The Witness

I love puzzle games so figure I give this one a try. Played the game for about 4 hours and made some decent progress. You’re stuck on an island, and the goal is to get off the rock. The graphics are beautiful, a bit cartoony, but all together with the sound very immersive. To progress in the game, open doors, fire up lasers etc you need to access a ton (gazillion) of computer screens (each with its own puzzle) that are littered throughout the island. The screens are wired in sequence, so you need to find and power up the first to light up the second and so forth. The puzzles are fairly logic but with varying difficulty. Clues to solve the puzzles can sometime be found around the screen whether you are examining trees or the shadows they cast. Made some progress but found the game repetitive, and I wish the puzzles were more diverse (like Myst) than tracing lines in various patterns on a computer screen. There’s no main menu, save or exit function in the game so you end up hitting the home button to exit only to find that you lost a whole bunch of progress when you start it up the next time. Very frustrating. Seems to be a major issue from reading other reviews as well. Despite this well worth $10 bucks and and a few hours of you life.

So I have been playing this game for quite a while and I just got to the desert ruin puzzles and I was so clueless as to what to do. Then I looked it up and it said that it is all about physical orientation and lighting. So then I go back to the game and I move around and I get the first one and then after that I could barely see anything with the light reflecting puzzles. So for those I had to just keep guessing until I got up to one of the puzzles. I was so confused because that was about secret patterns through lighting and I could not see anything. One solution would be too put little spots on the ground so we know where to look or make us be able to see the pattern at a wider angle. Otherwise it is a good game with fun puzzles (not desert ruins) and it makes me use my brain a lot. For ten dollars this game should really have no issues and developers should fix any problems on the reviews (not saying you have to answer mine immediately). I hope this gets fixed.

The Witness is a beautiful, thought-provoking game that treats it’s users with respect as intelligent beings. The game does not hold your hand, but it does provide you with everything you need to solve each and every puzzle. I originally played this on PS4 but never finished it. (Yes, I bought it twice, it’s worth it.) Having it on my phone/iPad means I can chip away at it when ever I like, and I’m finally nearing what I think is the end, though I’m sure there are still plenty of things I’ve missed. If you get stuck, go somewhere else or put the game down for a while. I’ve found that a fresh perspective can often make previously inscrutable solutions pop out. Don’t get frustrated. This is the point of the game. The puzzles are very clever, but the game never treats you like you are not clever as well, and you’ll love the satisfaction of solving a difficult puzzle or clearing an area. I haven’t had any issues with save progress being lost like other reviewers, but I would suggest checking the load game screen on the pause menu occasionally just to make sure the game is being saved as you go. 5 stars (because I can’t give it more)

This game has a lot of 5 star qualities. The pros: The map for one is huge and wandering around is fun. Stumbling on to new puzzles is exciting. And periodically you get some interesting information on the story line. The graphics are pretty good for an iPhone game. Not great, but still pretty cool. The amount of puzzles in the game is staggering. Those are all the positives. The cons: this game is aggravating. I consider myself to be good at puzzles and pretty smart and I have a rough time with many of them. To the point where I had to start relying on walk throughs to help me. And in some cases the puzzles are so annoying they almost make you give up on the game. There are also environmental puzzles that are freaking impossible to find or do unless you have a walk through. I don't think a single person can do this game on their own. It's also very tedious at times and all of the puzzles are nearly the same. It gets old after a while. Honestly if it wasn't for my stubbornness I would quit. So, it has its good qualities and it's bad. Sometimes I wonder if it's worth all the hassle if I'm not really having fun. The discovering part is really fun but the puzzles are so tedious and boring. Once I finish the game I'll update this review.

This is the full game experience you get on console/PC, and I bought it for my iPhone 8 because that’s the only device I have that can play it at decent graphical settings. There are some parts where the slightly janky controls become frustrating, and there are some parts where doing a puzzle with your finger actually blocks part of the screen where the puzzle is. But 99% of this game is comfortably playable on mobile, and of course the $10 price tag makes the 1% of frustration easier to swallow. I’m quite impressed with whoever was responsible for porting this. Great job! I will say that if you have the choice to play this on console or PC (maybe MacOS as well?), you absolutely should because the visuals in this game are very nice to look at and having a bigger screen with better graphics to show them off will make the 20-80 hours you spend with this game more enjoyable. And a mouse/keyboard is the optimal input method for this game as well, although I will admit that being able to touch the panel puzzles is a pretty cool gimmick.

This game is wonderful. I love being immersed in this mysterious world and discovering areas after hours of figuring out great and challenging puzzles. But the god awful controls are really aggravating. Touch to walk has never been a good idea. You can never move smoothly, it feels so clunky. Especially for a game where it’s all about being aware of your surroundings, you are constantly distracted by the fact that you always have to be constantly tapping where you want to go rather than, so your focus becomes tunnel vision. You are always fighting the controls, since you may tap one place but the game registers as another and your character is constantly moving to places you don’t want to. This is especially aggravating when going up or down stairs. I have no idea how they thought that not including the option for a virtual d-pad was a good idea at all. I love everything else about this game, but the controls too much in the way to fully enjoy it. Some music would’ve been nice too, to break off the monotony of going through puzzle after puzzle.

This is a very large game with several brilliant puzzles. Content wise it is well worth the purchase price. However the game was clearly not designed for IOS. Too many of the puzzles, especially the environmental ones, require pixel perfect positioning to solve them. With the touch to move mechanic, you have to look away to tap a new location and it is a game of guess and check. You also can’t look down far enough for slight movement so finding the required perfect position is down to luck. It is very frustrating when you solved the path for the solution, but just can’t do it because of controls. The puzzles are also slightly harder because your finger covers the puzzle as you try to solve it. This is a really good game with brilliant logic puzzles and really does make you feel accomplished when you solve them. If this is the only way you can play it, it is worth the $10, but I recommend playing the game on another platform if possible.

I am honestly not into repetitive puzzle game, and The Witness looks just like that, at first. The game starts out slow, presenting a segment of the world I am in where board-like puzzles are everywhere and solving them is absolutely crucial to advance. I wasn’t thrilled when my first impression was that it’s going to be like solving these puzzles in a beautiful park for the entire game. However, things start to impress me once I get to explore how vast, how mysterious, and how eye-poppingly beautiful the whole island is. There are moments I even think to myself, after seeing all kinds of beautifully created locations that I know a lot of love has been put into, that even just “sightseeing” around the entire island alone is already worth the money. Once I get intrigued by the beauty of the island, the puzzles become the reward of what I get to see and explore further. The story also unfolds slowly. The best part is: I have now come to love these board puzzles, for its ever-evolving nature throughout the game, and its cleverness put into them. This is not a game to binge, to play it all in one sitting. It’s a game to take it slow. Play it now and then. Solve some puzzles, walk around, enjoy Einstein’s quotes dubbed by an electrifying voice, and then put the game down for a while. Do that for a few days, and I can guarantee that you will walk away with something you love about this game.

I enjoyed the various venues and amazing detail. I took my time and wandered around. For me, that is the best part. Each part of the island was a puzzle of its own. It was easy to re-enter where I left off by selecting start and choosing the last saved “game”. The Caves was quite unexpected; loved it. I am not into intense gaming but love exploring, so Witness was spot on for me. However, I found the puzzle panels to be tedious after a while. Just way too many of them. The Quarry is my favorite because it had more variation in getting around, not just puzzle panels. The least favorite was Shady Trees. The audios were interesting but the videos not so much. It was worth the cost even though I did not complete everything there was to do; but did almost all. Thanks to Theica and Mr. Blow! June 2020

I saw this game when it initially released, but didn’t play it until it was released for iPad. Puzzles start off very easy, but you quickly learn this isn’t a linear game. Early on you are able to explore nearly the entire island. It took me longer than it should’ve to realize this was to encourage me to walk away from puzzles I couldn’t currently solve. Different areas provide new puzzles and tutorials in the form of multiple puzzles side by side to build your understanding of the rules. Navigation and puzzle solving is done with touchscreen only. I thought I’d be annoyed without a virtual controller, but double tapping a point in the distance leads to you running to the destination and occasionally taking you through routes you may not have known were there. If you like puzzle games, this is for you. You have to adjust your mindset to not look at the current maze in front of you as the next one you *have* to solve and be ok leaving. The manner in which you solve some puzzles is amazing at times. As you progress you also find the possibilities for what can be a puzzle evolve to a point where you view the island entirely from a new perspective. This is an expensive game for iOS, but considering the current price on steam is $40 and the stunning amount of care going into creating the world and puzzles, it’s a bargain.

I have been obsessively playing this game for over 6 weeks now. This addiction started slowly. The first few days I wasn’t sure it was worth my time and money. But the more I explored, and discovered, and solved, I realized I was wrong. This is one of the best games I’ve ever played. The more I played, the more I was in awe of the developers imagination and implementation. I can remember a few OMG moments in games I’ve played over the years: In Myst when I suddenly found myself on a completely different island for the first time; in Obsidian when I realized I was working my way around the inside walls of a cube. And in The Witness, after playing for a month, all of a sudden I saw another completely different aspect of the game. It was there all along, I just hadn’t noticed it yet. Wow! This is a game for explorers and puzzle solvers. It takes a person with patience, a hunger for discovery, and lots of perseverance. If that is you, this game will reward you with daily surprises and delights. I finished it today—well, I got to an end. But I haven’t solved everything, so I’m not really finished. There are messages still to find. I can see places I haven’t explored yet (a door to an unexplored room is locked from the inside, for instance). So I am continuing to explore, in hopes I can discover more.

The graphics are perfect, the puzzles are unique and make you think outside the box. (No spoilers) If you’re thinking of downloading this game, you may have read in other reviews that some puzzles are based on chance. This is absolutely NOT true. It may seem that way at first, but it’s not (hint: look at your surroundings!) Others complain that there is no story, or that it’s too confusing. There IS a story, and yes, it can be confusing, but it will clear up if you look in the right places. Many say the puzzles are easy and repetitive. The game is repetitive in that most (not all) puzzles occur on square panels, but the similarities end there. There are many different factors within the panels that make each section unique. Are they easy? It depends. The first ones you encounter in the game are very easy. They get much more challenging. Some I had been stuck on for months. Also, the game has 50+ of hours of playtime. There are many puzzles and secrets to discover. I have been playing for 2+ years and am still finding things out. Trust me, the experience is worth it. There is a LOT more to this game than meets the eye. It won Game of the Year for a reason....

I really wanted to like this game. I really wanted to LOVE this game! I was interested in it the first time it was previewed but the $40 cost put me off. So when I learned it was ported for the iOS at a third of the cost, I was super excited for it. Although this game looks great, I feel it doesn’t play great. The touchpad is a poor replacement for a game controller and I don’t think you can use it properly and precisely to get to every angle needed to solve many of the puzzles. That and the fact that there is absolutely NO clues, hints or suggestions in it to help you along, makes it even more difficult. The only way I knew how to advance on some puzzles was to reference an online cheat. I stopped playing for now mainly for that reason because it was becoming frustrating, not fun. That and the fact the it was a super battery hog, makes me not want to pick up again for quite awhile.

I finished 100% the game on PlayStation last year and am impressed how the experience works on touch platforms. It’s fun to play it all again. For those comparing to Myst, believe me, it will take you a lot of work, let’s say to “completing” the game for you to realize the depth Blow has given us. No pixel is without purpose. But you have to change your POV, literally and mentally. I had some concern about navigation and your fingers obscuring the screen, but I managed to get used to it. However, it could make some of the more challenging parts of the game a bit awkward. Warning, this is a game you cannot look up answers, if stuck - move on, a transcendent experience awaits!

The best part of the game by far is the ability to wander through a gorgeous island and uncover incredible puzzles. This would have been an A+ game if the puzzles were more varied, not the same trace a line on a screen. They became more difficult and almost impossible, but were still the same type of puzzle. Do that for 20% or even 40% of the game but incorporate completely different types of puzzle tasks as well. I got bored doing the same thing. I had to bump my rating up a notch for the enlightening movie film clips. Brilliant. The cave was a delight as well. I will hope to see a Witness 2 with varied tasks and puzzles. I am a fan forever.

It makes me sad that a game like this doesn’t get updated after its initial launch excitement. I have a new iPad Pro that is just begging to be used for gaming like this, but then checking the App Store page reminds me that its most recent update was well over a year ago. New devices, no luck. They just pushed this to the store and left it there. I see this all too often in big-name App Store releases and there’s no backlash or accountability for it. It’s disheartening as a fan of these games and this kind of model. Update: Thanks, team, my review was seen loud and clear! This has been updated and I greatly appreciate the extra attention and TLC given to this port. Cheers! I changed my review from 1 to 5 stars. 🎈

“Support website” provides no support, so I’m forced to complain through the review forum: The rail line environmental puzzle in the Quarry is broken on the iPhone 7 Plus. I flat out can’t drag the line along the track (I can activate the start and a short length of the line, but as the elevator lowers, I can’t drag the line any further). Please fix. [Update] The puzzle works, but you have to back-track your line (back to the start) and extend it again at the point when you can extend it beyond the initial length... agitating, considering it’s slow moving to test the puzzle over and over again. Not game breaking, but could still use a fix/optimization.

Normally I like tense difficult games, but this provides an immersive relaxing experience I am enjoying a lot. I don’t play puzzlers because the puzzles lack coherent logic behind their solutions, that a ha moment. But these puzzles are very coherent and it rewards you for thinking intelligently, but not in a way where you are overanalyzing everything. And it rewards you for wandering, looking, tinkering, and I find how often the game pats you on the back so satisfying. There are secret videos that absolutely make the searching for answers so gratifying. I recommend this to lovers of world wandering and puzzle solving. And it is worth the money because it is a deep enriching, very long game.

On iPhone 7 or 8 or x we should be able to tweak the graphics in squeezing out a little extra detail for this modern masterpiece is important. My brother went on a rampage to get all of his friends to play this game including family members and he believes he lower poly models degrade the quality to an unacceptable level. Provide the ability to tweak the games graphics based on hardware. If we wanna run the game with less FPS but higher graphics allow us to do. The games art is unique in every corner I also got it for pc same day and I mobile version feels gimped. Still though an impressive price for this piece.

Nice visuals & colorful. But movements are not near as smooth or quick as other games. The scenes are cartoonish & not as realistic as say Myst or Talos series. Also, once lost, you had no clue where you are in the game: beginning, middle, or end! Some puzzles are too convuluted, even by the account of some of the guides that refer to the puzzles. I tried to avoid the spoilers & looked only for guides, but couldn't find a single guide that explained the rational behind some of the puzzles, as if the reviwer him/herself didn't know eeither. One is very often forced to guides that seem disoriented & incomplete, a refelction of the comvultion of the game. Anyways, even though it cost me about $10, I figured cut my losses was best to avoid the torment of back-&-forth betweeen the game and intenet searches for advice. I deleted it away.

Excellent puzzle game. Not for everyone, but I love it. If you can't think outside of the box and look for alternate solutions that don't fit the paradigm or what you might "expect," you will have a hard time. Also, it is best played on iPad with an Apple Pencil or a mouse. I can't imagine trying to hit all the touch targets on a little iPhone screen. Also, it is important to realize that The Witness tries to get you to ponder on deep questions to which humanity has no sure answer. If some things in the game seem unexplained to you, that is why.

The controls are the worst ones I've ever seen. Tap to walk is the dumbest idea ever, it's uncomfortable, unintuitive, just bad. And no option for a virtual joystick, which is the way this game was intended to be played. In puzzles, you can't move the cursor unless you put your finger on it. That means you constantly cover the screen with your hand, so you can't see what your doing. Idk who thought this was a good idea, but that person surely never played a game on a touch screen device. I wish they've made a joystick + camera zone split controls, like basically any other first-person game does for phones/tablets. As of now this is simply unplayable, no way someone would enjoy the game like this. It feels like you're trying to play with each one of your fingers broken.

Chock full of puzzles. Some straightforward, many abstract. You can finish the game without even completing all the puzzles or really figuring out the mystery behind the setting. Great replay value for people looking to solve every last puzzle and get every hidden achievement. My only question: Why is it available on iPhone, iPad, and MacBook, but not Apple TV?? It seems to make no sense to me, especially considering it is optimized for playing with a controller. I can play on my tv using the screen mirror feature with Apple TV, but it has a slight lag and is in a square format instead of widescreen.

The game is nice and I love the fact that there is a section for each puzzle element and each section introduces a new mechanic so you don’t accidentally start learning a new mechanic when you have just barely started learning another, but I’ll suggest a small thing, controller compatibility. The movement would be just like a normal game that uses controllers but the puzzles can be solved with the left stick and to change between free roam and “puzzle mode” just click ZL/ZR and the other can be wired to sprint

The first 30 minutes is the sweet spot for this game. Over that it’s the same “draw a line”. Some of the mechanics are very unclear. Other line the sun game make sense for the first 3 puzzles and then nothing. I have it a 2 because the graphics looks nice. Edit: I couldn’t take this crappy game anymore. Tired of the controls. Tired of the “puzzle” mechanics. You have to line things up just perfectly to get it, which is near impossible because the controls. Then when you do line up perfectly it still says some puzzles are still wrong. I had to look them up because of the stupidity of them. Stay away from from this game. It is the worst game I have ever played on my phone. Period.

Beautiful and challenging game. I love it except for one big problem—many puzzles rely on lining up elements in a scene so that from a particular point of view, the puzzle solution can be seen. On a touchpad it can take an painfully long time to get precisely the correct position and camera angle to line things up correctly. A bit off with your panning, move a bit too far forward or back, left or right, and you won’t see the solution. If you play this, do yourself a favor and use a keyboard rather than a touchscreen . Spending 40 minutes failing to get the right viewing angle without any way of doing small correction nudges with arrows really spoils the game.

Many games these days brag about being procedurally generated, so the content is always changing. Not this game. Every inch of this island has been carefully constructed, designed to serve a larger purpose. It is expansive, gorgeous, and mysterious. It is rich with wonder. You will want to live on this island forever to discover all of its secrets. You will accomplish things you at first thought impossible. You will feel like a genius and like a fool. You will feel something inside yourself begin to open, to expand. There is more to you than you know.

I enjoyed a lot playing The Witness, easily top 5 of the best games I’ve played ever. Although at the beginning of the game the controls feel a bit weird (I inverted the rotation on the settings) you can get use to it quite fast and actually makes a lot of sense for the rest of the game. I would not suggest this game for someone who is looking for a fast pace action game. This is a game about discovery and about learning to see things in a different way, even your own mental processes and the model we have of the world.

I love this game and have so many hours put into it on the PS4 version. I was enthralled with the idea of being able to take this game with me on the go and solve these puzzles on a touch screen (which makes so much sense). I was very disappointed to see that there is no option for virtual sticks which cripples the game. Touch to walk is so cumbersome. I’ve been playing for about five hours trying see if I could acclimate to the control scheme. I understand trying to push a touch to walk control scheme for a cleaner interface, but for a game that was not designed with a touch screen in mind, players need options for controls. I recommend buying this game on any other platform, but not for IOS, unless this issue is resolved

I passed this game up for some reason a while ago when it was on PC. But I’m so glad I downloaded it. The controls seem odd at first, stick with it. They are actually really creative for an iPhone game. You can pinch to zoom, double tap to run and swipe with two fingers to move slowly. This game is hard. If you like hard puzzles you will love this game, not for the weak of heart. None of the puzzles are unfair, you just don’t know the solutions yet. This game doesn’t hand hold like most puzzle games now days do.

This is a really cool game. Challenging, beautiful, and fun. I had to put it down though because it really needs to be played with a controller. I picked it up again after iOS 13, and started to play it with my Xbox controller. I was excited when it worked. Unfortunately that excitement only lasted a few seconds, because the game freezes. The games isn’t “bad” without the controller, it’s just the kind of game that greatly benefits from having one. I’ll keep checking back to see if they’ve addressed the issues.

The witness has tons of strengths. It's mentally challenging, beautiful, and it's sound scapes are so relaxing that my wife lovingly refers to it as the ”ASMR game” but I have a big problem with the controls. The app version of this game has you move your character by tapping on the space you want to occupy. This is great for most puzzles but a decent chunk require you to stand in an exact spot in order to solve and it is pretty much impossible to finely alter your stance with the point and click controls. In fact in one section I just said ”flip it” and looked up all the solutions because there was no joy in the solving.

The game has an infuriating bug. When you download it on iPad it will auto install onto your iPhone as well. You are playing the same game on both devices, which is very cool. Unfortunately there seems to be a bug that causes the devices not to keep in sync (so you may solve some puzzles on one device but the other device shows a previous state with less puzzles solved). Here’s the problem: If you start playing on the device that shows the older state you will lose all the progress on the other device (they will both sync to the older state). So you appear to lose any progress you made. I had solved the entire Keep set of puzzles and thought I had lost them all. Blech. Luckily the various states are stored and you can reload (go to the main menu and hit Load Game). Earlier review: Professionally executed, but as others have said, the puzzles are repetitive (you draw lines in maze like patterns, over and over again).

I adore this game! It would be a complete 5 stars from me if it weren’t for the controls. I hope the developers make an update where the controls are similar to a first-person shooter set up. Where the left side controls movement and the right side controls the direction you are looking. The controls that are set currently make it very difficult to navigate tight corners or get to an area quickly under time constraints. Please update the controls!!!

Fantastic Myst style game, a joy to play. I did discover that to install it you will need about 4 GB of open space, or double the size of the game. Once installed it will only take up 2 GB. Also, if you install an update, and then intend to use the game off-line, make sure you quickly connect online to restore your progress. I made the mistake of updating before getting on a flight and I was back at the beginning. But as soon as I connected to Wi-Fi all progress was restored.

This is one of my favorite games I’ve ever played. As you go further in, the challenge increases more and more, to where a single solve will feel like a victory. The best part of this game is the non-linearity. I highly suggest that if you get stuck on anything, move on to another place and come back. This game is for people who love puzzles and want something original that won’t treat them like children who need their hands held through figuring things out.

Hello, My iCloud sync isn’t working! I get a message that says “WARNING: Unable to save your progress!” I have many hours invested in this game and I would like to sync my progress to iCloud so I play it on other devices. Please let me know how to fix this. —- EDIT: I managed to get rid of the warning by deleting the app, turning off iCloud and reinstalling it but now the sync is completely broken. When I try to load a saved game it shows iCloud 0% in the bottom left corner. Looking for a support email but unable to find one. Please let me know how to resolve this. — EDIT 2: I finally resolved this, albeit months ago. The fix was completely convoluted but I managed to get it to work by manipulating the extra iCloud saves. This is an excellent game. Glad the official fix is finally available.

Hi devs! I love this game and it's well worth the money. I've been having an issue lately though where the game just crashes on my phone when I load it up! If I try to move around or load a save it just crashes. It works fine on my iPad but not on my phone. It used to work but for the past few weeks it hasn't. I tried reinstalling the app as well as deleting my icloud saves. Any idea why this might be happening? Thanks!

I haven’t played a game....on a console, on my iPad, ever...that has totally captivated me like this has. You gradually learn the language of the puzzles/mazes, and towards the end it challenges the toughest. Along the way there’s a number of lessons to be learned...both overtly from audio logs and videos, as well as more subtlety from the surrounding environment. I’m thoroughly impressed, and now that I’ve finished (after a couple weeks) I hope there’s a version 2 on the horizon.

At the end of the game where the puzzles off set the third one does not work I have done everything up to that point watched 5 of the videos and I’m looking for the sixth and did all of the eviremental puzzles and it’s a great game but I am now not able to even try to finish because you can not click the puzzle can you please fix this.

I had started the game last week and was getting into it, had solved a bunch of puzzles. Just installed an update to the app (haven't gone to iOS 11 yet) and I login to find I've lost all my progress! It's very nicely dropped me back at the start of a new tunnel, and no ability to load my prior game. I know iOS can cause trouble and these things happen sometimes - my phone is probably low on space and memory - but stilllllll. I have had it for probably a week and it lost the whole game/concept that I had played before, not just recent progress. Please get save working better!

It's not often that you find a game this, well, different. I've played this game through twice now, and I'm still not bored. Graphics are beautiful, sound is amazing, and the puzzles are exactly how they should be. Frustrating. The game does a great job of letting you figure out how each puzzle is solved. I've never played a game as great as this one, and I have absolutely no complaints. This game is worth every cent of the price.

This game is beautiful but it is overwhelming hard. I grew up on games like Misty, I specifically look for games that mimic its game play. I absolutely adored games of that genre but this is beyond frustrating. I am not a stupid person by any means, this game make me feel like an idiot. That said the interface is great as well as the graphics. Bravo well done. The exploration of the world is exactly the kind of game I look for. But not all players play the same way, some have harder times than others with visual concepts, musical concepts and or mathematical concepts. Quite a few games don’t take this into consideration. Some people just see things in different ways. It would have been a great game if there were more than one way to figure out the puzzle patterns.

This is a wonderful game, and I would've loved to keep playing it. But after several years of no updates, Thekla (or whoever is running this circus) decided to release an update that bricks the app. Can't open it, restarting the device does nothing, reinstalling the app does nothing, the only links provided for the developer take you to a broken website, and since I haven't done a complete backup since I bought the game days ago I have nothing to rollback to. If there's clear evidence they've fixed this then you should absolutely get this game. But unless and until that happens, don't bother.

I am nowhere near finished, but have already gotten my money’s worth. This is what Myst was trying to be. You can walk anywhere unless there’s a physical barrier in your way. Total freedom of movement! Lots to investigate, and some “oh wow “ moments. Take your time. Walk away if you’re stuck. The only thing I’d change is the voice recordings; would much rather read the quotes - call them up on a screen maybe.

Thank you, Thekla for your response and for fixing the problem with loading saved games! I am through 6 lasers now able to give this game a 5 star rating. Haven’t seen a glitch with saved games since the latest update. The interface is good and the puzzles are challenging. I am really enjoying this game! Thanks!

This is an immersive world. Despite other reviewers saying the navigation is wonky, I find them easy and accurate. I’m only a few levels in, but I love it so far. I can tell I’ll wish there was a hint system as the difficulty increases. Great dev support. I had a small issue due to the settings on my phone, and they resolved it with an email exchange inside a day. Thank you!

There are many popular snarky reviews out there about this game. They are just noise. This game is for those who enjoy paying close attention. It’s also for those open to an earnest discussion. If you can’t do either, don’t bother. If you are able, then there is no better game out there.

I love puzzle games, but this is ridiculous. So why 2 stars? It looks cool. And occasionally the puzzles achieve a satisfying balance between challenging and solve-able. Otherwise, I’ve had to resort to walk-throughs numerous times, and even then don’t really understand why the solution is what it is, or why the solution I had was wrong. My husband always knows when I’m playing, bc I’m constantly muttering something along the lines of, “I hate this game,” or, “this is so stupid.” But I keep on playing, so I guess that says something.

As this game can now be downloaded and run on the mac, is there a chance you could improve the experience there a little? It doesn't have to be a full blown desktop experience, but just making it useable would be great