10 Most Intriguing Indie Gaming Releases Yet To Come In 2014

2. The Witness

Jonathan Blow is a true great among indie developers; he is the creator of Braid. Braid received almost complete critical acclaim, and probably helped big game companies to take independent games far more seriously. The Witness is Blow€™s first release since Braid, and it looks very exciting. Blow has ditched the 2D plain that so defined Braid, and instead has gone for a 3D island that the player will explore from the first person, solving puzzles as they go. There is certainly a touch of the classic puzzle game Myst in here €“ you explore the island and come across different puzzles that you can solve, though you don€™t necessarily need to solve them sequentially. We know that Blow can design a great puzzle, Braid is all the proof we need of that, so there should be some really interesting, head-scratching challenges ahead. If you look at trailers of the game you€™ll see panels appearing and rising from the environment, The Witness uses these as the basis of the puzzles. As Blow himself puts it," uses the panels in a very versatile way that enables us to get around a lot of the problems that traditionally happen in this kind of adventure game." The panels are there to make sure that the player doesn't get lost or feel overwhelmed. The game will have a narrative, but it won€™t be told in a traditional sense. More you will come across answers to some of the biggest questions in the game organically. As Blow puts it, "Who you are, who built this island, why the hell there are all these puzzles on this island?"