Order of the Sinking Star, the latest puzzle game from developer Thekla Interactive, delivers an expansive experience with an impressive breadth of cunning and devious puzzle design. While its sheer scale can sometimes lead to frustration and complexity, the game consistently offers new opportunities to challenge players' intellect.
The game presents over 1,000 puzzles spread across a sprawling overworld, employing a structure reminiscent of 1987's The Legend of Zelda. The core gameplay loop involves manipulating blocks on a grid from a top-down perspective. Thekla's achievement lies in its ability to keep this seemingly simple mechanic engaging and unpredictable across hundreds of levels, though this ambition occasionally makes the game feel unwieldy.
Order of the Sinking Star introduces a variety of smart and intricate mechanics, drawing inspiration from several smaller puzzle games. Players begin as a character exploring a mysterious artificial garden facility, discovering audio logs from a previous explorer. The game then opens into a large overworld with four distinct directions, each representing a different set of mechanics and inspired by specific puzzle titles. These areas serve as discrete dungeon-like levels activated from points on the map, with completion unlocking further exploration of the overworld.
Each of the distinct map sections embodies a different world within a multiverse concept, featuring unique characters and mechanics. The northern region introduces characters inspired by Sokoban games, such as a Warrior capable of pushing multiple blocks, a Mage who can swap places with objects, and a Thief who can pull items. The eastern area draws from Mirror Isles, utilizing mirrors for teleportation at right angles. In the south, puzzles are inspired by Skipping Stones to Lonely Homes, involving skipping stones to create pathways and redirect currents. The west is based on Promesst, featuring special beams that allow characters to pass through walls, teleport, and destroy objects.
These diverse mechanics are not only expansions on their source inspirations but also offer varied modes of thinking. Some characters can transform objects or carry them, while others require specific empty space to maneuver. The game elevates its challenge by combining these disparate mechanics in novel ways as the different worlds begin to merge. Order of the Sinking Star excels when it pushes players toward creative solutions by blending these elements, intuitively teaching new concepts that build upon established ones.
The puzzle design is consistently tight, with players typically stumped due to overlooking a detail or failing to utilize all available elements. The game fosters numerous 'ah-ha!' moments where understanding a puzzle's intent leads to a satisfying breakthrough. For instance, one puzzle combined teleportation beams and mirrors, requiring the player to manage four character copies simultaneously with only one exit. Figuring out how to fuse these copies back into a single character without using the mirrors provided a new perspective on the game's mechanics.
However, the confluence of mechanics from four distinct games can lead to significant complexity. Some puzzles become challenging due to an overwhelming number of rules rather than demanding deeper strategic thinking. There were instances where solutions involved obscure interactions of rules that players might forget given the sheer volume of mechanics to keep track of. Misremembering how a specific mechanic worked from earlier puzzles could lead to prolonged periods of frustration.
Despite this occasional overcomplication, the game's vastness allows players to move to other areas and find progress elsewhere. Order of the Sinking Star is forgiving in its experimentation, offering an instant undo button for single actions and a quick restart option for puzzles. Players can also manipulate time, speeding up or slowing down events to aid in timing-based challenges or bypass waiting periods. This forgiving nature encourages experimentation without significant time loss.
While the puzzle design is generally excellent, the narrative elements intended to drive exploration are thin. The story snippets for each character, such as the RPG heroes pursuing a magistrate or a scavenger collecting gems, fail to provide compelling motivation. The overarching mystery of the puzzle place's existence and purpose remains obtuse. After reaching one of the game's endings with many unanswered questions, it became clear that motivation to continue stems primarily from the enjoyment of discovering new challenges rather than unraveling the narrative. Nevertheless, these inventive challenges often prove sufficient, with players discovering new areas and puzzles that offer fresh takes on established mechanics, ensuring the experience rarely feels stale.