If you recall, Jonathan Blow and his company Thekla Inc.’s puzzle game The Witness was announced for iOS a long time ago. The PS4 and PC versions came out, but the iOS port needed “a serious programmer" to help bring it to fruition. And then, no word on the iOS version. But now with IGN reporting that The Witness is hitting the Xbox One later this year, they interestingly also got some new details out of Blow for the iOS version. And Thekla is actively working on it! The plan for The Witness on iOS is for it to be the same game, just with lower-end graphics to work on mobile. Jonathan Blow told IGN “It’s such a lower-end platform and we have to redo a ton of stuff." There also is work to be done in adapting the controls to mobile, with a tap-based movement scheme the current method being practiced.
I’m glad to hear the game’s still in the works for mobile. Adapting a current-generation console/PC game to mobile has to be a difficult task, and it would be easy for Blow and Thekla to say that it’s not possible and abandon it. But there’s the potential for a new audience outside the console/PC market to enjoy this game – they took to Monument Valley ($3.99) quite well – and it makes plenty of sense for The Witness to be a mobile game, some way, somehow. Hopefully we’ll hear more about it soon. Or maybe like so many other games, it’ll pop up randomly on the App Store one day!
