Explore an abandoned island and solve the strange mysteries within it. Put your brain to the test and learn more about the inhabitants with each puzzle you solve. The Witness is a first-person open world puzzle game made by indie designer Jonathan Blow and published by Thekla Inc. The game has no tutorials and there are over 600 difficult puzzles that will keep you occupied for hours on end. However, The Witness has very simple controls so most disabled gamers should be able to play the game with ease.
The Witness has no customizable controls, but the only real button you have to press in the game is the interact button. This button lets you solve puzzles and manipulate different items. You move with the left control stick and aim the camera with the right control stick. That’s about it when it comes to buttons you are required to press. You’re given the option to have your character run by holding the left trigger button, but this just helps to get you to certain parts of the island quicker and is not essential in beating the game. Sometimes it is difficult in The Witness getting the camera to line up with each puzzle board. The good thing is, the game has a nice feature that automatically locks the camera in place as long as you pointed in the general vicinity of the puzzle. There’s also no combat at all in The Witness so I believe gamers with fine motor skill impairments should have no trouble at all playing the game. Deaf players should make sure to turn on subtitles because there is hidden dialogue you may not encounter immediately. There’s very little music in The Witness so I don’t think disabled gamers with hearing impairments will miss anything important when it comes to the atmosphere. Colorblind players on the other hand may have some trouble because distinguishing certain colors are essential to solving many of the puzzles in the game. Some puzzles have red, blue, or yellow boxes inside them that require you to section them off accordingly. If you can’t tell the difference between those colors it will be difficult to solve the puzzle. It’s not impossible, but for colorblind players it will be a struggle.
I’ve enjoyed hours of fun solving these brainteaser puzzles in The Witness. The puzzles can be challenging sometimes, but finally figuring out a tough one out will give you great satisfaction. It doesn’t take a lot of physical effort to play The Witness so I think disabled gamers with fine motor skill impairments won’t have problems. However, colorblind players may get stuck on certain puzzles because of the importance put on colored boxes. The Witness does thankfully have a large variety of puzzles you can solve and not all of them are required to complete in order to beat the game.
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