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10 years ago, game designer Jonathan Blow released what I regard as one of the finest puzzle games of all time, The Witness. Though he hasn’t published a game since then, Blow has been very busy in that decade-long gap — for better and worse. He has been hard at work on another ambitious puzzle game, Order of the Sinking Star. He has also penned some politically charged social media posts that prompted some of the developers associated with the project to distance themselves from Blow.
It’s an unfortunate rain-cloud to have hanging over the project, considering that the wider team at Thekla has something special on its hands. Players will be able to find out for themselves on Monday, June 15 with a free Steam Next Fest demo that Blow says is “bigger than most entire paid puzzle games.” I got just a small taste of that at Summer Game Fest, and walked away impressed by what plays like a celebration of an entire puzzle sub-genre. Jonathan Blow’s name may be on the tin, but he’s just one small piece of an enormous puzzle.
Order of the Sinking Star is a Sokoban game, a puzzle format that centers around block-pushing. The twist, however, is that it’s actually multiple Sokoban games. Blow obtained the licenses for several small games, and reworked their ideas into an interconnected open-world game containing over 1000 puzzles. During my demo, Blow told me that he estimates that the game will take 500 hours to fully complete. I assume he’s exaggerating, but the fact that I can’t say for sure speaks to how massive the thing felt in my short demo. Maybe that’s why Thekla feels so comfortable putting out a full game-sized demo.
Things seem simple at first: pop into a level, push some blocks onto switches, repeat. Once I got through the straightforward tutorial, though, I was free to explore an overworld in any direction I chose and tackle more complex puzzles. Structurally, it’s similar to The Witness; each area contains puzzles that focus on a specific rule. In the levels to my east, I was introduced to mirrors. I could not only push them like rocks, but also teleport through them to safely cross over water. That compounds with other rules, like pushing rocks into water to form bridges. In an underground area, on the other hand, I was dealing with gem-powered beams that affected the environment in different ways depending on their color.
That’s one layer. The next is that there are different characters, and each one has their own mechanics. One character can push multiple blocks at once, while another compulsively pulls instead of pushing when standing next to a block. Those character-specific twists completely change the dynamic of puzzles, so you can imagine what it starts to look like when combined with elements like mirrors.
Then there’s another layer on top of that. Solving puzzle levels changes things in the overworld, unlocking new pathways and puzzles. For instance, the mirror puzzles are splayed out across a set of islands. Once I cleared a few levels, I unlocked some mirrors and stones on the overworld, allowing me to move on to more levels by using the skills I just learned. Everything is connected, and I can’t even imagine what that means when dealing with over 1,000 puzzles. It feels like I barely saw anything at all during my demo despite learning over half a dozen rulesets.
Blow is careful not to take credit for every big idea here. When I asked him a question about his puzzle design ethos, he was quick to correct me and give props to the underlying games everything was built on. That includes free games like Mirror Isles, Promesst, and the Heroes of Sokoban series. Order of the Sinking Star is a mixtape of innovation, compiling some of the genre’s best ideas into something cohesive. I’m shocked that it all works considering that it’s based on the work of various designers with their own philosophies.
That list of names is worth celebrating. Blow previously confirmed that Order of the Sinking Star features contributions from other developers like Patrick Traynor, the developer behind the fantastic Patrick’s Parabox. It also features work from the late Zach Polansky (known by the pseudonym Jack Lance), a logic puzzle designer who passed away in 2023 at the age of 25. Blow’s name is front and center in the marketing materials, but I imagine that even he would be quick to call the project a massive team effort.
Whether Blow’s involvement, in spite of all that, is a deal-breaker for you is your decision to make. Everyone has the right to choose how their time and dollars get spent. (Mirror Isles developer Alan Hazelden said that the profits he receives from the game will be put towards supporting underprivileged creators.) No matter what you decide, you can still engage with the designers involved by checking out the brilliant free games Order of the Sinking Star is adapting in impressive fashion. Whatever gets you to try more Sokoban games and appreciate one of gaming’s most maddeningly clever niches.
The first part of Order of the Sinking Star’s free Steam Next Fest demo drops today, and a second piece will be available on Thursday. Together, they will contain around 110 puzzles.
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