I was keenly aware of how beloved Jonathan Blow’s games were, but nothing quite prepared me for what Order of the Sinking Star had to offer. As someone who’s generally not very good at puzzle games, Order of the Sinking Star has wasted no time in consuming all of my free time. When I’m playing it, hours disappear. When I’m not playing it, I’m thinking about that latest puzzle that’s got me stumped, frustrated yet confident that the answer will come to me when I least expect it.
Order of the Sinking Star is the latest puzzle game from director Jonathan Blow, best known for working on Braid and The Witness. If you know anything at all about those games, you already know what you can expect from this one. Mind-bending puzzles with simple mechanics that are very easy to pick up, but before you know it, those puzzles start to get increasingly complex, with solutions that may seem like they require you to do some serious mental gymnastics to get to, but are actually deceptively simple.
The game starts off with little to no explanation of what’s going on in its world, except for the fact that you play as a girl who finds herself in a realm of magic and monsters. Starting in the middle of a massive map, you’re free to go north, south, east, or west, exploring visually and mechanically distinct regions and revisiting the memories of other characters as they solve sokoban puzzles and unveil more of the story as you go along. Much of the story is told through audio notes you can collect as the girl, and through conversational dialogue between the characters you meet in the different realms.
I’ve been playing through an early access build of the Steam Next Fest demo and I haven’t learned quite enough to start piecing the story together just yet, so I can’t really speak to the quality of the writing just yet. Truth be told, I’m rarely in it for the narrative when I play puzzle games, and so far, the story hasn’t really gripped me in any meaningful way though this could very well change once I see more of it in the final build. Not all of the characters are voiced yet either, though the voice work for the ones that are is excellent.
But enough of this story stuff. We’re here for the puzzles. Order of the Sinking Star features over 1,000 sokoban-based puzzles. For the uninitiated, Sokoban is a game created by Hiroyuki Imabayashi back in 1981. It primarily involves pushing boxes to a target location. Boxes can only be pushed, not pulled, and the goal is to get the box to your target without boxing yourself in, or creating a deadlock where you can no longer move and interact with the box.
Order of the Sinking Star starts off following those conventional sokoban rules, with the first character you meet pushing boulders around to get to where he needs to go. It doesn’t take long for the game to shake things up, however, as every new mechanic that gets introduced after that adds an interesting twist to the sokoban formula. Within the first region, I was introduced to a character who could only pull boulders behind her, which was tough enough on its own. But immediately after that, the next character could only switch places with a boulder by simply looking at it head on, regardless of how far away it is.
On their own, this creates ample room for creative puzzles that can really leave you scratching your head, but of course, Order of the Sinking Star doesn’t stop there. It’s not long before you start getting puzzles where you have to utilize two or more characters at once to hit your target and that’s where things get seriously tricky. I could pull a boulder out of the way with one character, but I’d also have to position her just right or my other character will switch places with her just by looking at her, potentially undoing all of my hard work.
I ventured into the eastern and western regions as well to see what was in store for me, and my goodness, the puzzles only get more complex. The eastern region is by far my favorite, as you’re introduced to a mirror mechanic that allows you to switch positions with your reflection, which makes for more interesting puzzle setups and satisfying solutions. The western region is the most complex, introducing crystals that you can pick up and place in various key locations around the map to open up new pathways and breakable objects. What’s so genius about Order of the Sinking Star, however, is that no matter how complex the mechanics get, the sokoban formula never changes. Your goal is always to get an object to its target location; the methods required to get there, however, are constantly in flux, which makes the game extremely engaging.
I’ve yet to complete the demo myself. One particular puzzle in the Mirror Isles have me absolutely stumped. I’m not frustrated, though. I know the solution will come to me sooner or later when I’m not thinking about it. Order of the Sinking Star is already shaping up to be one of the most genius and polished puzzle games I’ve ever played, and I can’t wait to see what the full version brings.
An early code for the game was provided by the publisher.
