The Witness 12+

First thing’s first - this game is a masterpiece. Incredible. I bought the Witness on PS4 earlier this year and immediately saw that the concept would be perfect on mobile. So when it came out, I bought it straight away. And the game is MADE for the small-screen. BUT: I am on iPhone 6, <12mo old, and I get 10 mins of playtime from full charge to ‘Low Power’ warning. It is just so resource-intensive that it invalidates the mobile format. I have to be attached to a power outlet at all times, so I might as well be on the PS4. If they can optimise performance more effectively, this will be perfect. Until then, stick with the console, and keep taking photos of the screen to work puzzles out in your lunchbreak ;-)

The witness is one of the games I’ve always kept on my playstation hard-drive because it’s so good, but for the LOVE OF GOD please put an analogue control on the bottom left of the screen. The controls are absolutely atrocious. I’ve had to just stop playing it on my iPhone 8 Plus because even with the larger screen the tap to move and the horrific camera angles make moving around to solve puzzles a nightmare - especially the dessert section of the map where you have to move to very specific places to see the outline of the puzzle solutions based on where the sun is hitting the screen. Abysmal. Until this is sorted I can’t bring myself to play it again on my phone. Do yourself a favour, experience this on console - because you really can’t underestimate how much more fun you will have exploring this beautiful game.

The Witness is one of my favourite indie games and anywhere else would be a 5-star game. However, the tap-to-move control scheme is difficult at best and at worst, maddeningly frustrating.

That being said, The Witness is a fantastic game to have in portable format, which begs the question, why isn’t it on Nintendo Switch? Does Annapurna and Jonathan Blow not like money? I’d pay £30 for an eShop port all day long. As too would many Switch owners.

For anyone considering grabbing this puzzle masterpiece for their iPhone or iPad, I’d suggest waiting for a heavily discounted sale, picking up an MFi controller or for it to turn up on Nintendo’s hybrid system, whichever comes first.