Disclaimer: this is both a reply to that lulu article directly above and a bunch of people on twitter:
tbh this shit should make you guys re-examine how far you're willing to go to take down a creator who's distasteful to you -- there's SO much to criticize blow on (daphne's piece was v good, and I've been showing it to friends who ask why people are dissing the witness) but you're doing some fucking gymnastics to apply those criticisms directly to the game.
Deciding a game isn't personal just cause you don't like the voice it's portrarying, or doesn't have good art (!!??!?!?!) just cause the (diverse, amazing, small) art team was hired by jon blow doesn't seem to fit healthily with the REST of the culture I normally see put out by y'all.
I saw an insightful @Dragonmaw tweet yesterday that observed that many of the developers on dmaws feed loved the game, and many of the critics were trashing it -- I think this is a game that it's very hard not to like on its own terms if you engage with it directly. The design and art are so deeply lavish and personal and cared for, it would be impossible for me to look this game in the eyes and say bad about it even if my worst enemy had made it. If HATRED or postal was made with this kind of heartfelt love and devotion I'd probably love them too.
Perhaps abstractly The Witness represents something Bad About The Industry, or society, or w/e, or perhaps jonathan blow isn't actually the literal boogeyman he's just some nerd who wants to make Very Specific Videogames.
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I want to meander a bit from this and talk a little about the art, too: Holy shit, the art is incredible in a way that probably no other videogaem ahs ever been. The love for
space and presence of the player put into the game is a 90 degree turn from classic level design. The fact that anyone who's ever opened a 3d program can say cynical things about the visuals in this game -- a game made made by a small art team of a few industry elites, a few industry outsiders with diverse voices (three architects with diverse social goals and really great portfolios,) perhaps now the canonical case for how important it is to bring artists from other fields and alternate voices into your game -- is mind blowing to me. Maybe you think the puzzles are smug, fine, I feel you, but if you think the game
looks bad or soulless or whatever you've got something obscuring your vision. It doesn't really matter if it's you or good old JB who put it there, you're missing out on something.
ps:
google the architects -- if you have time, the whole team -- listed here.
http://the-witness.net/news/team/Their work is cool, and it shows through every crack of the game. They're certainly a specific, ivy league intelligentsia version of diverse, but it still has a lot of value.
Player
