Not too much of a spoiler at this point, but there are at least four more sun-glint puzzles in the area. Probably several more than even that, but those are the ones I know of off the top of my head.
OK, now that I know what to look for, I’ve jumped to +13, with leads on a couple more (plus probably a ton more once I go back to some other areas). Some things I’ve determined about that sort of puzzle:
The glowing runes on the monoliths aren’t hints to future puzzles; they’re mementos of the environmental puzzles you did to reveal them.
At least one can’t be solved all at once: You have to set something else in motion and wait for your path to move appropriately.
And I’m pretty sure that there’s one in the sky, if you can just find the right position to view the clouds from.
I’ve also activated my fourth laser, and found yet another one that I’ve almost activated, but it was giving me a headache.
Ah, welcome to The Witness. You will now be seeing circles with lines coming out of them in everything you see.
Would you like me to tell you one you missed that was right there for you? Just a tiny spoiler if you are curious.
I feel like this is the real meta-commentary in the game. It’s a manifestation of the Tetris effect, where you start seeing the game elements in your dreams and your imagination and even just ordinary objects. Except that this is now itself part of the game.
No thanks, though there’s a chance that I’ve found it anyway. I’ve found:
- In the desert, two viewed from the top of the structure, and two on the wall of the structure.
- One on the desert coast, that I had to trace a line around me down and back up the ramp I was standing on.
- Two more a little ways off in the desert, where there was a wall with a curved top surface
- One in swirls in the sand.
- In the quarry, one outside, where the circle was a pile of gravel
- Two inside the quarry warehouse
- One at the spillway at the top of the quarry, in some plumbing
- One in the quarry dockhouse, that I had to move a claw into the right place for
- One that I apparently can’t remember where it was, because that only added up to 13
- I also have leads on a few more: I know the railroad tracks in the quarry are one, but I haven’t yet figured out how to complete it. I think there’s another in the quarry dockhouse, with the movable ramp. I think there’s another one on the desert coast, that probably needs to be done from the boat. And I haven’t taken a good look yet, but I’d guess there’s one involving the shipwreck, because that’s an awfully big thing to not have any purpose.
Right, but you can see how many more such puzzles there are and more or less where to start looking for them.
I won’t tell, then. Have fun!
Neat. There’s a second +N number in the savefile for when you
complete a monolith. I’m up to +72, +1.
That Jonathan Blow is a clever guy. I liked the environmental puzzles in the
archaeological dig site. You had to solve them in a different way than you originally did, but also in a way that was impossible the first time. You had new restrictions but also new “abilities”. Solely dictated by the geometry of the area.
It really is like a whole second game that few people will find, let alone finish.
I’ve found a bunch more. I’m guessing that the obvious one you mentioned was at the top of the mountain, right behind the panel with the trivial puzzle, there’s a pond and river in the exact same shape. If not that one, then it has not escaped my notice that the Sun is round. But I haven’t found any path that connects to it, either in the sky or in it reflection in water.
I also see what you mean, that you really do need to see all the scenery when you use the map-travel option. For one thing, I think one of the goals of the game was to teach patience. For another, though, there are a lot of puzzles that need to not only be done from the boat, but from the boat while it’s moving. There are at least three associated with the shipwreck that way, plus at least two more that I’ve found (a line of reflectors by the desert coast, and a path of yellow streaks on the side of the mountain).. In fact, it seems quite common for the environmental puzzles to require motion: I’ve also found three on the windmill, and there are also some in the quarry that require motion
I’m now up to five activations, and based on what I’m seeing on the mountaintop, it looks like something interesting will happen at seven. But there are at least three more that I haven’t activated yet, plus likely more that I just haven’t found yet, so it appears to be possible to skip some. On the one that was giving me a headache as of last post, I was trying to do it the hard way. I discovered that there was an entire sequence of puzzles I missed (not hidden; I just didn’t notice them) that both made it a lot easier, and recontextualized it in a way that meant that the hard way I was trying wasn’t going to work anyway.
Finally, two non-spoilered questions. First, after you do whatever it is that the game defines as “winning”, you can still continue to explore and do puzzles you passed over, right? I don’t want to cut myself off.
Second, any clues as to when I can read the various spoilered posts in this thread?
There is one, but it’s not in the desert.
Also, there definitely looks to be a really crazy one involving the sun and the moon but I have not been able to solve it yet.
I think you just reappear at the beginning area? Seems like I should replay this game and refresh my memory…
But when you do, do all of the puzzles you’ve already done continue to be done, so you can pick up where you left off? Or is it just starting a new game?
This is one of my all-time favorite games. It’s beautiful, particularly the environmental puzzles, and I love the fair difficulty. I mean, some of the puzzles get incredibly tough but the information is there. It’s a tribute to the developers both that they could devise such puzzles and respect the player enough that they will be able to figure them out.
On the subject of the endgame, a lot of people here are saying they’ve completed the game, but I see no mention here of the caves. And did you also find the full ending unlocked at the very start?
It resets the puzzles. I think you need to use a save before the final puzzle is solved to continue and there is a lot of extra content.
I also did not solve a single environmental puzzle. I spotted many of them, but I didn’t manage to complete a single one.
I had just finished doing the hedge maze area that required you to walk the puzzle paths in the environment just before going to the mountain top for the first time I was in the mindset that environmental puzzle are solved by physically moving the path of the puzzle.
When I saw the river from the top of the mountain, my conclusion was that I was supposed to find a path into the river, and then “solve” the environmental river puzzle by swimming the path of the river, so I went down and spent about 15 minutes trying to find a way into the river. I similarly tried to solve one nearby environmental puzzle with paths on the ground by trying to physically walk the path. It never occurred to me to try clicking.
When I say my wife and I did “every” puzzle, I exclude to things from that:
- did not find or even try to find and connect all environmental puzzles
- did not do one of the “post game” challenges I found too un-fun
I considered tablets to be the main game and I did all of them, even one post-game/not-required one that was extremely difficult and one of the best puzzles I ever solved. I shudder thinking about it.
Edit: Post-game, to me, is everything considered “the caves” or something. I know there was an uber-challenge area and we did it.
I’m going to talk a bit about the endgame stuff but mostly in a generic enough way that I think spoilers aren’t needed.
Re: the caves; the caves are quite a big area, so if you loved the game as much as me, you’re missing out if you don’t do that bit. But on the other hand, they are really tough too.
(When I first found the timed challenge, I thought “That’s nuts, I’m not going to waste my time attempting to do that…” but I eventually succumbed.)
Re: the environmental puzzles, I did get stuck on the last few and had to google them, and it was one of those times where I had no regrets about cheating. Because e.g. a couple need you to be standing in a very specific spot and looking in a direction that you have no reason to be looking. It is a slight exception to the “fair difficulty” I alluded to upthread.
Re: the tablets, if you mean what I think by the tablets Mahaloth, then have you watched the extra credits bit?
It’s only the timed thing I skipped. I did the uber-hard tablet puzzles.
Yes, but on Youtube I think.
My stats are 518, +102, +2. 100% is apparently 523, +135, +6. So apparently I’m missing 5 tablets and 33 environmental puzzles.
I know at least one of the environmental puzzles requires you to sit through 40 minutes of a movie, so fuck that. The one tablet I remember not being able to do is the one in the sunken ship that requires you to listen to the dripping water. I don’t recall if I looked up the solution to that or just never finished.
I’ve done all the caves including the timed event, which I didn’t think were that bad. Challenging, but reasonable. No clue what the other 4 or 5 I’m missing could be.
@Chronos , we are getting some pretty serious spoilers in these spoiler-posts now, so avoid at all cost!