History YMMV / TheWitness

* ThatOnePuzzle: Oh boy.

** Believe it or not, the saving mechanic can be considered this. The game, while allowing you to save an quit at any point, does ''not'' have any dedicated save slots, and ''only'' has auto-save files. What this basically means is if you decide to start a new game, you run the risk of losing your "completed" save file if you don't load it back up every now and then to keep it on the top of the list.

* ScrappyMechanic: The self-disabling panels. Many panels in the game are connected via wires that indicate the power flowing from one to another. A lot of these panels disable themselves when a wrong solution is entered, forcing you to return to the previous panel and reenter the correct solution to turn on the next panel again. Theoretically, this serves to discourage the player from brute forcing puzzles, but there are several problems with this. The first problem is the nebulous criteria that the game chooses to determine which puzzles self-disable.[[labelnote:Explanation]]This feature appears in more complex puzzles that have many possible solutions and are therefore unlikely to be brute forced: the self-disablement here just serves to unnecessarily punish players for making a mistake. A good example is the final puzzle in the symmetry area: brute forcing it would take ''a long'' time, while it doesn't usually take much time to be solved correctly and players usually solve it easily; however, it's a puzzle where it's ''very'' easy to make a mistake on the first try even if trying to solve it properly. Meanwhile, there are a few cases of puzzles where it's viable to brute force them, but ''don't'' have the self-disabling mechanic. An example would be the last puzzle in the flooded basement of the desert temple: that specific puzzle is particularly hard and tedious to solve correctly (see ThatOneLevel for more information), so brute forcing it (at least partially) ends up being comparatively much easier and faster than trying to solve it the intended way, yet the game didn't bother here with the self-disabling.[[/labelnote]] The second problem is the bad job this mechanic does at what's intended. [[labelnote:Explanation]]In the case of puzzles where it's ''actually'' viable to brute force, the previous panel still shows the right solution, making it easy to reenter it and reactivate the next panel: the self-disablement here doesn't discourage brute force so much as slightly prolong it.[[/labelnote]] The final problem is the question of whether it's even ''worth'' to try to prevent the player from brute forcing a puzzle. [[labelnote:Explanation]]After all, a player who's stuck with a puzzle (and thus can't solve it properly) and tries to brute force it to get past, ''surely'' must know it's not the intended way (i.e., that's cheating). A player who is willing to brute force but isn't allowed to do so, is then likely to say "screw it" and just look for a walkthrough – which is arguably even worse since it's more of a slippery slope.[[/labelnote]]

** The fourth puzzle in the blue-with-red area of the swamp. By that point, the game has taught the player how [[spoiler:hollow blue Tetris blocks]] work, and had only used them in singles in individual squares. Suddenly, the player is faced with a puzzle that not only features a 2x2 of them in one square, but within a puzzle that has very little room for all of the pieces to begin with without overlap. Is the answer to [[spoiler:arrange them in a way that fits the field, subtract the 2x2 square, then rearrange the resulting pieces so that they all contain the four points needed]]? Nope! Apparently, adding to the swamp's TutorialFailure on the main page, ''[[ViolationOfCommonSense you have to ]]''''[[spoiler:[[ViolationOfCommonSense overlap the yellow pieces]]'']]. [[labelnote:Solution spoiler]]Put the L piece down in the left corner, then the J piece OVER that in the right corner, creating a ".::." shape. The middle two bottom squares now have TWO squares on top, each. The eraser squares each remove ONE square. Thus, applying it to the middle "::" of this figure results in the overlapping squares being erased, as well as the non-overlapped squares, thus leaving a line.[[/labelnote]] In all of the previous ones, one could easily interpret the [[spoiler:blue square]] as being applied to a piece ''before'' laying them down, [[spoiler:making room to fit,]] so long as the new square is in the overall shape. Apparently, you were ''supposed'' to [[spoiler:overlap the pieces, then use the blue squares to cancel out overlapping squares and destroy any solo squares otherwise]]. Here's a [[https://www.reddit.com/r/TheWitness/comments/4f96ko/bluered_underwater_room_in_the_swamp_forth_puzzle/ link]] to a Reddit discussion which includes an easy-to-understand infographic to the logic behind the solution.

* SpiritualSuccessor: Very much in the style of ''Myst'' (even more so its sequel ''{{VideoGame/Riven}}''), with the lonely BeautifulVoid and numerous puzzles aimed towards a common goal.

* ParanoiaFuel: [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kLp_Hh6DKWc In the Hall of the Mountain King]], which plays during the [[spoiler: mountain puzzles]] is one of the most anxiety-inducing pieces of ClassicalMusic you will ever hear.
* ScrappyMechanic: The self-disabling panels. Many panels in the game are connected via wires that indicate the power flowing from one to another. A lot of these panels disable themselves when a wrong solution is entered, forcing you to return to the previous panel and reenter the correct solution to turn on the next panel again. Theoretically, this serves to discourage the player from brute forcing puzzles, but there are several problems with this. The first problem is the nebulous criteria that the game chooses to determine which puzzles self-disable.[[labelnote:Explanation]]This feature appears in more complex puzzles that have many possible solutions and are therefore unlikely to be brute forced: the self-disablement here just serves to unnecessarily punish players for making a mistake. A good example is the final puzzle in the symmetry area: brute forcing it would take ''a long'' time, while it doesn’t usually take much time to be solved correctly and players usually solve it easily; however, it’s a puzzle where it’s ''very'' easy to make a mistake on the first try even if trying to solve it properly. Meanwhile, there are a few cases of puzzles where it’s viable to brute force them, but ''don’t'' have the self-disabling mechanic. An example would be the last puzzle in the flooded basement of the desert temple: that specific puzzle is particularly hard and tedious to solve correctly (see ThatOneLevel for more information), so brute forcing it (at least partially) ends up being comparatively much easier and faster than trying to solve it the intended way, yet the game didn’t bother here with the self-disabling.[[/labelnote]] The second problem is the bad job this mechanic does at what's intended. [[labelnote:Explanation]]In the case of puzzles where it’s ''actually'' viable to brute force, the previous panel still shows the right solution, making it easy to reenter it and reactivate the next panel: the self-disablement here doesn't discourage brute force so much as slightly prolong it.[[/labelnote]] The final problem is the question of whether it’s even ''worth'' to try to prevent the player from brute forcing a puzzle. [[labelnote:Explanation]]After all, a player who’s stuck with a puzzle (and thus can’t solve it properly) and tries to brute force it to get past, ''surely'' must know it’s not the intended way (ie: that’s cheating). A player who is willing to brute force but isn’t allowed to do so, is then likely to say “screw it” and just look for a walkthrough – which is arguably even worse since it’s more of a slippery slope.[[/labelnote]]

** The entry into the vault on the shipwreck. Aside from the TimedMission below, the infamous sunken ship panel has a reputation for being unintuitive in the extreme. Blow revealed in an [=AMA=] for Reddit that this was the puzzle he was thinking of when he off-handedly stated that "only 1% of players" would be able to solve it. [[spoiler: It's a multi-layered, well hidden audio puzzle. It incorporates elements from puzzles all over the island, except mashed up to the point that realizing what's involved is half the puzzle. The bamboo forest's sound element is here, though it's part of the environment and not obviously artificial, leading some players to ignore it completely. The symmetry line from the ocean pillars is included as well, though it's invisible, and the colors that normally indicate its presence are muddled by a red light from the Greenhouse tinting everything.]]

** For colorblind and/or hearing impaired players, there are two sections of the game which can be difficult, if not impossible, to complete. They can't be mentioned without spoiling the entire mechanics of the areas, but here goes, for those curious: [[spoiler: the jungle area puzzles are based entirely on the audio pitches of birdsong]], while [[spoiler: the greenhouse bunker works entirely on manipulating colours of light to find the "true" puzzle.]] One puzzle in the keep also relies on [[spoiler: audio cues]] to solve, and two additional (one in the hub/town and another on the shipwreck) run on recognizing [[spoiler: how the audio cues work when translated to a geometrical representation -- something explored in the jungle section]]. On this, Blow has said that he and his team ultimately decided to keep these puzzles intact, allowing the player to bypass them by only requiring seven of the eleven lasers to be fired the mountain in order to open it -- which is alright, until one realizes that the endgame [[spoiler:inside the mountain]] includes puzzles full of colour-based InterfaceScrew where solutions are required in order to finish the game. Color-blind players may also have trouble with [[spoiler:the walkways through the trees, which are all about the different-colored suns. At one point, as many as five different colors are in the puzzle at the same time, and since color must match with color...]]

** [[spoiler: [[BrutalBonusLevel The Challenge]] in the underground cavern. Where does one even start with this monstrosity? First, almost all of them are extremely tough. Second, there's over a dozen of them. Third, they're all ''random''. Fourth, in at least two places, the ''location'' of the puzzle is random as well, one of these sections being in [[TheMaze a maze]] chock full of shifting walls and blank panels (though this one is properly foreshadowed in another puzzle in the challenge). Fifth, in one section, you're given multiple panels to solve at once, in which ''only one of them can actually be solved''; you have to figure out which one it is in addition to actually solving it. And the massive rotten cherry on top? ''[[TimedMission It's all timed]]'': if the music stops (or you [[NoFairCheating pause]]), all the panels shut down, meaning you have to go back and ''do the whole thing over again''. It goes without saying that by the time you actually manage to conquer this beast (and give yourself a huge pat on the back if you can), you will come to loathe [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kLp_Hh6DKWc In the Hall of the Mountain King]] with a burning passion for the rest of your days.]]

** Similarly, while tetrominos are used very often in puzzles, the blue, hollow tetrominos are seldom seen outside of the swamp (what's more, the swamp only uses them in the last puzzles). Again, only ''three'' puzzles use them: one in the vault near the desert ruins, another in an optional part of the treehouse area, and another in the caves. It's not clear why this happened, although [[https://www.reddit.com/r/TheWitness/comments/6c3fwx/polyomino_symmetry_violation_detected/ a theory]] could explain it. It's been reported a glitch where, when pairing hollow tetrominos with the ''exact'' same number of solid tetrominos, the game automatically cancels them among themselves, without bothering to check if the shapes are also the same (as it does when the number of hollow and solid tetrominos isn't the same). This could lead to many unintended solutions, except that there was a good bit of DevelopersForesight, and existing puzzles involving hollow tetrominos are carefully designed so that it's completely impossible to even input such a solution. However, the presence of this glitch may have forced the developers to reduce the number of puzzles involving those glitched tetrominos.

** The Y symbol found in the quarry puzzles is seldom seen outside the quarry. There are ''four'' puzzles that use it: one in the ghost town, another in the windmill basement, another in the mountain ground floor (technically four, although they're all part of one, big puzzle), and another in the caves. That's it. The reason has probably to do with the way the game reutilises the symbols in areas different to the one that introduces them. In later puzzles, the game tends to combine several symbols to make more complex puzzles, or otherwise adding a gimmick that creates a variation on previously seen puzzles. However, by its own nature, the Y symbol ''must'' be combined with other symbols, which means its introductory area already exhausted all possible ways to combine it with other symbols, and its reliance on other symbols makes more difficult to add gimmicks specifically designed around it, as opposed to more simple symbols that can easily have gimmicks.