The Witness: A Game Flawed by its Mechanics

Puzzle games are interesting. Although there are a variety of puzzle games on the market, there are really four main groups of puzzle games. There are more story-based puzzle games (like Ghost Trick and Professor Layton), platformer puzzle games (like Portal and Braid), and pure puzzle games (like Tetris). The Witness, however, falls under the fourth category of puzzle games, exploratory. Exploratory puzzle games make the player explore the environment to find hints and solve puzzles. Yet The Witness has several features that make its gameplay stale and uninteresting, unlike other exploratory puzzle games. In this post, I will go over what The Witness does wrong in its game design and ends up being a dissapointment.

First, I would like to explain the game mechanics of The Witness to people who haven't played the game. In The Witness, the player goes around a static island and find areas of puzzles. Once they complete an area of puzzles, they trigger a laser which helps them open the final area of puzzles. Individual puzzles consists of a grid with symbols, and are solve by drawing the correct path through the grid from the start of the puzzle to the exit. The symbols in the puzzle dictate the rules of the puzzle. For example, black dots and white dots must be separated in the puzzle, therefore, the solution is constrained. The core game mechanics of The Witness on paper seem quite sound. Yet these symbols are the first major problem I took note of in the game.

A typical puzzle in The Witness

The Witness takes pride in the fact that the player is supposed to find out everything about the game, from how to create lines to what each symbol does. While learning how to create a line is as easy as pressing a button or key, learning the rules of each symbol is much more difficult. Most areas of the island has something new to teach the player, and they can go to any part at any time.

Before finishing this line of thought, let's take a little detour and talk quickly about the open world of The Witness. As stated before, The Witness is set up on a small static island with no sound but amazing visuals. After the player complete the first area of puzzles, the whole island is open to them to explore. Aside from the main puzzle areas, they can find secret areas and hidden environmental puzzles, both of which are fun to find and complete. Yet the combination of this open world and figuring out the entire game on their own leads to much confusion as they often come to a section that requires them to know a certain symbol that they have never seen before. This experience either leads the player to run around the island looking for the tutorial for the symbol, or repeatedly trying the puzzle until they give up. Some more dedicated gamers may figure out the rules by trial and error, but most won't be able to understand the puzzles without the tutorial.

To beat the final puzzle area, the player needs to know what certain symbols mean. This fact means that they need to travel to certain sections of the map no matter what, giving the illusion that the player has the ability to choose and explore the world, when in reality they are already set on a mostly determined path. If the player's sense of direction is not good, this faux exploration can lead to thirty minutes to an hour for each mismatched symbol. By making the game longer this way, The Witness adds an artificial level of difficulty to the game; it's not hard to travel the open world (even though they player can't jump, and the sprint is slow), just time consuming. The combination of the open world and the lack of given instructions make for a frustrating first-time experience.

Another problem that I have with The Witness are the puzzles themselves. Don't get me wrong, The Witness has some amazing puzzles. Many of the environmental puzzles that make the player observe their surroundings are fantastic puzzles that deserve at least a little praise. But many of the puzzles in The Witness counteract one of the major gameplay elements in the game: exploration. Whenever the player activate a puzzle, the camera zooms in on the puzzle and locks. During this time, if the player leaves the puzzle, they lose all of the current progress on the puzzle. By changing the camera, it breaks the player from the stunning environment. This isn't necessarily a bad thing, but most of the puzzles are just panels and are just filler. These types of puzzles are the least interesting because it only challenges the player to find the correct path.

A puzzle hidden in the trees. How clever!

The last puzzle area in the game, the mountain, is a perfect example of great puzzles and terrible puzzles. Let's start with the good. The mountain has possibly the best puzzle in the game, where the player uses  a series of puzzle panels to create bridges until he can create the bridge to the exit. The solution requires the player to swap between two panels and create a new bridge that satisfies one puzzle using the solution to the other panel. It's a very clever puzzle, requiring one to constantly be aware of the bridges and the environment. These types of puzzles are more of what The Witness needed. On the other hand, the mountain area sports some of the worst puzzles in the game. These puzzles range from mesh obstructing the player's vision to puzzles that spin and invert their controls when they move. These puzzles are difficult, they are just annoying. Furthermore, these puzzles seem to be just tacked on to add more puzzles for the player to solve, instead of being used as challenging obstacles that the player needs to complete.

Just because the puzzle is hidden, doesn't make it difficult. It makes it annoying.

Although I give the environmental puzzles plenty of praise, they are not excluded from bad puzzle design. One of the environmental puzzles requires the player to hold their cursor for approximately one hour as a movie goes through its entirety. This infamous puzzle is known for being the sole reason why 99.8% exists as a speedrunning category for The Witness. This puzzle adds nothing to the game. The only challenge that this puzzle provides is that the player has to realize that the puzzle exists, and by that time, they can't complete the puzzle and have to wait an hour for the movie to conclude. Another set of environmental puzzles that are questionably designed are the audio puzzles. While optional, some puzzles (most notably the ship audio puzzle) have ambiguous sounds that make the player eventually brute force the solutions. When a puzzle makes the player guess the solution, the puzzle has failed. I do understand that some people don't have any problems with the puzzles and how they are designed but, in my opinion, many of the puzzles in The Witness are flawed and don't work well in the game.

ENDING SPOILERS COMING UP!!! SKIP THE NEXT PARAGRAPH IF YOU DO NOT WANT TO BE SPOILED!!

The final problem I have with the game are the endings. My first issue with the endings is that the secret ending can be found by pure coincidence at the beginning of the game. If the player finds this secret ending (like I did), they are greeted with a fifteen to thirty minute video of a person going through their house and touching the surroundings around them until they go to sleep. This ending is way too long and is very boring to watch. Since The Witness only has a story if the player really believes it does, there is little to no context to this ending. The only conclusion that the player can make is that a unknown person (possibly the game's developer) was dreaming of the game the whole time. It's an ending that makes very little sense. Some people, however, might say that the games secret ending is supposed to be watched after the game's actual ending. Yet after the game's actual ending, I did not want to play the game ever again. Throughout the game, the player slaves though hours and hours of puzzles to get to the final conclusion. At the end, they expect a satisfactory ending, but are greeted by a brief flyby of the island with a couple of voice clips. When the flyby is done, the player finds themselves at the beginning of the game with all of their progress reset. This cheap joke of an ending is possibly worse than just displaying a "Congratulations!" at the end. If the player wanted to start a new game, they would have just deleted their save file. I know at the end of the game I didn't want to play it anymore, and I know that many feel the same way. The ending for The Witness leaves much to be desired and does not feel like an ending at all.

The Witness is a good puzzle game. If you are looking to solve puzzles over and over, this game fills the part. However, it's not a very good exploratory puzzle game. Many of the puzzles do not use the game's mechanics effectively. By limiting the solving area to a grid, The Witness doesn't take risks to create abstract puzzles. By forcing the player to figure out the rules, the game makes the open world a chore to explore. There is no reason why the open world exists in the game. The game would be much better if it was linear, or if it was a series of grid puzzles on a tablet. In the end, The Witness' insistence to grid puzzles and have an open world, combined with the very lackluster ending, is why it is a disappointing game.



As always, everything stated in this post is my opinion. Like it? Don't like it? Feel free to leave a comment below!

Announcing our new Podcast!

Hello everyone! Spencer and I have decided to start doing podcasts! We recorded two podcasts and decided to only post the second one since out first one was pretty bland.

A few quick notes however, the quality is not going to be very good for a while because we don't have access to any good microphone equipment. We will also be launching a new way for fans to support us directly instead of us depending on annoying advertisements for any sort of financial support (more on that in the future).

So without further ado here is a link to our first episode!

https://soundcloud.com/commonsconversations/episode-1

Let us know in the comments on Soundcloud or here with your thoughts on the first episode and feel free to share this post with your friends!

Why Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time Holds Up Well Today

About a month ago, Matt, the co-writer for this blog, posted his thoughts on why Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time is the worst game ever. And while it's not a perfect game, OOT shows many great gameplay elements as well as a riveting story. In this post, I'll analyze the game and show why OOT still stands up as a good game even years after its release.

However, let's start off with what OOT does wrong. The camera isn't the best in the world, I'll admit. During combat, even if you Z-target, the camera sometimes points towards walls and floors. The only way to adjust this camera is by centering it behind you, which isn't always optimal in some cases. Moreover, the combat in OOT is lacking in several ways. Many enemies either consist of consistently slashing them over and over, or waiting for several seconds until they are vulnerable over and over. Stalfos, Wolfos, the Gerudo thieves, and the Iron Knuckles are prime examples of this linearity of combat.

Even though this fight goes fast, it demonstrates the poor fighting mechanics.

There are also a couple of things that OOT does that are not good or bad. The game doesn't really tell you the specifics on where to go. Although Navi and Saria are available for you to ask for help, their messages are not really useful. However, if a younger me could get through the game with no problem, maybe it really isn't a problem. Also, the inventory system is a bit clunky, but that can be attributed to the console that it was played on. Lastly, the game not saving your exact location when you restart the game is a minor issue, but this issue can also be attributed to the power of the N64. These minor issues don't really affect the quality of the game.

Everybody knows the terror of putting the iron boots on and off.

But OOT really shines in other places. The story of this game is great and keeps me addicted to the game no matter how many times I play it. At the end of the game, you feel that the long, hard journey that you traveled was well worth it. Furthermore, the music is fantastic. Who doesn't fondly remember the Gerudo's Valley music or the Lon Lon Ranch music? When you're not blindly swinging at enemies, combat feels amazing. With Z-targeting, one on one combat feels fast and exciting. The game's dungeons are difficult, but not too difficult. Even the water temple is not extremely difficult, even though most of the community says that it is. Moreover, there are plenty of things to do even if you're not progressing the main story. From the bombchu alley, to getting all of the pieces of hearts, to fishing, there's always something to do in the game.

While OOT does have it's share of flaws, it's not "the worst game ever" as my co-writer would say. It's actually pretty good. If you have the time, you should definitely take a look at one of gaming's finest classic. Trust me, you're in for a good time.

Don't like what I said? Like what I said? Please, leave a comment in the section below. Also, if you want to see someone bad at OOT, take a look at the video shown below for our series on OOT.

Why the lack of posts?

So my Co-Editor and myself haven't been posting to the blog for a few reasons.

1. School has started for our senior years which means that we are both busy with class work and also other activities outside of school
2. We have begun to analyze what kind of content we want to make and will be revising our content strategy soon

So, apologies to those who may have been reading every article we have posted (maybe the one person). We will post here again when we decide on what kind of content we want to make and how you can consume that content.

For the time being feel free to re-read one of our posts below, or just go somewhere else online that will have newer content.

Why Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time is the Worst Game Ever

For the past few nights after getting back to school with my friends I have been playing Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time, a game released on the N64 in 1998. After playing about 4 hours worth of game time and only making it to the first adult Link temple I have reached a conclusion about the game. 

For those who don't actively play video games, the change in controls, graphics, and story lines between 1998 and now has been immense. These three changes were drastic from playing the remastered version of Halo CE to playing OOT. Ocarina of Time is a game designed so badly that it is near impossible for a casual gamer such as myself to even come close to ever understanding the controls for the game.

The video clip above is a recording of me attempting to play the game during my second sit down. 

The first flaw in the game's design is with the controls, although this is more the fault of the N64 than it is of the game developers. For some reason Nintendo figured that a controller for a game system should look like this:

That's right, a controller with three hand grips, a misplaced joystick, and a poorly implemented secondary D-pad/button arrangement for the C stick. 

I don't know how any console developer expected players to use these controls for supposedly next generation (at the time 3-dimensional games were all the rage) games such as Super Mario 64 and OOT. 

The game design stems from the poorly designed controller to affect the overall button system for the game, having to use the C buttons to equip weapons is simply too difficult compared to relatively modern weapon switching mechanics present in games such as Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain, and GTA V. 

The next huge pain that presents itself in OOT is the camera system, which also happens to plague other games also released on the N64 around the same time. The camera most of the time will follow the player forcing the user to control Link while watching his actions at completely odd angles. There is a fix for the system that requires the player to repeatedly press the Z button to re-focus the camera behind the player. There are however other bugs present in this camera system including the targeting system, and also when entering certain parts of the maps where the camera is static and simply pans to wherever the player is located. 

The final gripe that I have for this game is the lack of concrete storyline for the player to follow, this would be understandable if OOT were a completely open world game. However, since the game play revolves around the plot too closely there is no excuse for not providing in depth side-quest information for the player.

Ultimately the only reason I will end up finishing this game is to laugh about these flaws and make jokes along the way with my friends. if you are considering picking up this game and trying to play it I highly suggest that you step back and look into a more modern game that has at least better controls and graphics.

As always feel free to sound off in the comments with your opinions, and make sure to follow us on Twitter @SageDiscussions and like our page on Facebook.

The Problem with Social

Social media is currently broken, and most people don't even notice. Thats right those 5 or more social apps on your phone, tablet, computer etc. are serving a completely different use from what they were intended to do when being developed. 

A quick intro about the current flaws of social media, and why Beme was created.

Social media apps mostly share the same goal, to allow people to share their perspective of the world/their day with others. However with the recent launch of the app Beme launched by popular video maker Casey Neistat showcased the exact problem with social networks, that most apps have become a way for people to stylize their life or to filter what they show to other people. Social media is no longer about sharing your true life it has become a way to share a filtered view of yourself.

The problem, highlighted in the Beme video above extends to Beme itself. The fact that the app has to be opened and has to be activated in some fashion automatically means that the content shared will be picked and chosen by the individual. This is a vital flaw of most social media apps. 

No matter what app you use to share your life with others, you will be sharing a filtered version of yourself, these problems don't lie in the intent behind the app but rather the designs of the applications. 

Apps are designed to work certain ways, mostly for ease of use, which is why apps like Snapchat, Beme, Instagram, Facebook and others don't share every single little part of your life, every one of these apps allows you the user to choose whether or not to share that moment.

These design choices become accepted by the public and then become simply part of the status quo. People use apps like Snapchat because to them it seems like the current best method to share photos and videos that will disappear after a select amount of time. 

More and more companies will arrive to the social media market, claiming to fix the issues of all the previous applications in the same space, and most of the time these apps will fall to the same issues that all their predecessors have encountered. A word of advice when developing a social media application, don't claim that it is going to completely change the way people will share their lives.

As always feel free to sound off in the comments if you think these problems don't matter or don't actuall exist, or if you think that there is some interesting insight in the post you agree with. Also make sure to check us out on Twitter @SageDiscussions and on Facebook Sage Discussions.

Micro-transaction Fever: A Psychological Game

With the upcoming release of Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain just around the corner, a huge outcry has been heard throughout the gaming community about micro-transactions in full retail games. Many people are bashing these games, saying that micro-transactions make the game "pay to win" and that the content should be able to be acquired easier in game. I'd like to take a while to show why micro-transactions are toxic to gamers and the games that they are present in.

One major reason is that micro-transactions make games unbalanced in multiplayer. Let's take the fine example of Mass Effect 3's multiplayer. Even though I liked the game, micro-transactions allow people to quickly and easily get extra and powerful gear. Although you can get this gear without paying the money, it's much harder and time consuming to do so. Getting this gear allowed those players to generate in-game currency faster, and take the currency from the people who didn't pay.

Another major reason is that adding micro-transactions make gamers feel inferior when they play. Let's say you are in a game, trying to get a shiny set of rare armor. Let's also say that you could pay to get said armor with micro-transactions. Naturally, you would feel bad when you see someone in that armor that truly didn't earn it. Furthermore, some strong items take hours and hours of grinding to get. Or you could play a couple of dollars to get it immediately. And if this weapon is strong and is available in multiplayer, it could cause a unbalance in gameplay that is undeserved.

In the end, micro-transactions in full, retail games are unacceptable. Games should not have shortcuts to get items built into it. They are just a weak attempt for companies to get your money. And you know what? It works. People use their money to get in-game cash because they feel like its a sound decision. The only sound way to get micro-transactions out of our games is to stop buying them, but that doesn't seem like that's going to happen any time soon.

Sorry for the delayed and rushed post today, school just started and I'm still trying to get my bearings. If you have any questions, please leave them in the comments below!