GamesPuzzleThe Star Named EOS is a beautiful, deliberate puzzle game where most everything is “a meaningful clue"When you purchase through links on our site, we may earn an affiliate commission.Here’s how it works.
GamesPuzzleThe Star Named EOS is a beautiful, deliberate puzzle game where most everything is “a meaningful clue"When you purchase through links on our site, we may earn an affiliate commission.Here’s how it works.
When you purchase through links on our site, we may earn an affiliate commission.Here’s how it works.
(Image credit: Silver Lining Studio)
The Star Named EOS from developer Silver Lining Studio and publisher PLAYISM is no longermy most-anticipated puzzle game of the year. But there’s a good reason for that: it has now been released, and I’ve played and beaten it already. But ahead of release, I had the opportunity to speak with the developer – which also provided some gorgeous concept art – about the new game, photography as a medium, and what makes a good puzzle.
If you’re unfamiliar with The Star Named EOS and Silver Lining Studio, the important context here is that the developer previously made Behind the Frame, a deeply moving narrative puzzle adventure game ostensibly about painting and painters. The Star Named EOS is the studio’s much-anticipated follow-up, but it swaps paint for pictures. Why? Because it was always meant to be this way.
“Even before our previous work Behind the Frame, we had conceived of a 360-degree panoramic narrative experience centered around photography,” says Weichen Lin, game producer for Silver Lining Studio. Because of its scale and the team’s development experience at that point, the narrative was instead prioritized for Behind the Frame, but its positive reception ultimately made the team reboot the development and production of The Star Named EOS to embrace that aspect even more.
Worth 1,000 words
The Star Named EOS concept art(Image credit: Silver Lining Studio)
The premise of the new game sees players inhabit the role of Dei, who shares a love of photography with his mother, as he attempts to recreate old photo compositions with the help of her letters in order to solve a family mystery that I won’t spoil here. I will say that I found the puzzles to be fascinating, and while the game’s story didn’t resonate with me in the same way as Behind the Frame, it certainly made for an interesting way to tell it.
Every memory worth preserving is carefully selected and cherished
Every memory worth preserving is carefully selected and cherished
Aside from the gorgeous hand-drawn art, The Star Named EOS shines during its compelling, complex puzzles. More than even Behind the Frame, the puzzles in Silver Lining Studio’s new game truly feel supportive of the narrative, serving as connective tissue between them or mechanical segues that while fundamentally different still felt cohesive as a whole. To discuss any of them in detail would spoil their discovery or mechanics, but know that I only beat my head against a solution once before finally discovering it was literally in front of me the whole time.
Image1of2The Star Named EOS concept art featuring a street scene and cafe(Image credit: Silver Lining Studio)The Star Named EOS concept art featuring a woman sitting on a chair in a bedroom(Image credit: Silver Lining Studio)
Image1of2The Star Named EOS concept art featuring a street scene and cafe(Image credit: Silver Lining Studio)The Star Named EOS concept art featuring a woman sitting on a chair in a bedroom(Image credit: Silver Lining Studio)
Image1of2
The Star Named EOS concept art featuring a street scene and cafe(Image credit: Silver Lining Studio)The Star Named EOS concept art featuring a woman sitting on a chair in a bedroom(Image credit: Silver Lining Studio)
The Star Named EOS concept art featuring a street scene and cafe(Image credit: Silver Lining Studio)The Star Named EOS concept art featuring a woman sitting on a chair in a bedroom(Image credit: Silver Lining Studio)
The Star Named EOS concept art featuring a street scene and cafe(Image credit: Silver Lining Studio)
The Star Named EOS concept art featuring a street scene and cafe(Image credit: Silver Lining Studio)
The Star Named EOS concept art featuring a street scene and cafe(Image credit: Silver Lining Studio)
The Star Named EOS concept art featuring a street scene and cafe(Image credit: Silver Lining Studio)
The Star Named EOS concept art featuring a street scene and cafe(Image credit: Silver Lining Studio)
The Star Named EOS concept art featuring a woman sitting on a chair in a bedroom(Image credit: Silver Lining Studio)
The Star Named EOS concept art featuring a woman sitting on a chair in a bedroom(Image credit: Silver Lining Studio)
The Star Named EOS concept art featuring a woman sitting on a chair in a bedroom(Image credit: Silver Lining Studio)
The Star Named EOS concept art featuring a woman sitting on a chair in a bedroom(Image credit: Silver Lining Studio)
The Star Named EOS concept art featuring a woman sitting on a chair in a bedroom(Image credit: Silver Lining Studio)
“One of our core principles in development is figuring out how best to tell a story to effectively convey it to players,” says Lin when asked about the struggle of combining gameplay and narrative. “Therefore, we prioritize creating a complete narrative experience first and then decide on the gameplay mechanics to complement it.”
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For Behind the Frame, as an example, Lin says the team “believed that visual novel-style storytelling and interactive cutscenes would better clarify the artist’s story compared to complex controls.” As such, they went with “interactive elements and cutscenes as the backbone of the entire game.”
“With The Star Named EOS, we maintain the same core principle, aiming for an experience that resonates with the narrative,” continues Lin. “Therefore, we decided to incorporate slightly challenging puzzles to immerse players deeper into the story, hoping to allow players to unravel its mysteries. To ensure these puzzles contribute meaningfully and don’t merely extend gameplay time, we devoted considerable effort to design them in a way that ties closely with the story’s progression.”
Puzzling behavior
The Star Named EOS concept art for animal box puzzle(Image credit: Silver Lining Studio)
Given the game’s puzzles really worked for me, and broadly the same can be said for Behind the Frame with some minor caveats, I had to know: what is it that makes a good puzzle? What makes a puzzle bad? Is there a clear, defining difference between the two?
“When designing a puzzle, we consider its context and purpose,” says Lin. “We think about why the puzzle exists and why the obstacle needs to be overcome. Every element, even something as simple as a key, must serve as a meaningful clue.”
If there’s one thing that I can definitively say about The Star Named EOS, having completed it some weeks back during two several-hours-long sessions, it is that it is neither weak nor unengaging.
The Star Named EOS is available for the PS5, Xbox Series X/S, Nintendo Switch, and PC via Steam, theEpic GamesStore, GOG, and more. Though it might be out now, there remains plenty of excitingupcoming indie games for 2024 and beyond.
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1Nemesis review: “A magical sense of tension”
1Nemesis review: “A magical sense of tension”
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4The Lord of the Rings: The War of the Rohirrim review – “An uninspired expansion of the most iconic screen take on Tolkien”
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2Secret Level review: “An uneven experience with serious highlights that ultimately make up for the misses”
2
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3
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