Chacal, I enjoyed your list and agree with all your points.
Played it three years ago, so the finer details are a bit foggy now, but I'd add:
Likes: - since this is obviously (for whatever reason) an ENTIRELY 'designed' island, I was also willing to forgive the designey, even sometimes cartoony quality of the graphics, partly because they were so pretty and charming at times. We don't need to be in dystopian game environments every time, do we?
- similarly, though I would've preferred a bit LESS compactness, it sure did save on running-around time, and again - it's simply not a natural environment.
- as Sirius says, they did a great job with the lighting, which helped overcome some of the chunky rendering
- the many beautiful visual line-of-sight gags that were added without any need. Here's one, (maybe you'll see that the chunky graphics were often not annoying at all):
- Show Spoiler
- Witness2016.02W.jpg (124.3 KiB) Viewed 4912 times
- when the puzzle rules were taught in a stepwise sequence, it was very helpful.
NotLikes:- when puzzle rules were not taught clearly. I felt this several times, and it wasn't simply the fact that they were taught elsewhere - though even that would imply that the game is best played in a specific sequence and is therefore not really what you'd call nonlinear, open gameplay.
- when puzzles had more than one solution, but only one was the game's accepted, "correct" solution. I saw this many times, and yes in a few instances I later learned why the solution I'd thought acceptable was in fact wrong. But a few remained that annoyed me. Here's one of them, I won't explain the circumstance; it may be self-explanatory if you've been there:
- Show Spoiler
- Misleading-unaccepted02W.jpg (106.04 KiB) Viewed 4912 times
- the
- Show Spoiler
timed puzzle sequence at what I assume was the end of the game....but I may be wrong because I never finished it, I hate such races and won't play that game!
So I don't even know if there was some big reveal at the 'end'!
I get why some people can despise DIsneyland, and this place is like that in a way. But in both cases, the sense of craftsmanship is what I admire most.