I spent a long time wondering why The Witness took place on an island.
The Witness, developed by a team led by well-known indie game designer Jonathan Blow, is a puzzle game. Nearly every free surface has a panel stuck on it, and each panel is a line puzzle, a complete-the-circuit task that almost invariably paves the way for another puzzle.
The setting, then, seems incidental. The abandoned island is lovely, full of pockets of surprising color and vibrancy. It didn't make sense to me. Why design an intricate, striking setting only to force players to spend dozens of hours looking at tiny screens-within-screens?
The answer came late in the game, when the mountain at the center of the island opened up. It was hollow, and full of machinery going all the way down to the ocean surface. Inside, there were---you guessed it---more puzzles. But that's when everything finally made sense. The Witness didn't see the island the same way I did. It was never a neutral place, just a setting for the game. It was huge puzzle, in which all the others nestled.
Thekla, Inc
