Order of the Sinking Star Preview: More Smart Puzzle-y Goodness From the Creators of The Witness

Like The Witness before it, Order of the Sinking Star uses a simple puzzle structure as a vehicle for unexpected problem solving. Pushing blocks around a grid to press a button or reach some exit is far from a new concept, but neither was sliding a line around some symbols, and that was hardly “the point” of developer Thekla, Inc.’s previous masterpiece – and while the demo I played didn’t reveal all of its secrets, that certainly seems to be the case here as well. Order of the Sinking Star is really many block-pushing games in one. There’s an overworld with its own lead character that has to figure out how to even reach each of its self-contained levels, all of which are sorted into different areas of the map representing various stories, characters and mechanics of their own. Those ideas will eventually blend together (though they didn’t yet in the parts I played), and it’s already clear that this is more than just a glorified level-select screen as I saw tantalizing secrets waiting just out of reach. I started by heading north to play as the Hearty Heroes of Hauling, a fantasy-themed area where I controlled a handful of different characters at once, each with a unique way to int