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The Challenge in The Witness - no solution spoilers please

Posted By: mike_bn

The Challenge in The Witness - no solution spoilers please - 05/20/18 09:16 AM

Hi community,

i started playing The Witness recently. I only played
3-4 hours so far, so i have only solved about 150 panels so far.

Today i stumbled about an article mentioning some kind
of bonus(?) puzzle called 'The challenge' stating that is is a bit controversial
and only 4% of all PC players were able to solve it. Not everyone
seems to like it.

That made me curious and want i want to ask the community what the
nature of that puzzle is like? Is it 'just' a very complicated panel
or is it something entirely different? I want to try to solve it on my
own, so please don't give me any hints how to solve it, i just want to have
an general idea what it is like. If its not possible to talk about
the puzzle without revealing something about the solution, i don't want to know anything wink

*tiny spoiler warning from my side*
Please also don't spoil what these environmental puzzles are. I haven't
seen nor solved any one of them, i don't know what it is and want to try
to find it on my own.


Thanks and Cheers
Mike
Posted By: BrownEyedTigre

Re: The Challenge in The Witness - no solution spoilers please - 05/20/18 02:49 PM

The Challenge has no hints or solutions because the puzzles are randomly generated. I can tell you what kind of puzzles they are that I don't believe spoils anything, but you can expect mazes, boxes, and timed mini games like puzzles like the kind you see in casual games.
Posted By: mike_bn

Re: The Challenge in The Witness - no solution spoilers please - 05/21/18 12:12 PM

Thanks for the infos BrownEyedTigre.
So, and why is it solved by only 4%? When you mention casual games, it doesn't
sound like it could be super-diffcult.Does the whole process reset when you fail
at a timed mini game? Or are some of the puzzles that difficult?
I have no idea what you mean by boxes, btw. And by maze, do you mean something like the panels?
You have more than one try, right?
Posted By: BrownEyedTigre

Re: The Challenge in The Witness - no solution spoilers please - 05/21/18 03:00 PM

This here is the least spoiler description I can find. You may see more than you want, but it explains what you will find. Skim through and you can avoid descriptions you may not want to see. I was able to detect when they will say something spoilerish and move on to the next block of description.

Challenge Achievement.

Ana wave
Posted By: mike_bn

Re: The Challenge in The Witness - no solution spoilers please - 05/21/18 03:49 PM

Thanks a lot, Ana. I also was able to stop reading and move to the next block
before reading a spoiler. :-)
Solving The Challenge seems daunting, cant wait to get there wink

As i mentioned, i only have done approximately 150 panels and am already encountering
some that are not trivial anymore, a few took me even 15 minutes or so to solve. If the difficulty
level raises steadily, i will be stuck earlier for sure and probably never get to The Challenge
without resorting to a walkthrough. We will see. Until now, i have seen only one panel where
i think i was taught all rules needed but still fail by applying them,
i must have missed one rule (it seems to be the last panel of a certain type). I gave up for now
and will return there later.
Of the 150 panels i successfully solved, there were 2 where i don't get why the solution was like it was.

I definitely enjoy the game because i am a puzzle freak, but i don't really get immersed in the game/the atmosphere.
Honestly, the tapes with the philosophical quotes are a bit tedious to listen to and
don't catch my attention too much. The island is beautiful, but exploring it isn't super-exciting for
me like exploring worlds of Obsidian, Riven, Schizm, Rhem etc. was. But maybe this
will still change.

Is there anybody here who solved The Witness without a walkthrough?
Or even someone with 'full score' (all puzzles)?

UPDATE: Played 90 minutes and now i am at 192 panels. This is a strange game. Usually if i like a game,
i can play it countless hours. With The Witness, i enjoy playing 1- max 2 hours and then i loose interest.
But i am pretty sure the next day i will enjoy playing the next 1-2 hours again.

One more question: Is every panel essential for something? The game is obviously divided
into areas and in one area i activated a laser but then there was one more panel
in that area which i solved correctly but it looked like it didn't trigger anything.
Now i am a bit confused whether i could still solve the game without solving that
particular panel.
Posted By: BrownEyedTigre

Re: The Challenge in The Witness - no solution spoilers please - 05/21/18 10:44 PM

Sounds to me they are only necessary for 100% achievement. YOu can safely read the beginning of this here document until you get to the specifics of where to find them without being spoiled.

Read the Witness Completist Guide until you reach ENTRY AREA - CLIFFSIDE GATE in the Easy to Miss Puzzles in the witness section. That is where you start getting info on what and where to find things.
Posted By: mike_bn

Re: The Challenge in The Witness - no solution spoilers please - 05/21/18 11:36 PM

Thanks again, Ana.

I couldn't sleep, so i played another 90 minutes ;-)
Solved quite a lot of puzzles in the forest area,which was not
so difficult, so now i have 243 panels solved.


*small spoiler warning*

And i got my first +1 :-) I noticed it without using the info that there are 'environmental' puzzles
besides the panels (which i knew).
So i can still consider my progress walkthrough-free wink

I am very ambitious in solving puzzle-games without looking in
a walkthrough. This also holfs true for the witness right now,
but i will not obsess over getting 100%. My goal is to activate all
lasers (which is considered the end if i understand it correctly)
and i will also try to solve the challenge. I don't mind if i achieve
that without finding every +1 and every panel, i will consider
the game solved then anyway.

Anybody solved the game here?
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