Flower bug? [Possible Spoilers]

[g0dHims3lF]

I can't seem to find any mention of this on this forum or elsewhere on the web. There is a yellow flower in the lake that changes and even disappears seemingly intermittedly. My earlier saves seem to have it there with a lily pad underneath while other saves the lily pad is gone. I have also seen it not there at all. I have even seen it there and then closed the game and re-opened the same save and it was gone. Here are some screenshots to show what I mean. I cannot find the associated item for this and it's the only closed flower left so would like to know for sure it's bug.

Flower with lily pad:
http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=810959179

Flower without lily pad:
http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=810959211

Flower totally missing (added arrow pointing at where it should be):
http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=810965305

[Catgirl Jessica]

Seems like a bug, but in terms of opening it, the yellow flowers correspond to the underground audio logs. There should be 7 logs total in the underground area. I think there are only 6 yellow flowers. However, maybe you just found the 7th? Maybe people think there's only 6 because it disappears at random. Can you count how many are in your pond, including the bugged one?

[g0dHims3lF]

Ok, I counted 7 yellow flowers if you include the buggy weird one. For the record the yellow flowers don't correspond to underground audio logs though. They correspond to the audio logs on the orange recorders, of which at least a couple are found on the surface. I thought they represented the recording that had the "extra commentary" on them but there is at least one white one I can think of that has that so I am not sure what the orange recordings represent.

[Catgirl Jessica]

Originally posted by g0dHims3Lf:

Ok, I counted 7 yellow flowers if you include the buggy weird one. For the record the yellow flowers don't correspond to underground audio logs though. They correspond to the audio logs on the orange recorders, of which at least a couple are found on the surface. I thought they represented the recording that had the "extra commentary" on them but there is at least one white one I can think of that has that so I am not sure what the orange recordings represent.

I don't know what you mean by "orange recorders". Every audio log recorder in the game that I've come across is light grey with a green light that disappears after you listen to it once. The green light might appear to be different colors depending on the ambient light in the room, since it follows the color-blending rules present throughout the game, but I'm pretty sure there are no "orange" recorders. I can almost guarantee that every yellow flower corresponds to an underground audio log. Consensus several months ago was that there were only 6 yellow flowers, and that's how many I counted when I finished the game, but just now I loaded up my 100% save file and counted 7. For me it's opened and has a full lily pad. Perhaps that one flower used to be bugged for most players, but maybe they've patched it and it's now showing up most of the time.

[g0dHims3lF]

There are actual orange recorders. Here is a screen shot:
http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=811945406

In fact this particular recorder is quite close to the bamboo jungle laser (notice the bamboo in the shot). Now if you look at my previous screenshots you'll notice there is another yellow flower near the bugged yellow flower. And they are both very close to a lamp.. which represents the bamboo jungle laser. Here's a labeled map if it helps: http://i.imgur.com/uxQuT54.jpg

Perhaps they do represent underground logs though. There are a lot of coincidental orange recorder to yellow flower correlations if so. I did notice that one of the orange recording (on the dock under the tree houses) didn't have a yellow flower though so perhaps.

All that being said, do the developers ever respond on here? I'd like to know what's going on with that flower if possible.

[g0dHims3lF]

After reading your post again I realize you said that you see the "bugged" flower on your game? I actually googled around a little bit for screenshots of the lake online and none of the ones I found had the flower at all but I didn't look at that many. Odd.. maybe it was added at some point and doesn't show up correctly on older saves.

[Catgirl Jessica]

Originally posted by g0dHims3Lf:

After reading your post again I realize you said that you see the "bugged" flower on your game? I actually googled around a little bit for screenshots of the lake online and none of the ones I found had the flower at all but I didn't look at that many. Odd.. maybe it was added at some point and doesn't show up correctly on older saves.

Yes, I think it was patched in because from early on people had noticed that there was one more audio log in the game than flowers in the pond. It must have been patched fairly recently however as when I completed the game in August my pond only had 6 yellow flowers, and now it has 7.

Originally posted by g0dHims3Lf:

maybe it was added at some point and doesn't show up correctly on older saves.

I started that save file on day one, so it wasn't a new save file but was still affected by the fix. Unless that flower just happened to be bugged on the day I spent finding all the final audio logs, but was otherwise there the whole time.

[Catgirl Jessica]

Originally posted by g0dHims3Lf:

There are actual orange recorders. Here is a screen shot:
http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=811945406

You are right. I definitely missed that some were orange. Strangely, when looking up screenshots of all the audio logs there are exactly 7 orange recorders in the game, here are their locations:

http://i.imgur.com/t9SjtWH.jpg
http://i.imgur.com/Rt8HzrK.jpg
http://i.imgur.com/fxTPUmp.jpg
http://i.imgur.com/csVjGqu.jpg
http://i.imgur.com/oz9JTOF.jpg
http://i.imgur.com/KQjGKVO.jpg
http://i.imgur.com/ucJoLBo.jpg

I found that strangely coincidental so I started a new game and found those recorders that didn't require solving too many puzzles (the first 4 in the list). They all corresponded to white flowers in the pond. I also didn't see any common theme between the four, which were by Richard Feynman, Arthur Eddington, Nicholas of Cusa, and Ibn Arabi. So I'm really not sure what the orange recorders are for, but I can at least confirm they open white flowers.

[g0dHims3lF]

Yes, I looked around a bit as well and you're right. The orange recorder to yellow flower thing just seemed right and I hadn't been paying close attention. I had the vast majority of the recorders found before I realized the lake was a map (I played through with no guides). I've yet to find what the orange recorders represent but after looking around a bit I realize there are actually also dark gray recorders as well, in addition to the common white/light grey recorders. For a clear comparison go to the ones in the maze area. The one sitting on the amp beside the guitar guy statue is dark grey while the one just a few feet away, behind the throne is a white one. They are both in the same lighting and all and color is quite obviously different so yeah. There are three recorder colors. Still no clue what they represent though.

Thanks for the help btw. I apparently still have an audio log to find somewhere underground.

[The Invisibl]

Originally posted by g0dHims3Lf:

Thanks for the help btw. I apparently still have an audio log to find somewhere underground.

It does indeed seem to be a bug - if you could post your log next time it's gone (here's how to find it) I'll see if there's anything in there that might help us repro/fix it - thanks.

[.Adriansun]

Originally posted by The Invisibl:

Originally posted by g0dHims3Lf:

Thanks for the help btw. I apparently still have an audio log to find somewhere underground.

It does indeed seem to be a bug - if you could post your log next time it's gone (here's how to find it) I'll see if there's anything in there that might help us repro/fix it - thanks.

Are you guys still working with this game? Can you tell the boss that we would love a new game. Even if it has the same graphics and same types of puzzles. Just a new level, story and puzzles will be fine. Perfect game really.

[The Invisibl]

Originally posted by .Adriansun:

Are you guys still working with this game? Can you tell the boss that we would love a new game. Even if it has the same graphics and same types of puzzles. Just a new level, story and puzzles will be fine. Perfect game really.

Hah, thanks! Yes, we're working on a couple more ports of The Witness, so we'll patch out bugs in the existing versions from time to time if any bad ones show up. Rest assured there are new (secret!) projects in the works too, but those are going to take a while...