I Just Witnessed Some Talent

Witness 8Bit is a game created by blackhole2

Game: Witness 8bit

Maker: Blackhole2

Genre: Platformer

Introduction/ Prethoughts

I received the Editor’s application from Superluigi77, so I needed to find a feature-worthy game fast. (Of course I asked him many questions) I was scrolling, and clicking around Sploder whenever I came across my homepage. I saw a game from my ‘Friend’s Faves’ that looked so intriguing, so I gave it a shot and thought, hey this member has some potential. I ended up playing Witness and saw it looked great but was too laggy, so I asked the creator to make it in 8bit, so he did and showed me a video to help me as well.I haven’t seen many of Blackhole2’s games, but I clicked on his page and saw he had a feature, so he should be a legitimate maker. The thumbnails of his games are brilliant, and hopefully they will turn out for the best and may end up getting some massive hits. I looked at the thumbnail of Witness 8bit, and a bell just rang in my head, that’s the one.

Review

The gameplay was very exciting, and kept you moving because of the constant cbleeps placed, and the weak tiles that lead to lava-filled trenches. There weren’t TOO many enemies in this game, but of the ones placed they were near perfect. Witness was more of a puzzle-themed game that used enemies at the best times, whether for puzzles or just plain old hazards. The gameplay featured an average – above average time, depending on whether you know the puzzles or not, and if you’re pretty good at solving them. Also, there were many places where you can get stuck or die at in a second, which means you better be hot on your feet to complete!

As many of you know, puzzles are my favorite aspects of the Platformer creator; they’re so tricky and fun to confuse a player. In the beginning, there was an ingenious puzzle in which I thoroughly enjoy, and will make you think outside the box. Blackhole2 did a marvelous job at choosing which puzzles to use, and where to place them as you go, and should not disappoint anyone. I admire the talent Blackhole2 brought to the stage here, because he showed great non-repetitive puzzles throughout the game, which is very difficult to find these days. Normally, games may get rushed in the beginning while sticking three or four already used puzzles in the game just to hurry up and end it (I must admit I am pretty guilty) but Blackhole2 just finished strong, and I must say that is impressive.

Traps are very important in the Platformer genre, and more especially important when it’s puzzle-themed, because puzzles are generally a one try aspect and may seem rather pointless if you can attempt it eight times without ever restarting. Blackhole2 did an outstanding job at this, the traps were placed everywhere, even when you’re going to get a key! Say goodbye chip brakes here, because one wrong step in Witness and you’re toast. He placed lava traps under weak tiles, cbleeps at any point in time which makes you run, and quick. When you messed up on a puzzle, a cbleep will trap you or you may fall in lava, that is what made this game better, and shine in my eyes. Blackhole2 taught us a valuable lesson today; your radar has a use and comes in handy at the randomness of times.

As some people may know scenery isn’t always too important in puzzle games, as the concept is more important than looks, however is usually appreciated to give it a nice feel, and the player may tend to get more focused as it looks interesting. I feel that Blackhole2 did a pretty nice job at adding scenery to Witness, and made it more interesting to look at. I must say background tiles could have been used, but yet again all of those tiles would have made this game lag horribly so we must praise him for this. The use of statues and the screens were pretty nice and detailed, although a couple pieces were overlapped which lost some points for professionalism. Also sometimes when a room was changed, he would add its own unique piece of scenery which I really do enjoy, because it can change the mood of the room or area, and that can be difficult to do without placing rushed tiles.

Placement, a way to change a games future whether it was poorly done, or rock-solid…. I think Blackhole2 did a splendid job in placing the enemies, puzzles, traps, and the overall design and structure of the game. I wouldn’t say it was the best of the best, but it had a great touch of talent stored in there, and got the job done. I think some aspects of Placement were better than others, for instance puzzles to scenery, but in an overall perspective the placement was absolutely shiny, and couldn’t shine much brighter than that.

Step-by-step Opinions

Here, I will give you my opinions from the beginning, middle, and end of the game and we will start with the beginning and work our way through deeper parts of Witness. In the beginning, you had a choice of which way to go, and one way involved death as the other way involved a possible death. I really like this, because it displays the tempo of the game at an early start, so you won’t get surprised later in the game and make you sling your computer. I think this was a great start, and should be used more often instead of starting with an insane beginning puzzle to where nobody can enjoy the rest of the game.

As you progress, you start hitting the puzzles pretty hard, including one ingenious puzzle that I will not spoil due to originality and intelligence put into this puzzle. I absolutely LOVE how this was done, as you introduce puzzles and traps into the game not too soon, but also not too late. For the rest of the game, you were running in extreme puzzles while getting trapped with every wrong step. I really enjoyed that, as it demonstrated a difficult game while giving some extra fun and enjoyable routes instead of displaying pure puzzle.

Pros/cons

Pros: Overall gameplay,puzzles, traps, and placement.

Neutral: Scenery.

Cons: There were not any cons in this game, as the errors were minor.

Ratings

Gameplay: 4.5/5; Witness was truly amazing in its style, and gave the player a chance to enjoy the game before getting brutally burned in lava.

Puzzles: 4/5; They were beautifully used and placed, while some were fresh and never seen before.

Traps: 4.5/5; In my opinion, the traps were better than the puzzles because of the constant threat of getting trapped, or killed.

Scenery: 3.5/5; Although rated a little lower, I thought the scenery was impressive giving the fact that this was a puzzle-themed game, and recent Puzzle Platformers do not include hardly any scenery to them.

Placement: 4/5; I felt that the placement was extraordinary; however the constant overlapping of tiles and decoration objects affected its outcome.

Overall: 4.2/5; Witness was nicely made, and I feel this was an overall success to not only Blackhole2, but the Sploder Archive.

Conclusion

In conclusion, Witness was stunning to me and had no major problems to it. The biggest question that crosses everyone’s mind is: Is Witness feature-worthy? In my opinion, yes it was feature-worthy, because of the outstanding placement and overall gameplay. Good job Blackhole2, you’ve made another dent in Sploder history as I hope to see more from you, as you’ve got some great potential!