Why you should never play The Witness, if you like computer games
The Witness is a 3D puzzle game created by Jonathan Blow, yeah I know it’s also a movie with Harrison Ford from 1986, but please…from now on, when I write The Witness, don’t think Harrison Ford. Think oh yeah that video game released for Windows and PS 4 on January 26, 2016.
I have played The Witness, but somehow I wish I hadn't. Now let me tell you why (no spoilers I promise), but first let’s talk about art.
When you go to an art show and accidentally bump into the artist, you might (I did this a lot) ask the artist something like: Wow. I really like your work. But what is it about?
The artist would then reply something like: Hm, what do you think it’s about?
Then I would rant about the universe, life with love, the fear of losing or something in that ballpark. The artist would listen, nod at my clever monologue and say something like: I really like your interpretation and I don’t want to take that away from you. So I won’t give you mine.
We would then split and never talk again.
I have been running a gallery for years and been to a lot of art shows, so this has happened way too often. It pissed me off at first, but now I’m ok. My guess is that it’s something they teach you to say in art school. But it bothered me until some clever dude quoted another clever dude, with a quote like:
It’s not arts job to answer questions, but to ask them.
Now I just stopped asking, it seemed like a waste of time. I also stopped looking at art since somehow I got this nagging feeling that most artist don’t know why they are doing what they do. So I switched tactics and started talking about all that same bullshit we talk about all the time, like the weather, football and our house mortgage, just to see what would happen. Nothing did, it seemed the artists were ok with this type of meaningless conversation. Fine I’ll just look for meaning somewhere else.
But what about video games? Let’s see if it’s also like this in video games…
I played tons of games, most are just a fun way of wasting your time, but I enjoy that. I had a great time playing GTA Vice City, the music the feeling of freedom and all that jazz. Once in awhile you stumble upon a title that seems to somehow want to tell you something. A little pearl hidden in the great data sea. Two of my favorites that pop into mind are Papers Please by Lucas Pope and The Stanly Parable by Davey Wreden and William Pugh.
Both are small indie titles, but they left me with something. After I played them, they stayed around in my mind. Not because of fancy graphics or cool action, more because they gave me a feeling that I didn't expect. The game was designed in a way so I, the player left with that precise feeling.
The Witness also left me with a feeling, so let’s get back to that.
In The Witness you roam around on an island looking for puzzles to solve, all of them look alot like the one you just figured out, and slowly you get to understand their logic. It almost feel like you are learning to walk. Or at least that's what I think they are supposed to make you feel. But after an hour or two of playtime I got another feeling. A question popped up. Why am I doing this? There seems to be no story, no point of me learning this strange puzzle lingo, and like that I was back in school.
As a kid I had this feeling a lot and that’s fine because now I can read and write. I know math and english, but why do I really know what X is? Why do I need to write more book reviews? Is it important to know PI and the square root of anything? Why are you teaching me this? Suddenly I felt like a cage monkey being fed banana balls whenever I could guess whatever the teacher was thinking
I didn’t (and still don’t) care about the school system teaching me how to get academic success or getting an A in algebra. I wanted the school to teach me to be a successful 35-year-old. But when I found out it didn’t, I started focusing on other shit. Just like I did with The Witness.
While I played it, I asked myself all the same questions I did when I was into art. And I really wish more game journalist asked those “clever” questions to game developers. Questions like: Why did you make that? What’s the point? What are you trying to tell us/me? Is this game just another dollar/indie ribbon on your collar?
So while I was walking around solving puzzles in the game, I thought this is meaningless. There is no story, no point, it's a waste of time. I would make more sense and less waste of time to serve time in prison. So I quit.
Maybe just maybe Jonathan Blow is making a comment with this game on the whole gaming business, if he is I don’t like it. Because then he’s telling us it’s a waste of time. Quit gaming and do something meaningful instead.
But I’m not ready! I love games. I make games now, and I want to make games with meaning. It still has meaning to me.
Or at least it did…Now I’m not so sure.
Do life have meaning? I used to think it did, wasn’t sure what it was, but I was pretty sure it was there, kept looking… now I’m not so sure.
Thank you for all the fish.
