50/50 chance of The Witness in 2012

Braid creator Jonathan Blow's next game, The Witness, could be delayed from Christmas 2011 to some time in 2012.

Indeed the chances of such a delay are "fifty fifty", the outspoken indie developer has admitted.

The Witness, an open world first-person adventure puzzle game, was secretly shown at the recent Penny Arcade Expo.

But at the GameCity festival in Nottingham last week Blow blew the lid off of the game, demoing it to an audience in an exclusive presentation.

Speaking to Eurogamer afterwards, Blow admitted his ambition with The Witness may cause a delay in its release.

"My original schedule for this game is that it would be out later 2011," Blow said. "It's turning out to be a bigger, more ambitious game than that, so we might even delay it further than that. It might actually be 2012.

"We could say [the chances of a delay are] 50/50 at this point. It seems like a long time and it is a long time.

"Certainly it's going to be next Christmas or later."

Blow is yet to solidify a publishing deal for the intriguing project, or decide which platforms it'll eventually be released on.

"A lot of people ask, is it going to be Xbox Live Arcade, because that's where Braid premiered.

"The answer is, I don't know. We're working on the game right now. We're just developing it on the PC because that's the easiest development environment and PCs are fast.

"We're doing some ports to consoles as more of a test of the code. But I've been on purpose not chasing business deals too far with anybody specific. The reason is partially because I want freedom as an independent guy and if you sign with a publisher suddenly there's a publisher breathing down your neck.

"So my inclination is to wait until the game is just about done and then sign with either a third-party publisher or with Microsoft or Sony or somebody like that – or just put it out on Steam."

Also factoring into the decision to wait before settling on a publisher and platforms is, according to Blow, the constantly evolving game distribution landscape.

"I don't even know what things are going to look like next Christmas," he said. "Is Nintendo going to announce a new console and have a better thing than WiiWare on that?

"I feel like there's potential for significant changes there and they may happen within a year. They may happen within a year-and-a half. So if I decide now and make a bunch of committed business relationships to release on certain platforms at certain prices, I may find the situation has changed under me and there's a better way to get the game out to people.

"Maybe I'm just being lazy and deferring important decisions until later!"

Braid, released in 2008 to critical acclaim, scored 10/10 from Eurogamer.