Thekla, Inc. - "The Witness"

Photo above is property of Thekla, Inc.

Company: Thekla, Inc.

Game: The Witness

Country: USA 🇺🇸

Language: English, and more!

Type of Game: Video Escape Game 📱

Genre: Fantasy

Date Played: September 24, 2021

Difficulty (based on 1 player): 8/10

Size of Team: 1 Player

Price: $39.99

🆃🅷🅴 🆂🆃🅾🆁🆈

You wake up in a tunnel. You have no idea where you are or how you got there. You just know, you can’t stay there. There is a door in front of you with a line and a ball at one end. The game instructs you to click on the ball to fill the line. As you complete the task, you suddenly see another door. Again a line and a ball. But this time the line is bent at a 90 degree angle. You open this one as well. And then there's a third door. This time, a Maze. And as you solved that one, you finally are outside again. But are you actually free or just trapped on a whole island with similar mechanisms?

Video above is property of Thekla, Inc.

🆃🅷🅴 🅶🅰🅼🅴 🅿🅻🅰🆈

As you can read from “the story” above, the main attraction of this game is not the story, because there is practically no story. You do come across some tapes, but they mostly just reiterate philosophical ideas about the puzzles. But they don’t add to the story, No. The main attraction is the simple mechanic of drawing a line and how far you can push that one mechanism. The truth is, after you leave the “tutorial” area, the whole island is at your disposal. Well, not everything. You will still need to solve puzzles and with each completion, you will gain more access things on the island. But there is no linear progression so just walk around and enjoy the puzzles.

Photos above are property of Thekla, Inc.

🆃🅷🅴 🅿🆄🆉🆉🅻🅴🆂

As I said above, the whole progression of the game is non-linear. And with each new area you encounter, different kinds of puzzle elements will reveal. Each time, you will start with the simple “draw-a-line” puzzle can be learned by walking around and coming across that element. You have no idea what a blue square means? You might find a puzzle on the island that will explain this to you. You can’t figure out what the black and white dots are? There is probably an area on the island that will make this clear. I made a dumb mistake by looking up a walkthrough because I thought I just didn't get the puzzles. But later I came across an area that explained what those symbols meant. Just have patience and walk around and everything will explain itself. And that is the genius of this game. You don’t get any hints. You'll just need to figure everything out yourself.

** There is even a second kind of puzzle in this game. But I’ll keep it at that, before I spoil anything 😉

Photos above are property of Thekla, Inc.

🅲🅻🅾🆂🅸🅽🅶 🆃🅷🅾🆄🅶🅷🆃🆂

This game is a master class in nonverbal post signing. Because at a certain point, the different elements will start to mingle with each other. Especially towards the end where even the perception of how you look at a puzzle will start to matter and what kind of lighting or obstructions are in the way. This is a MUST PLAY for puzzle fanatic. Jonathan Blow (the brain behind this game) was also the mastermind behind Braid. A puzzle game revolved around bending time. I’m surely looking forward as to what he’ll bring next. If he can make such an amazing game with simply just drawing a line, who knows what will come next...

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(If you do decide to try this game, give us a shoutout or tag us on social media so we know you heard it from "ESCAPETHEROOMers"!)

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