How Jonathan Blow Designs a Puzzle

Channel:
United Kingdom Game Maker's Toolkit
Subscribers:
1,670,000
Published on ● Video Link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2zK8ItePe3Y


The Witness
Game:
The Witness (2016)
Duration: 8:35
637,120 views
23,348

For Jonathan Blow, a puzzle is never just a puzzle - it's a communication from the designer to the player about the game's universe. In this episode, I share the philosophy and design process of the brains behind Braid and The Witness.

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More on Blow's philosophy:

IndieCade: "Jonathan Blow & Marc Ten Bosch - Designing to Reveal the Nature of the Universe"
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OGSeLSmOALU

IndieCade: "Jonathan Blow, Marc Ten Bosch & Droqen - Empuzzlement"
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ul_ZfzfHRek

Shivmoo: "Game City Jonathan Blow Braid Talk"
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gwsi7TEQxKc&feature=youtu.be

A MAZE: "Berlin 2014 - Masterclass with Jonathan Blow"
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3LDJt9zS8ko

Gamasutra: "Jonathan Blow: The Path to Braid"
http://www.gamasutra.com/view/feature/132180/jonathan_blow_the_path_to_braid.php

Gamasutra: "The Witness: Modeling epiphany"
http://gamasutra.com/view/news/218953/The_Witness_Modeling_epiphany.php

GrabItMagazine: "How To Design Deep Games with Jonathan Blow"
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d0m0jIzJfiQ&feature=youtu.be

GameSpot: "Break Room Interviews: Jonathan Blow"
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6OV2rYM6mRo&feature=youtu.be

GDC Vault: "Jonathan Blow - Truth in Game Design"
http://www.gdcvault.com/play/1014982/Truth-in-Game

Games shown in this episode (in order of appearance):

Braid (Number None, 2008)
The Witness (Thekla, Inc, 2016)
Oracle Billiards (Jonathan Blow, Unreleased)
Galstaff (Jonathan Blow, Unreleased)

Music used in this episode:

Greenhouse (The Swapper, Carlo Castellano)
Adventure (Fez, Disasterpeace)
Flower Girl (Gravity Ghost, Ben Prunty)
Terraforming (Gravity Ghost, Ben Prunty)
I just like to sleep under the stars (Gravity Ghost, Ben Prunty)

Other credits:

Simon Carless: "IGS 2007: Jon Blow - 'Indie Prototyping, Braid, & Making Innovative Games'"
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p4903fcskqY

JustJack: "Oracle Billiards Game"
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kKl8CM1Cft4

tvdays: "1980 RUBIKS CUBE IDEAL TOYS"
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AxU7e0qHk4o

Contribute translated subtitles - https://amara.org/v/C3BFd/



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Tags:
Jonathan Blow
Game Maker's Toolkit
braid
the witness
game design
puzzles
games
xbox 360
ps4
thekla


Other Statistics

The Witness Statistics For Game Maker's Toolkit

At this time, Game Maker's Toolkit has 637,120 views for The Witness spread across 1 video. Less than an hour worth of The Witness videos were uploaded to his channel, making up less than 0.69% of the total overall content on Game Maker's Toolkit's YouTube channel.