Maybe that ill-fated game would have been nothing like Fez, but to see one of the leading lights of thoughtful indie development apparently falling prey to the same sequelitis that is choking the mainstream games industry was a real let down. At the risk of reigniting the smouldering embers of old arguments, one of my biggest disappointments of 2013 was Phil Fish announcing he was working on Fez 2. From 2D platformer to vast 3D first-person puzzle-adventure - that's a stylistic switch that most developers wouldn't dare to take. My second reason for awaiting The Witness like a Pavlovian hound is that it looks absolutely nothing like Braid. He makes games that are artful, rather than making art that looks like a game. He isn't ashamed or embarrassed by the medium's fondness for jumping from platforms and squashing bizarrely shaped enemies. I like that he doesn't see their artistic worth as somehow separate from their mechanical parts, but inextricably linked to them. Quite simply, I like how Jonathan Blow thinks about games. His debut game, Braid, still dazzles and thrills me when I revisit it, five years after its release. There are three simple reasons why The Witness is my most anticipated game of 2014.
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