The Witness Project Passes Key Milestone

The Witness, the long-anticipated puzzle game from Braid creator Jonathan Blow, has passed a major milestone in its development.

All of the game's 677 puzzles are now locked-in. "This means that all puzzles that will be in the game when it ships are in the game now," Blow said in a new developer diary entry.

However, the renowned indie developer explained that there are still more development hurdles to overcome before the build is sent for certification.

"It does not mean that the game is done. We still have a lot to do! But it does mean that the nature of the work changes and becomes simpler, because we don’t have to be making high-level creative decisions any more."

The Witness, which places players on a mysterious island filled with physical puzzles and riddles, was first revealed in August 2009. In February 2013, Blow took the stage at Sony's PlayStation 4 reveal event to announce that the project would be a launch title for the new console. However, this version, along with the PC and iOS builds, have been delayed ever since.

In the interim, Blow has confirmed that the PS4 version would support 1080p resolution at 60 frames-per-second, while VR support has been teased for the PC build.

Blow's latest blog post suggests that the wait for release could soon be over.

"[The development work] is now much more about turning the finish-the-game crank (making sure stuff plays well and polishing it up) for anything related to game design, modeling and texturing," he wrote.

"There are a few categories that still need creative decisions (story stuff, the menu system, etc), but for those of you who are awaiting the game’s release, this is pretty good news."

In June last year, GameSpot played the latest public build of the game and was largely positive about it.