best problem solving games pc

The best puzzle games on PC

Stump yourself with the best puzzle games from our list of favorites.

Choosing the best puzzle games from decades of favorites seems like an impossible task, but it's one we've undertaken. Of all the revered PC game genres, puzzle games are among the most classic, but for this list of recommendations, we've haven't tried to rank the greatest puzzlers in the history of everything—just great, modern games we think you'll enjoy a lot right now.

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We've also narrowed our definition of 'puzzle game.' We hope you’ll find a game on this list that you haven’t played before, that’ll test your problem solving skills and ingenuity, and give you that fuzzy wave of relief and pride every time you have a breakthrough. And with that as our goal, we haven’t included games like Peggle, which aren't really puzzling , or Tetris, which wouldn’t be quite so challenging if time weren't an issue. We’re looking for more contemplative games here—you know, chin scratchers, brow furrowers, hair puller-outers, games that are going to stump you. We'll add to this list in the future, too, dropping in new games, or older ones if we revisit them and decide the ought to have a place here.

Release date: 2014 | Developer: State of Play | Steam Kami’s rules are simple: click on any pattern of contiguous squares of the same color to change them to another color of your choosing, and try to make the whole sheet the same color in as few moves as possible. The basic technique is to start by unifying the largest shapes, surrounding any odd colored islands, and then swapping the large area to match those isolated squares. The principle is straightforward, but identifying the most efficient path requires seeing several moves ahead, and after the tutorial puzzles it can take a lot of thought. It feels great when it clicks, and the way Kami’s rough sheets of colored paper magically fold themselves away is mesmerizing. The colors schemes are gorgeous, too, and the music is sweet and relaxing—it feels to us like an excellent companion for a mid-afternoon cup of coffee.

The only problem we have with Kami is the baffling inclusion of a daily hint limit. On mobile, you could pay for extra hints, but on PC, there are no microtransactions. So, if you run out of hints for the day, that’s it. And the hints are important. If a puzzle has us stumped, getting just the first move is really welcome, as it sets us on the right path without removing the sense of accomplishment entirely.

Kami made this list despite some unnecessary mobile baggage, though, because there's a workaround: if you run out of hints and really want another one, you can just set your system clock to another day.

Release date: 2014 | Developer: Thomas Bowker | Steam Lyne is another game we share with mobile, but worth a shout. It’s not the sort of game that stumps you, stopping you cold—it’s one for fiddling with until the solution appears. The basic problem is that you have a few shapes on the board which need to be connected. Your connective lines can’t intersect each other, and you can only connect shapes of the same type. You must connect every shape with its same-shape friends, and fill every ‘hub,’ each of which might need a different number of connections. The solutions are zig-zagging patterns of lines, perfectly avoiding each other and hitting all the notes they’re supposed to. It can be challenging, but never really frustrating, and it's a great way to zone out.

Release date: 2011 | Developer: Zachtronics | Steam SpaceChem is about making molecules, though you don’t need a graduate degree in chemistry to sort out its puzzles. That’s what’s so lovely about Zachtronics Industries’ games— TIS-100 , for instance, is about assembly language programming, but we’ve managed to get through a few puzzles and feel awfully clever without any experience in that area, either.

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Essentially, you’re creating an elemental circuit board, a set of instructions for building molecules. As in Infinifactory, the act of designing a system and then watching it work is the joy here. Eventually, though, SpaceChem does get hard, so approach it with patience and a willingness to learn.

The Swapper

Release date: 2013 | Developer: Facepalm Games | Steam The primary mechanic in The Swapper is the ability to create a few clones of your main character wherever your line of sight and clone-gun reach permits, which then allows you to ‘swap’ to that clone instantly. Clones mirror everything you do, regardless of where they’re located. Shoot one up to a high platform, take a few steps forward, and that clone will fall forty feet and hit the ground with a sickening crunch. Puzzles revolve around environmental obstacles (switches, light variables that prevent cloning or swapping, twitch clone-swapping) but your cloning tools never fundamentally change. What you’re allowed to do is there from the get go, and if you catch on early enough, there are huge sequences of the game you can skip earlier than normal.

Environments and objects themselves are based on actual clay models, so everything carries an uncanny, semi-realistic aesthetic, as if you could reach out and touch any of The Swapper’s decrepit space station environments. As if the gameplay wasn’t enough, the narrative wraps everything up in a mysterious and somewhat horrifying examination of what qualifies as a living person. Puzzle over life and death while you puzzle over puzzles.

Release date: 2009 | Developer: Number None | Steam Every world in Braid opens with a slightly tweaked version of the same ‘tutorial’ level. There’s a pit and no way for your little Mario-esque avatar to jump across. Initially, it feels insulting, a silly commentary on 2D platforming conventions and level design—nothing you typically see in those games is ever impossible. Otherwise, how would you finish the game? But Braid turns one genre into something else entirely by layering abstract rules and mechanics.

Each world operates by its own set of rules based on the passage of time. In one, you can just hold a button to reverse the flow. In another, whatever direction you walk in progresses or reverses the flow of that level’s timeline. They don’t necessarily get more complex, but more unique. Actual difficulty comes from the level designs themselves. Some puzzles will take hours from you, maybe days. They require time away, the solutions coming to you with a slap of the forehead, possibly while you're brushing your teeth or mid-conversation about the last ball game.

So, the pit and gap are no longer an impossibility. A ‘broken’ platforming level transforms into a simple puzzle, and opens up new avenues of thinking in a familiar framework.

The Incredible Machine 2

Release date: 1994 | Developer: Jeff Tunnell Productions | GOG In the opening sequence of Pee-wee Herman’s Big Adventure, the titular weirdo makes breakfast via an elaborate Rube Goldberg machine. A sequence of bizarre, otherwise unrelated objects are made one—a candle burns a rope that drops an anvil and sends a ferris wheel spinning which—you get the idea. All this, just to crack an egg.

The Incredible Machine 2 (not to discount the first) harnessed both the absurdity and ingenuity of Goldberg machines, tasking the player with completing a fairly simple objective by very complex means. And there were plenty of means. You might just have to ‘get the tennis ball into the waste bin’ but you’re given a few treadmills, gears, a hamster on a wheel, a trampoline or two, and maybe a boxing glove to do it. There were ideal solutions each puzzle, but as the game opened up and allowed for use of more tools, the solutions became less prescribed and more up to player creativity. And even though the puzzles got hard very quick, failure was usually funny instead frustrating. It’s this, the open-ended and experimental nature of The Incredible Machine that makes it such a timeless puzzle game.

The Talos Principle

Release date: 2014 | Developer: Croteam | Steam Without the narrative dressing, The Talos Principle is still an amazing puzzle game. The majority of what you do is navigate a series of puzzle rooms, picking up and moving objects (boxes on switches, prisms that connect lasers and open doors, fans, and so on) in order to unlock doors or skirt by defenses in order to grab a tetromino piece, aka, the win condition. While the game introduces the varying tools over time, the whole of what you can accomplish with them is there from the start. As more tools are thrown into increasingly complex puzzles, it becomes a matter of experimentation and order of operations. What can a fan lift? When should the fan lift? How do I power the fan? Each puzzle feels impossible at first, but by the end, the machinations you discover and execute as a player feel so robust, complex, and smart that it’s hard not to feel like the last two hours of brickwalling were actually a breeze.

That The Talos Principle shares a writer with another game on the list, The Swapper, isn’t a surprise. They both deal with similar themes–consciousness, humanity, moral ambiguity—and wrap them around the gameplay in a way that doesn’t feel convoluted or forced. The Talos Principle’s plot is also really well written. It carries the same slow sense of growing uncertainty that Portal pulled off so well at first, and takes it to another level with genuinely smart philosophical, human, and breezy narrative tidbits. So, while you solve individual puzzles, you’re also puzzling out the nature of what you’re doing, and whether or not pursuing certain paths will have any effect at all on the game’s ending. It’s as mind-bendy as mind-benders get.

Release date: 2013 | Developer: Polytron Corporation | Steam Fez is a charming and oddly sad puzzle platformer, but at first glance not a particularly challenging one. Tasked with navigating a peaceful 2D world harried by the arrival of 3D, protagonist Gomez (he wears a Fez) must navigate 3D worlds from a 2D perspective. Sounds confusing! It is, but the simple act of playing the main game through to completion never gets too taxing. The real puzzles in Fez aren’t really required to finish the game, but their impenetrable, mysterious nature invites speculation. They’re puzzles of course, but the way they’re presented feels like archeology: deciphering the meaning in obtuse hieroglyphs and mysterious QR codes. It took the community months to understand how to solve some of these puzzles, and I’m fairly certain some remain uncracked. Play Fez for the beautiful world and breezy tone, stay for one of the toughest challenges hidden in a purportedly ‘easy’ game.

Hexcells Infinite

Release date: 2014 | Developer: Matthew Brown | Steam Hexcells is a slow, methodical game, because you’re penalized for wrong moves—sort of like advanced Minesweeper. The board is made up of, as you’d expect, hexagons. Some are part of the pattern you’re trying to create, and turn blue when you left click them. The rest are not, and when you reveal them as imposters by right-clicking, they show you how many adjacent hexes are part of the pattern. Some also give you extra information, such as whether or not the adjacent blue hexes are adjacent to each other or separated.

Hexcells is about considering simple bits of information and determining what hidden information they reveal. For instance, if an uncovered cell is adjacent to one blue cell, and a blue cell is already uncovered next to it, you can safely count out all the other cells touching it. Pretty simple for simple patterns, but it very quickly becomes tricky, like advanced Sudoku. The feeling when you clear a puzzle with no errors is one of relief more than victory, but it is really satisfying to sweep the board without a single misclick. This one isn’t for those who like to fiddle with a problem until they find a solution—Lyne or Infinifactory come to mind—but for those who like to make deliberate moves for a precision puzzling strike.

Antichamber

Release date: 2013 | Developer: Alexander Bruce | Steam Explaining Antichamber to people is difficult. It’s a stone cold first-person puzzle game, no doubt. There are definite rules in its stripped down corridors and cryptic rooms, they just take an entirely different perspective—sometimes literally—to understand. There’s no invasive narrative precedence to speak of, so the gameplay is reduced to exploration that hinges entirely on the player’s curiosity. You spend the majority of the game encountering strange architecture or tools attempting to decipher if they can be used to traverse through an environment or to clue you in on other rules in Antichamber’s world. Most conventions of how we understand physical space through the first-person perspective are twisted in subtle ways or thrown out completely. To explain how is to ruin the game completely.

Most surfaces, including objects, are white with black lines defining their features, but color gradients sway in and out of certain halls and rooms as if to evoke the intimate, troubling psychosis of our dear friend, MS Paint. The thing is, all the color has meaning. It, and nearly every visual, auditory, and tactile component feed into the game’s psychedelic logic. Learning this logic is only half the battle, the remainder is applying that logic to even more mind-bending puzzles. So, for example, once you learn that certain doors can only be opened if they cannot be seen, applying the same line of thinking to an increasingly complex series of puzzles turns from mental exercise to an exercise in integrity. The more you understand in Antichamber, the less you trust yourself.

World of Goo

Release date: 2008 | Developer: 2D BOY | Steam Like all the best puzzle games, World of Goo's core concept is simple: Use elastic, adhesive (and sentient) balls of goo to build structures that will enable them to climb up to a pipe, where they can be sucked up and delivered to the World of Goo corporate headquarters. It's easygoing at the start—build a tower, construct a bridge, nothing too complex—but quickly grows more difficult, and bizarre, in equal measures. Obstacles like whirling blades, spikes, and fire make life nasty and short for many a Goo Ball, and after awhile different species of Balls with unique characteristics will begin to appear. Balloon Goo floats, for instance, while Green Goo can be detached and reused, and Beauty Goo is huge, aggravating, and generally useless. And because everything is made of goo, everything you create is inherently unstable: The trick isn't to build solid structures, but to figure out how to let them sag and sway—because they're going to—without breaking into pieces.

But what elevates World of Goo from a good puzzler to a great game are the detail and flourishes that aren't necessary to the puzzles, but are absolutely indispensable to creating the marvelous world in which they exist. The squealing, bug-eyed Goo Balls are endearingly cute, and the light-hearted, sometimes cryptic messages left by the Sign Painter are entertaining in their own right. There's a story here too, believe it or not, and it actually gets a little dark, although it never entirely lets go of its inherent goofiness. Even the soundtrack, at the risk of overselling it, is sublime, and somehow a perfect match for a game about stretching sticky globs of grease into weird shapes. World of Goo is one of those games that belongs on just about every "games you should play" list, and it’s baffling that, years after its release, there's still no sign of a sequel.

Infinifactory

Release date: 2015 | Developer: Zachtronics | Steam Infinifactory is one of our highest-scored games of 2015, with Chris calling it his favorite puzzle game in years. Like SpaceChem, Infinifactory is a creative factory design game, though a bit more accessible. To please your alien captors, you’ve got to jetpack around a factory dropping blocks—conveyor belt blocks, for instance—to build a machine that will complete a set of goals. The simplest is to transport a component from a dispenser to the correct exit point, but as your tasks get more complicated, logic devices are introduced to increase the complexity of your designs along with them.

Infinifactory is all about satisfaction of building the most beautiful, efficient machine you can and watching it do its work. As Chris put it, “It's the videogame equivalent of those incredibly compulsive looping gifs of factory processes.” There’s also a dark, slapstick story threaded in, and some wonderful environments in later puzzles.

Portal and Portal 2

Release date: 2007, 2011 | Developer: Valve | Steam Portal was a success—a huge one—for a number of reasons. The writing, the humor, and the story that unexpectedly began to drip through the cracks of Aperture Science while we played Valve’s 2007 first-person puzzler. Thing is, it would still be a great game without any of that because the puzzle-solving is so damn great on its own. Escaping a series of test-chambers armed only with a gun that shoots space-warping portals is fun and rewarding. At the time it was also completely different from just about anything we’d seen in an FPS.

The basics are simple to grasp. After placing two portals in two different spots, walking into one portal lets you exit the other, no matter where it is. Each new puzzle chamber is more complex than the last, and soon you’re using portals to avoid turrets, fling yourself over floors of acid, activate buttons and redirect lasers. There are even some reflex and momentum-based puzzles which challenge you to place your portals as you’re sailing through the air. It culminates in an escape of sorts, a fascinating crawl behind the scenes of the facility where we get to put into practice everything we’ve learned. The difficulty increases gradually, getting more complex at just the right pace, so we never feel frustrated and yet it never seems too easy. There’s even a puzzle-based boss fight, and a charming little song when you win. While Portal 2 upped the ante in just about every department, the original is still a wonderful, funny, and rewarding way to spend a few hours. (And, to be clear, we also recommend Portal 2, especially for its co-op puzzles.)

Baba is You

Release date: 2019 | Developer: Hempuli Oy | Steam Baba Is You gets away with being so infuriatingly mind-bending by also being so dang cute. Baba (you) pushes around blocks of words to change the level environment and the conditions of the game itself. 

In one level you start as a rabbit in a walled room. Inside the room with you are three text blocks—“Wall”, “is”, and “stop”. They’re connected in a straight line so the walls currently stop your character from passing through them. If you nudge any of the blocks out of line the walls no longer stop you and you can walk through them. 

The blocks which make a win condition for the level aren’t yet connected in a line. The simplest solution to that is to push the blocks marked “flag”, “is” and “win” into a line. After that, walking to the flag will complete the level.

But there are other solutions which immediately start to show you how many possibilities the system involves. You could mix blocks from the first and second room to write “Wall is win”. That lets you finish the level by touching any of the walls. 

Although the difficulty curve between levels can feel a bit off-kilter depending on how you personally think about each puzzle, Baba Is You is incredibly versatile, allowing for a number of unorthodox solutions to each level.

Tyler grew up in Silicon Valley during the '80s and '90s, playing games like Zork and Arkanoid on early PCs. He was later captivated by Myst, SimCity, Civilization, Command & Conquer, all the shooters they call "boomer shooters" now, and PS1 classic Bushido Blade (that's right: he had Bleem!). Tyler joined PC Gamer in 2011, and today he's focused on the site's news coverage. His hobbies include amateur boxing and adding to his 1,200-plus hours in Rocket League.

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The best puzzle games on PC

A very puzzling collection

We all love a bit of a headscratch sometimes - something to challenge the old noodle and vexate the little grey cells. Luckily, puzzle is a mainstay genre in video games, from classic point 'n' click adventures to weirdo physics puzzles and aliens in space . Puzzle games can also be RPGs or adventure games; they can have horror or hacking . There are so many, in fact, that curating a list of the best puzzle games is something of a puzzle in itself. But at RPS we like a challenge, so we've brought you a new and improved list of the 25 best puzzle games on PC that out there today.

We've got everything a puzzle-head might want: sokoban games, murder mysteries, strategy, physics, jigsaws, goo, and that one Jonathan Blow made. Puzzles are a broad church, after all. Best of all is that all of these are playable and ready to go, so there's no mucking about with emulators. We'll keep the list updated with the new best and brightest puzzle games, too, so check back every so often. Scroll down to read them all, or click a name that takes your fancy in the list below.

The best puzzle games on PC

• Jigsaw Puzzle Dreams
• How To Say Goodbye
• Stephen's Sausage Roll
• The Room 4: Old Sins
• The White Door
• The Case Of The Golden Idol
• Mini Motorways
• Patrick's Parabox
• Dorfromantik
• Baba Is You
• Return To Monkey Island
• Opus Magnum
• The Talos Principle
• Ctrl Alt Ego
• World Of Goo
• The Witness
• Outer Wilds
• Return Of The Obra Dinn

25. Unpacking

There may be some among you who object to Unpacking being classified as a puzzle game, and to those people I say: Boo! Boo to you! It's not the kind of headscratcher that'll see you rage-quitting a level until you've calmed down enough to have another go at it, but the challenge - to unpack and put away a person's possessions as they move to different homes throughout their life - is a puzzle. It's possible to get it wrong. As you open the brown boxes and pull things out of the rustling paper, you understand that it would not do to put the tooth paste in the kitchen. That goes in the bathroom, along with your towels and shampoo. If, once you've emptied all the boxes, some things aren't where they're meant to be, their outline will glow until you make room somewhere more appropriate. A ladle does not belong in the bedroom.

Part of the puzzle is fitting your things around the possessions of people you live with. If you move in with housemates, one of whom is making a Sailor Moon cosplay dress, there isn't much space in the living room. One level in particular broke my heart, as you have to find the right place to put your framed art degree once you move in with a new boyfriend. Unpacking isn't a puzzle like doing the cryptic crossword is. Unpacking is a puzzle like real life is.

24. Jigsaw Puzzle Dreams

Taking things to a very literal place, Jigsaw Puzzle Dreams is, indeed, a space to do virtual puzzles of the jigsaw variety. I'm normally suspicious of jigsaw games, as they're usually a selection of 2D pictures of anime girls lazily cut up into repeating pieces. Jigsaw Puzzle dreams is the luxe version. Each piece of the puzzle is a 3D object with its own physics, so you can turn them around, pick them up, drop them, and potentially lose them under the table (although there's a button to zoom lost pieces back to you).

You sit and do your puzzle in a small flat, with several areas to choose from where you can sit and pick through your jigsaw like an ape grooming a compatriot. You can customise not only the furniture, floors and walls of your imaginary flat, but also the number of pieces your jigsaw will have (I'm currently still working my way through through a six thousand piece jigsaw of a slice of cake that I've been doing for about a year). And you can upload your own pictures to turn into jigsaws to, if you really want some anime girls.

23. How To Say Goodbye

This is sort of a sokoban, except you move the scenery around, and that allows you to move the characters. As a whole, the game tells the story of a recently-dead ghost, lost and disorientated in a land of the dead populated by simiarly disorientated spirits. The goal is to help these spirits move on, by solving the grid puzzles in levels to let them escape the purgatory world they're in. Each level has a door to escape through, but you might need to press buttons, find keys and avoid desperate Spleen ghosts. Many levels have several steps, and it'll take you a while to get the hang of how you can move things to you, rather than going to them. It's a twist on a familiar formula that will surprise you with how hard it can be.

The art is colourful and streamlined, inspired by children's picture books. It gives everything an appropriately unreal quality as you pull and push ghosts and obstacles around on the conveyor belt floors of the levels. And the levels themselves fit with that vibe. They're downright whimisical, from gardens, to messy kitchens, to the actual moon. But with the whimsy you also get a quiet story about grief and moving on. A lot to pack in one game.

22. Stephen’s Sausage Roll

Speaking of sokoban games, let me invite you to cook a sausage. Stephen's Sausage Roll was an instant classic when it came out. You, a small person, have a giant fork, with which you may roll giant fat sausages onto grills to cook them. Each sausage has four sides, (top left, bottom left, top right, bottom right), and each must be rolled onto a grill square on the floor once to be cooked to perfection. But grillmaster beware, for if a bit of saus is grilled more than once, well then you've got yourself a burnt sausage. And that won't do at all.

The levels in Stephen's Sausage Roll feel small even as they grown large and increasingly complex. Rarely do you have enough room that you feel you saft to turn around without knocking into a sausage that you had oh-so-carefully manoeuvred into the right position. Your roasting fork takes up a whole square in front of you, so mistakes are easily made - but that's part of the fun with a game like Stephen's Sausage Roll. Resetting a level is easy, and there'll be many a time that you successfully cooked two out of three sausages before you realised you biffed a move crucial in allowing you to get the final bit of the final saus done. It's a simple, delicious and infuriating puzzle game.

21. The Room 4: Old Sins

The Room series always sees you, the unknown player character, lured to an isolated area full of complex puzzles that you have to solve. The very first Room was a room - an attic, in fact, and The Room 4 goes back to the attic. This time you're confronted with a very detailed dollhouse of a mansion, which turns out to be a model of the mansion you're in. The model is itself partly a puzzle box, with moving cogs and sections that open up as you interact with it, but it also, as you open up access to the different rooms, is a kind of magic portal to full-sized versions of said rooms. Inside these rooms are more puzzles.

The Room 4 is full of so many lovely machines: polished wood with hidden doors, polished cogs, sliding coloured pieces and buttons, and they all feel intricate and tactile, and like they were made by a craftsman. But there's a dark, almost Lovecraftian layer to The Room 4 as well, with many puzzles requiring the use of a magical eyepiece to see runes and symbols instrumental to understanding the solutions. There are tentacles. Old Sins is the most complicated but most satisfying of all the Room games yet.

20. The White Door

Not all puzzle games have to be maxi. The White Door is one of the more recent entries in the Rusty Lake series of 2D puzzle games, and is arguably the most minimalist. You control an amnesiac in what appears to be some kind of hospital room, where each day is planned out to a strict schedule. The game doesn't tell you this, of course, but the schedule is pinned to the wall for you to find. A nurse comes in to ask you questions: what's today's date?; how old are you?; where do you work? And you have to find the answers to these questions around the room. Subtle things change. You can see someone standing in the distance outside the window.

Every night you dream of events in your past, and can use them to untangle the events that brought you to this room in the first place. It's a short, spare game with nothing wasted. A locked room mystery with a twist.

19. Gorogoa

Gorogoa was designed for touchscreens, but you're not losing much at all when you play it on PC. The screen is divided into quarters, and you can zoom in and move them around to create new paths for the boy traversing them, letting him move from one to another by clearing a path in one section. You can even layer them on top of one another, putting a doorway in one frame over the top of the boy in another, so he can step through. At other times the panels becomes a kind of jigsaw that requires you to zoom in and out until you find the right perspective to match things up. You might need to place a fire under a steam cooker, or weight a shelf so it tips the right way.

This all plays out in beautiful 2D animations, and without any actual instructions. Gorogoa is fantastic and letting you experiment, sometimes nudging you the right way with some pictograms, but for the most part just letting you explore its living, moving world. It's both beautiful and innovative, in a way not many games of any genre manage, let alone puzzle games.

PlayDead's creepy, monochrome side-scrolling puzzle-platformer Limbo rightly caused a stir when it was released, because nobody had seen anything quite like it before. PlayDead managed to build on Limbo with Inside. Though Inside has a lot of similarities - a side on puzzle-platformer with a small, vulnerable protagonist, and dark themes - but it takes both it's ambient storytelling and how it plays to new heights. Inside's protagonist is a young boy who you join in the middle of being chased through a forest. The journey progresses through decreasingly rural areas, then through a weird science facility full of what appear to be mind controlled zombies and various human experiments. The ending is famously, er, surprising.

The puzzles themselves are a mix of logic applied to physics (put box a here and activate switch b to precipitate effect c) in surprising ways, and you can die in similar physics based ways that have quite graphic animations. But there are also puzzles that you solve by paying attention to the game world. One of the more memorable moments is having to disguise yourself in a line on shambling zombies by mimicking their movements at the right time. I don't know if that counts as a puzzle, exactly, but it's bloody good.

17. The Case Of The Golden Idol

The Case Of The Golden Idol is a point and click detective game that strips out all the extraneous bullshit like walking around and talking to characters, so the time you save there can be redistributed to furiously staring at word bubbles. The Case Of The Golden Idol spans many decades in the lives of a couple of posh weirdos and their family and associates, all centering on the titular artifact. Every few years there are some (or several) murders relating to it, and you get to see them in a snapshot moment - either the moment the murder is committed or as the body is discovered - with the characters, scene and items all frozen.

By clicking around the scene you can investigate the contents of rooms, pockets and even brains, sorting through diaries and weapons and piecing together what happened. To solve each leve you'll need to identify who died, whodunnit, and what they dunnit with, but there are also optional tasks. At a dinner party where someone was poisoned you need to work out who was sitting where, but you can also figure out which of the servants' rooms belong to which servant. In one memorable level at a mansion, more than one person is on a different sort of drug. To fill in these answers you're provided with nouns and verbs to slot into sentences with gaps, and you can only move on when you get it right. It's difficult, but it's very worth it.

16. Mini Motorways

Have you ever been stuck in traffic commuting and thought, "what absolute fool designed this?" Now, thanks to Mini Motorways, that absolute fool can be you! The idea is to plan the road system of a city, getting people from their houses to where they need to be and back again, as efficiently as possible. The cities grow as the game goes on, so your roadways get more complicated, and you can put in things like roudabouts, motorways and traffic lights to keep things organised, but you have a limited number of these, as well as limited road tiles.

Houses, the population centres of your city, and workplaces keep mushrooming up across the confined map area, and they're colour-coded. A yellow workplace might appear next to a bunch of blue homes, while the yellow population density is mostly on the other side of the river. Junctions slow down traffic, so if you can put in roundabouts it all flows better, but roundabouts take up a lot of space. Maybe a motorway would help ease the congestion, but it might back up traffic either end. Mini Motorways is a continuous puzzle, in other words, and one that only gets harder the better you are at it.

15. Patrick's Parabox

The ouroboros is the ol' famous endless snake eating it's own tail thing. Patrick's Parabox is a bunch of boxes inside boxes, boxes eating eachother recursively, with puzzles inside. It's technically a sokoban game - you have to push boxes into the right places, and if you push them against a wall you can't pull them out. But you can push boxes (and yourself) into other boxes that have openings. These boxes themselves contain shapes that you can use to traverse and solve the puzzle outside the box. You have to think in boxes.

There are 350 hand-designed puzzles in this mind melter of a game, and Patrick's Parabox does a good job of teaching you the fundamentals of its rules so you can tackle more advanced puzzles. You can transport boxes inside boxes. You can put a box inside itself and start thinking in infinity. Multiple boxes can be stacked inside other boxes, like nesting dolls. Look, this game has a lot of boxes. It's an interesting and thoughtful twist on sokoban constraints that kind of makes you feel like a super-advanced mathematician.

14. Knotwords

This is sort of like doing a quick crossword but without any clues. You're given a small asymmetrical grid of empty squares, and within that grid are tetronimo shapes - maybe a foursquare, maybe a right angle made of three, and so on. You're told what letters go into each of the tetronimos, but not where. So that foursquare could contain the letters OVOW . Your job is to fill in all the letters so that every line accross and down makes an actual word.

This isn't as hard as it sounds, and you get into the swing of it pretty quickly. It can be tough when you realise that the word you were sure was your lynchpin turns out to be wrong, but there's a fair and helpful hint system. You also have a lot of puzzles to choose from, with more generating every month. It's a lot of fun if you like word puzzles, and it'll probably expand your vocabulary, too.

13. Dorfromantik

Dorfromantik is a lovely game. It's perfect for streaming. It's perfect for playing sitting on the sofa. You can get all intense and try and beat your high score and take it all seriously. But if you want, you can just have a lovely time building a pretty town. All these things are contained within Dorfromantik, a puzzle game where you place tiles to build a serene rural landscape.

You're given a stack of procedurally generated hexagonal tiles, each with one or a few different kinds of landscape on them - maybe a load of houses that could form a village or town, a bit of forest bordered by fields, or section of lake. Plopping these down joins them together to form your growing valley. But to get a high score you have to pay attention. Fulfilling quests - like the windmill wanting to be bordered entirely by fields, or a forest being large enough to accommodate deer - will give you more tiles to keep expanding, and if you can grow large enough then you'll find yourself in new biomes, or pre-placed locations that give you long term tasks. It's the right level of chilled out while still requiring some active thought.

12. The Looker

It's not often (read: it has never happened before) that a list contains both a game, and a parody of that game. But here we are. The Looker is a 2022 game that functions both as a very good bit of good-spirited fun-pokery at JoBlow's The Witness, and as a good puzzle game itself. The essential vibe of many areas of the island in The Witness are recreated, with a giant chess set, hedge mazes and a weird castle, but there's also an arcade dungeon and kind of piratical lookout. Scattered around these are a selection of puzzle boards, solved by drawing lines from a START to an END in a red pen.

What constitutes a start or an end can be flexible. The letters S and E both count, and in one puzzle there's no end, and you have to listen as the narrator beeps while you draw your line around a maze - literally, he says "beep". The puzzles are all logical within the established rules, but require thinking outside the box, and are playful to boot. And throughout you'll see little references to The Witness, like a framed picture resembling one of the tree puzzles. The laser beam boxes take an absurdly long time to power up, with so many steps involved. You can find little recording boxes around the place, and one of them is an advert for used cars. This game is free!

11. Baba Is You

Baba Is You isn't exactly a sokoban game. You're pushing stuff around to get to touch an object designated as the winning object, sure, and that pushing is subject to sokoban constraints, so if you push something into a corner it'll be stuck there. But in Baba Is You, you can change what the winning object is. Or, indeed, what the you is. Each level will also have word blocks that form statements: Baba is You, Flag is Win. But you can also push those word blocks around to make Flag is You, so instead you're controlling the little flag sprite. Maybe you can make Baba be You and Win at the same time, creating an instant shortcut for the whole level.

You can make it so you can walk through walls, you can change which items are hazardous, you can make Baba float, you can change the colour of objects. But every level has a solution, and training yourself to think the right way is tough. Luckily the game has llovely, simple, almost childish 2D drawings to represent everything, so it's very clear what everything is. Until you start moving it all around, that is.

10. Return To Monkey Island

What's old is new again, and Return To Monkey Island gives Ron Gilbert and Dave Grossman another spin around the most famous piratical adventure series that video games has ever produced. Set in an unknown period after the events of The Curse Of Monkey Island, Return To Monkey Island recounts Guybrush Threepwood (a mighty pirate) and actually find the secret of Monkey Island, which he tried to do in the first game but was distracted by falling in love with Elaine Marley, and fighting zombie pirate LeChuck over who most wanted to marry her.

Most importantly, this is a robust and interesting point and click puzzle game that uses fun cartoony logic in it's myriad puzzles (and there are two difficulty settings, too). As a beloved video game series, Return has locations, characters and even jokes from the old games, but adds a new spin. It's meta (but not in an annoying way) about Guybrush's status as a famous adventurer, because ultimately things are changing and maybe he doesn't mean as much any more, but it's not alienating if you've never played these games. There's a lot that's new , too, and the quality of life changes, which include getting rid of the nine-verb menu and an extremely reactive hint system, make this a fantastic game for old fans, but also to onboard players who're a bit leery of point and click adventures in general.

9. Opus Magnum

This is probably one of those puzzle games that secretly teaches you principles of computer coding, isn't it? In Opus Magnum you build automated machines whose repetetive movements will construct potions and poisons and what have you weirdnesses for you, an alchemist. There are programmable arms, tracks, pistons, and all manner of weird machines that you have to give meticulous instructions to. You can make arms pivot, pistons retract, control the exact amount they pivot when... It's overwhelming to start with, as you also have to take into account the timing, and how each of these elements move in concert with each other.

When you're faced with the challenged of putting two of a particular reagent together, in time for a third to be transformed and slotted on a rail so that they all come together, just as an arm is read to pick them up and drop them into the finished slot - and program it so the process can repeat without any of the mechanised bits lagging behind - you quickly see whether or not you're cut out for Opus Magnum. And that's a fairly simple puzzle. But there's a lot of open-ended flexibility here. If your machine works, it works. You can concentrate on making a beautiful, elegant machine with no parts wasted, but it still counts if you bodge together an awkward monstrosity. There's Steam Workshop integration, too, so you can struggle against challenges set from all over the world

8. The Talos Principle

The Talos Principle blends the old, as you explore the ancient ruins of different civilisations, and the new. The hazards on your puzzling progress being high tech forcefields, floating robotic explosives, and automatic mounted gatling guns. These you can stall using Jammers on tripods, so much of your puzzling is getting your timing right and figuring out the logic of what will happen if you drop a certian barrier at a certain time. Later on you use light splitting crystals, which you can use to charge up doors in complex trails around the ruins, and weighted cubes on pressure pads The aim is to collect what are, basically, tetronimoes that allow you to open the doors to the next area.

They're good puzzles, but a large part of the reason that people remember The Talos Principle is the story around that - which I won't spoil, but has to do with free will and personhood (as a lot of puzzle games do, for some reason). You're solving these puzzles because you were told to by a voice which calls itself Elohim, and announces that it's your creator. This voice gets, honestly, kind of sinister, and you can find different clues telling you to defy or obey Elohim as you play. Whether you do or not is up to you - The Talos Principle has more than one ending - but the story isn't over either way, it seems, because Croteam say they're still working on a sequel.

7. Ctrl Alt Ego

Ctrl Alt Ego also appears on our best hacking games list, because it's both - although, if we're being honest, it's more straightforwardly a puzzle game than a hacking game. Actually, being super honest, it's not really a straightforward puzzle game. You're a sort of disembodied AI presence, able to flit hack into a flit between different machines. This includes, for example, cameras on data banks, allowing you to scope things out, but also little robits to trundle around, or even littler ones that can sneak into tunnels and have a 'bark like a dog' function.

The aim is, broadly, getting from one end of the 3D level to the next, but there are obstacles a-plenty in your way. Apart from physical obastacles like boxes and barriers, there are enemy robots who can tell if your droids are going where they shouldn't be, and daddy units that can dissolve matter. But fear not, because you can hack into them to dissolve and reposition things. Lateral thinking is encouraged and, indeed, essential, and if you die it's fine, cos you just go back to being disembodied and can have another go at it.

6. World Of Goo

This was our Game Of The Year in 2008, and it's still ruddy bloody good, as confirmed by Ollie when he revisited it in 2022 . In fact "World Of Goo still offers more fun than nearly any puzzle game since" was the lofty praise he gave it, so it's surely worth a punt. In simple terms World Of Good is a physics-based bridge builder, crossed with Lemmings. You have to get your goo balls to the exit in the level, and you do that by building structures out of the goo themselves, building bridges, towers and pendulums out of their sticky, stretchy, non-Newtonian bodies.

The goo isn't (aren't?) that struturally sound, though, and are given to buckle under their own weight. Luckily there are different subspecies of goo, like pink ones that can float like helium and give you some lift, flammable goo, or green velcro goo so you can sort of rebuild structures mid-level. World Of Goo is both chaotic and elegant, and is still a marvellous achievement this many years later.

5. Unavowed

So you got possessed by a demon who murdered a bunch of people over the year they spent in your body. Mondays, am I right? But, freshly de-demoned, you join a group of supernatural cops who solve supernatural crimes in lush, detailed pixelart, and with a cast of amazing voice actors bringing it all to life. An escaped muse is going overboard on the inspiration thing, a baby has been kidnapped by faries - you know, magic cop stuff. These events all tie together in a story of rising darkness and so on, but though that's all good, the really impressive thing about Unavowed is how layered and complex the game is.

You can pick one of three origins (cop, actor or barkeep) which affects the characters you already know in the game, and how you approach problems. Your fellow Unavowed agents are also a varied bunch, including a medium accompanied by a ghost, and a fire mage. You pick two of them to accompany you on each level, and this, to affects what happens and how. Having the medium along means you can see and talk to any ghosts around the place; the fire mage... you know. An ex-cop can shoot a window out where someone else might break it. There are layers and layers of cleverness and complexity to peel back.

4. The Witness

The island of The Witness is very big, with a castle, an orchard, a severe-looking dock, a swamp, a lab, blossom trees, a desert bit, a forest, a mountain, a sort of treehouse - just, loads of weird bits. And each of these bits are full of puzzles - each area having a slightly different flavour of puzzle, though they're basically all getting a line from one side of a little input board to the other - teaching you the rules of how to solve things in The Witness. The orchard has puzzles that mirror the apple trees in front of you. Some maze puzzles need you to look at the shapes of shadows. The swamp has tetronimo shapes on it's puzzle boards, and the treehouse has white and dark stars. I didn't get on with either of those at all. Or the puzzles in the forest where you have to listen out for the tone of birdsong, those can, candidly, go absolutely to hell.

But many of the other puzzle types made complete sense to me. And you might hate the ones that I understood straight away. What makes The Witness so impressive is what makes it hard to describe: it's sort of every kind of puzzle game at once. And, on top of that, you're walking around a weird island, listening to cryptic voice notes and wondering who put all these machines there in the first place. Eventually, if you play it long enough, you can see there are puzzles all around you...

It was one of the best games full stop when it came out, and it still is. Portal is genuinely fantastic, with actual, very good environmental storytelling, one of the best antagonists ever immortalised in pixel form, and - yes - brilliant puzzles. You play a (in classive Valve style) voiceless and almost-nameless protagonist who wakes up in a testing facility, having, at some point, volunteered to be a test subject for Aperture Science and, at some point, going into cryo-sleep. Now, an undisclosed length of time in the future, you're woken by a suspiciously cheery AI and thrown into a series of testing chambers to complete physics based puzzles with a gun that fires portals.

The now-legendary GLaDOS grows more personal as she tests you, progressing through the levels between passive aggressive and homicidal with alarming rapidity. The testing facility is suspiciously empty, and eventually you start to see what's behind the pristine white walls. But the way Portal teaches you the rules of the game, how its physics and portals work, and the puzzles it presents you with, all have you thinking in an entirely different way by the end of the game. It's a classic for a reason.

2. Outer Wilds

Outer Wilds is a unique puzzle game meets ramshackle space exploration. You wake up as the newest member of the Outer Wilds cosmonaut team, about to take your first solo flight (in a spaceship made of bins) away from your tiny home planet. It genuinely is tiny, too - it'd take you about four minutes to walk around it, but that's a precious amount of time to take, given that the sun in the centre of your tiny solar system goes supernova 22 minutes after you open your eyes.

Thank god that a magic statue in your town's museum gets you stuck in a timeloop, resetting the moment you die to start the day all over again. Using this ability, you can zoom around the different planets orbiting the sun and explore them - to within the limits of your oxygen meter, which is refilled either by trees or by returning to your ship. There's a lot to see, which is where the repeating loops come in. There are twins, one spilling sand into the other like an hourglass, revealing ruins on the first as the structures on the second are filled up. One is a puzzle planet. One is an exploded shell turned into a weird poket universe inside a multidimensional bramble. You can follow the sound of instruments to fellow scattered cosmonauts. The solution to Outer Wilds' puzzle is the universe.

1. Return Of The Obra Dinn

I think Return Of The Obra Dinn is this site's current favourite game - it is, after all, at the top of our top 100. It's hard to imagine what could unseat it from the number one spot on best puzzles, either. Return Of The Obra Dinn is a large game of what Eurogamer's Christian Donlan called "nautical murder sudoku" in his review . The titular Obra Dinn is a tall ship that went missing, and now it has reappeared with every living soul on board having died. Your job is a kind of magical insurance auditer armed with a Bernard's watch activated by death, which will show you the still-life moment of a person's death. You can walk freely around the scene, and daisy chain another death into more dioramas, all in a glorious monochromatic style mimicing much earlier games.

The challenge is to match up each body with the ship's manifest and a cause of death. This body belongs to the captain, who was shot by y, that sort of thing. Your choices are only revealed as correct once you've got three compleletely right at once. It's masterfully done, the more so because, as things progress, you notice some decidedly suspicious death options, including crushing and dismemberment... There's a point in Return Of The Obra Din where you open the cabin door, walk onto the deck, and realise the game has shifted gear. Encountering these deaths out of order, you eventually managed to put the whole story together, and it's one accompanied by screams, rending wood, and an absolutely banging soundtrack full of bells.

The 20 Best Puzzle Games on Steam

Is there anything better than a great puzzle game on PC? These games are perfect for those of us who like to take our time to solve problems and plan out their moves well in advance.

If you love puzzles and games, Steam has plenty of great options to choose from.

These titles require players to work out complex problems in order to progress through the game and often present unique challenges that will keep you entertained for hours.

These games will keep your brain busy with logic and problem-solving in some very creative ways, from block-sliding puzzlers to pipe-solving adventures.

Here are 20 of the best puzzle games on Steam you can play right now.

Trine originally debuted in 2009 and took players to a colorful fantasy world where they could fight monsters, rescue fairies, and solve puzzles. It is a side-scrolling fantasy action platformer starring three characters who offer different skills to solve the problems presented in each stage.

This is a brilliant and beautiful franchise that came up with a single concept, you need teamwork. In Trine, you switch characters as you wish to overcome different challenges by using the unique strengths of each hero.

In Trine, you control one character at a time. So you might play with either Zoya the thief, Pontius knight, or Amadeus wizard as they work together to progress through levels.

For instance, you might need Amadeus to lift objects, Zoya to swing and climb, and Pontius to break stuff and fight.

Trine is a generally well-received franchise by both critics and players. To this day, it remains one of Frozenbyte’s most popular titles.

The Talos Principle

This is one of my favorite puzzle games due to its sci-fi philosophical concept and themes where you explore a rich and captivating setting.

You’ll solve puzzles by manipulating robots and utilizing in-game physics. Although they are fun, the puzzles are just one of the things that make this game good.

This is not a game that is all about its gameplay. If that’s what you are looking for, The Talos Principle might still be fun, but you will only be enjoying half of what it offers. This game dives deeply into existential questions and gets you thinking about what it means to be human.

Although it isn’t as flashy as other puzzle games, it does offer challenges that can keep players engaged for many hours. Still, I was mostly interested to see how the narrative would hit me again with some other mind-bending thought exercise.

I would highly recommend any gamer interested in puzzles or philosophy to pick up The Talos Principle. If that’s the kind of thing you are into, this game is a must-play.

The Swapper

A unique puzzle game, The Swapper, has players exploring a space station using the main character’s ability to clone himself to solve puzzles. This is a stylish, well-designed puzzler that is worth your time. The puzzles are never too challenging, but you will be spending a lot of time with them.

The story is a bit complex, but it is very well written. It is really interesting and engaging, making for one of the most memorable experiences in gaming. There’s a fair amount of questions about humanity, existence, and consciousness for all fans of the usual kind of philosophical discussions seen in sci-fi stories.

I can definitely recommend The Swapper to anyone looking for a fun puzzle game on Steam.

It may not be everyone’s cup of tea, but it’s something everyone should play at least once. The Swapper is a quite unique, well-thought-out puzzle game. Besides, it is fun even without the fascinating story behind it.

The Witness

The Witness is a puzzle game that surprised me. It is by far one of the most pleasant experiences I’ve ever had with the genre.

In this game, filled with beautiful and mysterious but calm scenarios, you must solve the puzzles you find in panels and direct beams of light to the top of the Island.

The colorful, quiet setting emanates a sense of tranquility while you explore the Island. It gives The Witness a lack of urgency that is refreshing and calming when you are surrounded by puzzles to solve.

This game is not easy. It can cause you to roam lost, desperately looking for answers. This can happen to the fact that the Island is large, and the game doesn’t really lock you in any area.

There is a chance you will face puzzles you might not be ready to solve. If you do, you can just go to a different area and try something else. The Witness will introduce new mechanics and symbols that slowly make the puzzles more challenging and engaging.

This is an intelligently designed puzzle game that is easy to recommend to any fan of the genre.

Portal is a mind-bending game that will force you to think outside your comfort zone. The plot is a bit unorthodox in the best of ways, and it might sometimes feel really over the top, but it’s a game that never takes itself seriously.

When it first came out, Portal was mind-blowing. The Portal Gun makes you think about space-time and physics in ways that would not make sense in any other context.

Thanks to Portal, the portal gun became one of the most popular items in pop culture. The game’s puzzles are inventive and original and take the game’s mechanics to the limit.

Considering that the concept of the game itself was original, it was expected to see many unusual puzzles to solve in Portal. However, the mechanic is pretty much the same until the end of the game, and it is never dull, so it says a lot about the level design.

Portal has a great sense of humor, a story with a dark twist, and a primary tool that might require a certain degree of patience and logic to master. It’s good for quick bursts when you have time to kill or for intense gaming sessions that will keep you busy for hours at a time.

Portal 2 feels much more like a reboot than a sequel to the original Portal game. In fact, it does feel like they’re the same game in many ways until it doesn’t.

Although Portal is a funny game, its dark humor and creepy twists are a big part of its identity. However, Portal 2 takes a different road, being unapologetically silly and directing its comedy to something less dark.

There are enough tweaks and changes in gameplay and storytelling to make Portal 2 something else once you pass through the Portal gun and mouse lab intro. Portal 2 has many different mechanics and easier puzzles with several mechanics that are not present in the first game.

It is argued among fans that Portal 2’s puzzles are never fully fleshed out or explored to their limit, as it happens in the first game. Gameplaywise, this is when the games start feeling completely different. The first game extracts all it can from physics puzzles using the Portal Gun. In contrast, the second game introduces many things that change the rules and moves on to an entirely different mechanic right after.

Despite the fact that Portal 2 lacks the heavier tone of its predecessor, it is nonetheless a well-written game, but a different one, which is why both are on the list.

If you like the original Portal, there’s a good chance you’ll like Portal 2 as well. It makes no difference whether you think the first one is better than the second or vice versa. Both games are fantastic, and I’m sure that any PC puzzle games fan will have a blast playing either.

Braid is a puzzle-platformer where you rewind time to solve puzzles. It’s also one of those games that makes you feel really smart when you figure out how to beat it—which is exactly what we want from puzzle games.

There are tons of little details and secrets in Braid, and each level gets increasingly more complex as you progress through its complex, metaphorical story.

Braid is simple enough for almost anyone to play and understand at first but deep enough for hardcore players looking for challenging brain teasers with multiple levels of completion.

As the game progresses, the way your time rewind ability interferes with the world changes as new mechanics appear in the different phases of the game. Each world has a unique characteristic that is differently affected by time, time reward, or even by how you move your main character.

Due to those new concepts constantly being introduced, Braid ends up being an incredible experience that keeps you playing for hours.

When it comes to puzzle games, Limbo’s unique brand of hand-drawn black and white graphics stands out from its rivals. The game has players take control of a boy who must traverse hellish environments in search of his sister.

For a 2D platformer, Limbo’s atmosphere can be a bit dark. Limbo has levels that are filled with puzzles and obstacles for players to overcome, forcing them to use their brains instead of brute force.

It’s not the most challenging puzzle game out there, but it is entertaining enough to be remarkable. Although it was originally released in 2010, Limbo remains one of the top puzzle games on Steam.

Limbo is not a long game, but by playing through its world, you’ll see why so many people have fallen in love with it. Even if you’re not typically into puzzle games, I recommend giving Limbo a try; perhaps you’ll find yourself pleasantly surprised by what you discover.

Valiant Hearts: The Great War

Valiant Hearts: The Great War is a puzzle game set during World War I that follows several characters from different sides of the conflict.

The game features puzzles to solve with help from your canine companion and follow narratives based on real-life letters and journals of men and women who lived during that time.

It’s a heartfelt and touching adventure for people looking for a historical setting for their puzzle games or anyone curious about life in France during World War I.

This game is a beautifully crafted artistic expression of a harsh and difficult era of human history. Its story has a few ups and serious downs. It might not be for everyone, and it is a hard story to tell, but it’s told brilliantly.

World of Goo

World of Goo is a charming game with a simple but cute art style and an attractive enough. This award-winning physics-based puzzle game is a favorite among fans.

Players are tasked with creating bridges and towers out of balls of goo, guiding other balls to their goals, and escaping each level before they fall off. As you solve puzzles and make your way through increasingly challenging levels, you’ll be kept entertained by adorable sound effects and a minimalist aesthetic.

World of Goo is a game for kids as well as adults. It is easy to pick up but hard to put down. World of Goo was made by 2D Boy, an indie gaming duo consisting of Kyle Gabler and Ron Carmel. Its graphics were designed to resemble beloved construction toys, making the game both familiar and charming.

This is a fun game that can be pretty entertaining to play casually, but it can also be addictive if you’re fond of puzzle games on PC. Give it a shot; you might be surprised at how challenging and addicting it can be.

Baba is You

This game is so much fun! It may not look like it, but Baba Is You actually has some of the most mentally engaging gameplay in any puzzle game I’ve ever played. It’s a game that is constantly forcing you to think outside the box because the puzzles involve changing the fundamental laws of how the game works in the first place.

I know it sounds weird and a bit crazy, but that’s pretty much how the game is. The more you play, the more you want to see what kind of weird things you have to come up with to progress.

Even though Baba is You might be a really unusual game in many ways, you don’t really feel frustrated since every puzzle somehow feels doable. When it comes to unique puzzle gameplay, it’s hard to be as unique as Baba is You.

This is a fantastic game with an unusual concept that managed to work against all odds. I definitely recommend you to try this game out, even if you don’t like puzzle games just for their uniqueness.

That is a game that will easily please fans of the genre. Hoa is a puzzle-platforming game with a lot of personalities due to its emotionally charged music and hand-painted art style.

Hoa is the ideal game for when you want to be entertained by your favorite genre, but you also want to relax and admire a beautiful work of art as opposed to getting disappointed or frustrated after spending an hour on the same puzzle.

The world of the game is diverse and beautifully designed with breathtaking art. Besides, Hoa is relatively simple. The game’s mechanics are not complicated, so you get to enjoy it easily.

There’s no question that Hoa has a lot of charm and identity. This game is so captivating that it is nearly impossible not to give it a shot. That’s how they make people play, by causing them to check a beautiful, hand-drawn game. I checked Hoa out of curiosity, and I was hooked right from the start.

In my honest opinion, Biped is a game that does not receive as much attention as it deserves. This game is a puzzle-platformer with a lot of heart. Its cute design and fun gameplay are more than enough for me to recommend it. 

Biped’s unique gameplay mechanics make it very special. In this game, you must move each leg of the main character independently. That alone completely changes how you navigate the 3D environment and solve issues.

Even walking can be a struggle since you have to move each leg individually, one before the other. It might take you some time to get used to it, but that’s what allows this game to think outside the box and provide some of the greatest and most fun puzzles you’ll see in a cute puzzle game that doesn’t feel intimidating.

The Room is a BAFTA-winning 3D puzzler from Fireproof Games where you immerse yourself in a world of strange contraptions and alchemical machines. This game takes you to a setting where machines meet myth. You will follow a trail of cryptic cards and solve numerous unusual devices in even more extraordinary places.

The Steam version of The Room is a completely updated HD version of the original Mobile Version of The Room, but it still is the same game. I do prefer playing it on the PC anyway.

Fireproof Games is a tiny, independent studio based in Guildford, United Kingdom. The Room is the first game they ever published, but they made an excellent product. The Room has been very well received by puzzle game fans and reviewers, which did a lot for the game’s reputation and the studio.

There’s a reason why this game received so many prizes for best gameplay and best design. The Room has clearly been acknowledged among critics as a magnificent game of its genre.

Little Nightmares

Little Nightmares is surprisingly scary for a game that uses such a cartoon-like art style. You play as a kid in a yellow coat who’s trying to survive and escape from a massive and strange ship populated by corrupted souls vying for the next meal.

This is an unnerving dark tale that will cause nightmares to your inner child! Explore the most unsettling settings to uncover their secrets as you proceed on your trip. 

Mechanically speaking, Little Nightmares takes a lot from games like Limbo and modern survival games that have a hiding mechanic. Still, the way it’s used and the way that the setting is put together make Little Nightmare a quite well-executed game. It might not be the most challenging puzzle game out there, but if you like horror, it is undoubtedly worth your time.

Although this game is a brilliant puzzle platformer, its meaning, plot, and ending are mysteries open to interpretation. The many discussions and fan theories about Inside exist mainly due to the way that the game’s story is told, especially in its endings.

Inside is a puzzle platformer in which the player is a boy who explores a nearly gritty, nearly black-and-white world where there are many threads about to end his life.

The boy can run, jump, and use some objects to overcome certain challenges. Later in the game, the boy gains the ability to control the bodies of the dead. Sometimes, this new power can feel like a weirdly dark and somewhat disturbing idea.

Still, it does allow the game to introduce new and exciting mechanics and puzzles. The main character can die, much like in Limbo, from enemies and from challenges that you did not succeed in completing. Death animations are often brutal, making you feel like a lot is at stake after the first time you see it happening.

When it comes to puzzles, at least in my opinion, it isn’t easy to find anything that is more authentic than klocki. Something about its minimalistic style feels like old-school puzzle games, but there’s enough in its design to make it feel clean and modern.

In this game, you basically have a bunch of tiles or pieces, and you have to switch and match all those pieces in a way that the lines are not broken.

Klocki doesn’t repeat itself too much. However, it will sometimes introduce new ways to move the pieces and add variations that keep things interesting when there aren’t really new ideas to be introduced.

This is the second game from the developers of Hook, and it is pretty well rated on Steam. If you are okay with a minimalistic art style and a more relaxing kind of puzzle game, you should definitely give klocki a shot.

Opus Magnum

This game was very well received by critics and players. It is an open-ended puzzle game from Zachtronics.

In Opus Magnum, you do alchemical engineering by building transmutation machines that you even get to watch running.

I’m not going to lie; this is an odd game. For many people, this might feel like doing homework. On the other hand, once you get the hang of it and see your formula in action, you feel pretty smart for pulling it off.

Honestly, though, watching your design functioning is already super pleasant to see, but making it compact and faster is just as fun — for those who enjoy this sort of open-ended puzzle, of course.

Agent A: A Puzzle in Disguise

I seriously love self-aware games, so there was no way I wouldn’t like Agent A: A puzzle in disguise.

As the brilliant title suggests, you play as Agent A in this clever puzzle game. You are given the mission to invade Ruby La Rouge’s secret hideout. Once you succeed, you have to either neutralize or capture the enemy spy.

Once you have the chance or the patience, pay attention to this stylized art style. It allows the game to be functional and have an eye-catching theme. It also makes it much easier for smaller studios to put the game together than making or paying for something with high fidelity graphics.

Explore a maze of mind-blowing puzzles in this quirky cat-and-mouse game that will have you wondering who’s the cat and who’s the mouse! Did you find something strange or out of place? You must think like a good secret agent, so taking notes and mental observations will help you solve the most important puzzles.

In Ruby’s secret hideout, you will be picking up objects and using them in clever ways. Sometimes, you will have to think outside the box to progress through the puzzles that will get you closer to your target!

Superliminal

If you are looking for the most original puzzle game on Steam, I couldn’t find anything that remotely feels like what Superliminal has to offer.

This puzzle game focuses on using optical illusions and depth perspective to make the most unique and clever puzzles I have ever seen in a long time.

When I solve a puzzle in Superliminal, I often catch myself just thinking about how cool that puzzle was. The best thing about this game is that it keeps happening. It never takes too long for the game to surprise me with another fantastic twist on how to use depth perspective in the game’s context.

In the world of Superliminal, what is perceived is what is real. This game’s surreal, strange, dream-like world is like a weird place where things can be both what they are and what they seem to be.

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Video Game News, Lists & Guides

29 Best PC Puzzle Games of All Time

Can you solve them all?

#29 Portal: Revolution

#28 the talos principle 2, #27 we were here expeditions: the friendship, #26 humanity, #25 human fall flat, #24 helltaker, #23 baba is you, #22 a way out, #21 teardown, #20 besiege, #19 unravel series, #18 the wolf among us, #16 return of the obra dinn, #15 the room series, #14 the talos principle, #13 little nightmares series, #12 celeste, #11 untitled goose game, #10 life is strange, #8 what remains of edith finch, #7 tomb raider series, #6 the walking dead, #4 outer wilds, #3 the witness, #2 it takes two, #1 portal 2.

There are a lot of people who love puzzle games. If you’re one of those gamers and you have a PC, check out these titles.

Platform: PC Release Date: January 6, 2024 Steam

When it comes to a certain Valve franchise, the puzzles are truly the “fun part” that you can’t get enough of. After all, you only get your cake after you beat them all. Or, that’s what a certain computer person told us…

Anyway,  Portal Revolution  is a fan mod of the second title that gives a special prologue story for you to enjoy. But if you’re hoping that the puzzles are just as good, you’re in luck. They’ve brought in all sorts of new challenges, including ones that only work with one of the portal guns.

So, do you think you can take on this special challenge?

Platform: PC PS4 PS5 Xbox One XSX|S Release Date: November 09, 2023

Steam  |  PlayStation  |  Xbox

Nearly a decade after the release of The Talos Principle, developers Croteam brought out a sequel. This puzzle adventure game takes place years after the first installment. It’s hard to offer the premise of this game without spoiling the first installment. So, if you haven’t played the first game, you might want to skip ahead of this point. However, the game takes place after the first game, where we see the first android to be awakened, Athena. You’re stepping into another android who is slowly unraveling the mystery behind a world humanity left behind, and now androids take control. But a large part of this game is all about puzzles. You’ll continue getting harder puzzles, some stumping you for hours until it finally all comes together. If you enjoyed The Talos Principle, then you’re going to get very much the same type of game in its sequel. But will you be able to avoid making the same mistakes that humankind made, or will a new, more prosperous world come from the choices you make?

Platform: PC PS4 Xbox One PS5 XSX|S Release Date: September 14, 2023

If you’re familiar with this franchise, you know that things aren’t going to be as simple as they might want you to think.

We Were Here Expeditions: The Friendship  is a co-op puzzle adventure game with horror elements where you and a partner will need to work together to work your way through a mysterious place that you’ve ended up in.

Your “boat ride” won’t go far if you can’t work as one and get through the puzzling challenges. So, how strong IS your friendship, and can you make it work for you in the long run? Either way, you’re about to find out!

Platform: PC, PS4, PS5 Release Date: May 16, 2023

Steam  |  Playstation

If you were told to lead humanity to safety, how do you think it would be handled? You’d expect it to be a fellow human guiding them to safety. But in  Humanity,  the hope of all now rests within a dog, a dog controlled by you. Furthermore, this dog has to instruct people what to do so they can overcome the puzzles and trials ahead.

The title isn’t just a puzzle game that requires precision. You’ll have to use the people following you to fight against bosses who want to stop the group in its tracks.

When you’re done with the game, you can put your creativity to the test by making your own puzzles and uploading them online!

Let’s start with a simple yet fun puzzle game that many have enjoyed.  Human Fall Flat  is a “light-hearted” puzzle game where you’ll create a clumsy character and then set them out into the world. You’ll have 22 levels to traverse, each with a unique environment and puzzles to solve.

The best part is that the puzzles can be solved on your own or with friends. So call up some buddies and watch as you hilariously try to solve everything in each level. The ragdoll style will throw you off at first, but once you get the hang of it, you’ll have a blast.

Plus, you can make levels and puzzles to add to the title!

If you’re in the mood for a more bite-size puzzle title, then  Helltaker  is for you. Of course, it’s also for you if you like the idea of flirting with demon girls. Just saying.

That is the plot of the story. You play a character lusting after demon girls and wants a harem of them. So he opens a portal to the underworld and must fight skeletons, solve puzzles, and woo the demon girls of his dreams. Does this sound insane to you? Good, because it is, and the game rolls with that.

The irony is that you can choose to skip the puzzles and focus on the demon girls.

In most games, the rules of the title are set, and they can’t be changed.  However, Baba Is You  is a game that loves turning that on its head with every level you enter.

The “rules” of each level are written onto blocks, and those blocks can be moved, swapped, manipulated, and so on to help you out. So get clever with how you manipulate the rules and see what outcomes emerge from it.

You can change objects, warp what they do when you touch them, or even rewrite the level’s purpose! The possibilities are nearly endless, so see what you can come up with.

A Way Out  is a clever twist on puzzle gameplay by putting you in a real-world scenario and asking you to get out of it. What’s the scenario? You’re in prison!

You play as either Leo or Vincent, with the other character being controlled by your co-op partner. The two of you are determined to break out of the prison you’re in, and you must work together. Figure out the best ways out of the prison, then work to make your escape.

Once you break out, you’ll have to survive out there too. Can you trust each other long enough to make your escape?

After getting into debt, you decide that the best way to get out is by taking on heist jobs from shady people. Of course, to get in and out safely you’ll need to plan the operation from start to finish perfectly.

Or you can plan on the fly and see if you make it out alive. It’s your call in  Teardown . The joy of this game comes from the fully destructible environments you’re in. You can make a quick and easy plan to get in and out, or you can call an audible to try and bring the building down with you!

Do the campaign mode to test your skills and the sandbox mode to have a blast in!

How good are you at building things? More accurately, how good are you at building things to serve a purpose? Regardless of your answer,  Besiege  is a game that’ll task you with making things to do a specific purpose. That purpose is to bring down fortresses, castles, and other constructions.

What will you need to make to take them out? Weapons of war! You’ll have complete freedom to build a weapon that will crush the walls and show your ingenuity. You can build something basic like a catapult or take to the skies and make a flying machine to rain terror from above!

If you can think it up? You can likely build it here.

The  Unravel Series  is two titles that blend a beautifully rendered world with a clever puzzle aesthetic. In the titles, you’ll play as beings made of yarn. They travel out into the world and must use the yarn that comprises them to solve puzzles and complete challenges.

By that, we mean that you can use your yarn to lower yourself down to a position or pull something to get somewhere else. But your body has a limit on how far it can stretch. So use what you have, and see if it’s enough. In the sequel, you can team up with a friend to help you out!

Telltale Games does a great job of fusing story, puzzles, and characters into an experience that people remember long after they play it.

The Wolf Among Us  is one of many titles they have done over the years. It’s based on the DC Comics line, Fables, and you play the Big Bad Wolf. But don’t worry, Bigby is a good character. In fact, he’s the sheriff of Fabletown!

When a murder sets off a chain of events, it’s up to Bigby to solve them and figure out who’s responsible. But, a dangerous journey awaits him, and you’ll need to “unleash the wolf” at times to save the day.

If you’re looking to play a puzzle game featuring a cat, then we have a game for you!  Stray  was the title that took the video game world by storm, especially with streamers. It even got nominated for Game of the Year by some.

The title features you as a cat who is separated from its feline family and flung into a world where robots have replaced humans. You’ll wonder this mish-mash of a world and attempt to get back to your family.

Wander around and solve puzzles to help yourself and the robot population. Did we mention you press a button to meow all the time? Because the game has that.

Are you up for a mystery? If so, check out  Return of the Obra Dinn , an indie puzzle and mystery title that impressed many when it came out.

The premise of the game is as follows. A ship in 1802 called the Obra Dinn didn’t arrive at its destination with its cargo and was deemed to be lost. However, five years later, the ship arrives in a town with visible damage and no crew.

You play an insurance investigator sent to the ship to figure out what happened to the crew. Board the ship and search for clues to help you piece together what happened, who’s at fault, and why the ship was always doomed.

The Room  Series is puzzle games personified in some metrics. For example, in the first game, you’re put in a room with nothing more than a puzzle box. Simple enough to solve. Right? Except the further you dig into the box, the more you start to wonder what is going on. There is darkness within that box and the puzzles you solve.

That’s just the first of many titles that will put your puzzle skills and sanity to the test. You’ll soon deal with mysterious authors, other dimensions, and puzzles that you’ll have to get clever to solve. So can you overcome the darkness that is approaching?

The Talos Principle  focuses on a robot that awakes to find itself ordered to solve puzzles. Order by who? Its master. Said robot finds itself in a world of clashing visuals. It looks like ancient ruins in parts, yet has technology that wouldn’t fit in the cultures that used to live there.

With over 120 puzzles to solve, your work is cut out for you. But the further you progress in the game, the more you have to ask questions about who you are, what you are, and why you’re doing this. Will you continue to obey your master so that you can complete their will? Or will you try to have a will of your own?

It’s poetic that in the No.13 spot, we have a game about nightmares. The  Little Nightmares Series  is two titles that’ll put unsuspecting characters in creepy worlds that they must escape from. Adding to their woes is that terrifying creatures are looking to take them, and that must be avoided.

You’ll travel the warped levels and solve puzzles to make it past the monsters and onto the next stage. However, there are dark truths hidden everywhere, so be on the look out.

Each title has unique levels, monsters, and characters to meet. So give them a try and see if you can withstand the terror!

While not a puzzle game overall, Celeste is a platformer with puzzle elements and a profound story.

You play  Madeline , a young girl on a mission to climb Celeste Mountain. The challenges she will face reflect her mental struggles and the turmoil she’s in. The higher you climb, the more characters you’ll meet, and the greater the challenges.

Speaking of challenges, the title loves its difficulty. There are 700+ screens of areas you’ll need to get through, and death is almost assured, depending on your skill level. So what will Madeline find when she reaches the top of the mountain? Play and find out.

Yep, it’s time to talk about  Untitled Goose Game . The game where you play a goose that decides to have fun in a little too much fun in a nearby village.

We say that because the point of the game is to have the goose annoy people so much that they chase it. You’ll use the goose to set up pranks, annoy people by honking at them, and steal their stuff. Mayhem is the name of the game here, and the real puzzle is figuring out how to screw with the villagers even more.

Plus, if you want more fun, you can do a co-op adventure and use two geese to annoy the villagers!

Next, we have a series that has grown its popularity throughout many titles. The  Life is Strange  saga is a series of games focusing on young people with extraordinary abilities. But it’s not a superhero title. Instead, it’s a game about life and how our choices affect everyone else.

Your powers are used to further the story and how it progresses. Through the characters, you’ll learn more about all that’s happening and why it’s happening to you.

The games are profound, and they’ve been praised by pretty much everyone who’s played them. So if you have not played them yet, you really should give them a try.

Here’s a game that put a certain game developer on the map, and we’ll talk about another of their games later on.

Limbo  is a title where the team doesn’t tell you much about the game going in. However, if you look up the store pages of their title, you’ll get one line. It tells you about how a boy is trying to find his sister and to get her back; he enters Limbo.

The game’s art style is simplistic yet haunting. You’ll need to be wary of where you go and how to interact with those you meet. There’s something wrong with the place you’re in, so do your best to survive it.

What Remains Of Edith Finch  is another narrative-focused game with puzzle elements. You play Edith Finch, the last of her family, who must explore her family mansion to learn the truth. What is that truth? She’s trying to understand why she’s the last of her line.

The answers will come as you wander the house and find portals into the lives of your loved ones. Through their experiences, you’ll learn about their life, and how they died. With each new experience, you’ll slowly come to understand the truth about who you are and why life can be so cruel.

The game is not for those who can’t handle grim stories, so you’ve been warned.

Many people seem to forget that while there is a lot of action in the  Tomb Raider Series , there’s plenty of puzzle-solving. Lara Croft can’t muscle her way out of every situation. She’s an intelligent woman who has to weave her way through complex challenges and solve puzzles to get where she wants to go.

Throughout her journeys, regardless of whether you play the original games or the reboot trilogy, you’ll be put to the test time and time again. You’ll fight monsters, stop evil organizations, and find treasures never meant for human use.

So rise and take on the challenge these tombs offer and see how far you go.

While not your typical puzzle game,  The Walking Dead  from Telltale Games is one of the best narrative stories you’ll ever partake in, and there are puzzle elements in it.

Set within the world of the comic, you’ll play primarily as Clementine, a young girl who has to learn quickly about how to survive in a world where monsters are everywhere, and they’re not just the undead.

Through her travels, you’ll make difficult decisions that’ll heavily affect the story. Will you be able to survive the world and its horrors?” Or will you become just as much a monster as those you fight? Jump in and find out.

The people at PlayDead know how to make games that subvert expectations.  Inside  is just one of the titles that creepily does that.

You’ll have to play the game yourself to get the full picture of, but here’s the loose synopsis. You play a boy who is being hunted. You’ll have to explore a building with a dark secret that you are inexplicably drawn to.

You’ll have to avoid detection, solve puzzles, evade monsters, and learn the truth about this odd place. But the question is, will you be okay after learning the truth? It’s not a simple answer as you’ll find out.

Are you wanting a grand-scale puzzle game that’ll give you a sense of awe and wonder as you attempt to figure out what’s going on? Well, that’s oddly specific, but we can still help you with that.  Outer Wilds  puts you in a part of space constantly going through a time loop. Your job is to explore and figure out what’s going on and whether you can stop things from rewinding once again.

As you explore planets, you’ll learn more about the history of this part of space and that things aren’t as random as they appear. Fly through the starry sky, solve puzzles to help you delve deeper into planets, survive the creatures that live there, and more!

When you’re a puzzle game with over 500 puzzles for gamers to solve? You get credit for working that hard.

The Witness  puts you on a mysterious island full of puzzles, and you’re tasked with solving them all. Why? Because you have no idea who you are, how you ended up there, and there’s nothing else to do!

As you explore the island, you’ll learn clues about who you are, what the island is, and more. An important thing to note is that you can do these puzzles in any order, each of which is unique. So if you’re struggling with one, jump to another until you’re ready to return.

It may seem strange to have this title so high on the list, but did you forget it won Game of the Year at The Game Awards? You have to be good to win that.

But the other reason it’s so high on our list is that it’s one of the few puzzle games out there that focuses on co-op puzzle solving to the extent that it’s impossible to play the game without a partner. You play two parents who are about to have a divorce. Through some magic from their child, they’re turned into dolls and must work through the puzzles put in front of them to return to their human forms.

There can be no other title on the top of this list.  Portal 2  is hands down one of the greatest video games ever made, and it’s because of its innovative puzzle gameplay. Whether you’re playing the main campaign or the co-op campaign, there’s so much to do and solve.

Glados is back, and she has some new challenges for you. So whip out your portal gun and use it wisely to solve each test you’re put in. You’ll have to think a few steps ahead and in multiple directions to figure them out.

There’s a reason that people have been begging for a third entry in the franchise, and it’s because this one was phenomenal.

About Todd Black

The Best Problem-solving Games

• Found It! Hidden Object Game
• Math Puzzle Games - Cross Math
• DOP 5: Delete One Part
• My Doge: Puzzle Game
• Wood Nuts & Bolts Puzzle
• Fortress Building Puzzle - Galaxy Cube Tower Simulator Game
• Shattered Legacy
• Release date: New first
• Review score: Best first
• IOS (iPhone / iPad)
• PS4 (Playstation 4)
• PS5 (Playstation 5)
• Xbox Series X
• Oculus Rift

qomp2 (2024)

An artful reimagining of Pong. Control a Pong ball aching to break free of its life stuck between two paddles. Explore a dangerous, minimalist world, armed with simple two button controls.

• problem-solving
• experimental
• exploration

Found It! Hidden Object Game (2022)

Find all hidden objects by moving around the interactive maps and completing quests to unlock new colorful locations. Use hints to put your target and find it. You can also zoom in, out, and swipe through every corner of the map.

• friends-and-family
• interactive

Math Puzzle Games - Cross Math (2023)

Crossmath is a fun and engaging math puzzle game that tests your problem-solving skills. The game features a variety of levels and difficulty settings, so you can find the perfect challenge for your math skill level. To play, you'll need to solve a series of math problems, using addition, subtraction, multiplication, and division.

• competitive

DOP 5: Delete One Part (2023)

Using your finger as an eraser, pick which part of the picture you want to delete to solve the puzzle and reveal the final image. Progress through levels of varying difficulty as the questions become more complicated.

My Doge: Puzzle Game (2023)

My dog - dog head swollen is an original puzzle game, which contains a large number of brain-burning levels, each level, there is a dog head waiting for you to open your mind to save him. The abundance of creative and interesting puzzle questions may break common sense and bring you a whole new experience. This is a great tool for friends and family to spend time together, so download it and experience a different kind of puzzle game!

Super Kye (2024)

**Super Kye** is a puzzle adventure with unique challenges and a level editor. Navigate mazes, solve puzzles, and unlock levels in a game where strategy meets creativity.

• entertainment

Piece Link (2024)

Connect the shapes to fit them together!

• visual-novel
• point-and-click
• challenging
• family-friendly

Wood Nuts & Bolts Puzzle (2023)

Wood Nuts & Bolts Puzzle is a captivating game designed to challenge your problem-solving skills. Master the art of strategically rotating wooden bolts to fit them into place. Embark on a journey through 100+ levels.

Fortress Building Puzzle - Galaxy Cube Tower Simulator Game (2023)

Fortress Building Puzzle is a puzzle game where you need to strategically remove all the cubes to bring your castle to the ground. You must carefully consider which cubes to remove and in what order, as the structure must maintain its balance or else it will topple over prematurely.

Shattered Legacy (2023)

Start an exciting journey through a magical world, where the familiar idea of nudging blocks and solving puzzles combine to offer an amazing adventure puzzle game. Discover a magical world. Explore difficult puzzles and cryptic challenges in unique levels.

• mind-bending

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Related Genres

5 Games That Reward Creative Problem-Solving

Gamers will often need to uncover specific solutions in order to progress in a video game. These titles, however, reward those who get creative.

• As video game technology advances, puzzles have become more open-ended, allowing for creative solutions and multiple outcomes.
• Games like Portal 2 and Baldur's Gate 3 reward players for thinking creatively and finding unique ways to solve problems.
• Undertale and Scribblenauts Unlimited offer players the freedom to approach puzzles in their own way, showcasing the importance of player choice.

In the early days of video games, puzzles and their solutions were pretty cut and dry. Get from Point A to Point B, and accomplish A, B, and C using a very specific method. There was only one way to beat the game; players just needed to find it. Part of this was due to hardware and scripting limitations. Consoles had such limited memory that there simply wasn't room for more creative solutions.

11 Best Puzzle Games On Steam That Deserve More Attention

But as video games and consoles become more advanced, puzzle-solving in games has become more open-ended. Developers are now usually more than happy to hand players the reins and let them run wild with their creativity. All the pieces are there; players just need to put them together. There are no right or wrong answers, just what works and what doesn't, and for those looking to flex their creative puzzle-solving muscles and get rewarded for doing so , there are plenty of gaming options available.

5 Undertale

Peace is always an option.

This 2015 smash hit revolutionized puzzle-solving and story progression in RPG adventure games, being one of the first where players could complete the entire game without killing a single enemy. Instead, they could choose the Pacifist route and befriend NPCs instead (or go from killing a single enemy to all of them in the notorious Genocide route ).

Beyond the multiple endings, Undertale is filled with puzzles to overcome, not all of which have a single solution. Is a dastardly skeleton placing a maze trap before the fallen human? They might be able to solve it, or they can opt to simply walk around it. New dialogue options and story branches open and close based on who the player chooses to spare and how. The reward for creative puzzle-solving is that players get to explore more of this colorful world and iconic characters.

4 Scribblenauts Unlimited

The noun's the limit, scribblenauts unlimited.

Scribblenauts proves that the pen is indeed mightier than the sword. No, seriously. The titular heroes in this popular puzzle RPG series use the power of words to solve all their problems. Players can write down a noun and watch it appear in the world. Giving it an adjective results in the object or creature transforming to match its new description. Giving a pig wings will allow it to fly, and manifesting some glue out of the ether will permit players to stick things together. The possibilities are literally endless.

Scribblenauts Unlimited builds on its predecessors with an expansive list of nouns, adjectives, and adverbs that players can use and provides multiple ways to solve each puzzle. The game doesn't care how players accomplish their goals, so long as they clear the level's main objective. The only real limit is the player's imagination (and their vocabulary).

Aperture Science Tests One's Creativity

The Portal games make no secret that they want to test players' problem-solving abilities. The game's central antagonist, GLaDOS , makes that abundantly clear. In fact, the entire plot is to use those same skills to escape the testing facility once and for all. Each test follows the same simple premise: get to the end of the testing chamber in one piece. How the player does it is up to them - and the game's physics engine. Jump through portals, avoid deadly turrets and bottomless pits, propel through the air -- it doesn't matter. As the saying goes, "If it's stupid and it works, it isn't stupid."

Portal 2 takes this engaging premise and amps it up to eleven. Puzzles are bigger, deadlier, and more complicated than ever before. While some answers are laid out more obviously than others, players are free to ignore those options and think outside the box as much as they want. So long as they reach the final door, GLaDOS doesn't mind how they did it. After all, data is data.

2 The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom

Zonai devices help players reinvent the wheel, the legend of zelda: tears of the kingdom.

The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild was a massive breath of fresh air for the franchise. Linear adventures with clear-cut solutions were swapped out for a massive open world and a fun new physics engine that led to infinitely creative gameplay. Many fans of the series felt the game essentially reinvented the wheel of a franchise that had started to get a bit formulaic. However, its direct sequel, Tears of the Kingdom , didn't just reinvent the wheel; it allowed players to invent their own.

8 Hardest Zelda Games To 100% Complete

On top of the many new mechanics introduced in Breath of the Wild , Tears of the Kingdom introduced several new mechanics for players to tinker around with. The best by far is the introduction of Zonai devices, allowing players to use various moving mechanical parts in endless combinations to solve puzzles. Gamers can build siege engines that breathe fire, gliders powered by fans, or massive catapaults to launch enemies (or themselves) off into the horizon.

1 Baldur's Gate 3

Any solution is just a dice roll away, baldur's gate 3.

This award-winning RPG action-adventure game from 2023 famously adapted the core rules of Dungeons & Dragons 5th Edition into a video game format. But the game didn't just take the basic stats and mechanics; it went above and beyond to allow players to think just as creatively as they would while playing real D&D . Any D&D campaign can go off the rails at any moment. One bad dice roll or truly chaotic player choice, and there will be consequences. That's what makes the game so fun, and Baldur's Gate 3 understands this.

No two playthroughs of Baldur's Gate 3 are the same, thanks to the infinite array of choices , dice checks, and consequences. Players are rewarded for seeing just how many different ways they can solve the same problem. Do they exterminate the goblin camp or side with them? Can they pickpocket the vendor for powerful items to avoid paying? Can they talk their way out of being arrested, either through smooth-talking or saber-rattling? Every decision opens doors and closes others. Each interaction can forge new allies or enemies. Every quest has multiple endings, good or bad. Players can play the campaign however they want and will be rewarded for their creative thinking along the way.

Puzzle Games You Have To Be A Genius To Complete

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12 best puzzle games to play on PC & Steam in 2024

Tease your brain with our selection of puzzle games!

Although this genre doesn't enjoy the same widespread popularity as shooters or RPGs, it's unique in its own way and offers a gaming experience that's hard to find anywhere else. Puzzle games allow you to hone your problem-solving skills like no other. Now, it's time to give them the recognition they deserve.

We have tried to make our list as diverse as possible. Whether you prefer classic brainteasers or crave more innovative gameplay, we have something for everyone. So, without further ado, let's take a look at them.

This article was updated on 11th January, 2024. We've added two more games to the lineup.

What are the best puzzle games on PC?

Ready to exercise your cognitive skills? If so, read on because these picks will not only test your wits but also occupy you for hours. Here are the best puzzle games on the market.

The Talos Principle and The Talos Principle 2

When it comes to the best logic games, The Talos Principle should definitely be on your radar. It lets you step into the shoes of an AI entity with a mission to solve over 120 mind-boggling puzzles. Each is different; you'll do everything from manipulating drones to rearranging Tetris-like blocks. The difficulty ramps up as you progress, keeping you engaged and entertained.

But the title offers more than just enjoyable gameplay. It delves into a thought-provoking narrative that explores themes like consciousness, existence, and the very fabric of reality. It's an absolute must-play that will leave a lasting impression on you.

In 2023, the series was expanded with another entry, The Talos Principle 2 . While largely following the formula of its predecessor, it introduces some fresh elements to spice things up, such as gravity manipulation and mind transference abilities. The breathtaking visuals and soothing music further enhance the overall experience. It's worth checking out whether you've played the original or not.

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In Viewfinder , your primary tool is an instant camera. As you play, you take pictures, bring them to life, and use them to overcome obstacles. For example, if you need a bridge to cross a chasm, simply snap a photo of the nearby tower. Then, manipulate its orientation and position it accordingly.

The game does have a story, but it's not its most striking feature. However, the gameplay is so addictive that you can overlook this aspect. Overall, it fully deserves its place among the best puzzle games.

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Chants of Sennaar

What sets Chants of Sennaar apart from other puzzle games on PC is its visual style. In fact, it's heavily inspired by Jean Giraud, a famous French artist. But the language-based puzzles are just as captivating.

In terms of story, it offers a fresh perspective on the myth of Babel. You step into the shoes of a Traveler sent to help the Peoples of the Tower, who have stopped communicating with each other. Throughout the game, you'll explore vast mazes and interpret ancient languages in your quest to restore harmony to the realm.

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Baba is You

Baba is You stands out as one of the most difficult PC games , but don't let that put you off. What distinguishes the game and makes it fun to play is its core gameplay mechanic.

It revolves around bending the rules to your advantage, allowing you to rearrange words, create new victory conditions, manipulate obstacles, and even transform the main character. Every stage requires you to think outside the box and explore various solutions. It's a fantastic choice for those who enjoy a good challenge.

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Return of the Obra Dinn

Return of the Obra Dinn is undeniably one of the most visually distinctive and arguably the best puzzle games in our lineup. As an insurance investigator, you're assigned to unravel the enigma surrounding the sudden reappearance of a long-lost ship, mysteriously devoid of its crew.

As you play, you'll navigate the boat, painstakingly scouring for clues and piecing together the fragments of evidence to unveil the truth. If you're a fan of detective games , you won't want to miss out on this intriguing journey.

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The Past Within

If you're looking for a fun coop puzzle game, give The Past Within a try. It'll push your teamwork and communication skills to the limit as you work hand-in-hand with your friend to solve the mystery of Albert Vanderboom.

One of the title's highlights is its cross-platform support, allowing you to play together wherever you want, whether it's PC, Mac, iOS, or Android. Moreover, it presents environments in both 2D and 3D dimensions, adding a unique element to the gameplay.

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The Witness

The Witness is widely regarded as one of the best puzzle games, and it's easy to see why. Right from the get-go, it captivates players with its air of mystery. Transported to a secluded island, you'll encounter a multitude of challenges that test your perception and problem-solving skills. 

With no handholding or tutorials, it demands great patience to beat it. It's certainly a game that encourages you to think for yourself, leading to moments of wandering and contemplation. However, the beautiful graphics and immersive atmosphere make the experience all the more rewarding.

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Portal 1 & 2

Our list wouldn't be complete without the good old Portal series. Both installments are outstanding picks, combining dark humor, a compelling story, and groundbreaking gameplay.

Armed with the iconic Portal Gun, you set out to solve mind-bending puzzles by manipulating space and gravity. With each level, the difficulty increases, so there's never a dull moment. While the first entry revolutionized the genre, the second took it to new heights, introducing new features like multiplayer mode. This solidified its reputation as not only one of the most noteworthy online puzzle games but also as one of the best couch co-op titles around.

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Opus Magnum

In Opus Magnum , another incredible game from Zachtronics, you take on the role of a master alchemist. Your task is to construct machines that can efficiently transmute elements and create gemstones, weapons, and more.

However, you have to balance cost and effectiveness when building these contraptions. The less money you spend, the better your rating will be. A high score is not only a testament to your skill but also gives you bragging rights in front of your friends or even the whole world.

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Next in our catalog of the best logic games is Fez , where you play as Gomez, a 2D protagonist who stumbles upon an enchanting 3D world. Equipped with a special hat that gives you the power to manipulate perspective, you'll navigate through complex puzzles and tackle challenging platforming sections.

The title blends ingenious gameplay mechanics with a heartfelt homage to beloved 8-bit classics. Gorgeous pixel-art visuals and a catchy soundtrack further eleveates the charm of this indie masterpiece. Surely, fans of the genre can't overlook it.

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Antichamber

Antichamber is an extraordinary and boundary-pushing game that defies traditional genres. It immerses you in an abstract world and challenges you with complex puzzles. It also constantly manipulates you, even in the tutorial, where seemingly simple actions can lead to unexpected consequences.

It breaks conventions and subverts expectations that players have developed over the years. Therefore, you need to experiment, as conventional methods may prove ineffective. That makes it one of the most intriguing logic puzzle games.

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Unpacking (Included with PC Game Pass)

Our list concludes with Unpacking , a delightful casual game that will captivate you with its slow pace and tranquil atmosphere. It takes you on a one-of-a-kind journey through time with the protagonist. Your task is to unbox and arrange various items in specific locations, ranging from a single bedroom to an entire apartment.

While there is no explicit narration or voiceover, the story is revealed as you unpack the belongings. It beautifully explores how our possessions can reflect our identity and experiences.

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It's worth mentioning that Unpacking is part of Game Pass, a Microsoft subscription service that allows its users to take advantage of an ever-growing library of titles. Below, you can see the best deals for a 1-month membership.

That's all for our lineup of remarkable logic puzzle games. Hopefully, we miss your personal favorites but feel free to suggest them. Do you enjoy this genre, or does it tend to grind your gears? What coop puzzle games do you recommend? Share your thoughts below.

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Top 15 Best Mystery Games on PC

The PC boasts a vast selection of fascinating and captivating mystery games. Mystery games have long been a popular genre among gamers.

PC gamers may immerse themselves in gripping storylines and tackle challenging puzzles in everything from traditional point-and-click adventures to contemporary open-world investigations. 

You'll find a mix of classics and brand-new titles that will challenge your skills and keep you engrossed for hours.

Consequently, whether you're an experienced sleuth or a curious newbie, get ready to solve some of the most intriguing puzzles in video game history. These are the top 15 best mystery games on PC.

15. Inside the Backrooms - 2022 (PC)

Liminal spaces and mystery just sorta meld together like cheeseburgers and soda

Since the backrooms were made famous by VFX artist and 17 year old director Kane Pixels on YouTube, the backrooms seemed to take on a life of its own as it has spawned countless lore stories, copycat videos, and even a game on the PC. 

Inside the Backrooms takes players to an odd and unsettling other universe called, well, The Backrooms. Intentionally low-resolution graphics in the game add to the sense of being confined in a bizarre and glitchy universe. 

The game takes place in a network of interconnected rooms, each of which has its own peculiar and particularly terrifying creatures and features.

Exploring the corridors, solving puzzles, and avoiding numerous hazards including monsters and traps make up the gameplay.

The eerie mood of the game is heightened by its disturbing sound design and background noise.

The game can be difficult at times, but the satisfaction you get after finishing a particularly challenging puzzle or segment is well worth it.

Inside the Backrooms is a superbly designed game that will appeal to puzzle and horror game aficionados alike.

Inside the Backrooms (ALL LEVELS + ENDING) Walkthrough Gameplay [SOLO Mode]

14. Disco Elysium - 2019 (macOS, PC PS4, PS5, Stadia, Switch, Xbox One, Xbox Series X/S)

The game truly captures the life of a gamer during the 2020 (redacted because we don’t want to go back to that time anymore)

In the fictitious city of Revachol, where Disco Elysium is set, you take on the role of a detective attempting to solve a murder.

The focus on character development and discussion rather than action and fighting distinguishes this game from others in its genre.

With hand-drawn sceneries and character portraits that produce a gritty and deep atmosphere, the game's art style is distinctive and visually striking.

The dialogue is clever and thought-provoking, delving into issues of identity, politics, and human nature.

The "thought cabinet," which enables players to explore their character's inner thoughts and feelings and potentially build new skills and powers based on those thoughts, is one of the game's most famous elements.

This gives the game an additional degree of complexity and depth that keeps players interested in the development of their characters.

For those who enjoy narrative-driven games and are seeking out something new and original, Disco Elysium is a must-play.

It is an outstanding title that shouldn't be missed due to its combination of breathtaking visuals, engaging writing, and original gameplay mechanics.

Disco Elysium Gameplay Ultra Settings

13. Firewatch  - 2016 (Linux, OS X, PS4, PC, Xbox One, Switch)

A fire tower where you can, you know, watch fires

Firewatch will transport you on an incredible adventure through the Wyoming wilderness.

You take control of a man attempting to communicate to a girl over the radio while dodging bear attacks. So yeah there's that part

The voice acting in the game is excellent, and the graphics are simply gorgeous. The tale is interesting, and the characters are likable.

You take on the role of Henry, a middle-aged guy who accepts a position as a fire lookout in a remote location in Wyoming. Delilah, who is continuously flirting with you over the radio, is your only company.

The game's rules are straightforward but efficient. The majority of your time will be spent exploring the environment, conversing with Delilah, and looking into numerous mysteries.

The game does an excellent job of giving you the impression that you are truly lost in the woods, relying solely on your wits to survive.

Firewatch is a fantastic game all around and is definitely worth your time. You'll be kept on the edge of your seat by this enjoyable and captivating event. So gather a bear spray and get ready to explore Wyoming's wilderness.

Firewatch RTX 2070 4k Ultra Settings Gameplay

12. The Wolf Among Us Season 1 - 2013 (Android, iOS, OS X, PS3, PS4, PS Vita, PC, Xbox 360, Xbox One)

There is an imposter amogus

The Wolf Among Us is the ideal game for you if you enjoy the weird tandem of criminal dramas and fairy tales, I mean how many other games have that kind of premise.

The characters from well-known tales like "Little Red Riding Hood" and "The Three Little Pigs" are given a dark, noir twist in this game.

You take on the role of Bigby Wolf, the lawman of Fabletown, a neighborhood of fictional figures residing in New York City.

You'll interact with characters like Snow White, Ichabod Crane, and the Jersey Devil as you look into a string of gruesome murders. Why the Jersey Devil is in the game I'm not sure but hey.

The dark and perilous atmosphere of Fabletown is brilliantly depicted in the game's distinctive aesthetic.

The characters have an almost comic book-like aspect to them, similar to the borderlands games, and are exquisitely portrayed.

The writing, though, is the true star of the show. The conversation options in the game are razor-sharp, clever, and frequently amusing.

You'll find yourself entertained throughout the entire game at Bigby's stoic reactions to the ridiculous (and dangerous) situations he finds himself in.

All things considered, "The Wolf Among Us" is a must-play for anyone who enjoys a compelling narrative, endearing characters, and a good deal of humor.

Just be aware that you won't be able to stop playing once you start until Season 2 of the game makes a comeback after a decade of waiting

The Wolf Among Us Season 1 1080p

11. What Remains of Edith Finch - 2017 (PC, PS4, Xbox One, Switch, iOS, PS5, Xbox Series X/S)

This aint concept art but the actual game itself. And i’ll tell you why it's worth your time

What Remains of Edith Finch is a narrative-driven video game developed by Giant Sparrow.

The game tells the story of the Finch family, a cursed family that has suffered from an unusual number of deaths over the years.

The player takes on the role of Edith Finch, the last surviving member of the family, as she explores the family's old mansion and uncovers the mysterious and tragic stories of her relatives.

The game's tale is masterfully told, with each family member's death being presented in a unique and inventive way.

From a little girl who becomes a monster, to a newborn who transforms into a bird, each narrative is a testament to the game's inventiveness and storytelling abilities.

The aesthetics of the game are also excellent, with a lovely and creepy look that perfectly conveys the depressing mood of the narrative.

What Remains of Edith Finch isn't your typical video game, some players could find the absence of standard gaming mechanics like combat or puzzles to be off-putting.

Yet, What Remains of Edith Finch is another must-play for everyone looking for a thought-provoking and emotional experience.

It is a game that will stick with you long after you've finished playing it, and stands as a testament to the effectiveness of video game storytelling.

What Remains of Edith Finch Complete Walkthrough

10. Outer Wilds - 2019 (PC, Xbox One, PS4, PS5, Xbox Series X/S, Switch)

Interstellar banjo nights with your friends are the best

Mobius Digital created the independent 2019 action-adventure game Outer Wilds. The game has a special time loop system that gives the gameplay a sense of urgency and mystery.

As an astronaut exploring a vast and enigmatic solar system, the player learns the mysteries of a long-gone civilization that once called it home.

When the player explores the various planets and celestial bodies, the breathtaking and immersive graphics and sound design evoke a sense of amazement and wonder.

The tale is interesting and provocative, while the game's puzzles are hard but never annoying.

Outer Wilds’ ability to perfectly meld gameplay and storyline into an experience that feels both interactive and dramatic is one of its most outstanding features.

During each cycle, the player can experiment and discover more about the world and its inhabitants thanks to the time loop mechanic.

Outer Wilds is a marvel of game design that encourages tenacity, curiosity, and discovery overall.

Fans of science fiction, deep storytelling, and action-adventure games should definitely try the uniqueness and mystery that Outer Wilds offers.

Outer Wilds [PC Gameplay RTX-2080-TI 4k]

9. Sherlock Holmes: Crimes and Punishment - 2014 (PC, PS3, PS4, Xbox 360, Xbox One, Switch)

Sherlock always looking cool as heck in any kind of medium

Sherlock Holmes: Crimes and Punishments is a detective game developed by Frogwares and was released in 2014.

It puts you in the shoes of the famous detective as he solves six different cases, ranging from murders to thefts, by investigating crime scenes, interrogating suspects, and analyzing clues.

The game's impressive graphics and music transports you to Victorian London for the majority of the game.

The landscapes and character designs exhibit extraordinary attention to detail coupled by excellent voice acting

The game's emphasis on player choice is one of its standout elements. You must decide how to proceed as you solve each case, such as whether to turn over a suspect to the police or let them go free.

Both the game's conclusion and the characters' futures are impacted by these decisions.

The game provides a nice degree of challenge without getting too difficult while making the puzzles and investigations interesting.

The game moves along rather quickly but has a decent balance of action, research, and deduction.

Sherlock Holmes: Crimes and Punishments is a top-notch detective game that faithfully represents its source material.

It is a must-play for aficionados of detective fiction and the Sherlock Holmes franchise because of its immersive atmosphere, compelling investigations, and emphasis on player choice.

Sherlock Holmes: Crimes and Punishments Gameplay PC [1080p 60fps]

8. Grim Fandango - 1998 (PC, Linux, OS X, PS4, PS Vita, Android, iOS, Switch, Xbox One)

1998 gaming has never looked this sharp

Grim Fandango is a classic adventure game developed by LucasArts and released in 1998.

The game is set in the Land of the Dead and follows the story of Manuel "Manny" Calavera, a travel agent for the Department of Death who helps souls reach their final destination.

The game features a unique combination of film noir and Mexican folklore aesthetics, with a cast of unforgettable characters, including Manny's sidekick Glottis, his love interest Mercedes "Meche" Colomar, and the villainous Hector LeMans.

Players must solve puzzles and navigate through a variety of environments to uncover a conspiracy involving the sale of souls to the highest bidder.

Along the way, Manny learns about the corruption within the Department of Death and his own past mistakes.

Grim Fandango is beloved for its witty writing, memorable characters, and immersive world-building.

It was praised for its innovative use of 3D graphics and pre-rendered cutscenes, as well as its jazz-inspired soundtrack. The game has since become a cult classic and is considered one of the best adventure games of all time.

Grim Fandango Full Game 1080p 60fps

7. Phasmophobia - 2020 (PC)

Yeah no absolutely not gonna look at this sh*t

Phasmophobia took the world by storm on its release as it makes for a spooky and fun experience. It's a game that both makes you laugh at your own horror while you scream and escape from ghosts.

The graphics are just realistic enough to give you goosebumps without being too scary to play at night (I mean that's just me when I played it cause I’m a big boy)

The gameplay is straightforward yet effective: utilizing equipment like cameras, EMF readers, and spirit boxes. You and your ghost hunting crew must detect and capture various kinds of ghosts. 

The problem is that the ghosts can hear you, so you have to keep silent or run the risk of frightening them even more by making noise (which doesn’t make sense to me like I should be the one scared of you)

The multiplayer mode of Phasmophobia is its best feature; you can work together with your buddies to brave a terrifying mansion while jointly peeing your pants together.

Nothing draws friends closer together like screaming in fear together when a ghost jumps out at you.

Nevertheless, Phasmophobia is undoubtedly worth a try if you're searching for a game that can simultaneously scare the hell out of you and have you laughing.

Phasmophobia 4k 60fps Gameplay

6. LA Noire - 2011 (PS3, Xbox 360, PC, Switch, PS4, Xbox One)

Revolutionary facial capture technology that beats games even today *cough cough* *Mass Effect Andromeda* *cough*

L.A. Noire is a detective thriller video game made by our friends from Rockstar Games and set in Los Angeles in the 1940s.

The game follows the story of Cole Phelps, a former Marine and LAPD officer who must solve a series of crimes that range from small-time burglaries to high-profile murders.

The game's graphics are stunning, with highly detailed environments and characters that bring the 1940s to life.

The game also features an innovative facial animation system that allows players to read the emotions of the characters they encounter and determine whether they are telling the truth or lying.

The gameplay revolves around interrogating suspects and witnesses, investigating crime scenes, and solving puzzles to uncover clues.

The game's storyline is engaging, with a well-crafted narrative that keeps players guessing until the very end.

Overall, L.A. Noire is a unique and immersive gaming experience that successfully captures the atmosphere and style of the film noir genre.

The game's attention to detail and strong writing make it a standout title that is definitely worth playing.

LA Noire Playthrough RTX  3080 4k

5. The Vanishing of Ethan Carter - 2014 (PC, PS4, Xbox One, Switch)

Please don’t come near me Mr. Bleeding all over the Train Tracks

The Vanishing of Ethan Carter is a first-person exploration game released in 2014 and developed by The Astronauts.

The game follows the story of a detective who receives a letter from a boy named Ethan Carter, who claims that something is wrong in his hometown of Red Creek Valley.

The detective sets out to investigate, and soon discovers that something terrible has happened in the town.

The game's spectacular graphics, which are made possible by Unreal Engine 4, are one of its most distinctive aspects.

The surroundings are intricately designed, with notably amazing lighting and weather effects. The player is free to move around the town and its surroundings as the game places a big emphasis on exploration.

The game's storytelling, though, is where it really excels. The story is effectively delivered through a collection of interconnected, non-linear storylines that gradually become less clear as the player advances through the game.

The game succeeds in creating a genuinely spooky atmosphere paired with superb writing, which keeps players interested throughout.

The Vanishing of Ethan Carter is an all-around excellent game with a compelling plot and stunning graphics.

Although it isn't very long or difficult, lovers of the genre should play it nonetheless because of its emphasis on exploration and storyline.

The Vanishing of Ethan Carter Full HD 1080p 60 fps

4. Stray - 2022 (PS4, PS5, PC)

This game has a dedicated meow button. 10/10 best game ever made idc what anyone says

Stray is a charming adventure game developed by BlueTwelve Studio and published by Annapurna Interactive that ALMOST beat the likes of God of War Ragnarok and Elden Ring in terms of story quality and overall mass appeal. 

The game puts players in the role of a stray cat exploring a futuristic city filled with robots and otherworldly creatures.

The titular stray can jump, climb, and interact with the environment, and even has a small drone companion to help solve puzzles.

The game's graphics are beautiful, featuring a lovely cityscape with a cyberpunk theme and intricate character designs.

Another excellent feature is the soundtrack, which blends orchestral and electronic music to precisely convey the mood of the game.

Despite the relatively brief length of the game's primary plot, there are a ton of side missions and trinkets to keep players interested.

Even though the puzzles can occasionally be difficult, they never feel unfair or annoying.

Overall, Stray is a distinctive and entertaining game that presents a novel viewpoint on the adventure subgenre.

Anybody looking for an enjoyable and engaging experience should give it a try and A MUST PLAY for cat lovers. And also the dedicated meow button is the best gaming innovation ever made.

Realistic Ultra Graphics Gameplay  [4k UHD 60fps]

3. Night in the Woods - 2017 (PC, macOS, Linux, PS4, Xbox One, Switch, iOS)

Same Mae, Same

Night in the Woods is a narrative-driven adventure game developed by Infinite Fall. The game revolves around a young cat named Mae, who returns to her hometown of Possum Springs after dropping out of college.

The game follows Mae as she reconnects with her old friends and tries to unravel the mysteries of the town.

The game's distinctive aesthetic and musical score create the ideal atmosphere for its kinda depressing and provocative narrative.

The game also deftly and graciously addresses issues like mental health, identity, and the difficulties of small-town living.

Exploration, dialog choices, and a little light platforming make up the majority of the gameplay. But the game's writing, characters, and world-building, which are all superbly made, really shine.

The numerous dialogue options that can change the course of the plot contribute to the game's replay potential as well.

All things considered, Night in the Woods is a game that fans of narrative adventures just must play. It is a game that is deeply moving and emotionally charged and has a lasting effect on the player.

Night in the Woods Full Game Walkthrough

2. Oxenfree - 2016 (OS X, PC, Xbox One, PS4, Linux, iOS, Android, Switch)

My brain at any given point in time

Oxenfree is a supernatural thriller adventure game released in 2016 by Night School Studio. The game follows the story of Alex, a teenage girl who travels to an abandoned island with her friends for a party.

However, things take a sinister turn as they unwittingly unleash an otherworldly force that threatens their lives.

With the help of their decisions and interactions with other characters, players can influence the plot thanks to the game's original dialogue system which pops up as text bubbles above the characters heads.

The hand-drawn art style used in the gameplay is exquisitely produced, producing an eerie and deep environment.

The gameplay entails traveling the island and solving puzzles while learning the sinister mysteries of the past. The sound design is immersive as it can get, featuring a spooky soundtrack and standout voice acting.

Overall, Oxenfree is an excellently made game that skillfully combines aspects of horror, adventure, and mystery.

It is a remarkable game in its genre because of its captivating tale, original dialogue system, and captivating atmosphere.

Oxenfree PC Full Game Walkthrough

1. The Sinking City - 2019 (PC, Switch, PS4, PS5, Xbox One, Xbox Series X/S)

Cthulhu awaits

And at number one we decided to show a little love to one of the more underrated games of recent memory. 

The Sinking City is an action-adventure video game developed by Frogwares and released in 2019.

The game is set in a fictionalized version of 1920s Oakmont, Massachusetts, where the city has been partially submerged by a flood and is now plagued by supernatural events.

Players take on the role of private investigator Charles W. Reed, who is tasked with uncovering the cause of the flood and the mysterious occurrences plaguing the city.

The game's open world setting promotes investigation, exploration, and problem-solving. To advance through the game's main plot and side quests, players must acquire information, speak with witnesses, and solve riddles.

The gameplay's mechanics are primarily influenced by H.P. Lovecraft, with a focus on occultism, psychological terror, and cosmic horror.

The mood of the game is one of its best qualities. The overall atmosphere of the game is gloomy, oppressive, and unsettling thanks to the game's graphics, sound design, and writing.

The game's narrative is also captivating, with lots of unexpected turns to keep players interested.

The game is not without faults, though. The game's wide world occasionally feels a bit lifeless and sterile, while the gameplay is somewhat clumsy and unpleasant.

The game also experiences bugs and frequent crashes due to technological problems as is my playthrough of the game.

Fans of Lovecraftian horror and investigative games should definitely give The Sinking City a try, despite its flaws.

While its combat and technical flaws can be aggravating, they do not significantly distract from the overall experience and still delivers its promise to bring us a fully realized world that H.P. Lovecraft himself intended to.

The Sinking City PC Gameplay  4k 2160p Max Settings

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The Best Co-Operative Puzzle Games

Puzzle games are a blast to play but even more fun with a friend. Here are some of the best two-player co-op titles.

Although it's fun gaming solo, sometimes you want to get someone else in on the action with you, whether it be a close friend, partner, or complete stranger. Luckily, cooperative games seem to be on the up, with some amazing new additions finding their way onto shelves and digital libraries in the last few years.

The Top 28 Puzzle Games On Steam

Many of these cooperative adventures contain puzzle-solving elements, requiring you to work together and communicate well to reach your end goal. So whether you're looking to escape a frightening labyrinth, work out a gravity-defying world, or even play as two geese waddling their way to village overlords, here are some of the best cooperative puzzle-solving games out there, all fantastic for an evening on the sofa together.

Updated on January 25, 2024, by Jouanna Bondakji: Gaming by yourself is fun, but being able to share that joy with others makes it all the better. Neither you nor your friend(s) need to be video game experts to enjoy cooperative puzzle games. We've added even more entries for you and your loved ones to enjoy together.

23 Never Alone

Lots of co-op puzzle games focus on the funny hijinks you and your co-op buddy can get into, but Never Alone is a bit different. You play as a young Iñupiaq girl named Nuna and her fox companion as you venture to put an end to an eternal blizzard that threatens her village.

The developers collaborated with members of the Iñupiat to bring the game's story and environment to life, and it shows. Not only is the gameplay itself immersive and challenging, but you'll learn a lot about the Iñupiaq along the way.

22 Boxboy + Boxgirl

Part of the Boxboy series and at least as good as the other games, Boxboy + Boxgirl is a co-op puzzle platformer where you create boxes to overcome obstacles and complete levels. The catch is that you can't make as many boxes as you please; every level has a certain limit on the amount you can create.

You and your co-op partner will have to put your heads together to figure out how to make the best possible use of the boxes you can make. And if you like collecting things, good news: you can collect crowns to purchase power-ups, accessories, and even bonus levels that up the challenge.

21 Heave Ho

If you're looking for something you can play with a group in gatherings, Heave Ho fits the bill. It's a silly platforming game with one goal: don't fall. The puzzle aspect comes from finding out how to best move along the level while being attached to three other people. The platforms you stick to come in all shapes and sizes, from hooks to boulders to see-saws, and some even have spikes you can't touch.

The levels aren't easy, but the humor factor will make you and your friends laugh out loud instead of yelling in frustration. You can customize your characters to more easily differentiate who each person is supposed to be (and to look cool), but that won't totally save you from plummeting to your deaths more times than you can count.

20 Very Very Valet

Very Very Valet is a wacky party puzzle game that is dripping with off-the-wall shenanigans. If you haven't guessed from the game's title, you play as a valet driver. Your chosen cartoony valet driver works diligently to wrangle up as many cars as possible to park them and eventually retrieve them for your patrons.

10 Best Free Co-Op Games On PC

While that setup may sound undeniably simple and even mundane, nothing could be farther from the truth, especially when playing this one in zany co-op. Adding two or more players to the mix really makes this game a blast as you work with your chosen co-op partner to drive around the vehicles, which end up basically being puzzles since you have to navigate them through specific stage-based hazards and scenarios.

19 Good Job!

If you haven't played the downright hilarious puzzle adventure game Good Job!, you should be sure to remedy that right away. It's equal parts fun and hilarious, especially in co-op. In this game, you play as the heir to a successful CEO, and it's now up to you to work your way to the top, literally and figuratively.

Good Job! relishes in physics-based mayhem where your goal is to move through different stages of a large office building, solving environmental puzzles, interacting with objects, and, of course, causing tons of destruction. While the game is fun solo, adding a friend to the mix turns this game from a simple puzzle experience to a bonkers one.

18 39 Days To Mars

This Kickstarter-funded project by It's Anecdotal finally came to fruition after years in limbo, flying under the radar as a particularly innovative indie puzzler. The charming co-op game forces two players to work together through a series of creative brain-busters as they embark on a short but memorable trip to Mars by airship.

These 19th-century explorers must scramble to solve problems on board so they can reach their destination in one piece. Whimsical themes and stylized, hand-drawn visuals add a sense of character to the experience, engrossing you as you tinker with clever puzzles to maintain the ship. Tasks range from churning mechanical contraptions to assembling maps—and even the simple act of making tea.

17 Shift Happens

Shift Happens is a puzzle-platformer game. It's really best experienced with two people, but the developers also ensured there was a single-player mode available

The two creatures that the players control (named Bismo and Plom) are made out of jelly, which allows them to do chaotic and creative things! One of the main mechanics is "shifting," which allows you to trade jelly to adjust your size between a big version and a small version of your jelly creature. There are four worlds to explore, each requiring your unique talents.

16 Snipperclips: Cut It Out Together

This delightful puzzler channels that feeling of playing around in elementary school art class. Similar to that experience—just about anything goes in Snipperclips, as two players must use intuition and improvisation on the spot to solve crafty puzzles.

8 Hardest Video Game Puzzles Ever

The game's puzzles revolve around rotating and overlapping controllable shapes to snip out new ones, which are used to transport or otherwise interact with other objects. Communication is key here, as both players will be working through a slew of random scenarios on the spot with little to no guidance. This colorful co-op romp makes for a fun little diversion that's good for some laughs.

15 Death Squared

Released by SMG Studio in early 2017, this mechanical game harkens back to the old-school puzzler feel, standing out in an era when bigger and more bombastic seemingly equals better. But while this blocky title seems simple on the surface, Death Squared offers some deceptively tricky tasks that keep folks coming back for more.

Two players will need to be precise and work in synchronicity to progress through the dozens of unique block mazes. This includes clearing obstacles and platforms by triggering contraptions and matching with switches of the same color.

14 Human Fall Flat

Fumbling through these courses may seem counter-productive and silly due to the clumsy ragdoll physics—but in No Brakes Games' co-op journey, this is the point. The aptly named Human Fall Flat drops loads of online players into a set of progressively tricky stages. From there, they'll hop, stumble, and crawl their way through various puzzles while dealing with impeding obstacles, mostly themselves and each other.

One can imagine the laughs this goofy experience brings—with the blend of drunken physics, bustling crowds, and the relative precision the game demands to progress. Something as simple as dropping a plank for a bridge and scurrying across can be a tough, treacherous act.

13 A Way Out

Those seeking a cooperative game with a slightly grittier, cinematic blend should look no further than this 2018 effort from Hazelight Studios and EA. Though more action-adventure than a straight-up puzzle game, A Way Out tasks you with coming up with solutions and working through tasks together in order to progress.

It's a fun and intense experience with much on the line—as you must work together to sneak, fight, and maneuver your way out of prison while steering clear of the authorities. Uniquely, this memorable game stresses local split-screen play , as many of these actions require discussion and knowledge about what your fellow prisoner is currently up to.

12 Labyrinthine

One for horror fans, Labyrinthine is unique. It combines fan-favorite survival horror with some classic puzzle-solving as you seek to escape a creepy children's hedge-maze together and hopefully survive the bloodcurdling horrors calling it home.

The Best Asymmetrical Multiplayer Games

Labyrinthine was built for cooperative play between four players and plays like a classic puzzle-solver. Everyone must know what they're doing and work together to uncover the dark secrets lurking around every corner and escape the maze in one piece.

A journey for two players, Dyo has you assume the role of two Minotaurs both trapped on either side of a split-screen who must work together to escape the cursed labyrinth they've been trapped within.

You each need to control your Minotaur and use your ability to hop over the split-screen to mix up and manipulate levels, working together to solve platforming puzzles and carve out a path to your freedom. There are no enemies and no time limits, so sit back, get puzzling, and try not to yell at each other as you both attempt to solve this maze's tricks and traps together.

10 Tick Tock: A Tale For Two

Tick Tock: A Tale For Two is a game where playing solo is not an option, as you'll need both of you working in unison to escape this escape room-style game together.

The story is based on Scandinavian folklore, creating a beautiful, if not slightly eerie, setting. The key to freedom is in cooperation, with you both needing to share information to get the full picture of what's going on and solve the story's mysteries in tandem.

9 We Were Here Series

We Were Here is unique, having you and your partner separated and needing to work on puzzles both independently and together through your communicative walkie-talkies in order to work out your locations and (hopefully) escape.

We Were Here plays as an immersive first-person cooperative adventure, with both of you needing to discover useful items and communicate well in order to solve each other's puzzles and reach the end. It's great for those looking for a short escape room style of adventure game, and with a trilogy and fourth game due to be released, there's no time like the present to be picking this title up.

An older entry in the cooperative puzzle genre, but one still going strong as a two-player co-op adventure for you and a friend to spend hours upon hours puzzling over.

The Best Xbox Puzzle Games You Should Be Playing Right Now

Portal 2 's cooperative mode offers an entirely separate campaign mode with a unique story, portal mechanics, and two new characters to play as. The trick to success is teamwork, as in working together, you'll discover new ways to use portals and hopefully create a means of escape from the test chambers before Glados turns you against one another.

7 Ibb and Obb

Ibb and Obb is a delightfully cute and creative cooperative puzzle game using gravity-changing mechanics to have you working together to move past obstacles and have some innovative level-solving fun.

With stylish art and sound, it's great for an easy game to play together on the couch , and will keep you coming back again and again with some tough and challenging puzzles - but nothing your teamwork can't solve.

6 Unravel 2

Unravel 2 is arguably perfection in couch co-op, needing you and another player to solve platforming puzzles in order to progress through the stages and save two children running away from unreliable adults looking to hurt them.

The game is beautiful, with breathtaking scenery and gameplay surrounding a sad but enlightening tale. The puzzles featured in the game vary from needing to escape a crazed pheasant, using objects to get to hard-to-reach places, and most of all, making sure to never leave one another behind.

5 Heavenly Bodies

Heavenly Bodies is a wonderful game about space exploration where you play as cosmonauts! (Did you know that a person who travels to space from America or the rest of the western world is known as an astronaut, while one who travels from the Soviet or Russian space programs are known as cosmonauts? If they were launched from China, they're called taikonauts.)

In space, you'll need to help people on the ground by installing and maintaining solar arrays, doing research, and building telescopes, among other things! It's not quite like any other game you've played before; the physics in space are unfamiliar and you're performing fairly precise tasks, so it'll take some practice before you're perfect.

4 Untitled Goose Game

The world's (least) favorite goose is back, and this time he's got company. The incredible open-world cooperative game for two players, Untitled Goose Game co-op allows for two geese to travel through the village's story together; solving problems, chasing villagers and of course, endlessly honking.

Nintendo Switch: The Most Relaxing Games To Play That Aren't Animal Crossing

This is a great relaxing game for two, with you able to work together to solve your list of errands without a time limit. So whether it be chasing a boy into a phone box, wearing a fancy bow, or stealing an old man's slipper - why not do it together? Just don't forget to HONK.

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Problem Solving Games, Activities & Exercises for Adults

Here is our list of the best problem solving games, activities and exercises for adults.

Problem solving games are activities that require players to use critical thinking skills to solve puzzles. Example activities include escape rooms, Sudoku, and murder mysteries. The purpose of these exercises is to sharpen reasoning and decision-making skills in group settings and to do team building with employees.

These activities are a subset of remote team games , found in problem solving books , and are similar to team puzzles , team building brain teasers and team riddles .

This article contains:

• team building problem solving activities for employees
• free problem solving games for adults
• virtual problem solving activities for students
• group problem solving activities
• problem solving team builders

Here we go!

List of problem solving games & activities

From word and number puzzles to role-playing games, here is a list of inexpensive and free problem solving team builders that help groups practice the art of critical thinking and compromise.

1. Espionage! (Team Favorite)

For an exciting game of social deduction, check out Espionage! This thrilling experience will put your team’s wits and instincts to the test.

Espionage! offers the following:

• a 90-minute session led by an experienced host
• undercover teams of agents and spies
• challenging puzzles, tasks, and maneuvers
• team conversations to help uncover secret identities

The best part is we will bring all the necessary game materials to your preferred location. If you are interested in boosting communication and critical-thinking skills within your team, then consider Espionage!

Learn more about Espionage!

2. Art Heist: The Vanishing of Van Gogh (Hosted)

You can turn your team into skilled detectives with Art Heist: The Vanishing of Van Gogh! In this captivating mystery, participants will locate the stolen artwork, The Bedroom .

Key features of this experience include:

• a 90-minute adventure led by a world-class host
• detailed puzzles, clues, and mysteries to unravel
• trails of evidence and hidden secrets
• group discussions to find the art

Additionally, you can include a cocktail kit to spice up your event. Through Art Heist, you will enhance your team’s ingenuity and problem-solving skills!

Learn more about Art Heist: The Vanishing of Van Gogh .

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3. War of the Wizards (Popular)

With War of the Wizards, teams roleplay as minions of powerful wizards to vanquish forces of evil. Participants will play thrilling games and go on a quest to restore harmony to the realm!

War of the Wizards offers the following:

• a 90-minute journey guided by a distinguished host
• immersive storytelling that transports players into a magical realm
• engaging activities like world-building, role-playing games, and storytelling
• opportunities for forming alliances, facing challenges, and going on quests

Through the power of imagination and teamwork, your team can overcome tasks and participate in an epic fantasy battle. To improve communication and bonds, include War of the Wizards in your agenda!

Learn more about War of the Wizards .

Sudoku is one of the most popular free problem solving games for adults. The objective of this game is to fill each box of a 9×9 grid so that every row, column, and letter contains each number from one to nine. The puzzle makes a great team challenge. To play Sudoku on Zoom, screen share the game board. Then, turn on the annotation features. Using the add text functions, participants can fill in the numbers on the grid.

We made a starter puzzle you can use in your next meeting or virtual team bonding session:

Here are more online Sudoku puzzles .

5. Crossword puzzles

Crossword puzzles are word games that ask players to fill in words based on clues. Words interconnect, and players must think critically about the surrounding words to select the right phrase for the space.

You can use an online crossword puzzle maker to create a custom puzzle. Here are a few themes you may want to consider:

• teammates’ tastes and interests
• company knowledge and history
• industry terms and trends

Or, create a miscellaneous puzzle just for fun.

We made a sample puzzle you can use for your game:

To complete puzzles during online meetings, you can use the share screen function and add text through annotations.

Or, subscribers can play the New York Times’ daily crossword puzzle virtually . Dictionary.com also offers a free daily online crossword puzzle .

Check out more vocabulary games .

6. Online Escape Rooms

Escape rooms are timed games that get groups working together to solve puzzles. Traditionally, players enter a locked room and must complete all puzzles in an hour or two to unlock the door. However, groups can also play escape rooms online.

Digital escape rooms typically come in one of two forms: in a Zoom room and led by a host, or in a choose-your-own adventure format via Google Forms or websites. To play escape rooms virtually, enter a video meeting and follow the prompts, or screen share the Google Form and work out the puzzles together.

Check out our full list of online escape rooms .

7. Murder Mysteries

Murder Mysteries are story-based games that ask players to take on the roles of suspects or detectives while trying to identify a killer. These games often involve reading lines from a script, searching for clues, and occasionally solving puzzles to get hints.

These games make participants pay attention to conversations, analyze other characters’ behavior, and search for hidden meaning in the script. Players must use their powers of observation and logic to unravel the mystery.

Check out our list of Zoom murder mystery games .

8. Treasure Hunts

Treasure hunts are scavenger hunts with intention. While virtual scavenger hunts often ask players to collect random items, treasure hunts require participants to locate clues that lead to other prompts and hints. The game typically ends with players finding a treasure or solving a mystery, sometimes both.

The treasure hunt can have a specific theme such as secret agent missions or a hunt for pirate treasure, or you can run a more general hunt. Teammates can either compete simultaneously via Zoom call, or can play the hunt on an app individually and compete to beat each other’s scores.

Check out our list of treasure hunt apps .

9. Poem or story challenge

Most team building problem solving activities for employees revolve around science, math, and logic. Poem/story challenges rely on writing skills and are sure to appeal to the language lovers on your team.

Each player receives a limited word bank to use to create a story or poem. Then, players have a few minutes to craft their pieces. Afterward, everyone reads out or screen shares their creations.

Here are a few word challenge activities you can do remotely:

• Found poems or stories : Participants make poems or stories out of words they find by visiting websites, searching emails, glancing out the window, or taking a walk or drive around the neighborhood.
• Random word generators : Teammates use a random word generator to populate a word bank, and must use each word in the poem or story.
• Poetry magnets : Group members make poems using poetry magnets. You can send poetry magnet sets to employees and assemble the verses on a cookie pan during a Zoom call. Or, teammates can play with poetry magnets online .
• Page poems: Participants receive one page of a book or magazine, and must make a poem or story by blocking out other words so only the chosen text remains visible. This activity is part storytelling, part art, since story crafters can illustrate the pages as part of the design.
• Ransom note stories or poems : Players cut out letters from magazines and must form new words to make poems and stories. Or, players can receive a mix of random letters, form words, and run the text through a ransom note generator .

These activities are suitable for teams and individual players.

10. Moral challenge

Some problems are ethical rather than factual. Moral judgment plays just as important a role in the decision-making process as technical prowess. Players can flex their moral problem-solving skills by tackling ethical dilemmas or social puzzles.

Here are some social problem solving games online:

• Moral machine
• Scruples – the game of moral dilemmas
• Morality play

To play these games, either download the apps, or pull up the website and then screen share the prompts. These games are best played when discussed as a group, because the more belief systems and opinions, the harder an issue is to resolve. These exercises provide practice for real-life conflict resolution.

You can find similar challenges on our list of online personality tests .

11. Frostbite

Frostbite is a group game that hones team leaders’ communication skills while sharpening teammates’ listening and cooperation skills. The premise behind the game is that a group of explorers gets caught in a snowstorm and must build a shelter. Frostbite has paralyzed the leaders’ hands and snow-blinded the rest of the team. The leader must give the team instructions to build a tent that can resist arctic winds.

To play Frostbite, each teammate wears a blindfold. Then, the leader gives directions. Once the structures are complete, players turn on a fan to test whether tents can withstand the wind.

Frostbite is usually an in-person game, however you can also play virtually. In the remote version of the game, teammates construct tents out of cards and tape, while the leader surveys the scene on screen.

This exercise demonstrates the challenges of leading remotely, as teams need to operate with minimal oversight or supervisor observation. Therefore, instructions need to be clear and direct to be effective.

Check out more team building games .

12. Virtual Hackathons

Hackathons are events where participants have a set amount of time to design and pitch a new product or solution. This type of event originated in the programming world and is often used to create new apps, however you can apply the game to any industry or school subject.

Virtual hackathons are online versions of the event. Teams enter the competition, then work with each other via virtual meeting software or remote work communication platforms to design the solution. At the end of the competition, teams pitch ideas to a panel of judges and a winner is decided.

To run a virtual hackathon, first announce the theme of the event and collect sign-ups. So that no teams work ahead, hint at the general idea of the issue, and only explain the precise problem when the event begins. Then, give teams anywhere from a few hours to a few days to complete the project.

Discover more virtual hackathon ideas .

13. Improv games

Improv games are excellent problem solving activities. These exercises force participants to think and respond quickly to keep scenes moving in a logical and entertaining way.

Here are some good problem solving improv games:

Banned words : Performers cannot say certain words. Scene partners will conceive of situations that encourage the actors to use those words, and the actors must find alternatives, such as using synonyms or taking the scene in a new direction.

Scenes from a chat : Audience gives a suggestion for a scene, and players act the scene out. Though it’s a fictional and often ridiculous scenario, actors must react to the situation and solve the problem in order for the scene to end.

Miracle cure : Miracle cure is a quick-moving exercise that follows a simple format. One player declares, “I have a problem.” Another player responds, “I have a….[random object.]” The first player then replies, “great! I can use the [random object] to….” and describes how they will solve the problem.

Check out more problem-solving improv games .

14. Spaghetti Tower

The spaghetti tower is a classic team building game. Participants gather uncooked spaghetti and marshmallows, and must construct the tallest freestanding tower.

During the in-person version, players must construct one tall freestanding tower. However, for the virtual version of the game, players construct individual towers. You can send groups to breakout rooms for the build, then reconvene in the main room for judging. Teams are judged on three main factors: number of towers, height, and uniformity.

This version of the game not only tests the structural integrity of the tower, but also consistency and quality control. This exercise teaches teams to align and collaborate remotely, and produce a consistent product even when far apart.

15. What Would You Do?

What Would You Do? is a simple situational game that challenges participants to react to different circumstances. To play this game, read prompts one by one, and then ask participants to respond with gameplans. You can use the polling or raise hand feature to vote for the best option.

Here are some problem solving scenarios for adults or kids to use in the game:

• Zombies attack and you have to find a place to hide.
• You are at the zoo and the animals escape. Which one do you try to corral back into the pen first?
• After waiting in line for hours, someone cuts in front of you last minute. The person appears to be visually and hearing impaired, and doesn’t notice your protests. An official announces that due to diminishing supply, this individual will be the last in line to be served.
• You are eating a meal with important clients and/or your partner’s parents, and you want to impress. The individuals make you a dish that does not fit within your dietary restrictions, but you do not speak the same language and cannot explain why you do not want to eat.
• An imposter has infiltrated the organization, who looks, speaks, and behaves exactly like you. How do you convince your peers that you are the original?

For similar dilemmas, check out this list of Would You Rather? questions.

16. Desert Island Survival

Desert Island Survival is a game that challenges players to prioritize. The premise is that players have been stranded on an island, and must decide what order to perform survival steps.

Here are the possible actions:

• Set up shelter
• Explore the island
• Try to signal for help
• Make weapons for self-defense
• Build a raft to escape the island
• Start a fire
• Choose a group leader
• Search for other survivors

All group members must agree on the order of the steps. Players should explain the reasoning for the order of each step while ranking the actions.

Another version of the game involves players receiving a list of 15 to 20 items, and selecting five or so to bring to the island. You can also vary the location of the game, substituting remote islands for destinations like outer space or the distant past.

17. Choose Your Own Adventure

Choose Your Own Adventure stories enable readers to determine the outcome of the story by making decisions. Each action has a consequence that takes the tale in a different direction. Participants can try to guess how the story may unfold by talking through the different choices. When completing the activity in a group setting, the majority of the team must agree on an action before moving forward in the story.

There are a few ways to facilitate these activities online:

• Play an online role playing video game
• Watch an interactive movie like Black Mirror: Bandersnatch
• Read from a Choose Your Own Adventure book on Zoom
• Click through a Choose Your Own Adventure platform
• Create your own story using a Google Form

Whichever way you choose to do the exercise, you can use the screen share feature in your virtual meeting software so that listeners can more easily follow along.

18. MacGyver

MacGyver is a show where the hero escapes sticky situations by improvising tools out of unlikely materials. For example, in one episode the hero makes a telescope out of a newspaper, magnifying lens, and a watch crystal.

To play MacGyver, you can either list three to five objects participants can use, or challenge players to use items that are within arms reach.

Simply state a desired end result, such as “a way to open a locked door,” or “a getaway vehicle,” and then ask teams to explain what they will build and how they will build it. To make the activity more collaborative, you can give teams five or ten minutes in breakout rooms to strategize and design a prototype.

19. Dungeons & Dragons

Dungeons & Dragons is a roleplaying game where players pretend to be magical figures and creatures. One player serves as the dungeon master, who guides the game, while the other players pick characters and make decisions to move the story forward. Upon choosing a course of action, players roll a twenty-sided die to determine whether or not the plan succeeds. The game is story-based, the possibilities are nearly limitless, and truly creative problem solving options arise. Also, since gameplay is mostly verbal, Dungeons & Dragons is an easy activity to do over Zoom.

Here are the basic rules for Dungeons & Dragons .

20. Pandemic

Pandemic is a game that pits players against the forces of nature in a race to contain and control disease outbreaks. At the beginning of the game, each player receives a role such as containment specialist or operations expert. Participants must carry out the duties of their roles by choosing appropriate actions. Pandemic is a great game for groups because each team member has a clear part to play, and players must collaborate and work together instead of competing against each other.

To play the game online, you can use a Pandemic game app , or talk through the exercise while one attendee moves and displays pieces on the board.

Note: The subject of this game might hit too close to home for some players, considering recent history. You can find games with similar mechanics that deal with different subject matter, such as Forbidden Island.

Check out more team building board games .

21. Model UN

Model UN is one of the best virtual problem solving activities for students. This exercise casts participants in the role of international diplomats who must negotiate to solve realistic problems. Each player assumes the role of a country ambassador and must form alliances and propose solutions to solve crises.

Here are some sample Model UN scenarios:

• Human rights violation by powerful country
• Food shortage
• Disease epidemic
• Technology privacy violations
• Civil war branching into surrounding countries
• Natural disasters

Depending on the size of the group, participants either take on the part of an entire government of a country, or play a certain role within the government. To carry out the activity on Zoom, players can take turns giving speeches, message other countries privately via the chat, meet in breakout rooms to form alliances or have more intimate discussions, and use the polling feature to vote on propositions.

If politics does not resonate with your group, then you can alter the exercise by applying the same activity structure to a different theme, such as the Justice League, movie characters, business board members, or reality TV stars.

The main purpose of the exercise is to research, talk through problems, and compromise. As long as these elements are present, then the specifics of the setup do not matter.

There are many types of problem solving activities for adults. You can do online problem solving games, which require a different skill set than in-person problem solving. For instance, communication must be much clearer and more abundant when group members are far apart and unable to demonstrate or pick up physical cues.

Though many problem solving games include props and in-person elements, there are many games you can play together online. These exercises work well as educational tools as well as team bonding accelerators. Upon completion, participants are likely to feel a sense of accomplishment and increased confidence. These games are also great practice for real life conflict resolution, creative thinking and team building.

Next check out this list of connection games , this collection of crime-solving games , and this post with conflict resolution games .

We also have a list of the best decision making books and a list of team building problems for work .

Book wildly fun team building events with expert hosts

FAQ: Problem solving activities

Here are common answers to questions about group problem solving activities.

What are problem solving games?

Problem solving games are challenges that ask players to think critically and use logic to overcome issues or answer riddles. Examples include sudoku, murder mysteries, and spaghetti towers. These games are also known as “problem solving exercises”, “problem and solution games” and “group problem solving activities.”

What are the best problem solving games for groups?

The best problem solving games for groups include online escape rooms, moral challenges, and improv games.

What are some good problem solving team building activities for students?

Some good problem solving activities for students include crossword puzzles, choose your own adventure stories, and model UN.

How do you play problem solving games online?

The best way to play problem solving games online is to join a video call meeting to talk through the issue. Using the screen sharing and digital whiteboard features helps participants visualize the problem more clearly. Breakout rooms give teams the chance to discuss the issue more intimately.

Author: Angela Robinson

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Capcom Is 'Aware' of Dragon's Dogma 2 Frame Rate Issues on PC, Looking Into Fixes

"we are looking into ways to improve performance in the future.".

Folks teeming with excitement to finally dive into Capcom's hotly anticipated fantasy action role-playing sequel Dragon's Dogma 2 on March 21 may experience some inconsistent frame rate performance issues on PC.

Responding to a query about frame rate problems from IGN, Capcom said in a statement that performance issues on PC may be linked to the heavy amount of CPU demanded from NPCs in the game.

"In Dragon's Dogma 2, a large amount of CPU usage is allocated to each character and dynamically calculates the impact of their physical presence in various environments. In certain situations where numerous characters appear simultaneously, the CPU usage can be very high and may affect the frame rate," a Capcom representative told IGN. "We are aware that in such situations, settings that reduce GPU load may currently have a limited effect; however, we are looking into ways to improve performance in the future."

Whereas games like Final Fantasy VII Rebirth give players a Performance or Graphics mode option — prioritizing either a consistent framerate or increased graphical thread count, as it were — Dragon's Dogma 2 only has one visual mode across all consoles. Speaking with Game Informer , director Hideaki Itsuno clarified his statement about Dragon's Dogma 2 releasing with an uncapped framerate for all consoles , saying, "We're aiming to go at around or higher than 30 FPS."

Although Capcom specifically addresses a fix for frame rate issues on PC, some with early copies here at IGN have experienced frame rate inconsistencies on PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X/S as well. According to IGN performance reviewer Michael Thompson , Dragon's Dogma 2 can be impacted across all formats by CPU and memory bandwidth demands. These can impact consoles and medium to lower-end PCs far more. Areas such as Vernworth are very demanding, even on the highest-end machines and, in particular, the CPU.

During his playthrough, Thompson noted that the Xbox Series S suffered most with memory demands as texture would fail to load and become very low-quality after roughly 10 minutes of open-world exploration. In addition, Thompson lost saves a few times returning to an earlier point in the title and even cause a game reset from the start.

Dragon's Dogma 2 currently has high demands on hardware, with the Steam Deck struggling to run at playable rates and even high-end machines of an RTX4090 paired with an AMD 5800X3D CPU can drop into the 30s whilst in the denser populated towns.

Dragon's Dogma 2's framerate issues were so rough for IGN senior editorial producer Mark Medina that he had switch from playing on PlayStation 5 to PC because he was getting motion sickness.

"It's one of those games where if you look up at the sky or down at the ground, the framerate improves," Medina said. "So if you look up at a cliff to fight goblins, and you're at 40-50fps, and then you turn your camera down at the world and suddenly there's a quick drop in frames, it's disorienting."

While Dragon's Dogma 2 may not run as well as it should on PS5, IGN editorial producer Mitchell Saltzman says its performance issues were never a deal breaker for him.

"It's distracting at its best and annoying at its worst, and this game would unquestionably be improved if its performance was better, but it never robbed me from the thrilling moments of combat, nor did it take anything away from the exciting moments of exploration and discovery at the heart of the experience," Saltzman said.

Likewise, IGN gameplay producer Ronny Barrier said that altough Dragon's Dogma 2's framerate can be wildly inconsistent, "it never looked jittery" or hampered on how much joy he found adventuring the game's good-looking landscapes.

"Sure, I would love it if it ran at a solid 60fps at all times, and I'm not here to make an excuse for it. The performance in an action game should be consistent, even if it has to be a consistent 30fps! But any issues I have with the performance didn't detract from the adventure for me," Barrier said. "Thankfully, [Dragon's Dogma 2 is] a bit more methodical than most action games, with few mechanics that require very strict timing, and I think that helped soften the blow as well."

Isaiah Colbert is a freelance writer for IGN. You can follow them on Twitter @ShinEyeZehUhh.

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Netflix's '3 Body Problem' is the best show of 2024 so far

'3 Body Problem' delivers the epic sci-fi thriller it promised

"3 Body Problem" debuted at SXSW on March 8 but tomorrow (March 21) it'll finally be available to watch on Netflix. And you're not just getting the first episode. No, you're getting the entire eight-episode first season. 

Lucky for you, and me, I was lucky enough to see the entire first season in advance. And what I saw had me impressed. While the show isn't perfect — it's arguably greater than the sum of its parts — when I finished watching the season finale all I could think was that it's the best show of 2024 so far.

That's particularly high praise given that this Netflix show has stiff competition in the form of "Shogun." The two switch back and forth at the top of the list I keep of the best shows I've watched this year and I'd be lying if the most recent episode of "Shōgun" didn't have FX's historical fiction back at the top spot.

But '3 Body Problem' could still end up the winner at the end of the year. The creative team of David Benioff, D.B. Weiss and Alexander Woo have picked up where the first two left off with "Game of Thrones" and created a truly special TV show. Some storylines don't quite land and there are some forgettable performances, but overall, the storytelling of this show is incredible and reminiscent of "Game of Thrones" in a big way. 

I'll try and stay as spoiler-free as possible but expect mild spoilers from here on out. Nothing major, but I need to mention a thing or two that happens in the show.

That said, here's why Netflix's "3 Body Problem" is must-watch TV and a contender for the best show of the year.

Spoilers for '3 Body Problem' to follow

You can feel the 'Game of Thrones' DNA in '3 Body Problem' 

I think in terms of general feel and themes, "Shogun" is probably still the closest thing to a spiritual successor to "Game of Thrones." The characters also fit the same archetypes in a way that this show's characters do not.

However, there are some storytelling choices that this show makes that were a hallmark of what made "Game of Thrones" special. Specifically, Benioff and Weiss remain unafraid to kill their darlings and the addition of Alexander Woo to the creative team doesn't seem to have changed that inclination in the slightest.

I won't spoil who dies, but let's just say that there are a few deaths that you won't see coming, or if you do, it'll still shock you when you realize that things are about to go awry. Even in the final episode, you get moments like that which were so common in the eight seasons of "Game of Thrones." There's even a truly horrific "Red Wedding" moment towards the middle of the season.

Like with "Thrones" this is an adaptation. So if you've read the books already some of these moments may not hit quite as hard. But my guess is, much like with the HBO show, this Netflix show will still manage to land some hits on those who are already expecting it.

Liam Cunningham and Benedict Wong are incredible 

Speaking of "Game of Thrones," Benioff, Weiss and Woo brought back a few familiar faces for "3 Body Problem." John Bradley, known for playing Samwell Tarly in Thrones plays Jack Rooney, part of the core friend group that makes up much of the main cast. The show also features Jonathan Pryce, who among many other famous roles played the High Sparrow in the iconic HBO show and Liam Cunningham, who most of you know as Ser Davos Seaworth.

While I liked the performances of all three, it's Liam Cunningham who shines. Frankly, he steals the show in what could well be an Emmy-worthy performance. His performance as Wade, the mysterious leader of a secret multinational intelligence agency is brilliantly written and flawlessly executed. He arguably gets the best dialogue and some of the performances around him are flat in comparison, but he still delivers every time he's on screen.

He particularly shines when paired with Benedict Wong, who could also be up for an Emmy for this show come next year. Wong plays Da Shi, a former intelligence operative for MI5 recruited to work for Wade who serves as Wade's de facto number two for much of the season.

Their interactions were the highlight of the show. There's a scene in episode 4 — “Our Lord” — where Cunningham sets up Wong for a punchline that Wong just absolutely nails and it's now living rent-free in my head. You'll know it when you see it, I promise.

The best part of '3 Body Problem' is solving the problem  

For what it's worth, there actually is a literal three-body problem in this show. The three-body problem is a concept from physics about determining the trajectories of three objects in motion around a central point of mass. 

If that sounds a bit overwhelming, don't worry. You don't need a physics background to watch and enjoy this show. You won't be asked to solve a three-body problem yourself, which is good considering they're technically unsolvable.

However, solving a problem is still one of the best parts of this show. While a science fiction thriller, this show is also a suspenseful mystery. Watching it, I always found myself trying to guess what would happen next or what the long-term arc of a character would be, etc. There are so many moving pieces at first that it's genuinely enjoyable to try and predict the moves before they happen. Seeing those guesses pay off or being proven delightful wrong was a treat, and there were a few moments that literally made me exclaim "Woah!" because of a twist I did not see coming.

If it sounds like I'm being intentionally vague ... well, that's because I am. I truly don't want to give away any of the puzzle pieces and spoil the fun. So you'll just need to watch "3 Body Problem" and experience the best show of the year so far for yourself when the eight episodes of season 1 drop on Netflix on March 21.

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Malcolm McMillan is a senior writer for Tom's Guide, covering all the latest in streaming TV shows and movies. That means news, analysis, recommendations, reviews and more for just about anything you can watch, including sports! If it can be seen on a screen, he can write about it. Previously, Malcolm had been a staff writer for Tom's Guide for over a year, with a focus on artificial intelligence (AI), A/V tech and VR headsets.

Before writing for Tom's Guide, Malcolm worked as a fantasy football analyst writing for several sites and also had a brief stint working for Microsoft selling laptops, Xbox products and even the ill-fated Windows phone. He is passionate about video games and sports, though both cause him to yell at the TV frequently. He proudly sports many tattoos, including an Arsenal tattoo, in honor of the team that causes him to yell at the TV the most.

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