Recently, Arc Games and Thekla, Inc. released Order of the Sinking Star — a massive puzzle-adventure game from renowned game designer Jonathan Blow (creator of Braid and The Witness). The game offers an interwoven story, hundreds of hours of gameplay, and a vast open world to explore.
Unexpected Scope: 1500 Puzzles
In an interview with GamesBeat, Jonathan Blow admitted that at the start of development, he had no idea just how massive the project would turn out to be:
“If I were smart enough, I would have planned for a thousand puzzles, but I didn't. We stated 'over 1,000' because it's a round number, but there are actually around 1,500 of them, depending on what you count as a puzzle. I wanted to build a sort of 'game design supercollider,' combining the mechanics of different simple games to generate a huge explosion of possibilities. However, I didn't think that this would automatically turn the project into such a massive game.”
The Influence of The Legend of Zelda's Design
In addition to solving numerous challenges, world exploration plays a crucial role in the game. According to Blow, the team drew inspiration from the philosophy of The Legend of Zelda series when designing the map:
- Open World: Instead of a simple level selection menu, players travel across a map, choosing their own direction.
- A Sense of Discovery: You venture into unknown lands, gradually uncovering the landscape and understanding how all the locations are interconnected.
- Screen by Screen: On each individual screen, tasks are logically connected to one another and naturally integrated into the environment.
The result is a complex and deep experience where every new mechanic rewards the player's curiosity and persistence.
Comments ...