Ever get the feeling that you’re a bit thick? If the answer is no, boy howdy, have I got a game to test that confidence. Order of the Sinking Star is Jonathan Blow’s latest endeavour, and it melted my mind on an hourly basis.
The set-up drops you into a top-down overworld, possibly the afterlife, with paths leading up, right, and down. Each area contains puzzles that must be solved to advance through the overworld and complete the story.
To say there’s a lot to this story would be underselling it. Fully voiced and packed with philosophical musings, it’s every bit as layered as the game itself. The protagonist in the overworld has a tale to tell, but so does every character within the individual puzzles. Recordings scattered throughout add another layer of lore. If you love obsessing over details, deciphering the overworld’s inscriptions and linking voice notes to puzzles, you’re going to relish this.
Head north, and you’ll be treated to Sokoban puzzles. Doubtless, you’ll have seen these plenty of times before. The idea is to move blocks around a grid so that they can be arranged into their marked positions. Pushing a block against a wall often prevents you from moving it in a particular direction, so you really need to think through every move. Sokoban puzzles are old hat; we won’t deny that. There’s nothing new to wring out of the idea, right?
Developer Thekla disagrees. The team has wrung every possible puzzle from Sokoban, like a chef using every part of an animal and leaving nothing to waste. This is the last word on Sokoban puzzles. Nothing more needs to be said. There is no meat left on the bone.
We’ve got characters who push or drag blocks, characters who can swap positions with one another, brave souls who protect you from monsters littering the field, singers who move nearby blocks, and plenty more besides. Then there are combinations of these characters that force you to think about everyone’s move set, puzzle by puzzle. So this is the ultimate Sokoban game, with dozens of hours of brain-benders. What more could you ask for?
That’ll be a little something called variety. Sokoban puzzles merely reside in the north area. Head into the remaining three directions, and you’ll find additional puzzle types, each just as demanding and challenging.
There are mirror puzzles, which I found the hardest; stone-skipping puzzles; and Promesst puzzles – which involve walking through special beams to gain powers. The same philosophy has been applied to every type: each one feels explored from every possible angle. Oh, and then they start to combine.
There are over 1,200 puzzles present in Order of the Sinking Star, resulting in an estimated 500-hour playtime. It’s the gaming equivalent of being given a stack of puzzle books from well-wishers while laid up in hospital.
Given the vast amount of content, I wasn’t able to see everything during the week I spent with Order of the Sinking Star. The determination to wring every last drop from each puzzle type is commendable, but the sheer scale is also incredibly overwhelming and demands a lot from the player. As you progress, the difficulty ramps up sharply. I’m grateful that you can reset a puzzle with the tap of a button, as well as undo individual moves.
Still, there were a few puzzles I had to leave and think about before returning to them, which is exactly what you want from something like this. This is a game I’m going to keep coming back to for months, if not years, dipping in and out and making slow headway. It’s a Sunday-cup-of-tea game: something to replace the newspaper crossword.
If you love puzzle games and being stumped, this is seminal stuff. People are going to be uncovering its secrets for years to come, and it will grab some of them and hold on for a long time. But it’s also a big ask of any one person. Sometimes less really is more. Not every possible connection between ideas needs to be explored, especially when it becomes increasingly difficult to remember the rules for each character. This is the work of some of the world’s most esoteric chefs, serving the most extravagant buffet they can muster. Do you have the stomach for a multi-course puzzler platter with a side order of rich lore?
Thekla’s Order of the Sinking Star is out now on PS5, Switch 2 and PC. Published by Arc Games.