Last summer, Braid creator Jonathan Blow delighted and/or pissed off gamers with a job posting for a concept artist to work on his next game. At the time, Blow described the project as “a puzzle-exploration game that is philosophical, and quiet, and is being made for reasons other than crass profit motive.” He went on to request that his new artist have a portfolio free of various mainstream video game cliches, including well-endowed women, orcs, and scenes of post-apocalyptic destruction. I'm usually not a fan of artists sweepingly declaring that anything popular is beneath them, but it's Blow's damn game and he's free to make it as he sees fit.

Except...as many commenters pointed out at the time, the game Blow was describing sounded an awful lot like Cyan Worlds' classic adventure/puzzle game Myst. Those commenters appear to have been on the money. Blow has created a blog for the new game, titled The Witness, and included a handful of concept art images which leave no doubt as to at least one of the game's influences. Now this is just concept art, and not necessarily indicative of the finished product, but it does seem to give some credence to those who took issue with Blow taking a dig at mainstream games' lack of original ideas while drawing so heavily on a game that is hardly a hidden treasure.

I think the only reasonable thing to do here is wait for more detailed information on the final game. Blow proved with Braid that he could take well-explored influences and do something fresh and interesting with them. Surely he's earned a little bit of goodwill, right?

[Via Destructoid]