The Looker

The Witness is a 2016 puzzle video game developed and published by Thekla, Inc. Inspired by Myst, the game involves the exploration of an open world island filled with natural and human-made structures. The player progresses by solving puzzles, which are based on interactions with grids presented on panels around the island or paths hidden within the environment. Announced in 2009, The Witness had a lengthy development period. Jonathan Blow, the game's lead designer, started work on the title in 2008, shortly after releasing Braid. The financial success of Braid allowed him to hire a larger production team without ceding creative control over the final product. To create the game's visual language, the team developed their own game engine and retained artists, architects, and landscape architects to design the structures on the island. Blow desired to create a game around non-verbal communication, given no direct instructions for solving puzzles are provided, wanting players to learn from observation and to come to epiphanies in finding solutions and leading to a greater sense of involvement and comprehension with each success. The game includes around 650 puzzles, though the player is not required to solve them all to finish the game. Original plans for release in 2013 on the PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360 were abandoned as the game engine became more demanding, and the team ultimately opted for an initial release on Windows and PlayStation 4 in January 2016, with later versions released for the Xbox One, Nvidia Shield, macOS, and iOS. The Witness received generally favorable reviews from critics, who praised the art, setting, and difficult but surmountable puzzles. Over 100,000 copies were sold within a week of release, which was about as many copies as Braid had done within a year of its release, recouping nearly all development costs.