Order of the Sinking Star: Jonathan Blow on making ‘ the biggest puzzle game ever’

Blow’s refusal to compromise on any aspect of the Order of the Sinking Star transcends its core design.

The developer decided to make his own programming language, Jai, from scratch.

He then used this, alongside a custom engine, to make the game.

A game’s engine is a piece of software that packs everything needed to craft a playable experience – including graphics rendering, physics simulation and scripting – into one place for creators.

Some developers turn to pre-built game engines such as Unity or Unreal Engine, rather than taking on the considerable challenge of building an engine from scratch.

For Blow, creating his own engine in this language meant he could build something “tuned and authored very specifically” to what he wanted to make.

It is yet another reason he gives for why this project, which started as a simple “design experiment”, has taken ten years to finish.

“I do want the next project after this to be less on hard mode, or really it was nightmare mode, because we did so many things on hard mode at the same time,” he reflects.

“But it’s also been rewarding in a certain way. Because otherwise, what else are you in the industry for?”