8-Bit Demake of The Witness Can Be Played on Your NES

When Thekla, Inc.’s puzzle game The Witness was released in January, it was praised for its difficult but rewarding puzzles and impressive visuals. It's not likely that many imagined it as an 8-bit adventure, but one developer has created a "demake" of the first-person puzzle game and ported it to the NES.

The developer, who goes by Dustmop on social media, has fittingly called the project "The Wit.nes." He describes it as a "reinterpretation and tribute to the original work," and as such he is making some changes to the game. For example, The Wit.nes will have 32 puzzles, while the original has around 600. The game’s setting, too, appears to have been changed a bit to fit the scope of the project.

But The Wit.nes is still ambitious: Dustmop has recreated The Witness's mechanics, such as line and environmental puzzles. He has also made an approximation of the game’s island in NES graphics.

Dustmop is still working on the full game, but a demo is available for download here. It only contains the starting area; the completed game will have "16 full screens of map to explore." You can play it on Windows, Mac, Linux, or Android devices using a NES emulator, or you can load the ROM into a Powerpak or Everdrive to play it on a NES.

When The Witness launched in January, GameSpot thought that it was extremely challenging but gratifying. You can read our full review here.