personally, feel free to message me and I'll gladly help you get unstuck. I needed quite a lot of help from a friend, so I'm only paying it forward! Cheers, and happy new year!)

[lir7]

Originally posted by Bracht:

This is my favorite game of all time, so please take my opinions with a grain of salt.

Hi,

There are loads of people who rate this game really highly so I mean no disrespect. Using your newspaper analogy, constantly playing crosswords and not finding sudoku or wordsearch or kakuro didn't appeal so I asked the question. Knowing the puzzles are all crosswords is fine. I have found the increase in difficulty, there are a couple I've got stuck on, so I will revisit as I don't like to leave a game unfinished ( i've also got stuck on one in The Trials that I've left for now). I'm currently playing The House of Da Vinci 3 so it'll be a while before I return, but may look you up for a hint when I do.