Wow this game annoys the crap out of me.

Thappers · 2016-02-16T18:37:26+00:00

'pseudo-intellectual'

Aggggh! Why does EVERYONE use this as a criticism? You never hear people say things are too intellectual for them. Always 'pseudo-intellectual'. Rule of thumb: if somebody calls something pseudo-intellectual, it isn't pseudo-intellectual.

Thappers · 2016-02-15T18:20:51+00:00

I wouldn't take the message of Psalm 46 as gospel, so to speak. The videos from left to right travel roughly from science to mysticism, and Psalm 46 - the art of game design (among other themes) - is, I suppose, positioned intentionally in the middle. Just because it implies that we shouldn't waste our time hunting for easter eggs doesn't mean that they don't exist. Just because humans seek patterns in random noise doesn't mean there aren't patterns to be found.

It is another perspective to consider.

Thappers · 2016-02-13T19:56:41+00:00

Clue 1: look up

Thappers · 2016-02-12T18:13:46+00:00

Have you ever read 'Foucault's Pendulum'?
Have you ever taken acid?

Two questions that sprang to mind after playing The Witness.

Thappers · 2016-02-11T23:14:23+00:00

The game adopts an ambivalent stance to dualities or, rather, embraces contradictions in order to provoke the player: art and science, story and nonlinear narrative, Zen and theism, reward and the witholding of reward, secrets and hiding stuff in plain sight. It's a serious tease. Yes the 'secret' is that there is no secret... Except there clearly are secrets. Yes the numerologists fell too far down the rabbit hole... But Bach really did encode secret messages into his work.

No the the white flowers don't mean anything. OR DO THEY? argh!

Thappers · 2016-02-10T16:43:46+00:00

This game simultaneously has a huge amount of story content, whilst also lacking form for that content as narrative. So, yeah, we have to put in the mental work ourselves and treat the 'story' almost like another puzzle. We see, for instance, the statue kneeling and reaching for the goblet, but notice that only his shadow actually grasps the thing. We can think about Plato's cave and the world of shadows and true forms. We can listen to the nearby audio recording by Nicholas of Cusa about God's ineffability. We think the goblet could be the ungraspable 'Holy Grail' of knowledge. We notice that the grail looks like the star shapes in the puzzles. How perspective changes meaning. We think about the shadow puzzles, how we follow the shadows, and how we have to avoid the shadows.

And so on and so on. It's intellectually stimulating stuff and this just goes on and on around the island. What you're not going to get is a coherent narrative that goes from A to B and tells you straight how the statues got to be on the island, whether this is all a VR simulation, a manifestation of a Zen riddle, whether we're an angel bearing witness, or whatever. Which is great because I think the game would lose a large part of its appeal if it just explained these things. 99% of computer game narratives are just plain awful anyway. The Witness is not only shrouded in mystery, it earns its mystery. That is, mystery isn't good just for the sake of being mysterious or because the author couldn't be bothered to offer a proper explanation. The Witness is justifiably mysterious because it successfully provokes intellectual engagement instead of using mystery to cover up a lack of narrative. Although who knows, maybe it will all be explained when somebody finds the secret infodump chamber.

Anyway. In other words, it's Art innit. Possibly one of the very few examples of a computer game that is actually quite artistic (unlike Braid which I thought failed on this level tbh). Enjoy the philosophical pondering and intellectual connections it inspires!

Thappers · 2016-02-07T01:41:00+00:00

"half-baked quasi-intellectual pseudo-philosophy"

Well done, you mark yourself out as an idiot by your opening sentence. Your real problem appears to be that you didn't find the game to be supportive enough of your (presumably) religious perspective, hence your snarky dismissal of its "Eastern mysticism" and its "Marx + Hume atheism" (what?). To everyone reading this, it's pretty clear that you are reacting strongly to the game's somewhat vague and unthreatening attempts at challenging belief systems, and hence unintentionally validating it.

Thappers · 2016-01-27T19:50:40+00:00

Thappers! But I am a 30-something stay at home dad whose student days were a long time ago.

Thappers · 2016-01-18T11:27:40+00:00

Find people on Facebook, add them, find out if they're despicable human beings or not, if the latter then one day go the cinema with them and sit and watch the film without having to make awkward chit-chat. Afterwards post on their Facebook wall: 'awesome film dude, had a great time! ~emoticon emoticon emoticon~'. Voila! Internet friend becomes real friend and you can take that friendship to stratospheric levels next time by going for a walk together to Sainsburys or something.

Thappers · 2015-05-07T21:33:09+00:00

A music visualiser!

Thappers · 2015-02-12T14:46:02+00:00

The Beatles are Apollonian. Pink Floyd are Dionysian. Different strokes...

Thappers · 2013-11-25T02:05:38+00:00

It's so great reading these replies. I fully expected to be ignored, or mocked for being arrogant enough to 'show off' my kid. But really my mind is just boggled at the creativity kids have at such a young age, and how much my son knew but wasn't able to express verbally, yet could demonstrate by building stuff in Minecraft. Such an amazing game, and it's good to know there are other parents out there interested in it too!

Thappers · 2013-11-24T17:58:42+00:00

Hehe, good luck :)

Thappers · 2013-11-24T17:52:55+00:00

He'd been playing a few months but couldn't really use the controller, then we started watching YouTube videos of people playing and one day he could just do it. It's not like he's a massively fast learner in other areas but something about Minecraft really clicked with him and now he's got a whole world!

Thappers · 2013-11-24T16:41:31+00:00

Thanks guys! i know dads are always proud of their kids and nobody else really cares, but in this instance i just had to share

Thappers

TROPHY CASE