Zachary Talis > Blog

Oblique Details in The Witness

January 16th, 2022

Be warned, full-game spoilers ahead!

Grass divisions follow the rubble in three directions. The fourth division keeps on in a straight line.

Grass splits off in multiple colors and directions.

A single bush of many is flowerless and bare.

Within the keep, flowers are missing from a single bush out of two rows.

Without its sweeping overhang, this tree would never reveal itself the progenitor of fallen branches.

A leafless tree curves wildly to overhang a white rock.

These cubbies, empty and player-accessible, allow us to embody the 'next evolution of man.'

Two empty, arched, rocky cubbies await the player.

Panel flaps lay unaligned.

Panel covers rest slightly ajar in the Desert.

Was this ever an interior space, as the rubbley ruins suggest? It seems some gardener came by and strew tiles about.

This garden is meticulously kept, yet sits in ruins.

Sunlight falls through the opening in a cavern ceiling. Trees contort themselves to make this pretty angle possible.

A clearing in trees and roots allows the sun to peek through this here underground gap.

One leafless tree spotted from a nearby vista hugs the side of the rock it grows from. Other perspectives betray this illusion.

Two views of a leafless tree which conforms to the outline of a large rock.

In the color lab: the tone of the background noise falls in tune with different wavelengths of light!

Red is ~700Hz, blue is ~500Hz, green is ~450Hz.

A greenhouse interior lit stark red.

You can find these log stairs along the mountain path. Imaginary gravity prevents the logs from sliding past their pegs.

A makeshift stairwell of logs along the mountain path.

This painter's palette includes all the colors they'll need to paint a swamp. They've mixed blue and purple to match the swamp's mix between blue and purple water!

A statue in painter's garb overlooks the swamp.

A white flower rests 'in the hair' of this outstretched statue.

A large outstretched statue with flower-laden hair.

I like to imagine that this tree, similarly outstretched, is mimicking its friend.

The outstretched tree mirrors its statue counterpart.

A laptop-laden programmer constructs the pile of rocks they sit beside.

A statue sits beside sheet metal beneath obelisk rock piles.

Miniature treehouses are birdhouses! It's unfortunate that the island is fauna-less.

And the inclusion of wood shavings beside these digital models is a dapper little joke.

The treehouse and windmill replicas found in a grassy vista overlooking the island.

It's tough to spot, but these statues are steeped in mildew from standing out in the water for so long.

A pair of statues, presumably mother and child, greet the ending elevator.