Jonathan Blow has spent a lot of his money and the last five years building The Witness, the anticipated second project from Braid’s creator. It looks like you’ll be investing some time in the game, too, according to some details I scooped from a post on the EU PlayStation Blog.
Blow has estimated it will take around 100 hours for most people to achieve 100% completion, mastering all the puzzles and unlocking every secret on te game’s high contrast island.
This is Blow’s response to being asked if anything was cut to make the game more accessible: “Usually if I cut things it’s just because I don’t think they’re very good. I’ve cut hundreds of things from the game. Usually I cut them early – I start experimenting with something and decide I don’t like it. But there’s at least one puzzle in the game right now that almost nobody – like 1% of players – will ever be able to figure out.” Google, mate.
The Witness does sure look pretty, and Blow thinks it’s the best thing he’s ever done. “It’s the best game that I know how to make right now,” said Blow in the interview. “It pushed my design skills to the limit, it pushed my organisational skills… it’s a very complicated game with lots of things in it, and they’re not independent things. They all reference each other and work with each other, so you can’t just work on one thing at a time. That’s what I set out to do, but it also makes it very challenging sometimes.
“But yeah – It’s the best thing I’ve ever done, and that’s all you can ask for, right? I hope my next project will also be the best thing I’ve ever done, but for now it’s this.”
With all the money and time invested into The Witness, I hope it turns out to be something special myself. I’m certainly intrigued and look forward to seeing more of it when it releases on January 26, 2016.