ABSTRACT
Jonathan Blow, and his independent video game company Thekla developed The Witness. In order to understand the planning and design of The Witness's island, it is important to understand the mechanics of gameplay. It should be noted that there are greater meanings and stories that unfold as the game progresses, which will not be disclosed in this writing. The Thekla team was partly made up of programmers, who worked on the technical practicalities of the game engine, coding, and user interface. As a video game, the Witness is an intellectually challenging work of art. It is an adventure puzzle, set on a complex and mysterious abandoned island, populated with a multitude of biomes, geologies, cultures, and seasons. The game requires and inspires heightened perception, balancing gameplay with environmental sensitivity. Designing environments for video games should be a relatively easy undertaking. Game critic Ian Bogost calls the game player "the archaeologist of the lost civilization, that is a game's creator."
