Video games that require mental skill as well as, or instead of, dexterity and quick reflexes.
The term includes both games such as Lemmings that involve solving a series of puzzles, and the Falling Blocks subgenre in which, although nothing that fits the usual dictionary definition of "puzzle" is present, doing well at the game requires mental skill in working out the best way to manipulate pieces to attain a certain objective.
A single round of a puzzle game may appear in a game of another genre, particularly Adventure, as an obstacle to the player. One of the most classic examples is the "sliding tile" or "fifteen" puzzle, where a player must rearrange tiles to form a picture by sliding them around a grid. Far and away the most famous such game is Tetris, a Russian Falling Blocks game where players must guide falling "tetrominoes" to form complete lines. The Match-Three Game is a common form.
It can be broken down into these Sub-Genres:
- Action/Survival: There is some randomness in the playfield and\or the pieces given to the player (if any), and the player is tasked with keeping pace with the game; most often, this means clearing blocks fast enough to prevent the playfield from filling up. Sometimes there is an objective, other times it's an Endless Game. Both Type-A and Type-B of the famous NES Tetris play this way.note
- Pure Puzzle: The playfield and pieces are set up by the developers (or fans), and the player is given a set number of turns\moves to satisfy an objective, like clearing the playfield. If a puzzle game advertises having X number of levels, it's probably a Pure Puzzle or one of the next two below. It's also common for Action\Survival Puzzle games to have a "Puzzle" mode which has this kind of gameplay (or Hybrid). Some pen-and-paper puzzles, like Sudoku, can fall under this category.
- Action-Puzzle Hybrid: Like Pure Puzzle, but on the clock. Either there is a time limit, or pieces start appearing, disappearing, or get placed automatically (whichever is bad) if the player takes too long. Sometimes the turn\move limit is removed. These usually play out less rigidly than pure puzzles, giving the player a little more freedom without resulting in an Unwinnable situation.
- Puzzle Platformer: Similar to Pure or Hybrid, but here, the player is actually controlling a character, tasked with an objective such as getting to the other side of the room. The character will need to push or slide blocks, toggle switches, spin turnstiles, and interact with other puzzle-oriented obstacles to advance.
- Rhythm Game: May or may not be a sub-genre of Puzzle Game depending on who you ask.
- Actual Puzzle: The puzzles presented are actual puzzles in the classical sense, such as logic problems like Knights and Knaves, lateral thinking puzzles, mathematical problems, and so on. Once rare, the success of such games as the Professor Layton series have brought more of these to the forefront.
Also, "Puzzle" is one of the more likely labels to be given to a game that would otherwise not fit in any genre.
When this is combined with a Platform Game, it becomes a Puzzle Platformer. See Stock Puzzle for an index listing the most common types of puzzles. Some works require Video Game Tools in order to solve the puzzles.
Other well-known puzzle games include:
- Boggle, a game where players look for words by tracing paths through a grid of letters.
- Mastermind, where a player must deduce a combination within a set number of guesses, being told after each guess how many digits he has guessed correctly.
- Samegame (not a strongly associated title, but this game doesn't have a single title strongly associated with it), where the player must clear a playfield of tiles by selecting adjacent groups with the same marking.
- Shanghai (Activision's trademark) or Mah-Jong Solitaire and a million variant spellings thereof, where the player must clear a three dimensional playfield by selecting unblocked tiles with the same marking (often Mahjong tiles).
- Klondike (also known as Solitaire or Patience), a simulation of the card game.
- Freecell, a solitaire card game similar to Klondike, but with certain mathematically interesting properties.
- Minesweeper, where the player must find mines on a playfield by uncovering tiles based on a number in each uncovered square giving the number of adjacent mines.
- Memory (or Concentration), where the player must clear the playfield by locating identical pairs of face-down tiles.
- Sudoku, a logic puzzle where players must fill the empty spaces in a grid with numbers such that every row, column, and sub-grid contains each digit from 1 through 9. It has spawned many variants, some of which introduce other complications, such as arithmetical problems.
Here are some sites that offer online Puzzle Games, in no particular order:
- Yahoo! Games
- Miniclip
- Thinks.com
- Bob Harris' Puzzle Pages
- Joytube
- Orisinal
- GameHouse
- Absolutist
- Popcap, famous for Bejeweled
- Vegard Hanssen, who creates online versions of many Sudoku-type games.
- Eyezmaze, a Japanese site (English-friendly) renowned for its Grow series and other quirky titles.
- Pogo, EA's games portal
- Kongregate
- Simon Tatham's Puzzle Collection, mostly containing diagram puzzles such as Sudoku and its kin.
Games:
- 2048
- 3-D Ultra Lionel Traintown
- 3 in Three
- 3Tones
- 400 Years
- The 7th Guest
- The 11th Hour
- 86 (2020)
- Absorption
- Adventures of Lolo
- The Adventures of Robbo
- Affordable Space Adventures
- AI: The Somnium Files
- Ai to Yuuki to Kashiwa Mochi
- Aliens Go Home Run!
- Amateur Surgeon
- Ami Puzzle
- Antichamber
- Aperture Tag: The Paint Gun Testing Initiative
- Around the World in 80 Days
- Art Style
- At Night in a Party: The Whisper of the Sea
- At the Carnival
- Audiosurf
- Baba is You
- Back to Bed
- Bad Rats: the Rats' Revenge
- Baku Baku Animal
- Ballance
- Bears vs. Art
- Beglitched
- Behind the Screen
- Bejeweled
- BeTrapped!
- bit Generations
- Blackbox
- Bloons
- Blue Sphere
- Boom Blox
- Boppin'
- Braid
- Bram The Toymaker
- Bring You Home
- BTS Island: In the SEOM
- The Bunny Graveyard
- Bubble Witch Saga
- Bug Brain
- The Cabinets of Doctor Arcana
- Call of the Sea
- Candy Crush Saga
- Captain Toad: Treasure Tracker
- Carol Reed Mysteries
- Carto
- Castle of Elite
- Chants of Sennaar
- Chip's Challenge
- Chocolate Castle
- ChuChu Rocket!
- Chuzzle
- Clandestiny
- Cleopatra Fortune
- Clone Bloxx
- Cloud
- Clu Clu Land
- Cogs
- Columns
- Columns Crown
- The Company of Myself
- Constant C
- Counterfeit Monkey
- Cradle Series
- Crash Fever
- Crazy Machines
- Crystal Crisis
- Criminal Case
- Critical Mass
- Crush
- CSI Hidden Crimes
- Cube Escape
- Cursery
- Cut the Rope
- Dangerous High School Girls in Trouble!
- Dark Ball 2
- Dark Parables
- A Dark Room
- Deadly Rooms of Death
- DemonCrawl
- Depict1
- Diner Dash
- Don't Pull
- Donut County
- The Dreamhold
- Dr. Mario
- Dude, Stop
- Dweep
- Eco-Match
- Eets
- Election Year Knockout
- Elemental Story
- Empress of the Deep
- English Country Tune
- Enough Plumbers
- Escape from the MindMaster
- Escape Plan
- Ete RNA
- Ether One
- Evan's Remains
- EXAPUNKS
- Exit (2005)
- Factory Idle Missions
- Fez
- Figment
- Filament
- Fireboy and Watergirl
- The First Olympic Tidy Up
- Fishdom
- Flaming Zombooka
- The Fool's Errand
- Framed
- Friday the 13th: Killer Puzzle
- Frobot
- Frozen Free Fall
- The Gardens Between
- Gardens of Time
- Gems of War
- GemStorm
- Get Mouse
- God of Thunder
- Gorogoa
- Grow
- Gruntz
- Guardian Rock
- Gubble
- Guru Logi Champ
- Gyromancer
- Hack 'N' Slash
- Hangaroo
- Harvest Moon: Frantic Farming
- Heart Star
- Hell Girls
- Helltaker
- Hexceed
- El Hijo - A Wild West Tale
- Hoshi Saga
- Human: Fall Flat
- Human Resource Machine
- Illusions (1984)
- ilomilo
- The Impossible Quiz
- The Incredible Machine
- Infinifactory
- Inked (2012)
- Intelligent Qube
- Interrogation: You Will Be Deceived
- Irisu Syndrome!
- Ironcast
- Islands of Wakfu
- It's Mr. Pants
- Jardinains!
- Jewel Quest
- Jezzball
- Jishogi
- Jusant
- Jump Jump Jelly Reactor
- Just More Doors
- Keep Talking and Nobody Explodes
- Khimera: Puzzle Island
- Kickle Cubicle
- King of the Bridge
- Kirby's Avalanche
- Kirby's Star Stacker
- Kirby Tilt 'n' Tumble
- Kitty May Cry
- Klax
- Kuru Kuru Kururin
- Kye
- Labyrinthine Dreams
- Lake Ridden
- Landfall Archives - some of the mini-games, like the Lemmings-esque "Anything for My Pals" and "Blob Game" where you communicate with a blob creature
- Lara Croft GO
- Last Call BBS
- Legend of Fae
- LEGO Alpha Team
- Lemmings
- Lexi-Cross
- Lightmatter
- Limbo (2010)
- Line Rider 2: Unbound focuses on puzzles for its campaign mode.
- Linx
- LIT (2009)
- Little Medusa
- Little Wheel
- Living Legends
- Logical Journey of the Zoombinis
- Lonesome Village
- The Looker
- LostWinds
- Love & Pies
- Love You to Bits
- Lucidity
- Lumines
- LUNA: The Shadow Dust
- MacGuffin's Curse
- Mad Age & This Guy
- Magical Drop
- The Magic Circle
- Magic Jewelry
- Magic Shop
- Magnetica
- Malediction
- Marble Blast Gold
- Marble Blast Platinum
- Marvel Puzzle Quest
- Maze Burrow
- McPixel
- Mental Series
- Merge Dragons
- Meteos
- Mickey's Journey to the West
- Might and Magic: Clash of Heroes
- Minesweeper
- The Misadventures of P.B. Winterbottom
- Mischief Makers
- The Missing: J.J. Macfield and the Island of Memories
- Mondo Medicals
- Monster Mind
- Monster Slider
- Monument Valley
- Monument Valley 2
- Murder By Choice
- Murder by Numbers (2020)
- Murder in the Alps
- Musaic Box
- NaN
- NCIS Hidden Crimes
- Nelson Tethers: Puzzle Agent
- Nibblers
- Nifty
- Nimbus
- No One Can Stop Mr. Domino
- no-one has to die.
- Nord and Bert Couldn't Make Head or Tail of It
- A Normal Lost Phone
- Opus Magnum
- Oracle of Tao
- Osmos
- Otenki Kororin – Weather Tales
- Overball
- OXO
- Paganitzu
- Pandora's Box (1999)
- Panel de Pon
- PĂ¢querette Down the Bunburrows
- Part Time UFO
- Path Pix
- Patrick's Parabox
- The Pedestrian (2020)
- Petal Crash
- Pet Alien: An Intergalactic Puzzlepalooza
- Photographs
- Pinocchio
- Planetarium
- Planet Busters
- Picross
- Pipe Mania!!
- Pixel Art
- Pixelo
- Please, Don't Touch Anything
- Pokémon Trozei!
- Polarium
- Pony Island
- Portal
- Pretentious Game
- Princess Farmer
- Professor Fizzwizzle
- Professor Layton
- Professor Layton and the Curious Village
- Professor Layton and the Diabolical Box
- Professor Layton and the Unwound Future
- Professor Layton and the Last Specter
- Professor Layton and the Miracle Mask
- Professor Layton and the Azran Legacy
- Professor Layton vs. Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney
- Layton's Mystery Journey: Katrielle and the Millionaires' Conspiracy
- PsyCard: A Tilesweeper game, where the tiles are cards, among other things.
- Puchi Carat
- Punch-Out!!
- Push-Over
- Puyo Puyo
- Puzzle & Dragons
- Puzzle Bobble (AKA "Bust-A-Move")
- Puzzle! Mushihime Sama
- Puzzle Party
- Puzzle Pirates (a collection of puzzle games in a massively multiplayer environment)
- Puzzle Quest (a Match-Three Game with RPG Elements)
- Quadrax
- Quantum Conundrum
- Quilts & Cats of Calico
- Radical Rabbit Stew
- Rama
- RATUZ
- Repton
- Reset Generation
- The Rewinder
- Ricochet
- RiME
- Robotic Operating Buddy
- Gyromite
- Stack-Up
- Robot Odyssey
- Röki
- Roll Away
- The Room
- Rooms: The Main Building
- Roundabout
- Save Room
- Save Toshi
- Scrap Garden
- Scribblenauts
- Sdorica
- The Secret Island of Dr. Quandary
- Secret Paths
- SegaSonic Bros.
- The Sexy Brutale
- Shatter
- Shatterbrain
- SHENZHEN I/O
- Shift
- Sid & Al's Incredible Toons
- The Silent Age
- Skully
- Slayaway Camp
- Slydris
- Small Town Murders
- Snipperclips
- Snood
- Sokoban
- SpaceChem
- Spandex Force
- Spark & Sparkle
- The Spectrum Retreat
- Spin Doctor
- Spin Jam
- SPISPOPD
- The Splitting
- Sponge Bob Square Pants Krabby Quest
- Squaredle
- Stacking
- Star Sweep
- Statik
- STAY (2017)
- Stephen's Sausage Roll
- Stockboy
- SubTerra
- Suika Game
- Sunset Over Imdahl
- Super Hexagon
- Superliminal
- System's Twilight
- Taiji
- The Talos Principle
- The Talos Principle 2
- Teardown
- Teki Paki
- Tetris
- There Are People In The Blocks
- This Starry Midnight We Make
- Thunder & Lightning
- Time Twins Mosaics
- Time Zone
- A Tiny Sticker Tale
- Today I Die
- Tower Bloxx
- Tower Of The Sorcerer
- Train Your Minibot
- Trash Panic
- The Treasures of Montezuma
- TRI: Of Friendship and Madness
- Tube-It
- Uncle Albert's Adventures
- Understand
- The Unfinished Swan
- Unhack
- Unpacking
- Venba
- Viewfinder
- A Virus Named TOM
- Void Stranger
- Wade Hixton's Counter Punch
- Warbears
- WarioWare
- Weakless
- Welcome to the Game
- We Were Here
- Where's My Water?
- Windosill
- The Witness
- Wizorb
- Wonderland
- Wordle
- World of Goo
- The X Files Deep State
- Yakuman DS
- YANKAI'S PEAK.
- Yoshis Egg
- Zack & Wiki: Quest for Barbaros' Treasure
- Zuma
- Zero Escape
- Zig Zag Flag Shag
- Zombie Night Terror
- Zoop
- Zootopia: Crime Files
- Zyconix