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Order of the Sinking Star is not for the weak-willed. The latest puzzle adventure from Jonathan Blow (Braid, The Witness) makes the player earn their wins, rewarding them with an intriguing, slowly unfurling story set in a mystical plane beyond comprehension. My many hours spent staring at these puzzle boards with steam blowing out of my ears and veins popping out of my forehead made for a sometimes painful experience, but one that left me appreciating the genius of the game’s design.
The opening seconds are mysterious and intriguing enough to propel you through the game’s brain teasers. Rather than meeting an NPC that tediously explains exactly what’s going on, we’re put in the shoes of our unnamed protagonist who is trying to make sense of the world they have seemingly just spawned into. They call out for their friends to no avail, wondering if they have stumbled into the afterlife.
Even when they find an audio log from a fellow traveller left stranded on this plane, this only serves to deepen the mystery instead of giving all of the answers. While I was struggling with Order of the Sinking Star’s most frustrating challenges, my desire to uncover more drips of lore made me willing to keep banging my head against the door.
Through exploring this overworld, our protagonist comes across portals to what is either the past or another dimension, and this is where the meat of the gameplay takes place. Developer Thekla picks up on the legacy of Sokoban, setting up puzzles principally revolving around the shifting of blocks. When stepping through these portals, we inhabit new characters, each with their own ways of manipulating the blocks. At the start of the game, you’re brought to a hub area where you’re given the choice of going North, East or West. Each direction allows you to inhabit different characters, each with their own ways of manipulating the blocks and their own backstories to uncover.
Order of the Sinking Star is a great example of squeezing all of the juice out of every gameplay mechanic. The possibilities seem endless when only playing with characters who can either push blocks or pull blocks behind them. The game makes such complex puzzles out of such simple mechanics, but then you’re introduced to characters who teleport across the map, reflect blocks through mirrors, or change the environment into movable blocks, and it feels like seeing the Great Plateau in Breath of the Wild for the first time. There are more than 1,000 puzzles, a testament to the endless creativity of Blow and his team.
That being said, that creativity won’t be accessible for everyone. Though all 1,000 puzzles don’t need to be completed to get the full story of Order of the Sinking Star, there are plenty of essential ones that gave me headaches.
I love the feeling of straining my eyes by staring so hard at a puzzle until the solution reveals itself. There were multiple times when I was away from the game and the solution to a puzzle would randomly pop into my head, and I’d either rush back to my Switch or have to make a note for later. The puzzle boards all being relatively small also means that solutions can be found by pure brute force, if you’re willing to put in the time.
Additionally, the reset and rewind mechanics are so snappy and instant that trying again from scratch doesn’t feel like a big chore. Another big accessibility boon is the simple, pleasant look of the game, as well as its very minimal soundtrack, which reduce both the visual and literal noise so complete focus on the task at hand can be maximised. Order of the Sinking Star sunk its teeth into me, but these perks may not be enough to stop some players from turning off.
As much as the game represents the greatness of the puzzle genre, there are a couple of aspects holding it back. The genre is at its best when the player almost feels like they’re outsmarting the game, getting away with something by arranging the pieces on the board in ways the developers might not expect, but still getting to the solution. Order of the Sinking Star, however, very much steers you towards a singular way of solving each puzzle.
In one case, I made use of the mirror mechanic to make a bunch of clones of a character and cheesed my way to the finish line in a way that I was pretty proud of, until the game refused to accept this solution and made me try again, the proper way. It’s no small feat to make a game that caters to every gamer’s wacky ideas, but the strictness of Order of the Sinking Star does take away from the satisfaction.
Conclusion
Order of the Sinking Star is a puzzler made for the real sickos who could spend hours grinding down one stage. The mechanics remain simple enough to feel accessible, but are expanded upon with commendable creativity.
While it doesn’t let you experiment to any great degree, it will still leave you feeling like a genius after solving one puzzle before leaving you completely clueless in the next. Not everyone likes that feeling, but I relished it.