Sounds cool but I feel like the witness took puzzles games to a whole different level that no one will match for a while. A short simple puzzle game is not as enticing anymore.
yeah i feel the same way. i don't see the point of an easy puzzler like this.
i want to think and feel smart when i figure it out, this is just a nice time waster but that's it.
kinda not fair to compare games to witness though, that's a one of a kind game that took 7 years to get done.
I really think Inside should be done in one sitting, so if he wants to do that I can see if he doesn't have the time for it now if he's got a lot going in his life.
I'm glad you liked the game, OP. I wish I could-- I've just finished the game and am extremely disappointed in it, despite going into it blind.
It starts off incredibly strong, with a near-future vibe reminiscent of Interstellar or Moon. Music is creepy and the entire audiovisual presentation really evokes a sense of isolation (and the fact that I played it in total darkness, in 21:9, with earphones, helped). Runs very well, too, as it should give the engine/environments.
But The Turing Test doesn't really do anything with its puzzle mechanics, and all the puzzles were cakewalks. I didn't have to think through any puzzle, except for the
boolean operator puzzle, and that was because I had no idea what boolean operators were (I only learned about them after solving the puzzle.) in any case, if your puzzle relies on a ruleset outside the game, that's not great, even if it's optional.
Funnily enough that's the puzzle that a computer is most likely to solve.
Near the end the puzzles are the epitome of tedium, with you instantly knowing the solution after a cursory look around the room. But then you have to fight the game's systems to actually execute. This is especially true when you start using R.O.B. The B here stands for "busywork," which is how you solve the inelegant puzzles.
The plot fizzles out, too. If you inspect everything, you already know the whole plot by the first quarter of the game, and there are no surprises. The game near the mid point and the end is especially heavy handed, where it hits you over the head with its themes-- there are literally giant screens that have thematic key words on in capital letters, that you have to slooooowly walk through (control is limited/taken from you during some of these segments). It would be like when walking into Bioshock Infinite's Columbia you had signs with block letters that spelled out "AMERICAN EXCEPTIONALISM" and "THE WHITE MAN'S BURDEN." Or if the main character in Bioshock was called Aynakin Rand.
In addition to the Turing test, the game also discusses the Chinese Room thought experiment. And in one part of the game there is a literal
Chinese room. But you look on the other side of the slot and it's also a Chinese room! What a tweest
My final recommendation is to play it up until your feelings on it start to turn. It has a great first impression. But when it starts getting sour for you, stop. The puzzles don't get better and neither does the plot.
Yea, been playing this game for review and it is one of the better releases I have embarked upon this year. Also interviewed one of the devs the other day, I think he mentioned that only 70 percent of the ideas they had made it into the final cut.
I'm enjoying my time with it and, so far, I've only been "stuck" in two places:
Chapter 1: the first "
secret ladder
". I don't know if
I was supposed to solve the puzzle, which looks like a grid of plugs and two "sparks", right then, but TOM said that maybe I couldn't, so I left it alone. I don't know if I'll be able to go back to it later on, but I fear I won't...
Chapter 4, sector
36
:
The door with the three sparks, one blue, one green, one purple. I had to look up a walkthrough on YouTube, because I just wasn't able to figure out the combination that I needed. If what I saw is the intended solution, I don't feel bad about having to look it up. I wasn't expecting having "cheat" the door while it was closing :/
End-game spoilers:
does anyone know if you get anything besides backstory and "lore" by completing all the non-mandatory puzzles in each chapter? Like an alternate or expanded ending?
I'm enjoying my time with it and, so far, I've only been "stuck" in two places:
Chapter 1: the first "
secret ladder
". I don't know if
I was supposed to solve the puzzle, which looks like a grid of plugs and two "sparks", right then, but TOM said that maybe I couldn't, so I left it alone. I don't know if I'll be able to go back to it later on, but I fear I won't...
Chapter 4, sector
36
:
The door with the three sparks, one blue, one green, one purple. I had to look up a walkthrough on YouTube, because I just wasn't able to figure out the combination that I needed. If what I saw is the intended solution, I don't feel bad about having to look it up. I wasn't expecting having "cheat" the door while it was closing :/
End-game spoilers:
does anyone know if you get anything besides backstory and "lore" by completing all the non-mandatory puzzles in each chapter? Like an alternate or expanded ending?
You can't solve the first optional when you come to it, there's a picture on the table later in the game that shows the correct pattern. You can just load that chapter again from the menu and go solve it. Well I mean you could solve it by going through every single combination, but that' sounds like something a computer would do. Are you a computer?
The chapter 4, sector 36 solution to
grab one of the blinking power blobs when it's using the other blinking power blob to keep the door open is the correct solution.
There are two endings, but as far as I know the optional puzzles don't affect either of them.
Just finished it and I'm with you pretty much entirely on the game. The second to last puzzle I definitely skipped through most of by just finding a specific angle they must not have intended, because I didn't interact with half of the room.
As for the end, without spoilers, it seems like it's really trying to present you with a "how do YOU feel about the consequences" moment without really clarifying what those would be, just a surface either-or that may not actually be the case.
Completed this yesterday and gotta say I didn't find it that good, aside from the voice acting and music which are very well done. The biggest problem are the puzzles which are not only easy, but also never develops any sense of how to create a logic curve. Instead the only way they try to add layers to them is either by making the environment bigger - while still at its core maintaining roughly the same easily deducible elements, now obscured by scenery, instead of refined logic complexity - or simply by hiding things. Meaning you're not actually stuck, you just didn't see a "piece" that was part of the puzzle, making a few of the ever so slightly difficult puzzles a matter of hide and seek. A good puzzle allows you to see the pieces, but makes it hard to make them fit together correctly.
There were a few of the optional puzzles that were ok -
hiding from the camera, the logic gates, thinking outside the box etc.
- but most of the other ones felt like throwaways that would have been left out of other better games.
The set-up and plot is interesting, but it lacks layers and depth. It's the kind of game where if Tom Jubert did the writing and Jon Blow designed the puzzles, you just know it would have been fantastic. On its own it is just mediocre and mostly for genre fans that have to play everything. Others would be better advised to look elsewhere first.
Are you a computer?