J Blow teases new game, The Witness

By Tom Bramwell Published 4 August, 2009

Out in 2011 on multiple platforms.

Braid creator Jonathan Blow has begun teasing his name game, The Witness, a new website for which says it will be released on multiple platforms - "whatever makes sense in late 2011, when the game will hopefully be finished".

In a post on his blog a little while ago pointing to the teaser site, Blow said The Witness is "very visual" and that he would start demonstrating as much once the group making it is ready.

The teaser site describes The Witness as "an exploration-puzzle game on an uninhabited island", and on its first page displays the following text:

"Something amorphous and consummate existed before Heaven and Earth. Solitude! Vast! Standing alone, unaltering. Going everywhere, yet unthreatened. It can be considered the Mother of the World. I don't know its name, so I designate it, 'Tao'. Compelled to consider it, name it 'the Great'."

Meanwhile, Hothead has confirmed that it is converting Blow's last game, Braid, to PS3, although Blow told Eurogamer he is not involved.

Picture of Tom.

About Tom Bramwell

Tom is Operations director of Eurogamer Network and Editor-at-Large of Eurogamer.net. He joined the company in February 2000.

Read more articles from Tom by visiting the Tom Bramwell archive page.

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Comments (15) Latest comment 3 years ago

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  • LazyDan #1 3 years ago

    I'm willing to endure a certain amount of this pretentious twaddle based on how amazing Braid was. This better not disappoint - but Braid came about largely without hype, which I think added to its impact. I don't think even Braid would've stood up against 2 years of hype generated by this kind of gumpf, which is what makes me worry about this one.

  • Domovoi #2 3 years ago

    This sounds great, because obviously the best thing about Braid were the endless walls of pretentious pseudo-poetry.

  • Olemak #3 3 years ago

    "Something vague and pretentious existed before Development and Release."

    So a game based on the Tao Te Ching, then.

  • towser #4 3 years ago

    LOL - J Blow

  • toy_brain #5 3 years ago

    So its "Very Visual" and also an "exploration puzzle game".
    A hidden object game then?
    Awesome. Something to look out for once i'm done playing the eight squillion already kicking about on PC.

    I kid, I kid.

  • Eighthours #6 3 years ago

    Dan, set thesaurus to stun. :)

  • Eraysor #7 3 years ago

    He should have simply said nothing until release; Braid's sense of mystery was one of its main draws.

  • paulf #8 3 years ago

    with quotes like that he is in danger of becoming the M. Night Shyamalan of the gaming world, however if the game is as good as braid then i don't really mind the pretentious prose, So I designate !

  • sneetch #9 3 years ago

    @paulf
    with quotes like that he is in danger of becoming the M. Night Shyamalan of the gaming world, however if the game is as good as braid then i don't really mind the pretentious prose, So I designate !

    It's M. Night Shamalamadingdong. ;)

    Personally, I just breezed through the prosaic waffle in Braid for a bit, it was poorly written, long-winded and detracted from the game, IMO. Then again, I didn't complete it either.

  • Tomo #10 3 years ago

    J Blow is far too subtle for its own good :p

    I read it and thought... hmm, something fishy going on here. Didn't think anything of it, then it clicked! Naughty.

  • Tomo #11 3 years ago

    Late 2011?! Sweet jebus. Someone get this guy a studio to work with or something :/

  • frankfurter209 #12 3 years ago

    "an exploration-puzzle game on an uninhabited island"

    Sounds exactly like Myst

  • Waldo #13 3 years ago

    I remember when Blow was looking for artists who didn't have "big tits" in their portfolios; is this because there's already a big tit making the game?

  • smelly #14 3 years ago

    I think naysayers should come back when THEY'VE written a game of the same quality as braid.

  • MyPointIs #15 3 years ago

    Of course! We musn't criticise movies until we've made a good one ourselves. That makes sense!