The Indie Gaming Cookie

"The Witness is a game all about perspectives." – Joseph Anderson I love The Witness. Typically, this sentence would be followed by "I also hate The Witness," and while I certainly do see merit in the critiques of its flaws, unfortunately, I do not share the same sentiment. I love The Witness, period. However, for the longest time, I had spent wondering why people were so conflicted about The Witness. I have seen countless reviews, thoughts, and opinions online, coming from people so clearly torn on this game and how they feel about it. At first, I chalked it up to "gameplay good, narrative bad," as is the dichotomy in many things with mixed reception, and it held up for a while — the puzzles were creative, enticing; the narrative was pointless, pretentious, with no payoff. But something kept tugging on my mind about this shoddy explanation I had pieced for myself. It felt off . The puzzles weren't always creative or enticing, for in some cases they ...

Sometimes, I get bored and I pick out an interesting looking game to pass the time. Most of my selections don't end up sticking with me for long, likely due to a general lack of interest, but sometimes, I find diamonds in the rough, needles in the haystack. In Stars and Time was one of those lucky finds — a real goodie bag that had in it a fine, black-and-white silk robe, a wizard hat, a frozen clock, a star, an orrery, and a long-lasting scar which now penetrates my soul. In Stars and Time had already been recommended to me by a friend or two before then, but I had decided to play it on a whim just a few weeks ago, and even as I write this, I still cannot forget it. In my 20 hours of playtime, I had grown to genuinely love this ensemble of fictional characters, all of whom were written with so much care and attention-to-detail it's almost impossible not to be engulfed in the story with them. Odile was the first character I truly admired: she's the quick-witted, mature, y...