I'm sitting here watching some pretentious guy talk about "existence" and "knowledge" for what feels like an hour

[ViciousJawa]

Can we not do this again if there's a sequel? I love the world, the puzzles, the exploration, but these philosophical quotes and especially videos make me want to put a bullet through my skull, it's awful.

[Snarke]

İlk olarak SWK tarafından gönderildi:

I found some of the videos boring. I just left. After the initial play through, you can fast forward to any point in the video you want from the outside. So mr guy-trying-to-get-the-candle-across-the-marsh-thing can just get skimmed.

I'm pretty sure you can fast-forward any video from the start without ever watching it. I only scanned through them to see if I could spot any clues.

[Nounverber]

There are some terrible woo-woo clips in the game. I just skipped them, you can fast forward after all. Maybe the game wants you to discern the meaningful from the rubbish, just like in the real world? Also notice how the meaningless pretentious videos are at the right side, and the most objectivistic video is on the left.

[Mark Wahlberg]

Comments like this make me thank god I was born with the ability to extrapolate deeper meaning from abstract concepts. It must be painful living your life, and the worst part if you can't have any idea.

[ViciousJawa]

İlk olarak Mark Wahlberg tarafından gönderildi:

Comments like this make me thank god I was born with the ability to extrapolate deeper meaning from abstract concepts. It must be painful living your life, and the worst part if you can't have any idea.

I tip my fedora to you good sir

[Dex]

These things are an optional part of the game, and you can fast-forward through the videos.

[.Meliante]

That's the first time I see someone complaining about an optional resource of a game.

[Monkeyjunky]

I agree the choice of quotes and their delivery are truly horrendous, some of the worst ever. Maybe it's because I'm a Christian and find the whole agenda of the audio logs to be anti-Christian (one attacks Jesus Himself), I think it's just that they have nothing interesting to say though. They are the definition of pretentious drivel.

Don't get me started on the highly repetitive puzzles, the static sterile and dead world, the lack of music (really not justified at all), I could go on, what an overrated and overpriced piece of crap.

I really wish I'd pirated the game now tbh, I hate that I gave Blow my money. The major reviewing sites should be ashamed of themselves.

[Naysayer]

Wait a minute ... some of the great Christian thinkers of all time are included in the audio logs, so I don't see why you could come to the conclusion that the game is anti-Christian.

[Mark Wahlberg]

İlk olarak ViciousJawa tarafından gönderildi:

İlk olarak Mark Wahlberg tarafından gönderildi:

Comments like this make me thank god I was born with the ability to extrapolate deeper meaning from abstract concepts. It must be painful living your life, and the worst part if you can't have any idea.

I tip my fedora to you good sir

Sorry that these things are beyond you :(

[Alcator]

İlk olarak ViciousJawa tarafından gönderildi:

Can we not do this again if there's a sequel? I love the world, the puzzles, the exploration, but these philosophical quotes and especially videos make me want to put a bullet through my skull, it's awful.

The entire game is about THINKING OUT OF THE BOX. As such, players might eventually come to the conclusion that they are geniuses who are the only people in the world capable of that type of thinking - because they managed to solve The Witness.

The videos are a humbling reminder that you are standing on the shoulders of giants who came before you, and that before you open you rmouth and start boasting about how awesome you are, you should in fact learn what super smart people who came before you have said.

That your reaction to this is "I want to commit a suicide" is a testament of Thalke's ability to hit a nerve in you :-)

[Alcator]

İlk olarak Naysayer tarafından gönderildi:

Wait a minute ... some of the great Christian thinkers of all time are included in the audio logs, so I don't see why you could come to the conclusion that the game is anti-Christian.

One of the VIDEOs (which is what we're discussing here) is clearly criticizing religions as too provincial, too terra-local, and too convenient explanations of things. It makes sense this could be seen as anti-religious.

[Clown Babby]

REEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE

what do you know you no brain worthless you are everything the world with wrong just no brain go back to cod indie dev not AAA some big budget small team cant do everything idiot you obviusly cant do anything but point and shoot worthless specimen

this game doesnt deserve u

[Alcator]

İlk olarak Clown Babby tarafından gönderildi:

insults insults insults insults

wrong grammar and spelling insults

we shall not have this kind of behavior on the forums, sir...

[nobbie]

This was kind of the thing with Braid already. Jonathan Blow clearly has some ideas he wants to convey or at least kindle the interest in thinking about life, but he does so in a - well, inefficient way.

Don't get me wrong, I try to engage in big ideas, and I love the overall aesthetic and puzzle portions of Braid and The Witness. But Blow is selling these gorgeus interactive games with some real challenges and a lot of thought behind the design, and then hamfistedly sticks the major ideas in these games as people passively yapping about them in the background.

At least you can skip the videos and audio logs if you want to, or you can stop playing the game that you bought and just watch a video playing in a virtual theater on your computer screen.

I've ♥♥♥♥♥♥ a good chunk of quality gameplay out of The Witness, but just like others have said, I can't help but feel that the delivery of ideas just comes off as a wee bit pretentious.

[genoforprez]

İlk olarak nobbie tarafından gönderildi:

This was kind of the thing with Braid already. Jonathan Blow clearly has some ideas he wants to convey or at least kindle the interest in thinking about life, but he does so in a - well, inefficient way.

Don't get me wrong, I try to engage in big ideas, and I love the overall aesthetic and puzzle portions of Braid and The Witness. But Blow is selling these gorgeus interactive games with some real challenges and a lot of thought behind the design, and then hamfistedly sticks the major ideas in these games as people passively yapping about them in the background.

At least you can skip the videos and audio logs if you want to, or you can stop playing the game that you bought and just watch a video playing in a virtual theater on your computer screen.

I've ♥♥♥♥♥♥ a good chunk of quality gameplay out of The Witness, but just like others have said, I can't help but feel that the delivery of ideas just comes off as a wee bit pretentious.

It *would* be pretentious if he had simply put all of these quotes around for no particular reason other than to sound cool or make the game seem smarter than it really is. I could understand if that's the impression you got, since that sort of thing is not unheard of in games.

I think back to a game dev presentation I watched once in which the speaker asked what it means to build an intelligent game. He then showed off a platformer he had built where you control William Shakespeare, who collects Da Vinci paintings instead of coins, all while Mozart plays as the background music. Is that an intelligent game? Obviously not. But I somehow get the sense that this is how some people view the audio logs in this game, which is really too bad.

The key difference is that the Shakespeare, Da Vinci, and Mozart in the above example don't mean anything. They have no point. You can't just gather a bunch of existing "smart things" and pile them up and claim that you've created something interesting.

But that's not what The Witness is doing. It is a game about perspective and perception. That is true in the immediate physical sense of the way perspective affects your ability to perceive puzzles and their solutions, but it's also true in a more contemplative or reflective way. Just as you stare at the shadow of a tree branch and think about what the shadow could mean in seven different ways for the purpose of a puzzle, you might also hear a quote that encourages you to contemplate a glass of wine and the hundred different ways you could perceive the wine and what it means.

Why is it that challenging your perspective on tree branches via gameplay is NOT pretentious, but challenging your perspective on a glass of wine via a Richard Feynman quote IS pretentious? It's all about the same thing.