Screenshot from “The Witness” (2016)

The games of indie developer Jonathan Blow aren’t typically considered funny, but he did put one great hidden joke in his latest release, first-person-puzzle-em-up The Witness: the shift button.

The runaway success of Blow’s previous release, 2008’s time-bending Braid, established him as the closest thing the indie game community has to a celebrity, as well as championing the concept of the auteur game developer. Aiding in this cult of celebrity are the lectures Blow frequently gives at various conferences, where he provides sharp (and often provocative) commentary on videogame theory. In one such talk, titled Fundamental Conflicts in Contemporary Game Design, Blow makes the following claim about games with a plotted story:

“Story games are inherently conflicted…it’s very, very difficult to make them profound or impactful…our medium prevents the stories from being good.”

Choosing the fate of a Little Sister in “Bioshock” (2007)

One example of the “conflict” Blow refers to is 2007's blockbuster Bioshock. In the game, the player regularly encounters Little Sisters, genetically-stunted girls from the game’s dystopian society, and must decide whether to free or kill them. However, while attempting to set up a moral struggle, since players get a greater immediate reward for killing instead of saving the Little Sisters, over time the game gives players the same rewards regardless of how the girls are treated. Blow explains that the game is therefore conflicted: on one hand, the story claims that there should be a moral dilemma between doing the right thing versus gaining a reward; on the other hand, in order to maintain game balance, the gameplay treats the two actions equivalently. The explicit story and implicit mechanics don’t agree.

Jason Rohrer’s “Gravitation” (2008)

To contrast Bioshock with a “non-conflicted” game, Blow gives the example of Jason Rohrer’s 2008 Gravitation. In the game, players control an avatar (representing Rohrer), and can choose to play catch with his daughter on the ground, or jump upwards to an area for creative ambitions, sending stars representing ideas down to the ground to be pushed into a fire, and metaphorically have the projects be realized. In order to access this area, you need to play a certain amount of catch to build up energy, and after a while, the energy wears off and you must come back down to your daughter.

There’s many more interesting rules and interactions that emerge from this basic premise (you can watch Blow’s talk for a more thorough explanation or, even better, play the game yourself), but the difference from the conflicted Bioshock’s approach is clear. Rather than create a game with a story about the struggles of balancing his creativity with his family, Rohrer forces players to experience an abstracted version of those struggles themselves. The meaning is found in the mechanics, and what little explicit “story” exists is meant to enhance this.

WARNING: Some Witness spoilers to follow.

Part 1: Telling

A puzzle panel found early in “The Witness”

On its surface, The Witness could not be more different from Gravitation. The basic gameplay is simple — you are alone on an island filled with hundreds of maze panels. Each panel has unique rules that dictate its solution. Solve enough panels and you unlock the final area. Then solve all the panels in that endgame area. GAME OVER.

But for those looking deeper, the island contains many, many more secrets to discover.

Before going further, I’ll just lay my cards out on the table: among the many meanings one can take from the game, I believe The Witness is, in large part, about mindfulness.

Mindfulness, “a modern movement, appropriated from ancient Buddhist roots”, is defined, in the words of Psychology Today as:

…a state of active, open attention on the present…Instead of letting your life pass you by, mindfulness means living in the moment and awakening to experience.

While I wouldn’t consider myself close to an expert on the subject, I’ve taken mindfulness training courses and read a few books on it. I’ve heard mindfulness described many ways; Living in the moment is one of the most common — not focusing on worries of the future or regrets of the past, but only sensations occurring right now. Mindfulness exercises teach you to find this focus: spend time only concentrating on your breath; or simply listen to the sounds around you, without trying to judge or label them; or take a simple food, like an orange slice or a raisin, and eat it slowly as you can, examining the taste as thoroughly as possible.

On an outward level, many of the The Witness’s hidden audio logs directly reference mindful philosophy or contain quotes from Buddhist and Eastern figures. Even more explicitly, in the game’s semi-secret video viewing room, players can unlock a video of spiritual speaker Gangaji directly addressing mindful practices:

Video of Gangaji in “The Witness”

Stop looking for what you want. Not cynically stop looking for what you want…but innocently, openly, stop looking for what you want at this moment. Not tomorrow when you have it, but in this moment, to take one moment…and just stop looking for it. And you will find more than what you could ever want.

Could there be a more practical, concise definition of mindfulness? Of course, the wide range of subject matter in the island’s tapes and videos makes it clear that Blow has many other topics he wants the game to address (you know, small things like the importance of God or the value of scientific investigation), but mindfulness is clearly among them.

Part 2: Showing

Returning to the audio logs, it becomes clear that Blow has attempted to embed the idea of mindfulness much deeper into the fabric of his game than just through spoken word.

Audio log in “The Witness”…

…compared to audio log in “Bioshock”

Telling a game’s story through discoverable logs is a concept that is arguably nearly as old as video gaming itself, but many consider the previously discussed Bioshock as its watershed usage. Assisted by extensive environmental storytelling, Bioshock intermingles dozens of personal narratives to unravel the surprisingly rich narrative of Rapture, the game’s underwater dystopia.

Incredibly integral to a Bioshock player’s progress, these audio diaries are the size of small stereos, placed throughout the game in key locations to ensure the player is always up-to-date on the necessary background to motivate their upcoming actions.

Contrast this with the audio logs in The Witness. Shrunk from the size of a stereo, the logs now seem roughly the size of a smartphone. And no longer stuck directly in a player’s path, the logs are purposefully placed in locations the player wouldn’t ordinarily look on their pursuit of the game’s main objectives — an out-of-the-way ledge; an off-the-beaten-path boulder; behind a run-of-the-mill potted plant. Their contents are only accessible to players keen enough to catch a glimpse of their slightly-illuminated green screen from the corner of their eye.

The result? For a player wishing to discover all the audio logs, there’s only one course of action: slow down. I can’t count the number of logs I finally stumbled upon in The Witness at locations I’d already passed at least half a dozen times. The difference? When I finally noticed the tell-tale green display, I was no longer rushing from one objective on the island to another, or searching for a certain clue to a specific puzzle. I had just ended up at that location wandering between objectives. In the words of Gangaji, I had stopped looking for what I wanted. I was living in the moment.

The hunt for audio logs isn’t the only reason the game forces the player to slow down. Though many puzzles in the game are based solely on the contents of the maze panels themselves, others force players to utilize their powers of observation within the rest of the (virtual) world. At various points in the game, the environment’s sounds, lights, reflections, and shadows are crucial in finishing a certain maze panel. Multiple times when beginning a new series of puzzles, I would find myself frustrated that a maze seemed unsolvable — there were too many possible routes and no information to help out! The issue, of course, was that I had closed myself off the information I needed by focusing so closely on the panel itself. The only way to make the leap of knowledge needed to solve these puzzles is to be present in the game’s environment, and suddenly the path will become obvious. Spending your energy in other ways than being present — planning solutions, thinking back— and you’re sunk.

A puzzle in “The Witness” that relies on a player’s observation of shadows

The ultimate expressions of this environmental observation are the dozens upon dozens of “hidden Mickeys” (as I like to call them) that comprise the second layer of The Witness’s challenge. Without giving too much away, as the joy of discovery is one of the best parts this game, suffice to say that players must constantly be vigilant of their surroundings, or risk missing a potential maze — be it in the environment, reflections, or even negative space. I have already spoiled too much. Start playing The Witness, be present, and you will find more than what you could ever want.

Part 3: Show, Don’t Tell

The need to slow down and be present is the real expression of mindfulness in The Witness. It is not just that there is a constant theme of mindfulness in the game’s textual references, but the game itself forces players to be mindful. That’s why I call the shift button a joke — holding it down while walking makes the player run. But players who run through the game will find it impossible to play — they will miss the audio logs, they won’t notice the crucial environment clues needed to solve mazes, the “hidden Mickeys” will evade them. When you play The Witness, you not only hear about mindfulness — you learn how to be mindful. How to slow down, and be present in the (digital) moment. Just as Jason Rohrer allows his players to experience the tension of his creative life, Blow guides his players into a mindful experience.

This all ties back to Blow’s “Fundamental Conflict” of explicit story (“You should care about little girls in Bioshock!”) versus implicit story (“Eh, we’ll treat players the same whether the kill these girls or save them”). As a resolution to the “conflict,” Blow attacks from both sides: explicitly, he reinforces themes of presence and mindfulness through the game’s audio logs and video; implicitly, he creates puzzles that require presence of mind to crack, and hides others that require presence of mind to locate.

This approach makes me think of the maxim I’ve heard my whole life in writing classes and workshops, “Show, Don’t Tell.” First imparted to me by my 7th grade Language Arts teacher, the expression refers to two different ways an author can reveal information to a reader. It took me years to understand what my seventh grade teacher meant by it (partially because any time I asked, she would simply repeat the phrase without further explanation). Eventually I learned that, similar to Blow’s “Conflict” discussed above above, there is an implicit way and an explicit way to write about anything in literature.

I’ll use an example, and to honor The Witness’s spiritual roots, I pulled the Myst series novel off my shelf, and randomly flipped to a page:

“Anna stood on the far side of the bridge, tearful now that the moment had come, looking back into the empty Lodge. This had been her home, her universe. She had been born here and learned her lessons in these rooms. Here she had been loved by the best two parents any child could have wished for. And now they were gone.” — The Myst Reader, p. 385

Contrast that with the following sentence, which could serve as a replacement:

Anna was incredibly sad to be leaving the Lodge, the home she had grown up in.

A reference to “Myst” in “The Witness,” spotted by an eagle-eyed Redditor

On a superficial level, these quotes contain the same information. But the first one is so much richer — partial information is given to the reader implicitly, and becomes stronger because as readers, we complete the emotion in our heads. Everyone has needed to leave a beloved location. When we are asked to complete the implicit information through our own experiences, we can transfer this internal emotion to the character of Anna. This is “showing” how Anna feels.

The second example sentence then is “telling.” The reader doesn’t need to do any work to place Anna’s emotions, and as a result, is left with only an intellectual understanding of her state, not an emotional understanding as with the “showing” example. The contention of “Show, Don’t Tell” is that to create the strongest emotional experience, writers should focus their writing around implicitly showing what is going on, instead of explicitly telling.

While I bring this up, I don’t think Blow’s “Fundamental Conflict” is the video game analogue to writing’s “Show, Don’t Tell.” I actually think it’s more dire — instead of saying “Show, Don’t Tell” Blow’s argument is Don’t tell one thing, then show another. It would be the equivalent of saying:

“Anna stood on the far side of the bridge, tearful now that the moment had come, looking back into the empty Lodge, feeling incredibly goofy and ready to clown around.”

Tearful that the moment has come, but also feeling incredibly goofy and ready to clown around.

Part 4: Show and Tell

After hearing “Show, Don’t Tell” from my writing teachers for years, it was a bit surprising when I got to college and had a few teachers begin twisting the phrase into something different: Show AND Tell.

The point of my instructors was that some things lend themselves better to one method of explanation or the other, and the most skilled writers know which method to apply to which scenario. An emotional scene like Anna leaving the only home she’s ever known is best accomplished by showing it. Another moment might be best described if it’s straightforward and to the point, not wasting any time unnecessarily. When an author coordinates when to “show” and when to “tell” in harmony, the writing’s meanings can truly come out.

This is the actual analogue I feel Blow has found in The Witness: the game shows and tells, in harmony. The implicit and explicit meanings have been brought together to make the meanings loud and clear. And, as I’ve said before, I think he does this for more concepts than just mindfulness (I could have written a completely separate piece on how the explicit audio logs on the philosophy of science work together with the implicit design of the maze panels “to reveal the nature of the Universe”). But mindfulness was the instance I couldn’t get away from as I played the game, as Blow not only told me about it, but showed me how to do it, too.