Jonathan Blow’s latest decade-long labor, Order of the Sinking Star, finally has a firm date: October 8 on PS5, Switch 2, and PC, with a PC demo already live and carrying over to the full release. Thekla’s founder credits the project’s existence to a deliberate collision of indie puzzle design, naming Alan Hazelden (Skipping Stones to Lonely Homes, Mirror Isles), Sean Barrett (Promesst), Jonah Ostroff (Heroes of Sokoban), Zach Polansky (Enigmash), Patrick Traynor (Patrick’s Parabox), Marc ten Bosch (Miegakure), and even Twitch followers among the contributors. The result is a non-linear narrative puzzle epic built from licensed Sokoban-adjacent mechanics that cross-pollinate across four worlds, promising over 1,400 hand-crafted challenges and a completionist run that Blow has pegged north of 500 hours.
The press release frames this as a “game design supercollider,” where individual character abilities and rule sets collide into mind-bending new possibilities. A queen, thief, warrior, wizard, and talking boat lead the cast through an open-ended realm where players can abandon one realm’s roadblock for another, piecing together an enigmatic mythos via exploration, voice-over narration, and cryptic notes. Wikipedia and developer statements confirm the puzzle count exceeds the trailer’s initial “over 1,000” claim, while normal completion sits around 250 hours—numbers that position the game less as a weekend diversion and more as a lifestyle commitment for those who thrive on layered logic.
What keeps the hook sharp is the deliberate fusion of obscure indie prototypes into something larger, rather than another solitary Witness-style island of isolation. Thekla built the whole thing in a custom Jai language and engine, plans to open-source parts post-launch, and has already let players sample the “just one more puzzle” loop during Steam Next Fest. Whether the interweaving worlds deliver on the promised depth or simply multiply the frustration of a single intractable Sokoban variant remains to be seen, but the architecture alone marks this as the most ambitious puzzle anthology in recent memory.
Blow’s own history of long development cycles and precise, player-respecting design makes the 500-hour ceiling feel less like marketing and more like a warning label for anyone expecting quick closure.
