History VideoGame / TheWitness

** The player is entirely incapable of falling off of anything. Then again, they can't jump, either.

* MoonLogicPuzzle:
** Usually averted. Even if a puzzle doesn't seem to make sense, there is a logical explanation for its mechanics. However, there's one particular puzzle in the jungle (specifically, the last puzzle in the first set) that's so excruciatingly hard and makes so little sense, that even the most hardcore fans who otherwise tell people not to use walkthroughs will make an exception with this puzzle, and often refer to it as "the one single puzzle I had to brute force". There have been ''[[https://www.reddit.com/r/TheWitness/comments/5nefl8/i_really_really_dont_understand_why_this_is_the/ many]]'' [[https://www.reddit.com/r/TheWitness/comments/5prw53/the_witness_30_sounding/ debates]], after figuring out the solution, about exactly ''why'' is right. The puzzle requires to input a five-note audio[[note]]There's been a debate about whether it's composed of four or five. WordOfGod has said they're indeed five notes, and has anyway been confirmed through spectral analysis.[[/note]] into a panel that only has room for four notes (to complicate things further, there's another audio that is meant to be a distraction but ''does'' have four notes). The most commonly accepted explanation is that the puzzle asks you to think of the audio as one continuous sound, and sort of "plot" the local max and min pitches on the panel, although that goes against ''every single other'' puzzle in the area, whose rule is that the line has to match the notes precisely.
** You progress by tracing the correct path through mazes presented on various electronic panels and other surfaces. [[spoiler:Once you've played long enough, you may start to notice similar shapes in the surrounding environment. These can actually be interacted with and traced like any other maze.]]

* WhamLine: "What?" [[spoiler: The line appears on two audio logs. The first time it ends an audiolog about boats found in the treehouse area, and is the only one up to that point that'll do that. Til then players are just expected to think the audiologs are just random banter, so the "What?" line comes off as a hook for something else going on. Later on in the Expert section of the mountain, one of the first audiologs you can find is the same one from before, but it continues to run well after the quotation is read, and is where the plot of the game starts to be revealed.]]

** Before that, there's the first big [[TheReveal Reveal]] on top of the Mountain, [[spoiler:with a puzzle panel that doesn't do anything and a river that looks exactly like it below...]][[note]][[spoiler:The river can be interacted with and solved just like the panel.]][[/note]] Although inquisitive players will likely discover that Reveal by themselves much earlier.

** Before that, there's the first big [[TheReveal Reveal]] on top of the Mountain, [[spoiler:with a puzzle panel that doesn't do anything and a river that looks exactly like it below...]][[note]]The river can be interacted with and solved just like the panel.[[/note]] Although inquisitive players will likely discover that Reveal by themselves much earlier.

** Before that, there's the first big [[TheReveal Reveal]] on top of the Mountain, [[spoiler:with a puzzle panel that doesn't do anything and a river that looks exactly like it below...]][[note]][[spoiler:The river can be interacted with and solved just like the panel.]][[/note]] Although inquisitive players will likely discover that Reveal by themselves much earlier.

** Before that, there's the first big [[TheReveal Reveal]] on top of the Mountain, [[spoiler:with a puzzle panel that doesn't do anything and a river that looks exactly like it below...[[note]]The river can be interacted with and solved just like the panel.]][[/note]] Although inquisitive players will likely discover that Reveal by themselves much earlier.

** Before that, there's the first big [[TheReveal Reveal]] on top of the Mountain, [[spoiler:with a puzzle panel that doesn't do anything and a river that looks exactly like it below...]] [[note]] [[spoiler:The river can be interacted with and solved just like the panel.]] [[/note]] Although inquisitive players will likely discover that Reveal by themselves much earlier.

** Before that, there's the first big [[TheReveal Reveal]] on top of the Mountain, [[spoiler:with a puzzle panel that doesn't do anything and a river that looks exactly like it below...]][[note]][[spoiler:The river can be interacted with and solved just like the panel.]][[/note]] Although inquisitive players will likely discover that Reveal by themselves much earlier.

* NoFairCheating: [[spoiler:If you pause at any point during The Challenge, the entire sequence resets and you have to start all over. The [=PS4=] port has a sort of loophole by putting the console in Rest Mode, which suspends the game state and does not count as a pause]].

* WhamLine: "What?" [[spoiler: The line appears on two audio logs. The first time it ends an audiolog about boats found in the treehouse area, and is the only one up to that point that'll do that. Til then players are just expected to think the audiologs are just random banter, so the "What?" line comes off a a hook for something else going on. Later on in the Expert section of the mountain, one of the first audiologs you can find is the same one from before, but it continues to run well after the quotation is read, and is where the plot of the game starts to be revealed.]]

* AbsurdlyLongWait: If you want 100% completion (ie. solve every single puzzle in the game) you'd better be prepared for a ridiculously long wait. [[spoiler:One of the puzzles requires watching a video of an eclipse that's over 50 minutes long. (The camera must be pointing at the video the entire time or else the puzzle cannot be completed. Meaning the player cannot do anything else in the game while waiting.) Speedrunning of this game has a 99.8% category which requires solving every puzzle in the game except this one (because the speedrunner literally cannot do anything during this puzzle than wait for over 50 minutes. In fact, there's a 100% speedrun that has the speedrunner get up from their chair, leave their house, order fast food, come back, and eat it, all in the duration of this puzzle.)]]

* AbsurdlyLongWait: If you want 100% completion (ie. solve every single puzzle in the game) you'd better be prepared for a ridiculously long wait. [[spoiler:One of the puzzles requires watching a video of an eclipse that's over 50 minutes long. (The camera must be pointing at the video the entire time or else the puzzle cannot be completed. Meaning the player cannot do anything else in the game while waiting.) Speedrunning of this game has a 99.8% category which requires solving every puzzle in the game except this one (because the speedrunner literally cannot do anything during this puzzle than wait for over 50 minutes.)]]

* MetroidVania:
** A unique example in that you progress though the island not by acquiring upgrades but by acquiring the knowledge in how the puzzle symbols work together.
** This even applies to the [[spoiler:GoldenEnding, which can be accessed from the very beginning by completing an environmental puzzle involving the first gate, but without the knowledge of environmental puzzles in your first playthrough you likely shut off said gate, making it no longer possible to access the secret ending until you've reached the standard ending, or found the gate's reactivation sequence in the caves.]]

* 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, ''because'' it was so cool (and the lecture was actually well-researched, too.)

* MetroidVania: A unique example in that you progress though the island not by acquiring upgrades but by acquiring the knowledge in how the puzzle symbols work together.

* ShoutOut: An old game by CBS Electronics called "Mountain King" [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mtCq53IouHk featured a timed challenge]], all while two classical music tracks sounded: "Anitra's Dance" and "In the Hall of the Mountain King", both from Edvard Grieg. [[spoiler:Players who have made to the end of this game will find similar to another timed challenge which also plays those two same tracks...]]

** The mechanic behind tetrominos is that [[spoiler:lines must be drawn so that the different sections have the same shape as the tetromino. Players will soon understand that, when there are several tetrominos, the drawn sections can stack together, instead of having each tetromino enclosed in its own section separated from all others. However, something harder to understand is that the tetromino ''doesn’t'' have to be placed in the same shape that is forcing, as long as it’s inside the same drawn section that said shape. Coming to that realization is a big jump of logic; some players will soon make that jump, while many others will struggle ''a lot'' and get stuck for a while at the first puzzle that requires it. This is the only example here where the game actually ''tries'' to explain the conflicting mechanic, but even then, it’s only through ''one'' puzzle out of the ''fourteen'' that comprise the tutorial for tetrominos, so it doesn’t really work well.]]

[[quoteright:224:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/witnessposter.png]]

* CallBack: One puzzle is solved with the help of a set of slow moving clouds, in a nod to a similar maneuver made by Blow in his previous game, ''{{VideoGame/Braid}}.''

* DamnYouMuscleMemory: [[spoiler: The puzzles in The Challenge change each time you have to restart it. Pausing the game will count as a fail.]]

* GainaxEnding: [[spoiler: The standard ending includes a flyover of the island wherein the entire thing resets and the player is returned to the starting point, as [[http://www.diamond-sutra.com/diamond_sutra_text/page32.html an excerpt of the Diamond Sutra]] is read.]][[note]]The excerpt lists the ways to contemplate one's own existence in the world only, without the surrounding context provided in the link.[[/note]]

** The aforementioned Red Ship Door puzzle, which Blow himself hinted to be the single most difficult puzzle in the game. [[spoiler: One of the main reasons is that the information you need to even understand what it is about are to be found into two different areas of the game. One of these is however inaccessible at the start of the game, while the other is rather small and well hidden and it's easy to miss it while exploring the way bigger and prominent landmarks of the game (like the ship itself)]].

** The endgame area features [[spoiler: increasingly broken puzzle panels whose grid rotates or moves, panels that flash rainbow colors and make it hard to discern the true color of symbols, and a set of panels which you control simultaneously and must solve all at once.]]
* InterfaceSpoiler: After a while you figure out that if a mechanism moves ''verrrry'' slowly, it means [[spoiler: there's an environmental puzzle nearby that can only be solved while the mechanism is in motion (which would be difficult to solve if the mechanism was moving at a more normal speed).]]

* JigsawPuzzlePlot: In a very literal sense. Not only does one have to solve puzzles in order to uncover the plot, but [[spoiler: the plot itself is a carefully hidden puzzle, buried in a hidden section of the mountain, found in the form of audio recorders that provide their own clues as to what happened.]]

* MindScrew: Many of [[spoiler: the environmental puzzles]] come across as this, considering that you have to draw them [[spoiler: on the sides of buildings, cracks in large objects, and even, in at least one case, ''the sun'']] and that unlike most of the puzzles, which have a patient build-up, [[GuideDangIt the game gives little indication that they even exist]]. [[note]] There is a hint on the top of The Mountain. A simple line-panel overlooks a river with an identical pattern. This goes [[GameplayAndStoryIntegration very well]] with the audio log about new perspectives (of Earth from outer space no less) found in the same place. [[/note]]

* NoFairCheating: [[spoiler: If you pause at any point during The Challenge, the entire sequence resets and you have to start all over. The [=PS4=] port has a sort of loophole by putting the console in Rest Mode, which suspends the game state and does not count as a pause]].

* OntologicalMystery: The player starts at the end of a dark metal tube shelter underground, opening doors to climb up onto a castle's patio. [[spoiler: The normal ending returns the player to the same spot, undoing all of the work they have done. The hidden GoldenEnding as well as hidden in-game audio reveal this area to be the starting point of an elaborate virtual reality simulation.]]

* SetPiecePuzzle: The landscape is incorporated into many of the island's puzzles. [[spoiler: And in plenty of instances, the landscape ''is'' the puzzle.]]

** Before that, there's the first big [[TheReveal Reveal]] on top of the Mountain, [[spoiler: with a puzzle panel that doesn't do anything and a river that looks exactly like it below...]][[note]][[spoiler:The river can be interacted with and solved just like the panel.]][[/note]] Although inquisitive players will likely discover that Reveal by themselves much earlier.

* WhereItAllBegan: The GoldenEnding [[spoiler: is accessed by solving an environmental puzzle using the gate from the starting area. Of course, one of the first things the player does is turn the gate off, making solving it impossible; to turn it on again, they have to activate all of the lasers and complete most of the puzzles in the End to access the Caverns and find the gate's reactivation pattern. This journey clues the player in on the existence of environmental puzzles, which they'll need to find the ending, and, through audio logs, gives them backstory context they'll need to appreciate it]].[[note]][[spoiler: Of course, if the player just so happens to have figured out environmental puzzles within the first few minutes of the game, they can [[SequenceBreaking access the Golden Ending right away.]]]][[/note]]

Not to be confused with the 1983 InteractiveFiction game from Creator/{{Infocom}} with [[NamesTheSame the same name]].

* HardLight: The gate blocking the way out of the starting area is made of this. Also, the [[spoiler:bridges inside the mountain.]]

* HardLight: The bridges [[spoiler: inside of the mountain.]]

** Before that, there's the first big [[TheReveal Reveal]] on top of the Mountain, [[spoiler: with a puzzle panel that doesn't do anything and a river that looks exactly like it below...]]