Jonathan Blow Explains ‘The Witness’: An Adventure Without the Tedious Bits

The creator of Braid, Jonathan Blow, says that his next project, The Witness, will be an adventure game without all of the terrible, tedious parts that generally bog down adventure games.

Speaking to Eurogamer, Blow explained the issues driving The Witness, while detailing some of the puzzles that will make it into the adventure.

“I’m taking the structure of a classical adventure game, but getting rid of all the things that are terrible about adventure games,” said Blow. “I think we can make games interesting in more ways than just challenge. We can make them interesting through what happens.”

“There are a lot of psychological studies that say explicit rewards demotivate you from the rest of the game. If you have a game that’s about getting loot, and you’re fighting monsters to get loot, you end up not necessarily being interested in fighting monsters for its own sake, you just want loot.

“As a game designer, I’m very careful about that. With this game I’m trying to do a lot of things about communication, and about having these moments of epiphany, understanding the world you’re in.”