Order of the Sinking Star: Five Hours in Jonathan Blow's Puzzle Monster
Thekla, the studio of Jonathan Blow (Braid, The Witness), has released Order of the Sinking Star after roughly ten years of development. Ahmet Iscitürk of Eurogamer.de played for five hours and says plainly that he is not writing a review but an impression. His finding is that the game is surprisingly fun, even though it keeps confronting him with his own limits.
At its center is a large, nonlinear overworld, from which you explore different areas with their own characters, stories and puzzle mechanics. The game contains more than 1,000 handcrafted puzzles, and the studio says it offers over 500 hours of play for dedicated puzzle fans. The studio calls the concept a “game design supercollider.” Its foundation is four existing puzzle games by Alan Hazelden, Sean Barrett and Jonah Ostroff.
What I find interesting is its attitude toward reward. There is no level-up confetti and no progress bar; the reward is having understood something. In keeping with that, the game quickly sets ideas aside instead of varying a single mechanic endlessly.
Whether the sheer scale will hold up, even the author cannot say after five hours. That is an honest reservation. For indie developers, the game is in any case an interesting example: a small team that spent a decade on a single vision.
The game was released on October 8, 2026 for PC via Steam, as well as on PlayStation 5 and Nintendo Switch 2. On Steam and the Nintendo eShop it costs €30.49.
Source: Eurogamer.de
At its center is a large, nonlinear overworld, from which you explore different areas with their own characters, stories and puzzle mechanics. The game contains more than 1,000 handcrafted puzzles, and the studio says it offers over 500 hours of play for dedicated puzzle fans. The studio calls the concept a “game design supercollider.” Its foundation is four existing puzzle games by Alan Hazelden, Sean Barrett and Jonah Ostroff.
What I find interesting is its attitude toward reward. There is no level-up confetti and no progress bar; the reward is having understood something. In keeping with that, the game quickly sets ideas aside instead of varying a single mechanic endlessly.
Whether the sheer scale will hold up, even the author cannot say after five hours. That is an honest reservation. For indie developers, the game is in any case an interesting example: a small team that spent a decade on a single vision.
The game was released on October 8, 2026 for PC via Steam, as well as on PlayStation 5 and Nintendo Switch 2. On Steam and the Nintendo eShop it costs €30.49.
Source: Eurogamer.de
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