Each time we pick up a new video game, we’re faced with the same dilemma: “How do I play this game?” Most games now feature tutorials, which can range from the innocuous — gently introducing each mechanic at a time through natural gameplay — to downright disruptive — in which the gameplay freezes to text box after text box.

我们挑选了一个新的视频游戏éACH时候，我们面临着同样的困境：“我怎么玩这个游戏？” 现在，大多数游戏都具有教程，其范围从无害的游戏(通过自然的游戏过程一次轻轻地介绍每个机制)到彻头彻尾的破坏性游戏(在其中将游戏过程冻结到一个文本框后一个文本框)。

However some games opt for no tutorial at all. Games like Pong are fairly simple: move up and down and try to outscore your opponent. Because you have so few inputs at your disposal, everything you see in front of you is all you need to intuit how to play. Computers can even “learn” how to play many of these games on their own, sometimes outperforming their human counterparts.

但是，有些游戏根本不选择任何教程。 像Pong这样的游戏非常简单：上下移动并尝试超越对手。 由于您的投入很少，因此您眼前所见的一切都是您直觉如何玩的必要。 电脑甚至可以“学习”如何独自玩许多这样的游戏，有时甚至胜过其他同类游戏。

“A good start would be to recognize within yourself the ability to understand anything, because that ability’s there, as long as it’s explained clearly enough.“

“一个良好的开端就是在自己内部承认理解一切的能力，因为只要有足够清晰的解释，这种能力就在那里。”

— James Burke

-詹姆斯·伯克

But even in these games without instruction, the absence of a tutorial is coincidental. The designers didn’t include one because they thought none was necessary. What if having no explicit tutorial was one of the key features of the gameplay? The Witness sets out to achieve exactly that. In this puzzle game, discovering the rules for yourself is the driving experience.

但是即使在这些没有指导的游戏中，缺少教程也是偶然的。 设计师没有包括一个，因为他们认为没有必要。 如果没有明确的教程是游戏玩法的主要特征之一怎么办？ 见证人着手实现这一目标。 在这个益智游戏中，发现自己的规则就是驾驶体验。

All you need to navigate the island is a willingness to discern for yourself how the world works. Early puzzles are very simple, where you can naturally deduce your objectives. Every successive puzzle beyond those is meant to refine your understanding of the environment. If you’ve stumbled upon a solution haphazardly, you may want to investigate it further before proceeding — later puzzles can be quite unforgiving.

您需要在岛上航行的唯一意愿就是亲自了解世界的运转方式。 早期的难题非常简单，您可以自然地推断出目标。 除此以外的所有后续难题都旨在增进您对环境的理解。 如果您偶然发现了一个解决方案，则可能需要在继续之前进行进一步的研究-以后的困惑可能会令人难以原谅。

Each region of the island is littered with its own bespoke set of puzzles that alter the parameters of the game, with a steep learning curve as you delve further into each territory. Every now and again you’ll find puzzles that combine several of these elements to form some truly hostile challenges. Be careful not to lose your wits.

岛上的每个区域都散布着自己的定制拼图，这些拼图会改变游戏的参数，随着您深入研究每个领土，学习曲线会陡峭。 时不时地，您会发现难题，这些难题将其中的一些要素结合在一起，构成了一些真正的敌对挑战。 注意不要失去智慧。

Fortunately, when you do find yourself in need of relief from the puzzles that ail you, you’ve no shortage of options to explore. Among the biomes you’ll encounter are a monastery tucked away beside a chirping forest, a fortress teeming with hedge mazes and pressure panels, and a prismatic greenhouse overlooking the coast. For the most part, you won’t find any music in the game to accompany your travel, making for an immersive experience.

幸运的是，当您确实需要从困扰自己的难题中解脱时，您会发现很多选择。 在您遇到的生物群落中，有一个藏在一片forest森林旁边的修道院，一座堆满树篱迷宫和压力板的堡垒以及一座俯瞰海岸的棱形温室。 在大多数情况下，您不会在旅途中找到任何音乐伴随着沉浸式体验。

There’s not much in the way of a narrative that is presented to you. But there is such clear attention to detail in the structures which span the island that you may find yourself speculating all the while. There’s a constant struggle between monuments and nature that give each part of the island its own character, imbued with varying degrees of disrepair. Stone figures populate various destinations as if frozen in time, awaiting a backstory of your choosing.

呈现给您的叙述方式不多。 但是跨岛的结构对细节的关注如此之明显，以至于您可能会一直在猜测。 古迹与自然之间不断进行斗争，使岛屿的每个部分都有自己的特色，充满了不同程度的失修。 石头雕像像冻结的时间一样散布在各个目的地，等待您选择的背景故事。

Now if this game were just a vibrant island filled with line tracing puzzles, you’d probably still enjoy it all the same. The Witness provides an engaging succession of puzzling one-upsmanship that is sure to be worth your time. But there’s more than meets the eye. If you’re fortunate, you’ll find a mechanic in the game that stands apart from the rest. That is the set of puzzles that don’t introduce themselves as puzzles at all.

现在，如果这个游戏只是一个充满线描拼图的充满活力的岛屿，您可能仍然会喜欢它。 见证人提供令人困惑的令人难以置信的一键手法，这肯定值得您花时间。 但是，不仅仅是眼神。 如果幸运的话，您会在游戏中找到与众不同的机制。 那是完全不会将自己介绍为难题的难题。

Chances are, the first time you encounter one of these hidden puzzles, you’ll simply stumble upon it. You’ll stop for moment in your tracks, perceive that something is afoot, and realize that what lies before your eyes is unmistakably yet another puzzle. Surely the mere existence of this one hidden puzzle implies the presence of more. This newfound prospect of discovery is what makes the experience so exhilarating. It is unabashedly awesome.

第一次遇到这些隐藏的谜题时，您可能会偶然发现它。 您会暂时停下脚步，感知正在发生的事情，并且意识到眼前的事物无疑是另一个难题。 当然，这个隐藏谜题的仅仅存在就意味着更多的存在。 这种新发现的发现使体验如此令人振奋。 确实很棒。

“Awesome things don’t hold anything back. Awesome things are rich and generous. The treasure is right there.”

“很棒的事情不会阻止任何事情。 令人敬畏的事物是丰富而慷慨的。 宝藏就在那里。”

— Brian Moriarty

—布赖恩·莫里亚蒂

It’s even crazier to think that they were right under your nose the whole time. This one pivotal experience changes the nature of the game completely, forcing a radical rethink of the environment you’ve come to know up until this point. If you’ve found the standard puzzles rather drab or unengaging thus far, this new set of puzzles will reinvigorate the gameplay, as anything and everything has become fair game in the hunt for the secrets of the island.

一直认为它们一直在您的鼻子底下甚至更疯狂。 这项关键性的体验完全改变了游戏的本质，从而迫使人们重新思考直到现在为止您所了解的环境。 到目前为止，如果您发现标准拼图比较单调或令人困惑，那么这套新的拼图将重振游戏玩法，因为所有事物和一切都已成为寻找岛屿秘密的公平游戏。

And it was no mere coincidence that you made your discovery. Granted, you almost certainly discovered your first hidden puzzle without intending to do so, because you weren’t looking for it and no one told you to look for it. But in the back of your mind, you saw something that gave you pause, something you recognized. When you could have seen merely what was in front of you and been none the wiser, you instead made an observation and thought to yourself, “What if there’s something more?” It was your curiosity that drove you to look beyond what you initially understood about the world around you.

您做出发现绝非偶然。 当然，您几乎可以肯定地发现了自己的第一个隐藏难题，因为您没有寻找它，也没有人告诉您寻找它。 但是，在您的内心深处，您看到了让您停下来的东西，您意识到了。 当您只看到自己面前的东西而没有一个人更明智时，您反而观察了一下，然后心想：“如果还有更多东西呢？” 正是您的好奇心驱使您超越了您最初对周围世界的了解。

So often, we take for granted our surroundings because they were simply always there and we never stop to question it. Take gravity: there’s the iconic story of Isaac Newton and the falling apple. Gravity predates Newton by at least a few years and was readily evident for all to see. But it was not well understood until it occurred to Newton to study it and challenge any preconceived notion of how it behaved.

很多时候，我们认为周围的环境是理所当然的，因为周围的环境一直都在那里，我们永不停止质疑。 注意重力：这里有艾萨克·牛顿(Isaac Newton)和堕落的苹果的标志性故事。 重力至少比牛顿早了几年，并且所有人都可以轻易地看到它。 但是直到牛顿开始研究它并挑战任何关于它的行为的先入为主的概念之前，人们对它的理解还不是很清楚。

And that is perhaps my key personal takeaway from The Witness. There’s an entire world right in front of us full of discoveries to be made. It’s incumbent upon us to be mindful of our surroundings and alert at every moment, so that when serendipity strikes, we’re in a position to capitalize on that opportunity. Inspiration, revelation, creativity — all these things are rendered fruitless if we’re not prepared and willing to capture what that moment has brought us.

这也许是我从《见证人》中获得的关键个人收获。 眼前，整个世界充满了许多发现。 我们有责任时刻注意周围的环境并时刻保持警惕，以便在偶然事件发生时，我们能够利用这一机会。 灵感，启示，创造力-如果我们不准备好并愿意抓住那一刻带给我们的一切，那么所有这些都会变得毫无成果。

That moment of epiphany is one of the most integral experiences in The Witness, be it whether you’re solving an especially challenging puzzle that the game lays in front of you or one of the hidden puzzles. It can be quite elusive, but if you pay attention long enough and loosen any prior assumptions you’ve held, eventually opportunity will strike. And it is at precisely that moment where everything seems to fall into place. The world is exactly the way it was before, only we’re different for having truly understood, experienced, and witnessed it in all its complexity.

顿悟的那一刻是《见证 》中最不可或缺的体验之一，无论是要解决游戏摆在您面前的特别具有挑战性的难题，还是隐藏的难题之一。 这可能很难捉摸，但是如果您足够长时间地关注并放宽您以前的假设，最终机会就会来临。 恰恰在这一刻，一切似乎都准备就绪。 世界与以前完全一样，只是我们与众不同，因为它真正理解，体验并见证了它的所有复杂性。