Jonathan Blow had hit the jackpot with his incredible platform-puzzle game Braid — an original Xbox Live indie game for the Xbox 360. Now with his six-year long development of The Witness he has more confidence than ever and has elected to borrow the necessary capital to finish the game.
With numerous awards granted to the developer for Braid, his work on The Witness is expected to be even more ambitious and intricate with 677 total puzzles.
With the beginning of the end for the Xbox 360 and Playstation 3 (Braid’s two primary consoles for a source of income) just beginning, Blow hasn’t been able to generate enough income to support the team working on The Witness.
The dev discussed with Engadget how he intends “to borrow a bunch of money to finish” and he’s betting everything on the success of this upcoming first person puzzler. Though the bet should be solid for Blow. His following and the excitement that Braid still has should carry over and make the venture worth it.
“20 years from now, I am not going to care about whether we took an extra six months or a year in development; I am going to care about the quality of the game people got to play. It’d be a shame to sacrifice some of that quality just to squeak the game out a little sooner. Though I do sympathize with people who have been waiting a long time to play.”