20 Puzzle Games Everyone Should Play at Least Once

One of the oldest surviving genres within the medium, puzzle games have greatly evolved over the last several decades. Most players imagine titles like Tetris or Bust-a-Move when they think of puzzle games, but several of the greatest titles in the genre have moved the needle in terms of what’s possible with their mechanics and complexity. Beginning with 1993’s seminal Myst, the puzzle genre would greatly move forward to include immersive first-person puzzlers that pushed creativity and problem-solving to their limits, showcasing that video games could, in fact, improve cognitive function and provide worthwhile mental exercise. Since Myst, the first-person puzzle platformer has only continued to expand in terms of the number and popularity of titles on offer, creating entirely new subgenres within the puzzle game umbrella.

But that’s not to diminish the quality or enjoyability of the classic falling block or match-3 puzzle games. The classics, as they say, never go out of style, and Alexey Pajitnov’s Tetris is perhaps the most classic puzzle game of all time. Several other games continue to follow in Tetris‘ footsteps as accessible, bite-sized puzzle experiences, with some of them even coming close to reaching the same level of greatness as the legendary titles that serve as their inspiration. And while it would be great to include every game with great puzzle elements on this list (looking at you, survival horror, and point-and-click adventure games), each of the titles here represents the best of the best of pure puzzle game experiences.

Myst

• Release Date — September 30, 1993
• Publisher — Broderbund
• Developer — Cyan
• Review Aggregate Score — 83% (Generally Favorable)
• Steam User Reviews — 88% (Very Positive)
• Platforms — PC, Nintendo Switch, Xbox One, Xbox Series X/S

Developed by brothers Rand and Robyn Miller, Myst is one of the most important titles in the evolution of PC gaming and one of the more revolutionary puzzle games. Part first-person exploration game and part mind-bending puzzle game, Myst tasks players with solving the mystery of the titular island. Of course, just getting from one part of the island to the next is where the game’s core loop comes into play, as the island of Myst is brimming with fiendishly devised puzzles, each of which seems to outdo the last in terms of its complexity and creativity. Myst would go on to spawn a sequel in Riven, which is also an excellent title and one of the greatest puzzle games, but there’s nothing quite like the experience of playing through the original. The 2021 remaster on Steam and modern consoles gives the 90s classic a phenomenal visual uplift.

The Swapper

• Release Date — May 30, 2013
• Publisher — Facepalm Games
• Developer — Olli Harjola, Otto Hantula, Tom Jubert, Carlo Castellano
• Review Aggregate Score — 87% (Generally Favorable)
• Steam User Reviews — 93% (Very Positive)
• Platforms — PC, PS3, PS4, PS Vita, Wii U, Xbox One

Mind-bending puzzler The Swapper is the kind of game that sticks with you for a while after you finish it, making you consider the broader narrative ramifications of solving its many well-designed puzzles. As a lone scavenger exploring an abandoned research facility on an alien planet, the player must use a strange device that allows them to create clones of themselves to solve environmental puzzles and learn the fate of the missing researchers. However, these clones aren’t just physical stand-ins for the player but instead blank vessels into which the player character can impart their consciousness. The game’s final moments will have players questioning every decision they’ve made throughout their playthrough, lending some serious narrative weight to what’s already a phenomenal experience in the puzzle genre.

Terra Nil

• Release Date — March 28, 2023
• Publisher — Devolver Digital
• Developer — Free Lives, Clockwork Acorn
• Review Aggregate Score — 82% (Generally Favorable)
• Steam User Reviews — 86% (Very Positive)
• Platforms — iOS, PC

Free Lives’ Terra Nil would generate a fair amount of hype prior to its release as a clever twist on the city-builder genre, but its various scenarios each play out as a self-contained puzzle teaching broader lessons on the act of environmental conservation. Rather than build up a sprawling metropolis on the blank slate of the environment, Terra Nil tasks players with deconstructing buildings and eliminating all signs of human existence, returning the world to its natural state and restoring the ecosystem. Each of Terra Nil‘s levels introduces new layers to its city-building and puzzle-solving mechanics in a way that’s accessible and understandable, leading to a natural difficulty curve that makes each conservation puzzle a new and welcome challenge.

World of Goo

• Release Date — October 13, 2008
• Publisher — 2D Boy
• Developer — 2D Boy
• Review Aggregate Score — 93% (Universal Acclaim)
• Steam User Reviews — 94% (Very Positive)
• Platforms — Android, iOS, PC, Nintendo Switch, Wii

Physics-based puzzler World of Goo is arguably one of the best games of its kind. Similar to other great puzzle games, the premise of World of Goo is deceptively simple. Players need to construct a bridge over various chasms using goo blobs, allowing other goo blobs to make it safely across. Of course, the execution of that premise and the challenge of creating structurally sound pathways using amorphous objects leads to equal parts hilarity and innovation in how players attempt to solve each level’s unique problem. Few puzzle games have the capability of making players laugh out loud like World of Goo, and that alone makes it a must-play game within the genre.

Dorfromantik

• Release Date — April 28, 2022
• Publisher — Toukana Interactive
• Developer — Toukana interactive
• Review Aggregate Score — 84% (Generally Favorable)
• Steam User Reviews — 96% (Overwhelmingly Positive)
• Platforms — PC, Nintendo Switch

The puzzle genre increasingly finds itself branching out into intriguing subgenres, and few have found as much success as the “cozy puzzle game”. One of the most popular games in the cozy puzzler subgenre is Dorfromantik, a hex-based city-building puzzle game that is the perfect kind of title to turn your brain off and unwind. That’s not to say that Dorfromantik‘s levels don’t provide challenge, far from it. Instead, Dorfromantik gives players a fair challenge that brilliantly utilizes its mechanics and minimalist art style to put players at ease even when their minds are thinking around corners to try and figure out the best way to complete one of the game’s many maps.

Children of the Sun

• Release Date — April 9, 2024
• Publisher — Devolver Digital
• Developer — René Rother
• Review Aggregate Score — 81% (Generally Favorable)
• Steam User Reviews — 93% (Very Positive)
• Platforms — PC

René Rother and Devolver Digital’s Children of the Sun is the natural evolution of Hotline Miami‘s “murder puzzles”, transforming the traditional action game experience into a brilliant problem-solving exercise. Rather than heading into danger against a group of well-armed criminals, Children of the Sun puts players in the shoes of a skilled sharpshooter on a mission for revenge. The twist? She only has enough time to fire one bullet, which players can bend the rules of both time and physics to take out multiple enemies in a single shot. Children of the Sun might be a short experience, but what it offers players in its brief runtime makes it a must-play for fans of both sniper games and puzzlers.

Lorelei and the Laser Eyes

• Release Date — May 16, 2024
• Publisher — Annapurna Interactive
• Developer — Simogo
• Review Aggregate Score — 88% (generally Favorable)
• Steam User Reviews — 96% (Overwhelmingly Positive)
• Platforms — PC, Nintendo Switch

When Sam Barlow of Immortality and Her Story fame sings the praises of a puzzle game, it’s a good sign that players are in store for something special. Lorelei and the Laser Eyes is just that, a once-in-a-lifetime puzzle game experience that will stick with you long after its credits roll. Lorelei prides itself on the ingenuity of its puzzle design, going so far as to encourage players to keep a pen and notebook handy to help with devising solutions. And, like several other puzzle games on this list, Lorelei leverages some clever genre combinations to elevate its proceedings above the rest of its contemporaries. In the case of Lorelei and the Laser Eyes, the introduction of survival horror elements and an unsettling aesthetic make its already unforgettable puzzles even better.

Untitled Goose Game

• Release Date — September 23, 2020
• Publisher — Panic
• Developer — House House
• Review Aggregate Score — 81% (Generally Favorable)
• Steam User Reviews — 95% (Overwhelmingly Positive)
• Platforms — PC, PlayStation 4, Nintendo Switch, Xbox One

If World of Goo is a puzzle game that occasionally trades in humor, Untitled Goose Game is a title that makes hilarity the bedrock of the experience. As a lone wandering goose with a penchant for mischief, the puzzles in Untitled Goose Game are all about seeing how much chaos players can cause before they get chased away. The setting of Untitled Goose Game is a quaint little town, and each level’s “puzzle” to determine how the goose can upset its tranquility is sure to bring a smile to players’ faces. But the puzzles in Goose are more than just style, as there’s plenty of substance to the complexity of their solutions and figuring out how the player can cause the most trouble without getting caught.

A Little to the Left

• Release Date — November 8, 2022
• Publisher — Secret Mode
• Developer — Max Inferno
• Review Aggregate Score — 75% (Generally Favorable)
• Steam User Reviews — 92% (Very Positive)
• Platforms — PC, Nintendo Switch, Xbox One, Xbox Series X/S

Max Inferno’s A Little to the Left is a puzzle game that speaks directly to the heart of cat owners everywhere. In each level, players must reorganize a disorganized space by putting objects back where they belong, and the feline responsible for the mess in the first place occasionally interjects to disrupt progress. Aside from its charm and humor, A Little to the Left is one of the better puzzle games in the “organization puzzle” subgenre, beating out other great titles like Save Room or other inventory management puzzlers thanks to its more forgiving difficulty on-ramp. A Little to the Left is yet another title showcasing how well the puzzle genre fits within the confines of a “cozy” game.

Viewfinder

• Release Date — July 18, 2023
• Publisher — Thunderful Publishing
• Developer — Sad Owl Studios
• Review Aggregate Score — 84% (Generally Favorable)
• Steam User Reviews — 94% (Very Positive)
• Platforms — PC, PS4, PS5

An initial playthrough in Viewfinder is similar to experiencing Portal for the first time, providing an almost non-stop barrage of “a-ha” moments and mind-bending perspective shifts that many other puzzle games attempt to replicate but fall short of. Like in Portal, players must cross seemingly impossible distances in Viewfinder, but instead of the Aperture Science Handheld Portal Device, they just have a camera. And, like Portal, Viewfinder‘s ingenious puzzles start off simple enough before gradually becoming more and more complex, toying with players’ spatial awareness in continually inventive ways.

Super Puzzle Fighter II Turbo

• Release Date — May 1996
• Publisher — Capcom
• Developer — Capcom
• Review Aggregate Score — 83% (Generally Favorable)
• Steam User Reviews — 89% (Positive)
• Platforms — Arcade, Game Boy Advance, PC, PlayStation, PlayStation 3, Sega Saturn, Xbox 360

One of the better falling block puzzle games this side of Tetris or Puyo Puyo, Super Puzzle Fighter II Turbo stands tall as one of Capcom’s greatest hits from the 1990s. The mechanics of Super Puzzle Fighter II Turbo are simple enough, with players needing to match 4 or more blocks of like color to remove them from their board and deposit blocks on their opponent’s. But the use of popular Street Fighter characters and their animations to indicate trading “damage” by successfully clearing screens full of blocks is an ingenious twist on what’s otherwise a fairly standard puzzle game. It’s a potent mix that games like Pokemon Puzzle League and Puzzle Quest would replicate years later, making Super Puzzle Fighter II a trailblazer in the genre.

Unpacking

• Release Date — November 2, 2021
• Publisher — Humble Games
• Developer — Witch Beam
• Review Aggregate Score — 83% (Generally Favorable)
• Steam User Reviews — 93% (Very Positive)
• Platforms — Android, iOS, PC, PS4, PS5, Nintendo Switch, Xbox One

The genius of Unpacking lies in the relaxing nature of its puzzles and the heartfelt narrative that underlies the entire experience. Players begin Unpacking by setting up the room of a child, following that same individual throughout various phases of her life, and seeing how her personality and experiences shape her living spaces and belongings, with several important objects reappearing throughout each level as important personal possessions. Beyond the subtle environmental storytelling that gives Unpacking its heart, though, the mechanics are supremely rewarding, tasking players with completing the “puzzle” of fitting an entire life’s worth of possessions into a home — something which all of us can relate to.

The Return of the Obra Dinn

• Release Date — October 18, 2018
• Publisher — 3909
• Developer — Lucas Pope
• Review Aggregate Score — 89% (Generally Favorable)
• Steam User Reviews — 96% (Overwhelmingly Positive)
• Platforms — PC, PlayStation 4, Nintendo Switch, Xbox One

One of the greatest “whodunnits” in any medium, Return of the Obra Dinn is one of the most essential video games of the last 10 years, puzzle or otherwise. In Obra Dinn, players take on the role of an insurance investigator trying to uncover what happened to the titular ship. As you piece together the fates of the 61 passengers aboard the Obra Dinn, the game’s central mystery begins to come into focus, made possible by some of the best approximations of detective work and deductive reasoning in interactive media. To say any more would spoil the game’s brilliance, so it’s best to just experience Return of the Obra Dinn for yourself.

Fez

• Release Date — April 13, 2012
• Publisher — Trapdoor
• Developer — Polytron Corporation
• Review Aggregate Score — 89% (Generally Favorable)
• Steam User Reviews — 93% (Very Positive)
• Platforms — iOS, PC, PS3, PS4, PS Vita, Nintendo Switch, Xbox 360

Another puzzle game that utilizes perspective and spatial awareness in compelling and ingenious ways, Fez is something of an indie game legend. Arriving not long after Super Meat Boy as one of the flagship titles for the then-new Xbox Live Arcade service, Fez quickly became one of the first “must-have” indie games right as the scene was just starting to have some mainstream success. And, like Super Meat Boy, Fez takes a simple premise and executes it perfectly. In Fez, players solve puzzles by rotating the world around them, playing with players’ perceptions of how each level is designed and creating new pathways to victory out of thin air. There’s also an entire meta-game within Fez that presents players with one of the most ingenious code-deciphering puzzles to understand the game’s mysterious language.

Baba Is You

• Release Date — March 13, 2019
• Publisher — Hempuli
• Developer — Hempuli
• Review Aggregate Score — 84% (Generally Favorable)
• Steam User Reviews — 97% (Overwhelmingly Positive)
• Platforms — Android, iOS, PC, Nintendo Switch

Hempuli’s Baba Is You is both one of the most ingenious and most difficult puzzle games ever. Using nothing other than words to create simplistic “if/then” logic rules, Baba Is You is as much a crash course in coding as it is a puzzle game. Like the best games in the genre, Baba Is You introduces new mechanics at a slow and steady pace, giving players all the tools they’ll ever need to solve its increasingly complex puzzles. There are hundreds of levels in Baba Is You, meaning players will likely get stuck on one before too long. But the ability to hop around and attempt levels out of sequence prevents Baba Is You from ever being frustrating, even if the solution to a puzzle is just out of reach.

Cocoon

• Release Date — September 29, 2023
• Publisher — Annapurna Interactive
• Developer — Geometric Interactive
• Review Aggregate Score — 88% (Generally Favorable)
• Steam User Reviews — 95% (Overwhelmingly Positive)
• Platforms — PC, PS4, PS5, Nintendo Switch, Xbox One, Xbox Series X/S

To be fair, both Limbo and Inside could have been on a list of the best puzzle games, but it’s those games’ designer’s newest title that takes precedence as the better genre entry. Cocoon comes from the mind of Jeppe Carlsen and incorporates the same eye for incredible world design and aesthetics that feature in his previous games but with a greater focus on puzzle-solving rather than platforming. After acquiring a mysterious orb, players can seamlessly warp between Cocoon’s worlds within worlds, and the game’s mystery is onion-like in the myriad layers it contains. Deciphering how each of these disparate worlds connects to one another and solving spatial puzzles between them is Cocoon’s greatest trick, and it’s one puzzle game fans shouldn’t miss.

The Case of the Golden Idol

• Release Date — October 13, 2022
• Publisher — Playstack
• Developer — Color Gray Games
• Review Aggregate Score — 88% (Generally Favorable)
• Steam User Reviews — 98% (Overwhelmingly Positive)
• Platforms — Android, iOS, PC, PS4, PS5, Nintendo Switch, Xbox One, Xbox Series X/S

One of the only detective/mystery puzzle games that can compare with Return of the Obra Dinn, Case of the Golden Idol is something special. It combines the “whodunnit” deductive reasoning of Obra Dinn with the keyword recognition and clue collection of games like LA Noire, all while incorporating a compelling narrative about lost civilizations, mysterious magical artifacts, and secret societies. You could think of Golden Idol as a mix between the board game Clue and a Mad Libs word puzzle and not be far off, but that would be a reductive take on what was one of the best games of 2022 and an unmissable experience for fans of the genre.

The Witness

• Release Date — January 26, 2016
• Publisher — Thekla, Inc.
• Developer — Thekla, Inc.
• Review Aggregate Score — 87% (Generally Favorable)
• Steam User Reviews — 85% (Very Positive)
• Platforms — iOS, PC, PlayStation 4, Xbox One

Indie game developer Jonathan Blow followed up the iconic Braid with an even better puzzle game, the first-person adventure puzzler The Witness. The game follows closely in the footsteps of classics like Myst and Riven. Accordingly, the puzzles in The Witness provide plenty of “light bulb” moments when players devise their solutions, and making your way around the island evokes the same sense of compelling mystery and adventure as the Miller brothers’ legendary puzzlers. If there’s a downside to The Witness, it’s that the game doesn’t lend itself to replayability. However, that initial playthrough ranks among the single greatest experiences the puzzle genre has to offer.

Portal

• Release Date — October 10, 2007
• Publisher — Valve
• Developer — Valve
• Review Aggregate Score — 90% (Universal Acclaim)
• Steam User Reviews — 98% (Overwhelmingly Positive)
• Platforms — Android, PC, PlayStation 3, Nintendo Switch, Xbox 360

Speaking of the greatest experiences in the puzzle genre, we have Valve’s Portal. Perhaps the greatest puzzle platformer of all time, Portal would end up being an industry-changing game upon its release. After the launch of Portal, it was seemingly impossible to not come across a game that would attempt to replicate its disorienting and ingenious teleportation mechanics. Of course, no imitators could ever match the brilliance of the original Portal‘s puzzles (until Valve’s own Portal 2), and the bite-sized nature of the experience makes it perfect for repeat playthroughs.

Tetris Effect

• Release Date — November 9, 2018
• Publisher — Enhance
• Developer — Monstars, Resonair, Stage Games
• Review Aggregate Score — 90% (Universal Acclaim)
• Steam User Reviews — 95% (Overwhelmingly Positive)
• Platforms — Meta Quest, PC, PS4, PS5, Nintendo Switch, Xbox One, Xbox Series X/S

While there are very few who would argue against Tetris being the greatest puzzle game of all time, there’s plenty of discourse surrounding which version of the game reigns supreme. In terms of its availability, music, visuals, and difficulty curve, Tetris Effect (especially Tetris Effect: Connected) is the greatest version of a timeless puzzle game. The tried and true Tetris gameplay remains unchanged in Tetris Effect, but this version’s atmosphere and presentation are unmatched, making it the definitive way to experience one of the most important video games ever created.

The image featured at the top of this post is ©Tetris key art.