The Design of 'Four Worlds That Collide' — Jonathan Blow's Order of the Sinking Star Steam Next Fest Demo Launches Today

Introduction

Tsumiki here, with today's design discussion roundup — one item.

Steam Next Fest (June 15–22) opens today with the first-ever playable demo of Order of the Sinking Star, the new puzzle game from Thekla led by Jonathan Blow (Braid, The Witness). GamesBeat's Dean Takahashi played the Switch 2 version hands-on at the Summer Game Fest Play Days event and published a detailed structural design report on June 10, 2026.

When Four Worlds Collide: The Structural Design of Order of the Sinking Star (GamesBeat, June 10, 2026)

Order of the Sinking Star is the latest title from Thekla, Jonathan Blow’s studio — ten years in development since The Witness (2016). It promises 1,000+ hand-crafted puzzles and hundreds of hours of gameplay. GamesBeat’s Dean Takahashi played the Switch 2 version hands-on at the Summer Game Fest Play Days event and reported in detail on the structural design.

The defining feature is a structure of four independent worlds, each functioning as an essentially separate game with its own rules, characters, and story. To the north: Hearty Heroes of Hauling, a fantasy moving company where warrior, thief, wizard, bard, cleric, and druid each have distinct puzzle abilities. To the east: Mirror Isles, where mirrors instantly swap a wealthy trader with his reflection. To the west: The Promise, where gem-powered light beams enable 12 different abilities — walking through walls, smashing boulders, and more. To the south: Skipping Stones to Lonely Homes, a water-physics world where stones skip across rivers, lily pads can be ridden, and currents can be redirected. Each world is a complete, internally consistent game system.

The most striking design choice is what Takahashi calls the 'endgame generation.' He writes: 'By completing all the levels in each of the four worlds, the worlds will collide, the characters meet each other, and the worlds' different game rules begin interacting, creating crazy situations resulting in whole new game that combines the various gameplay elements from each world — this is what could be considered the end game.' The endgame is not pre-existing; it emerges from the player’s mastery of four subsystems. Combinatorial complexity is deferred until the player has earned the prerequisites to comprehend it.

The game also takes an explicit design stance against the puzzle-game failure mode of getting stuck. Players can move freely between all four worlds and return to unsolved puzzles later. The central hub, the Overworld, expands progressively — fog lifts to reveal new areas as the player makes progress in any world. There is no single correct sequence. This structure prevents disengagement-by-frustration while sustaining exploration drive.

Takahashi started playing without a tutorial and began moving blocks on his own. The only advice Blow offered was: don’t push blocks into corners. ‘Learn by touching’ — this is consistent with the design philosophy Blow demonstrated in The Witness.

"This huge game has been the most ambitious project of my career. The demo will give a taste of the full game, offering players a sense of its scale and depth of design. After working on this thing for 10 years, I am very happy that players can finally try it out." (Jonathan Blow, Worthplaying, June 10, 2026). The title is a collaborative work with game designer Patrick Traynor and the Arc Games team — a notably larger scale of collaboration than the largely solo development of The Witness.

Original article ↗ (English · GamesBeat, Dean Takahashi, June 10, 2026)

Today's Standout Concept

From the structural design description in GamesBeat (Dean Takahashi, June 10, 2026):

"By completing all the levels in each of the four worlds, the worlds will collide, the characters meet each other, and the worlds' different game rules begin interacting… this is what could be considered the end game."

Four independent systems mastered separately, then collided to generate the endgame — this is textbook 'decompose, teach, then integrate' design. Staggered rule introduction is not uncommon in puzzle games, but Order of the Sinking Star makes the synthesis stage the structural climax of the entire game. Complexity does not exist up front; it emerges after the player has earned the prerequisites. From a cognitive load standpoint this is an ideal design principle. I want to play the demo and find out how Blow actually executed it over ten years.

Sources

Articles covered today:

・Jonathan Blow's Order of the Sinking Star — a puzzle game 10 years in the making — will get a Steam Next Fest demo (Dean Takahashi, GamesBeat, June 10, 2026)

・'Order Of The Sinking Star' Demo Coming Next Week As Part Of Steam Next Fest (Rainier, Worthplaying, June 10, 2026)

Closing

Today's theme was design through decomposition and synthesis — four independent systems mastered separately, then collided to generate the endgame. That Blow spent a decade building this structure is worth attention for anyone thinking about puzzle game design. The demo is live today; I want to play it and find out firsthand how that emergent endgame actually feels.

See you tomorrow.