Jonathan Blow's Next Game - The Witness

Pages

IndieGames.com has posted that the teaser site for Jonathan Blow's next game, The Witness, is up and running.

The sparse opening page has the following quote from Tao Te Ching:

Something amorphous and consummate
existed before Heaven and Earth.
Solitude! Vast!
Standing alone, unaltering.
Going everywhere, yet unthreatened
It can be considered the Mother of the World
I don't know it's name, so I designate it, 'Tao'
Compelled to consider it, name it 'the Great'

Beyond that, you only get a simple description of the game -- "An exploration-puzzle game on an uninhabited island" -- and a goal for getting the game released across multiple platforms in late 2011. Myst, by way of philosophical taoism, perhaps?

Jebus. It's already pretentious and we haven't even seen a screenshot yet.

TheArtOfScience wrote:

Jebus. It's already pretentious and we haven't even seen a screenshot yet.

I know. Isn't it great?
In all honesty, I couldn't care less about the random esoteric poetry. If the game mechanic is as brilliant as Braid's, count me in.

Mr. Blow annoys me. I wont give him my money.

If Jonathan Blow worked on a project with Joss Whedon, the nerdgasm would become self sustaining and collapse into a geek singularity.

For some reason I am picturing a hapless missionary trying to convert cannibals on a desert island.

A taoist video game would be hilarious.

You'd just sit there eating, drinking, and sleeping until you die of old age at 100 y/o.

Dysplastic wrote:
TheArtOfScience wrote:

Jebus. It's already pretentious and we haven't even seen a screenshot yet.

I know. Isn't it great?
In all honesty, I couldn't care less about the random esoteric poetry. If the game mechanic is as brilliant as Braid's, count me in.

Dysplastic has the right of it, as usual.

TheArtOfScience wrote:

A taoist video game would be hilarious.

You'd just sit there eating, drinking, and sleeping until you die of old age at 100 y/o.

Can't you do that in the Sims?

I loved Braid despite the crap filled writing. I thought Braid was the best game last year. Hopefully The Witness can follow up.

Remember to bump this thread in three years when the game comes out and I will give it a try.

Late 2011?

Seriously?

Cobble wrote:

Mr. Blow annoys me. I wont give him my money.

Yeah, he's kind of a pretentious ass. I'd rather not reward him for it with payment.

He sort of reminds me of Derek Smart, only with more self control and a less impotent rage.

Thin_J wrote:
Cobble wrote:

Mr. Blow annoys me. I wont give him my money.

Yeah, he's kind of a pretentious ass. I'd rather not reward him for it with payment.

He sort of reminds me of Derek Smart, only with more self control and a less impotent rage.

In all fairness Mr. Blow probably has bowel movements that play better than a Derek Smart game.

At least Jonathon Blow can back up his talk with a well crafted game.

Which...I've never finished. I need to pull that out of the pile and finish the last couple of levels. Some of those puzzles have me... puzzled.

No argument on that count.

Just more of a general personality thing.

TheCounselor wrote:

Late 2011?

Seriously?

Did they tell Michelangelo he took too long to paint the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel? NO! Art of such great caliber cannot be rushed.

And while I fall into the group that is disinclined to give him money based on his personality, I will agree that he is better than Derek Smart.

I just gotta say, I love me some J.Blow. All you haters can step off because Number None is bringing thought, whimsy, art, and nonsense to games where it all rightfully deserves to be.

I have no beef with Jonathan Blow. All of my interactions with him have been pleasant, and he responded to a fairly critical piece about his game here with a lot of class.

Yeah, I don't see the pretension. Being pretentious is making an unsupportable claim. Had Braid been crap, then you could make the argument. By knocking Braid out the park, the claim is more than supportable, it's supported.

Pretentious?

I think the definition of pretentious has something to do with having a loud mouth but then not delivering-- Braid was mind-blowing.

I'd rather have a guy trying to make Art Games than someone tugging at my wallet with yearly sequels and DLC that should've been in the finished product in the first place.

At least someone's trying.

I sure hope Mr. Blow doesn't come over to my house with a gun and force me to play this game, too.

interstate78 wrote:

Pretentious?

I think the definition of pretentious has something to do with having a loud mouth but then not delivering-- Braid was mind-blowing.

I'd rather have a guy trying to make Art Games than someone tugging at my wallet with yearly sequels and DLC that should've been in the finished product in the first place.

At least someone's trying.

Bbraid was an art game? It seemed like just a Mario clone to me. Didn't Miyamoto make that back before games were ART? *making the Tim Burton artist face*

A lot of people's reaction remind me of high school, when it was not cool to be nerdy and ask intelligent questions in class.

I've watched many of his lectures, listened to interviews and the guy genuinely wants to make good games.

I could understand someone not liking him from reading the headlines because they always quote him out of context.

Yeah, maybe pretentious isn't the right word. I've got nothing against the guy personally and no doubt he made a good platformer.

The whole "deeper artistic meaning" thing just sort of sped by me though. So he's either talking about a woman or a nuclear bomb or some such nonsense.

To me it is that college town coffee shop sort of deep where the artist relies on being vague and expansive to give their work meaning.

Is the game a work of art? Yes. Is it artsy? Eh, I dunno. It certainly isn't some great treatise.

It seems like he's taking the same approach with this game. Quoting the Tao Te Ching? C'mon, that's more college coffee shop talk.

Art lies in the eye of the beholder. The issue I have with Braid is that it never really says anything. A whole lot of talking with no point to it.

So I don't have issues with the guy personally and I think that Braid is a good game but I don't see the whole artistic genius thing and it'd be nice if his next game ingendered a different approach.

LobsterMobster wrote:

Did they tell Michelangelo he took too long to paint the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel? NO! Art of such great caliber cannot be rushed.

And while I fall into the group that is disinclined to give him money based on his personality, I will agree that he is better than Derek Smart.

Why release a trailer now if your game is so far off? I don't care how long he takes to make his game, but two plus years of hype is overkill.

TheArtOfScience wrote:

The whole "deeper artistic meaning" thing just sort of sped by me though. So he's either talking about a woman or a nuclear bomb or some such nonsense.

To me it is that college town coffee shop sort of deep where the artist relies on being vague and expansive to give their work meaning.

That's pretty much the exact definition of pretentious, by the way.

Ulairi wrote:

Braid was an art game? It seemed like just a Mario clone to me. Didn't Miyamoto make that back before games were ART? *making the Tim Burton artist face*

Yeah and Half life was a Doom clone

TheArtOfScience wrote:

So I don't have issues with the guy personally and I think that Braid is a good game but I don't see the whole artistic genius thing and it'd be nice if his next game ingendered a different approach.

After playing Braid I was a bit shocked, I wanted to get a sense of what had just happened. Then the meaning of it all started to fall into place. I got in discussions, did a little research.

When was the last time a game did that to you?

I don't know what it takes for some people to see something as Art but to me it was and for a lot of other people too.

So far this thread has brought up the three things that every internet forum thread involving Jonathan Blow always brings up:

1) Blow is a douchebag.
2) Braid was an awesome game.
3) People need to stop using the word "pretentious" because they almost always misuse it.

Hrm,

Pretentious: expressive of affected, unwarranted, or exaggerated importance, worth, or stature

Nah, that's more or less what I mean. It's a good game but it isn't an artistic magnum opus like it is often labelled.

It's a good game though.

I think taking one of the first games to really try to bring meaning to the forefront of the player's attention and complaining it isn't as deep as other more mature works of art is basically complaining a Model-T can't outrun a '68 Mustang.

He was one of the first ones to try and I think the fact that he was so vague and in-your-face about the ambiguity of it all is the only reason we're still talking about it now. If he'd been perfectly subtle in the meaning of the game, everyone would've assumed it wasn't intentional, or it had no meaning, because that's how we treat almost every game we've ever played. Because before a couple of years ago it was so rare that any game designer ever tried to mean anything with their game that we simply assume it's tits and explosions.

Braid wasn't perfect, but it's head and shoulders over what came before and deserves (mostly) the praise it got when it was being hyped like crazy. Blow is a smart guy and isn't nearly as smarmy as everyone seems to think he is based on the text in Braid.

My take is that the text in Braid had to be pretentious, or everyone would've assumed it was dumb. I think we're in a better place now with regard to player expectations of meaning and artistic intent, so hopefully he can make a bit subtler game this time around.

kuddles wrote:

So far this thread has brought up the three things that every internet forum thread involving Jonathan Blow always brings up:

1) Blow is a douchebag.
2) Braid was an awesome game.
3) People need to stop using the word "pretentious" because they almost always misuse it.

I don't think the internet necessarily misuses the word "pretentious," but I think it is thrown around as a cudgel far, far too often. There seems to be a paranoia on the internet about elitism that may not be completely misplaced but which has the unfortunate effect of stifling creativity and ambition. If dealing with pretension is the price I have to pay for people creating games that try new and interesting things (even if they fail), I don't really have a problem with that.

Pages