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March 28, 2024, 02:34:04 PM

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Sudoku expert plays The Witness

Started by Proactive, September 01, 2021, 10:33:29 AM

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Proactive

Came across this on resetera and thought it would be appreciated here. It's exactly what the title suggests, with this really affable guy who has a knack for solving difficult puzzles with relative ease while being either completely blind to some of the more esoteric aspects of the game, or almost seeing behind the curtain but then dismissing what he's seeing. He's done 5 episodes now and despite having flown through more of the puzzles than I ever did he's still not properly found THE THING.

https://youtu.be/n8qAYZTVy_M

evilcommiedictator

Cracking The Cryptic got really big (last year?) after a few Social Media people talked about how relaxing it is daily, and it got onto The Grauniad and everything, which is great!
To be honest, Simon is a lot better at presenting, but I do put him at 1.5x speed, Mark goes a bit too quick and brute forces some of the puzzles, they're a good watch if you like that kind of thing - also have published sudoku games on Steam and all that too.
Planning on watching this soon, I hear it's a bunch of line puzzles, which should be pretty straightforward for Simon I reckon!

Proactive

Quote from: evilcommiedictator on September 01, 2021, 11:03:03 AM
Planning on watching this soon, I hear it's a bunch of line puzzles, which should be pretty straightforward for Simon I reckon!
It is and it isn't, is the least spoilery way I can put it. I think the way you'd get the most out of this is by having played the game yourself, but if you have no intention of doing so, watching this guy play it is probably the next best thing.

brat-sampson

The Witness is a bunch of line puzzles in the sense that an international library is a bunch of letters. These streams are good fun, especially now he's got someone else dealing with chat to avoid its relentless spoilers and interruptions...

Claude the Racecar Driving Rockstar Super Sleuth

Has he got bored of it yet?

Because it's boring.

Proactive

Yeah, was really bugging me how the people in the chat can't just keep their gob shut so definitely much better now the other guy is overseeing that. Personally I'm just skimming through it now in order to see when he finally gets "it' - it baffles me how he's come so close so many times now.

brat-sampson

I mean, he's got a couple of them. Maybe he's just not quite clocked how many there are...

Ferris

Quote from: evilcommiedictator on September 01, 2021, 11:03:03 AM
Cracking The Cryptic got really big (last year?) after a few Social Media people talked about how relaxing it is daily, and it got onto The Grauniad and everything, which is great!
To be honest, Simon is a lot better at presenting, but I do put him at 1.5x speed, Mark goes a bit too quick and brute forces some of the puzzles, they're a good watch if you like that kind of thing - also have published sudoku games on Steam and all that too.
Planning on watching this soon, I hear it's a bunch of line puzzles, which should be pretty straightforward for Simon I reckon!

It's worth playing the first half hour of I reckon. It is really well designed and there's very little hand holding.

I didn't finish it, but I'm glad I played as much as I did because it was fun as far as it went.

Famous Mortimer

$10 on GOG.com as opposed to $40 on Steam. Never played it but I'll give it a go.

Mister Six

Quote from: FerriswheelBueller on September 01, 2021, 07:26:28 PM
It's worth playing the first half hour of I reckon. It is really well designed and there's very little hand holding.

I didn't finish it, but I'm glad I played as much as I did because it was fun as far as it went.

Aye, same here. It's beautiful, incredibly well designed and a joy to explore, and even though the core gameplay isn't really my thing, I did push on with it for a good while longer than I would have with any other similar puzzle game, and don't regret it one bit.

Also I got it for free on PS4 in that summer giveaway, so I really have nothing to complain about. But yeah, 10 bucks would have been a solid investment.

MojoJojo

Just to say thanks for this. I had tried the Witness before, and this inspired me to try again. It confirmed what I already knew, which is I don't really like the core puzzles enough to put the effort in, but it is an astonishing game. Watching this isa good way for me to enjoy via proxy.

Have to say I'm really struggling with the "Thank you for your donation" stuff. I mean, obviously it's necessary for this to exist but it's a real pain in the ass.

evilcommiedictator

Jeepers, seventh video overnight, I mean that's probably the actual game length for a decent puzzle solver, but not going to go back and watch it all!

Claude the Racecar Driving Rockstar Super Sleuth

Quote from: Mister Six on September 02, 2021, 12:32:16 PM
Also I got it for free on PS4 in that summer giveaway
That's how I got it too. I can honestly say I got my money's worth.

Is the supposedly amazing thing that people coyly talk around
Spoiler alert
that there are puzzles hidden within the actual structure of the world?
[close]
Those people are very easily impressed, if so.

falafel

I did always assume that was the whole point of the game so it didn't surprise me at all. There had to be an element that was a bit like The Talos Principle. (Which is a wonderful game by the way, one that seems undeservedly forgotten). So it's either that or I completed the whole thing whilst having not registered something really important.

MojoJojo

Did you find the
Quotepost credits content
. The sudoku expert guy finds it here: https://youtu.be/jNgBEKu7Ud8?t=4537

That would be a pretty big moment if you found it without hints, although I wonder how many people did. I don't know if it's the moment everyone else is talking about, as I didn't enjoy the puzzles enough to play it.

Thursday

I feel like a huge thing that ruined my experience with the game was that in my exploring, I somehow kept missing areas that it would really have been better if I found earlier, because the relatively free roaming nature of it means you can wonder into areas that combine two different kinds of puzzle element without finding earlier/simpler versions of the puzzle. But I'd just become fixated on those areas, felt stuck and then looked up some solutions hoping maybe I'd understand it if I saw a few more examples, but it didn't help, so by that point I'd ruined parts of the game found myself. Then I found the earlier areas and just felt bitter.

Plus I'm too stupid and didn't enjoy most of them that much anyway. Also Jonathan Blow is an arsehole so I can just righteously hate it instead.


Mister Six

Quote from: MojoJojo on September 20, 2021, 10:42:26 AM
Did you find the . The sudoku expert guy finds it here: https://youtu.be/jNgBEKu7Ud8?t=4537

That would be a pretty big moment if you found it without hints, although I wonder how many people did. I don't know if it's the moment everyone else is talking about, as I didn't enjoy the puzzles enough to play it.

Haven't seen the rest of the stream - was that sun his introduction to environmental puzzles?!

Famous Mortimer

I'm stuck at what I presume is very early in the game, and I feel like a right bell-end. But, it looks nice though.

MojoJojo

Quote from: Mister Six on September 20, 2021, 03:22:55 PM
Haven't seen the rest of the stream - was that sun his introduction to environmental puzzles?!

No, he'd found a few before, although the other ones aren't quite as spectacular.

(I'm not sure if that's what people mean by environmental puzzles anyway)

brat-sampson

Confirmed, they're going to have a crack at Baba is You next, first stream on the 30th. I'm really interested to see if the type of logic skills they've developed from being great at Sudoku/The Witness will transfer to the wordplay-logic/Sokoban mechanics of Baba. That game is a monster.

evilcommiedictator

I actually said to my partner that I'd like to see him do Baba so I had a right laugh when I saw the notification in YouTubes, he said he might do it with the other guy as well, which I think is a good idea, hopefully they can get the streamtech setup for it with little issues.

MojoJojo

This starts tonight at 10. I'm surprised by how much I've missed having not having it in my you tube rotation.

My impression of Baba is that it involves a lot more experimentation than the Witness, so will be interesting to see how Simon gets on with it. That might just be because I've played a lot less Baba is you than the Witness though.

MojoJojo

I've enjoyed it so far. Real boomer energy.

brat-sampson

Yup, I had nothing to worry about, they're doing fine so far. It does get drastically more complex later on though, the next stream or two should be a doozy. Personally, I Platinumed The Witness but never got more than like 1/3 of the way through Baba.

MojoJojo

Quote from: MojoJojo on September 30, 2021, 10:21:13 PM
I've enjoyed it so far. Real boomer energy.

Realised this might look wrong - when they first started the stream they had a really bad audio echo/loop problem, so you had to confused looking middle aged men with a sound track of "what's going on ... I think it got better then ... what on earth ... what's going on ... I think it got better then" over the top. It was quite funny.

One thing I didn't understand was I'm sure in one puzzle they passed by make the phrase "Baba is win" but then in lots of other puzzles that looked like an easy solution they didn't use. What did I miss?

brat-sampson

I think for that to work you need simultaniously both 'Baba Is Win' and 'Baba Is You'. Otherwise, Baba becomes the win condition, but you have no agent to use on it.

MojoJojo

Ahhh, that makes sense. Would it be possible to have "YOU IS WIN" to win then?

brat-sampson

No, because I don't think the solid texts can work together like that. There are definitely some less obvious technicalities in how things interact, such as which properties can interact with things that are Float etc.

MojoJojo

This inspired me to play Baba is You, and I'm enjoying it. Watched him stream a bit more closely, and it's really frustrating when you know how to do a level.

MojoJojo

Quote from: MojoJojo on October 01, 2021, 10:34:40 AM
Realised this might look wrong - when they first started the stream they had a really bad audio echo/loop problem, so you had to confused looking middle aged men with a sound track of "what's going on ... I think it got better then ... what on earth ... what's going on ... I think it got better then" over the top. It was quite funny.
https://youtu.be/oQGBgeIcEyM

Quote from: brat-sampson on October 01, 2021, 10:58:30 AM
No, because I don't think the solid texts can work together like that. There are definitely some less obvious technicalities in how things interact, such as which properties can interact with things that are Float etc.

It's remarkable how well the word puzzles work in english, considering the author is Finnish. But there are a few odd things, like "open" being only a verb and not an adjective.