Jonathan Blow, creator of the award-winning, hugely successful indie game Braid, today unveiled previews of his upcoming game The Witness, a 3D puzzle/adventure game.
Kotaku is already hailing it a modern-day Myst. Indeed, the comparisons to Myst seem well-justified. Set on a mysterious, uninhabited island, the player assumes the role of The Witness, a silent protagonist who roams about the island in search of—well, what exactly, we don’t know yet. The gameplay seems to be an interesting mix of first-person exploration and labyrinth-like puzzle solving in the form of locked “key” panels that grow increasingly more complex and open paths to new areas of exploration as the game progresses .
But Jonathan Blow is quick to point out that there’s much more to the game than simple puzzle-solving. The Witness is about “[using] the senses as a gateway to understanding the universe,” he says. Anyone already familiar with Braid will know that Jonathan’s games have much more in store than meets the eye.
Here are some beautiful-looking screenshots (image credits: Kotaku):
I wasn’t all that interested when I first heard about The Witness, but after seeing these screenshots and some actual gameplay footage, I am really getting excited about it now. Kotaku had me at “modern-day Myst.” As a huge fan of adventure games, I’m thrilled we’re experiencing an adventure game revival era of sorts. Unfortunately, we’ll probably have to wait at least a year for this one; The Witness won’t be released until sometime in 2012 for PC and consoles.
(Update: The Witness totally just usurped Journey on my Most Wanted list.)
