Great puzzles are a hallmark of Jonathan Blow's games. Puzzles were initially mixed in with platforming for Braid, but puzzles became the central focus in The Witness. After 10 years, Order of the Sinking Star is the next title to come from the director, and we had the chance to check out the demo before it appeared in Steam Next Fest.

You initially play as a woman who has awoken in a place surrounded by clouds. She travels from room to room, unlocking a few doors along the way, until she comes across a hub connecting her to four other worlds, each showing the trials of other people as they tried to find the exits out of their own mazes. It's difficult to understand what's going on at the moment, but the narrative will hopefully get cleared up in the full game.

For the most part, the game follows the blueprint laid out by Sokoban. The world is set up as a grid, and you move around in one-tile increments, but you'll only notice if you tap on a direction rather than hold down the button; the movement is smooth otherwise. Your main activity is pushing blocks to can create a path to an exit, and unless you've been granted other powers in later levels, pushing is the only action you have. The game allows you to rewind at any step without limits, and you can even do a full reset on a level if you are unable to push a block because there is no logical way to do so. No matter what level or situation you're in, those are the core rules that are at play.

The various stages experienced by other characters show off how the basic Sokoban formula is tweaked just enough to make things interesting, even for genre veterans. The northern area drastically changes the rules by letting you roll more than one object at a time. Stacking multiple objects in a row or column before pushing them seems like a godsend when compared to the standard rules, which dictate that only one object at a time can be pushed. It does introduce the idea that you need to be more aware of how much you're manipulating, since there's a greater chance of vital objects getting stuck in inaccessible places.

The eastern area introduces the concept of mirrors that only affect the player. When facing a mirror, you'll be shown a reflection of where you are from another angle, and you can hit a button to warp to that projected location. The ability only works on people, and objects like stones are used as a way to disrupt the warping effect, since it only functions if the reflected path is clear from obstructions. The mirrors can be moved, but they can't be turned from their fixed 45-degree angles. The trick relies on positioning, so you're warped to the bit of land you need to be on instead of sinking in the water.

Meanwhile, the western area plays with the idea of power. Specifically, gems placed on different colored switches produce effects granted either in that area or by the color's own inherent abilities. For example, placing a gem on a red switch can cause red energy blocks to disappear, so players can pass through previously blocked areas. Placing a gem on a blue switch can produce a beam that makes stone obstacles more brittle to the touch. These puzzles ditch the single-room puzzle concept in favor of multi-room ones, and some of those puzzles also have you using elevators for traversal, making you deal with multiple levels as a result. This can be taxing if you're bad at dealing with puzzles that span multiple screens.

The demo only lets you play with some of the core mechanics, but the trailer shows off so much more. For example, one world you're locked out of in the demo has you pushing boulders that continue rolling after a nudge until they hit a wall or blockade. Later stages show how all of the previous mechanics are combined to create puzzle rooms that require constant character-switching to solve. The opportunity to create some real headscratchers is present, and it all depends on how difficult the final game leans into the idea of combining different puzzle mechanics into one room.

Technical issues in a demo can always be overlooked, since people understand this is just a slice of a game that's still in development. With that said, there are a few things that stand out. The first is that the graphical options do not work. I got the game running, but it was both pillarboxed and letterboxed, and changing the resolution from Auto to 4K didn't solve this issue. The lack of other graphical options at the moment means that it's going to be tough to fix this in the demo. Secondly, the game offers no option to leave a puzzle to return to the hub world. If you're stuck on one puzzle, you're really stuck until you tough it out and find the solution. Perhaps the most striking issue people will run into is with the voice work, which is mostly done in AI for now. The technology has gotten better, so you really need to listen for issues, but when some characters speak, it is readily apparent how bad it is. The developers have assured us that the presence of AI voices is mainly for development, and everything will be replaced by real voice actors. Considering the public sentiment on AI in general, expect this to get some negative attention.

Based on the demo alone, Order of the Sinking Star is exactly what players were expecting from a Jonathan Blow game. The puzzle system is easy to understand, but it quickly turns into something devious that provides some satisfaction when you solve it. There is a story, but it is unpredictable because there's a good chance that it won't be fully understood until the end. There's still some time to adds some real polish to the title, but we are definitely interested to see the final result, especially if the game is still on track to release in 2026.