★★★★★ Fun, immersive, but repetitive
Wed Nov 01 2017 Mushie SnugglebitesI love puzzle games so figure I give this one a try. Played the game for about 4 hours and made some decent progress. You’re stuck on an island, and the goal is to get off the rock. The graphics are beautiful, a bit cartoony, but all together with the sound very immersive. To progress in the game, open doors, fire up lasers etc you need to access a ton (gazillion) of computer screens (each with its own puzzle) that are littered throughout the island. The screens are wired in sequence, so you need to find and power up the first to light up the second and so forth. The puzzles are fairly logic but with varying difficulty. Clues to solve the puzzles can sometime be found around the screen whether you are examining trees or the shadows they cast. Made some progress but found the game repetitive, and I wish the puzzles were more diverse (like Myst) than tracing lines in various patterns on a computer screen. There’s no main menu, save or exit function in the game so you end up hitting the home button to exit only to find that you lost a whole bunch of progress when you start it up the next time. Very frustrating. Seems to be a major issue from reading other reviews as well. Despite this well worth $10 bucks and and a few hours of you life.
★★★★★ Nearly perfect
Sun Oct 15 2017 KALE-LThe Witness is a beautiful, thought-provoking game that treats it’s users with respect as intelligent beings. The game does not hold your hand, but it does provide you with everything you need to solve each and every puzzle.
I originally played this on PS4 but never finished it. (Yes, I bought it twice, it’s worth it.) Having it on my phone/iPad means I can chip away at it when ever I like, and I’m finally nearing what I think is the end, though I’m sure there are still plenty of things I’ve missed.
If you get stuck, go somewhere else or put the game down for a while. I’ve found that a fresh perspective can often make previously inscrutable solutions pop out. Don’t get frustrated. This is the point of the game. The puzzles are very clever, but the game never treats you like you are not clever as well, and you’ll love the satisfaction of solving a difficult puzzle or clearing an area.
I haven’t had any issues with save progress being lost like other reviewers, but I would suggest checking the load game screen on the pause menu occasionally just to make sure the game is being saved as you go.
5 stars (because I can’t give it more)
★★★★★ Love it and Hate it
Wed Apr 04 2018 audiotinkerThis game has a lot of 5 star qualities. The pros: The map for one is huge and wandering around is fun. Stumbling on to new puzzles is exciting. And periodically you get some interesting information on the story line. The graphics are pretty good for an iPhone game. Not great, but still pretty cool. The amount of puzzles in the game is staggering. Those are all the positives.
The cons: this game is aggravating. I consider myself to be good at puzzles and pretty smart and I have a rough time with many of them. To the point where I had to start relying on walk throughs to help me. And in some cases the puzzles are so annoying they almost make you give up on the game. There are also environmental puzzles that are freaking impossible to find or do unless you have a walk through. I don't think a single person can do this game on their own. It's also very tedious at times and all of the puzzles are nearly the same. It gets old after a while. Honestly if it wasn't for my stubbornness I would quit. So, it has its good qualities and it's bad. Sometimes I wonder if it's worth all the hassle if I'm not really having fun. The discovering part is really fun but the puzzles are so tedious and boring. Once I finish the game I'll update this review.
★★★★★ Great game, Great Port except for Performance
Sat Feb 17 2024 StormburnFor people who are curious about the port (iPad Pro 10.5”): The controls are tap-to-move with a few details that make the game feel great to control. No issues there. The game looks really good for mobile. It looks low-fi compared to playing on PC, but the art style didn’t really suffer and the resolution is high enough that the game looks good (not native, but close enough). The framerate is rather poor though. I don’t think it ever holds a remotely steady framerate or ever even touches 30fps. From the looks of things, I don’t think there’s much more they could have done to make it run better short of sacrificing a lot more on the resolution and general quality side, so I won’t really complain too much (docked 1 star for it though because I would have at least liked the option for better performance even if it meant tanking the resolution). At least it’s not like the game requires super high responsiveness to play well. TLDR: It’s as good as you could expect a port of a 3D game to mobile could be, and the framerate is sub-30fps. For people who are new to the game: The Witness is a polarizing puzzle game to say the least. I like it a lot, but don’t want to go into much depth because most of what makes the game special for me is in spoiler territory. If you like tougher puzzle games, don’t mind being expected to experiment and explore with no real guide, and like things that are a little pretentious you’ll probably love this. If you prefer easier puzzles, a tutorial for every step of the way, a clear story, and a clear path, this might not be for you.
*update Feb. 2024: Some pretty bad graphical artifacting makes this unrecommendable now.
★★★★★ Great game limited by small screen
Thu Aug 06 2020 awmerkleyThis is the full game experience you get on console/PC, and I bought it for my iPhone 8 because that’s the only device I have that can play it at decent graphical settings. There are some parts where the slightly janky controls become frustrating, and there are some parts where doing a puzzle with your finger actually blocks part of the screen where the puzzle is. But 99% of this game is comfortably playable on mobile, and of course the $10 price tag makes the 1% of frustration easier to swallow. I’m quite impressed with whoever was responsible for porting this. Great job!
I will say that if you have the choice to play this on console or PC (maybe MacOS as well?), you absolutely should because the visuals in this game are very nice to look at and having a bigger screen with better graphics to show them off will make the 20-80 hours you spend with this game more enjoyable. And a mouse/keyboard is the optimal input method for this game as well, although I will admit that being able to touch the panel puzzles is a pretty cool gimmick.
★★★★★ Great puzzles; horrible controls
Sun Jun 30 2019 8bitdeeThis game is wonderful. I love being immersed in this mysterious world and discovering areas after hours of figuring out great and challenging puzzles. But the god awful controls are really aggravating. Touch to walk has never been a good idea. You can never move smoothly, it feels so clunky. Especially for a game where it’s all about being aware of your surroundings, you are constantly distracted by the fact that you always have to be constantly tapping where you want to go rather than, so your focus becomes tunnel vision. You are always fighting the controls, since you may tap one place but the game registers as another and your character is constantly moving to places you don’t want to. This is especially aggravating when going up or down stairs. I have no idea how they thought that not including the option for a virtual d-pad was a good idea at all.
I love everything else about this game, but the controls too much in the way to fully enjoy it. Some music would’ve been nice too, to break off the monotony of going through puzzle after puzzle.
★★★★★ Great game but not meant for touch controls
Mon Sep 13 2021 MWR140This is a very large game with several brilliant puzzles. Content wise it is well worth the purchase price. However the game was clearly not designed for IOS. Too many of the puzzles, especially the environmental ones, require pixel perfect positioning to solve them. With the touch to move mechanic, you have to look away to tap a new location and it is a game of guess and check. You also can’t look down far enough for slight movement so finding the required perfect position is down to luck. It is very frustrating when you solved the path for the solution, but just can’t do it because of controls. The puzzles are also slightly harder because your finger covers the puzzle as you try to solve it. This is a really good game with brilliant logic puzzles and really does make you feel accomplished when you solve them. If this is the only way you can play it, it is worth the $10, but I recommend playing the game on another platform if possible.
★★★★★ Slowly falling in love
Fri Jun 29 2018 Planet M m MI am honestly not into repetitive puzzle game, and The Witness looks just like that, at first. The game starts out slow, presenting a segment of the world I am in where board-like puzzles are everywhere and solving them is absolutely crucial to advance. I wasn’t thrilled when my first impression was that it’s going to be like solving these puzzles in a beautiful park for the entire game.
However, things start to impress me once I get to explore how vast, how mysterious, and how eye-poppingly beautiful the whole island is. There are moments I even think to myself, after seeing all kinds of beautifully created locations that I know a lot of love has been put into, that even just “sightseeing” around the entire island alone is already worth the money.
Once I get intrigued by the beauty of the island, the puzzles become the reward of what I get to see and explore further. The story also unfolds slowly. The best part is: I have now come to love these board puzzles, for its ever-evolving nature throughout the game, and its cleverness put into them.
This is not a game to binge, to play it all in one sitting. It’s a game to take it slow. Play it now and then. Solve some puzzles, walk around, enjoy Einstein’s quotes dubbed by an electrifying voice, and then put the game down for a while. Do that for a few days, and I can guarantee that you will walk away with something you love about this game.
