00:02This video is brought to you by Order of the Sinking Star.
00:06Available October 8th on Steam, Nintendo Switch 2, and PlayStation 5.
00:11Wishlist now.
00:13Fuse and grow. We will it so.
00:15Welcome to MojoPlays.
00:17And today, we're solving the mystery of how Order of the Sinking Star
00:21could become your next great puzzle addiction.
00:24Before we continue, be sure to subscribe to our channel
00:26and ring the bell to get notified about our latest videos.
00:36When you think of some of the best puzzle games of all time,
00:40old-school puzzle fans will likely bring up their early days
00:43playing Tetris and its blocky precision pileup.
00:46Nineties kids typically have fond memories of Myst or Riven
00:49and exploring, for the time anyways,
00:52hyper-realistic environments solving beautiful and occasionally cruel puzzles
00:56to progress to the next FMV cutscene.
00:59Their imaginations went wild.
01:01They dreamed of riches and power.
01:04And then, puzzle games fell into a much more niche genre,
01:08typically overlooked for the next summer blockbuster-style experience.
01:12However, all of that changed in the late summer of 2008,
01:15when Jonathan Blow's Braid released and not only launched Xbox Live Arcade
01:20into the homes of even the most casual player,
01:23but redefined everything puzzle fans thought of the genre.
01:26The implementation of the time-rewind mechanic alongside familiar Mario-style platforming
01:31created something wholly unique at release
01:34and immediately set a new standard for how indie games were perceived amongst gamers.
01:39The puzzles themselves were simple enough to understand,
01:42but also challenging to give players a sense of accomplishment after figuring them out,
01:45long before Let's Plays could spoil the solution before players even had a chance to try for themselves.
01:51The inversion of the traditional save-the-princess trope also completely upended the narrative players had expected,
01:57and its ambiguous ending is still being dissected by enthusiasts even today,
02:02combing over every hidden detail within the world and its symbolism.
02:11Braid signified Blow's approach to puzzle and game design,
02:15finding one game rule and pushing it to its absolute limits,
02:18and this style of game design would continue with his follow-up.
02:30Eight years later, Blow would return with The Witness,
02:33a puzzle experience heavily influenced by the pioneers of the 3D puzzle genre Myst and Riven,
02:40once again updated and modernized with Blow's unique style.
02:44This time, players were dropped onto an island built with puzzles in every corner
02:48that are presented in an entirely organic way, with almost no tutorials or direction,
02:54and instead introduces its mechanics naturally,
02:57teaching players to search every angle for the solution.
03:00Puzzles were played strategically throughout the island,
03:03allowing players to stumble on them organically during exploration.
03:06And if the solution didn't immediately present itself,
03:09they were always free to return later after the revelation finally hit them.
03:14Or, if that's not done, to cause an explosion of knowledge
03:18that will leave those of us who don't have access to it as powerless as if we were deaf, dumb
03:24and blind.
03:24The result was a game that was not only a direct callback to the games that influenced the genre,
03:30but also had players seeing puzzles everywhere,
03:32and once again naturally let players feel clever for solving them on their own,
03:37rather than guiding them to the solution.
03:39The open world design gave players an entire world to solve at their own pace,
03:44rather than the usual selection of levels,
03:46and the game's rules were simple enough for anyone to pick up and play,
03:50yet complex enough that players would often need to map out the solutions in the real world,
03:55a further callback to Myst's origins.
03:58Finally, after nearly ten years,
04:00Blow is ready to release his most ambitious project yet.
04:05And a dream.
04:07And a dream.
04:08And a dream.
04:10And a dream.
04:10Order of the Sinking Star has been in development since the release of The Witness,
04:15and it once again follows that same design philosophy
04:18of taking a simple foundation and pushing it as far as it can go.
04:22This time, however, that foundation isn't a single mechanic.
04:25It's four complete puzzle games sharing one world.
04:29Order of the Sinking Star gives players a non-linear, grid-based puzzle-filled world to explore,
04:35in which they start in an overworld and can walk toward four distinct sub-games,
04:39each a full puzzle experience with its own cast of characters
04:42who come equipped with their own unique puzzle-solving abilities.
04:46To the north is Heroes of Hauling,
04:48a D&D-style fantasy about a moving company
04:51where a warrior, thief, wizard, and their companions
04:54all interact with the puzzle's elements differently.
04:56For example, the thief can only pull,
04:59while the wizard can swap places with whatever sits directly in his line of sight.
05:08In the east is the Mirror Isles,
05:11where players position mirrors to trade places with their reflection,
05:14and with more than one mirror can even create clones that all move at once.
05:19Skipping Stones is the southern part of the map
05:21that tasks players to skip rocks across the water
05:24to build the path in front of them instead of walking one that already exists,
05:28and can even use the stones to reroute the flow of water.
05:31And finally, in the sub-world to the west,
05:34where an explorer utilizes giant gems to control various colored beams
05:38that grant him different abilities,
05:40from phasing through walls to smashing boulders.
05:43And then, once you finally get a handle on the game's many moving parts,
05:47mid-game, those worlds leak into each other,
05:50forcing characters to meet and mechanics to combine.
05:53What are these?
05:54Beams.
05:55They're very useful.
05:56Watch this.
05:57Blow has described Order of the Sinking Star
05:59as a game-designed supercollider for that very reason.
06:02Because once the four self-contained puzzle games get smashed together,
06:06the objects in each world can interact in entirely new ways,
06:10creating far more possibilities than any one of those games had on their own.
06:14How and why these worlds are connected is the heart of the mystery players need to uncover
06:19as they explore and discover more about the world
06:21and the truth about the Order of the Sinking Star.
06:25When the portal appeared and I stepped into this overworld,
06:28I had never imagined such a device that could fuse realities.
06:32Much like The Witness, the structure of Order of the Sinking Star is designed
06:36so players are never trapped on a single stumper.
06:39This way, if a puzzle isn't clicking, they're free to leave it,
06:42explore another part of the overworld and come back once the solution finally hits them.
06:47Not every puzzle is required to finish the story,
06:50which is part of why Blow has called the title a more laid-back experience
06:54even with over a thousand handcrafted puzzles in the game.
06:58Around 250 hours for a normal playthrough,
07:01and more than 500 hours waiting for anyone determined to solve everything.
07:06After The Witness, Blow also designed a new engine
07:09and his own programming language, Jai, to make the game.
07:13And Order of the Sinking Star is the first full showcase of that work.
07:18Vecla has said they designed far more puzzles than they actually shipped,
07:22cutting a huge number along the way and revising some rooms over and over again
07:27until they were worth keeping.
07:28Blow has even said the puzzle quality is higher than Braid or The Witness,
07:32which is a bold claim for a follow-up to two of the most respected puzzle games ever made,
07:38and one the game is going to have to live up to when it launches on October 8th,
07:422026 on Steam, Nintendo Switch 2, and PlayStation 5.
07:46If I'd known that starting a moving company would lead to big adventures,
07:49I'd have done it so much sooner.
07:52In 2008, Braid changed what players thought a time mechanic could do,
07:56and then in 2016, The Witness changed what they thought a single idea could fill an entire island with.
08:01Order of the Sinking Star is Jonathan Blow betting the next leap isn't reinventing the genre rules to puzzle solving.
08:08It's questioning what happens when four finished and separate puzzle games collide
08:12to create something entirely new and untested.
08:15He is sowing pandemonium intentionally.
08:19Are you excited for a new batch of brain teasers from Jonathan Blow?
08:23Share your favorite puzzle games in the comments.
08:25This video is brought to you by Order of the Sinking Star.
08:29Available October 8th on Steam, Nintendo Switch 2, and PlayStation 5.
08:34Wishlist now.
08:35If.
