# Puzzle game difficulty: "Baba is You" vs "The witness" **URL:** \ **Category:** The Game Room\ **Tags:** video-games-e-games\ **Created:** [May 20, 2024, 5:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/puzzle-game-difficulty-baba-is-you-vs-the-witness/1001815 "2024-05-20T17:33:49Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 14\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Humans](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/dfb087/32.png) [@Humans](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Humans)\ **Post date:** [May 20, 2024, 5:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/puzzle-game-difficulty-baba-is-you-vs-the-witness/1001815/1 "2024-05-20T17:33:49Z")
Which one did you find harder. Personally I’m not sure yet since I haven’t finished “Baba is You”, but I think it’s more logical and fairer. Despite saying that, it’s still pretty hard and I’m probably done less than half the levels. _Poll ([view on site](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/puzzle-game-difficulty-baba-is-you-vs-the-witness/1001815/1))_ ---
**Author:** ![puzzlegal](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/puzzlegal/32/3827_2.png) [@puzzlegal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/puzzlegal)\ **Post date:** [May 20, 2024, 5:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/puzzle-game-difficulty-baba-is-you-vs-the-witness/1001815/2 "2024-05-20T17:36:40Z")
I haven’t played both, but I’m curious what people say. I’ve played most of baba is you, and the witness is on my list. ---
**Author:** ![DCnDC](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dcndc/32/2842_2.png) [@DCnDC](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DCnDC)\ **Post date:** [May 20, 2024, 5:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/puzzle-game-difficulty-baba-is-you-vs-the-witness/1001815/3 "2024-05-20T17:41:26Z")
Merely by the use of words Baba is You is easier. The Witness is quite adamant about giving you nothing. ---
**Author:** ![Humans](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/dfb087/32.png) [@Humans](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Humans)\ **Post date:** [May 20, 2024, 6:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/puzzle-game-difficulty-baba-is-you-vs-the-witness/1001815/4 "2024-05-20T18:15:22Z")
There are some puzzles I couldn’t solve in both games, with Baba is you I end up thinking “I’m stupid” for not figuring it out, with the witness I’m sort of thinking “that’s stupid” Baba is you is definitely hard and it seems like it’s just going to get harder late game ---
**Author:** ![Humans](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/dfb087/32.png) [@Humans](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Humans)\ **Post date:** [May 20, 2024, 6:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/puzzle-game-difficulty-baba-is-you-vs-the-witness/1001815/5 "2024-05-20T18:19:34Z")
But the witness feels more of a full game than just a list of puzzles, so it gets points for that. Although it doesn’t integrate them in the game as well as the Myst games do. MYST beats them both in story and immersion ---
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [May 20, 2024, 10:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/puzzle-game-difficulty-baba-is-you-vs-the-witness/1001815/6 "2024-05-20T22:24:48Z")
I don’t know The Witness at all. But I will say that Baba is You was hard in a very unusual way: It required twisting your brain around in a way that brains aren’t used to being twisted. I don’t know if The Witness has that same property. ---
**Author:** ![Humans](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/dfb087/32.png) [@Humans](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Humans)\ **Post date:** [May 20, 2024, 10:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/puzzle-game-difficulty-baba-is-you-vs-the-witness/1001815/7 "2024-05-20T22:32:57Z")
Did you enjoy it though? If you did you’d probably enjoy the witness, and I think it’s easier on the brain. The puzzles are in an open world, not fully integrated in the world like Myst, but as panels but there’s still some cool interaction with the environment with some of them ---
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [May 20, 2024, 10:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/puzzle-game-difficulty-baba-is-you-vs-the-witness/1001815/8 "2024-05-20T22:55:43Z")
> [@Humans](#): > > Did you enjoy it though? Oh, absolutely. I love me a good brain-twisting. ---
**Author:** ![Snarky\_Kong](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/a183cd/32.png) [@Snarky\_Kong](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Snarky_Kong)\ **Post date:** [May 21, 2024, 3:57am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/puzzle-game-difficulty-baba-is-you-vs-the-witness/1001815/9 "2024-05-21T03:57:42Z")
I haven’t played Baba is You (i’m intrigued now though), but The Witness does require twisting your brain. I would guess not in the same way, but who knows. ---
**Author:** ![DCnDC](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dcndc/32/2842_2.png) [@DCnDC](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DCnDC)\ **Post date:** [May 21, 2024, 3:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/puzzle-game-difficulty-baba-is-you-vs-the-witness/1001815/10 "2024-05-21T15:19:37Z")
> [@Chronos](#): > > Oh, absolutely. I love me a good brain-twisting. You’d probably like Daniel Mullins games. ---
**Author:** ![Lumpy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lumpy/32/446_2.png) [@Lumpy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lumpy)\ **Post date:** [May 21, 2024, 3:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/puzzle-game-difficulty-baba-is-you-vs-the-witness/1001815/11 "2024-05-21T15:23:52Z")
Please tell me it’s not one of those puzzles that begins with “two perfectly logical people”, that falls into an endless chain of “I deduce that you deduce that I deduced that you deduced…” ---
**Author:** ![Humans](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/dfb087/32.png) [@Humans](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Humans)\ **Post date:** [May 21, 2024, 3:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/puzzle-game-difficulty-baba-is-you-vs-the-witness/1001815/12 "2024-05-21T15:54:42Z")
Nah, you play as a 2d sheep that moves tiles that have words on them to modify the game logic so you can win the level. It’s more fun than my poor description of it ---
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [May 21, 2024, 8:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/puzzle-game-difficulty-baba-is-you-vs-the-witness/1001815/13 "2024-05-21T20:39:44Z")
To be clear, that’s Baba is You. There are all sorts of objects in the game world, but most of them don’t have any meaning except what’s given to them by the rules of any given level. So for instance, if there’s the rule WALL IS STOP, then when you try to walk into a brick wall, you just go bonk… but if there isn’t such a rule, then you can walk right through the WALL. And the words that the rules are made of are themselves objects, and the rules are written within the game world itself, so if you can reach that WALL IS STOP rule to change it, you can make the walls permeable, which might be the key needed to solve that particular puzzle. That would be a very simple puzzle; other ones end up with much more complicated grammar, and much more complicated ways of interacting with them. And then halfway through the game… Well, your brain gets even more twisted. ---
**Author:** ![Hoopy\_Frood](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/hoopy_frood/32/8452_2.png) [@Hoopy\_Frood](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hoopy_Frood)\ **Post date:** [May 22, 2024, 4:29am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/puzzle-game-difficulty-baba-is-you-vs-the-witness/1001815/14 "2024-05-22T04:29:38Z")
> [@Chronos](#): > > And then halfway through the game… Well, your brain gets even more twisted. And after that they introduce one-way conveyor belts.