History VideoGame / TheWitness

* LeaningOnTheFourthWall: The prize for completing a hidden, difficult-to-achieve reward is a lecture that talks about why hidden, difficult-to-achieve rewards shouldn't be the coolest part of a game. Naturally, the hidden achievement was one of the most talked about part of the game from players.

* NotActuallyCosmeticAward: [[spoiler:Completing the Challenge nets the player the final hexagonal puzzle for the projection room, which unlocks a ''58-minute lecture'' on batteries, Shakespeare, and the concept of awe. Over a video of a ''solar eclipse.'' Which is part of an environmental puzzle. And you thought the cloud in ''VideoGame/{{Braid}}'' was bad....]]

* MoonLogicPuzzle: Averted. Even if a puzzle doesn't seem to make sense, there is a logical explanation for its mechanics.

** The lengthy audio excerpt from NASA astronaut and aeronautical engineer Russell Schweickart's ''[[http://www.context.org/iclib/ic03/schweick/ No Frames, No Boundaries]]'', with how interconnected we can become with our surroundings, comes off as this. Bonus points for the audio recorder containing this message appearing [[spoiler: on the top of the mountain, after you've probably explored everything else.]]

* WaitingPuzzle: A few optional puzzles require you to wait on a moving platform of some sort while other elements of the puzzle move in and out of view. [[spoiler:One requires you to complete the Challenge (or obtain the reward through other means), and wait through the entire reward.]*

* HiddenInPlainSight: The [[spoiler: environmental puzzles.]]

* YourMindMakesItReal: [[spoiler:The hidden ending, as well as the hidden audio logs, reveal the true purpose of the Island (as well as the game's plot): an elaborate virtual reality simulation in which metaphysical thoughts are amplified. Once inside, it can become increasingly difficult to distinguish if the Island is real life or a simulation. The audio logs suggest that the first "proper" test of the Island will include someone coming back to reality ''only when they want to''; the hidden ending reveals the player actually returning to reality, unable to interact with objects in a way outside of the Island's parameters.]]

* WhamShot: [[spoiler:Arguably the game's final puzzle happens just before the end of the GoldenEnding - a puzzle that turns on a light in a darkened room. The room is revealed to be impressively photorealistic - becauuse it's actually represented by an FMV you control by walking backward and forward. Lying on the couch is a motionless figure with a sheet over it, hooked up to an IV and lying near a computer monitor. To find out who the figure is, simply walk to the end of the path...]]

* WaitingPuzzle: A few optional puzzles require you to wait on a moving platform of some sort while other elements of the puzzle move in and out of view. [[spoiler:One requires you to complete the Challenge (or obtain the reward through other means), and wait through the entire reward.]* * * WhamShot: [[spoiler:Arguably the game's final puzzle happens just before the end of the GoldenEnding - a puzzle that turns on a light in a darkened room. The room is revealed to be impressively photorealistic - becauuse it's actually represented by an FMV you control by walking backward and forward. Lying on the couch is a motionless figure with a sheet over it, hooked up to an IV and lying near a computer monitor. To find out who the figure is, simply walk to the end of the path...]]

* WaitingPuzzle: A few optional puzzles require you to wait on a moving platform of some sort while other elements of the puzzle move in and out of view. [[spoiler:One requires you to complete the Challenge (or obtain the reward through other means), and wait through the entire reward.]]

** Invoking this effect is the basis behind the [[spoiler: environmental puzzles]]. You can draw lines on [[spoiler: parts of the island itself to activate the obelisks' markings]].
** [[spoiler: The secret ending of the game suggests that [[spoiler: the player has succumbed to the effect within the reality of the universe, if not actually have become a RealityWarper. This has elements of both LeaningOnTheFourthWall and TheFourthWallWillNotProtectYou, since the only way to reach this point is to suffer the Tetris Effect yourself, since this is the only way (without reading a guide or otherwise being spoiled) of discovering the existence of environmental puzzles such as the one that triggers the secret ending.]]

* BrutalBonusLevel: [[spoiler: The Underground Maze, unlocked by activating all eleven lasers, turning on a hidden switch at the top of the mountain, and then solving an otherwise-deactivated panel inside the mountain.]] It contains easily the hardest puzzles in the entire game and includes [[spoiler:The Challenge, a particularly nasty set of panels activated by a record player that plays classical music. In addition to all of them being randomized and extremely difficult, [[TimedMission you have to finish the entire series before the music stops]]; let the music finish or pause the game and you have to start the entire series over again. [[ThatOnePuzzle Your sanity wishes you the best of luck]].]]

** The mechanic of the [[spoiler: orange triangle symbol]] can be hard to ascertain as puzzles with those are at first only found in oft-obscure locations across the map. This becomes a problem later in (and when trying to open)...

* TreeTopTown: The southwest portion, by the shipwreck, includes one.

* UnwinnableByMistake: The game generally makes a good effort to avoid having PermanentlyMissableContent, or letting players get stuck in areas. However, the swamp may be the exception: it's a tricky area to navigate, with several sections involving platforms that move when an associated panel is activated. The problem comes when said platforms can be triggered to move without the player standing on them, and the control panel unable to be used to move the platform back. Sometimes, you may be able to cimcurvent this by taking a ride on the boat or using one of the unlockable shortcuts to get to the now unreachable location. If that's not the case, you're going to have a really bad time finding a spot which gives you the perspective to activate a panel from a long distance that doesn't even allow you to see what you're doing (and that's if you can remember what the solution was). [[https://steamcommunity.com/app/210970/discussions/4/458607699622966916/ This]] is a particularly painful example.

* ArtisticLicenseBiology: Out of all the rooms inside the greenhouse, the one with green light is probably the most prominent: it provides the main difficulty for the elevator puzzle, it's harder to reach compared to the other rooms, it contains an audio log and an environmental puzzle, and it's the only one which can be seen from the outside. It's ironic that the green room was chosen to be this way, considering it's also ''the most unrealistic''. Chlorophyll absorbs light throughout the visible spectrum, but mostly in the blue and red regions and very little in the green region (in fact, of all the many pigments that plants use to absorb light, none of them absorb much green light).[[note]]This is actually a form of protection. The sun gives off the most amount of its energy as visible light in the green region of the spectrum (483-520 nm). Chlorophyll is easily destroyed by too much energy, and when the pigments break down and stop absorbing light entering the plant, that energy can cause damage to other plant tissues as well, including the plants DNA. Think of it as a sort of plant sunburn.[[/note]]

** The [[spoiler: secret ending]] of the game suggests that [[spoiler: the player has succumbed to the effect within the reality of the universe]], if not [[spoiler: actually have become a RealityWarper]].
*** Not coincidentally, [[spoiler:the puzzle that leads to this ending is the single most innocuous environmental puzzle in the entire game - requiring that the player has begun to suffer the Tetris Effect in ''real life'']].

** It's pretty safe to say that a 100% completion of the game is effectively impossible without looking up walkthrough instructions. Many of the optional puzzles (such as environmental monolith patterns) are so deeply obscure and may require such actions and timing as to be essentially impossible for a single person to find out in any reasonable amount of time, no matter how dedicated.

* AndYourRewardIsClothes: [[spoiler: Completing the Challenge nets the player the final hexagonal puzzle for the projection room, which unlocks a ''58-minute lecture'' on batteries, Shakespeare, and the concept of awe. Over a video of a ''solar eclipse.'' Which is part of an environmental puzzle. And you thought the cloud in ''VideoGame/{{Braid}}'' was bad....]]

** [[spoiler: The projection room, where solving one puzzle six different ways shows videos elaborating on the theme of the game, including James Burke contemplating "the key to change is the key of the world" (from the "Yesterday, Tomorrow and You" episode of ''Connections''); and of American guru Gangaji, who implores her followers to stop looking for what they want, "not cynically, but innocently and openly."]]

* BrutalBonusLevel: [[spoiler: The Underground Maze, unlocked by activating all eleven lasers, turning on a hidden switch at the top of the mountain, and then solving an otherwise-deactivated panel inside the mountain.]] It contains easily the hardest puzzles in the entire game and includes [[spoiler: The Challenge, a particularly nasty set of panels activated by a record player that plays classical music. In addition to all of them being randomized and extremely difficult, [[TimedMission you have to finish the entire series before the music stops]]; let the music finish or pause the game and you have to start the entire series over again. [[ThatOnePuzzle Your sanity wishes you the best of luck]].]]

''VideoGame/TheWitness'' is a 2016 adventure/puzzle video game by Creator/JonathanBlow, creator of ''VideoGame/{{Braid}}''.

* TheTetrisEffect: [[spoiler: The basis behind the environmental puzzles. You can draw lines on parts of the island itself to activate the obelisks' markings]].

** Far worse, however, are the [[spoiler: environmental puzzles]], entirely hidden [[spoiler: perspective-based puzzles that power the black obelisks]]; in short, it requires you to [[spoiler: line up the scenery in specific ways so that the telltale large starting circle and curved ending point of a path appear.]] Not only does the game never hint that they exist ([[spoiler:aside from a puzzle on the mountain shaped like the river below]]), but there are TONS of them and they require you to [[spoiler: trace symbols that appear only from certain perspectives, including paths on the ground, collections of flowers on the side of buildings]], and in one case, [[spoiler:an electric gate you have to line up WITH '''THE SUN''']]. And that's not even the worst one. At least one is [[spoiler:WITHIN A ''VIDEO'' in the cinema room]]. What's more, you have to [[spoiler:''go around the back of the projection screen and solve it through the refractional distortions created by the folds in the curtain'']]. In short, if something is [[spoiler:circular, or long and linear, it'll most likely be part of an environmental puzzle]].
** In fact, by the time one figures out that these even exist, they've already missed [[spoiler: completing the hidden puzzle that lines the electric fence, which opens the GoldenEnding. It is possible to turn the fence back on, avoiding LostForever status.]]