I have seen very few games do to me what The Witness has in the last week. I’m not talking about playing games an obsessive amount. I’m not talking about breaking out a notebook to keep hints for puzzle solutions next to me. No I’m talking about seeing shapes all around the world.

That sounds a bit weird so let me explain. The Witness is a new puzzle game that uses a sort of maze system for its puzzles. They are hard to describe so here is an example of an early game one.

As you can see it’s a panel with what looks like a kids maze on it, and indeed these early puzzles are fairly easy. However as the game goes on they introduce new rules that complicate the puzzles incredibly. They become very very hard.

Now, this is a very big game as well. I am getting close to being done with it and have spent somewhere around 30 hours in the games gorgeous world. These brings me back around to my original point, now everywhere I look I see circles and lines. It’s a strange and weird after affect of loving this game as much as I do.

The puzzles are diverse and immensely creative. They can be easily spoiled and I don’t want to give to much away, but as an example there is a set of puzzles inside a pink orchard where you have to match up where an apple is on a tree with your solution to the now tree shaped puzzles. I wish I could give more examples here but the real challenge of the game is figuring out the trick to solving the various puzzle types.

One of the few things that bothers me about the game is the intentional lack of story. It’s not a bad thing really; it’s just a slight disappointment on an otherwise beautifully designed game. Every piece of the games world is there for a reason.

There a specific outcropping from the island where if you turn and look at the the side of the beach, a group of rocks and boulders make half of a praying man that is mirrored in the reflection of the water to complete the incredible image. None of that is part of the puzzles. It does not change anything in the world in any meaningful way.

It’s just loving craftsmanship that you can really see in the beautiful world of The Witness. The first game of the year contender is already out and we haven’t even got through January yet. The Witness and a bunch of free panels can be purchased on their website ($39.99).

This writer can be reached via Twitter: @EthanNathe26 .

For more from this blog read Checkpoint: The year ahead.