Interesting Puzzle games

Games which challenge that lies in figuring out the correct course of action.

3D-Mania (link)

Tetris, but you have an extra dimension to deal with.

7 Billion Humans (link)

There are people in a level which have to do tasks like picking up numbers, making operations with them and moving them to specific places. You make that happen by writing a procedure. However, the procedure is executed by all the people at the same time.

Aerius (link)

You have to get rid of all block by getting the block of the same color next to each other. There are three windows, each has five by five grid where the blocks are placed. The blocks are affected by gravity and you can flip the window horizontally or vertically. You can also take the top row and move it to a different window. In harder levels, some of the windows may be disabled.

AHextris (link)

Like Tetris, but uses grid that is hex based instead of square based.

Alien Crush Returns (link)

Pinball game with multiple tables that you progress through by accomplishing objectives, like hitting enemies. Player can also use actions that will temporarily affect their ball, like reversing its direction or speeding it up to crash through obstacles.

America! Ōdan Ultra Quiz: Shijō Saidai no Tatakai (link)

You answer quiz questions by playing minigames.

AMines (link)

You have to find mines on a grid without triggering any of them. Tiles are uncovered by clicking on them and each tile shows the number of mines in the tiles around it. You can mark the tile, where you think the mine is.

Ariva (link)

You control a snake which can change the direction of its movement only when it hits an obstacle. The goal is to get through the level to an exit without running out of time or getting trapped by your tail, which gets longer every level. Levels also have obstacles of different color, which must be hit to open the exit or can teleport the snake etc.

Atomania (link)

You have to arrange a few blocks into a certain pattern using a limited amount of moves. However, when the block moves, it continues moving in one direction until it hits an obstacle. Some levels do not tell you, what the pattern is and sometimes you have to uncover the level first (not sure from screenshots).

Atomic Point (link)

Tetris but levels start with some blocks already placed and the goal is to get rid of certain block by completing the row. There are also blocks that create special effects, like exploding or adding blocks, and blocks that allow player to choose and activate a helpful effect, like slow time or choose the next piece shape.

Atoms! (link)

Players take turns placing an atom of their color onto the grid. Players can not place into a grid cell, where there already is an atom of different color. When a cell has enough atoms in it, the atoms will jump into the neighboring cells, converting any atoms there to their color and causing more reactions until all cells have less than the maximum number of atoms.

Baba Is You (link)

You control a creature that has to make it to the flag. The level behaves according to certain rules. These are represented as text blocks that can be moved which causes the rules to change.

Battleship (link)

Two players place ships on a grid. They take turns blindly shooting at tiles to find the enemy ships and destroy them. Players also place mines on the grid, which will automatically hit enemy ship, if it is placed on top of the mine.

Bolo Ball (link)

Two player game, where each player has a row of balls and they take turns sending their balls down. The goal is to get the most points, which are earned by getting the ball as far as possible. There are various obstacles in the way, which can move the ball, stop it, teleport it or increase the points earned from it. A ball that does not reach the bottom of the screen stays in the game and blocks path of other balls.

Boulder Dash Rocks! (link)

Player digs through tiles and collects gems. There are boulders to avoid, which fill roll and fall down. Levels also contain enemies and hazards. Bonuses can be found in the level, which give player abilities like pulling or destroying boulders. Some levels have a boss.

Brain Blasters (link)

Memorize pattern, compete with another player to build it first by picking up blocks that fall in the level and putting them at the right place on your wall. Sometimes special items appear instead like helmet that lets you see the complete pattern again or eraser to remove wrong block.

Brix 2 Deluxe (link)

Each level has blocks which must be removed by touching two or more of the same block together. The blocks are affected by gravity and the player can move them to the left or right. The levels can have various obstacles like teleporters, lasers or blocks which slowly disappear when another block stands on them. Some levels have a clock which makes them flip vertically every so often.

ChromaGun (link)

You have a gun that can paint objects with one of three colors or a mixture of those colors. There are drones that are attracted to walls of the same color as them, which can be used to stand on triggers.

Clue (link)

One of the players is a murderer. The players take turns moving between different rooms. When player enters a room, they suggest the murder happened here and they guess the murderer and weapon. The player then gets a clue and the suggested murderer is moved into the room. Higher difficulty setting gives less obvious clues. Players can also do an interrogation twice per game. Interrogation proves whether a certain room, weapon or player was involved in the murder. During their turn, player can make an accusation, which makes them immediately win, if correct, or lose, if wrong.

Colorix (link)

You have to fill up certain amount of space by placing different shapes. The space consists of differently colored tiles and the shapes must not collide with already placed shapes and must match the colors when placed.

Core War (link)

Players design programs in a low level programming language. The programs are loaded into a random place of a simulated computer's memory and executed. The goal is to stop the execution of enemy programs. Programs try to copy themselves, start more processes and overwrite each other in memory.

De-Block (link)

You rotate and move around a block and connect it to various block shapes, that come in from screen edges. Making a full circle of blocks around the central block will remove them, add points and collapse the outer block towards center. You lose when your block structure can not fit inside the screen anymore.

DROD: Gunthro and the Epic Blunder (link)

The game is turn based and the map is divided into tiles. You move your character one tile each turn or you can spend turn to rotate your sword which sticks out into the tile next to you. Levels are populated with enemies, switches and other obstacles. Your sword kills enemies and interacts with objects it touches. If an enemy gets on the same tile as your character, you die.

Drop-Drop (link)

Blocks of various types are falling down from the top of the screen. You have to destroy the blocks by taking the columns and placing them under other columns to connect enough blocks of the same type.

Dudes with Attitude (link)

The player controls a ball, which moves left and right automaticaly, bouncing against items and the screen edge. Player can move the ball vertically and change its color by touching paint cans in the level. The goal is to gather all the colored gems and exit the level without getting killed by traps and enemies.

Exapunks (link)

You program bots with an assembly like language to move around the network, modify files, spawn more bots or eliminate enemy bots. There are few levels in which you compete directly against bots of other hackers and while the game does not have multiplayer it is technically possible to send someone your solution and run it in a battle against their solution.

Extase (link)

Two players compete to be the first to send enough signals to an android’s brain. Each has their own side of the screen, where they have to connect the wires and toggle switches so that the signals can travel where needed. Apart from signals, there are also sparks traveling on the circuit, that stop the signals by destroying fuses. Those can be replaced by a new one, which is generated when a signal makes it into a box under the android’s head. Each player manipulates the board using a bubble shaped cursor. You can touch the opponent’s board too but you can’t move into space occupied by the other cursor.

Filament (link)

You move a robot with a cable connected to it from a wall. There are pillars in the level that will light up when touching the cable. Your goal is to thread the cable between the pillars in such a way that they all light up. You can’t walk through your cable and there are other complications like switching between multiple robots with cable of different color or connecting pillars in order.

Fire 'n Ice (link)

You have to destroy all flames in the level by dropping ice blocks on them. You can destroy or create ice blocks next to you, push them around and climb on them. Block can also stick to walls, making a bridge. Later the game adds moving enemies, rising lava and other challenges.

Five in a Row: Addition and Subtraction (link)

There is a board of numbers. During their turn, the player gets numbers which are used to create a mathematical equation. The result of the equation determines the unoccupied field on the board the player gets. The goal is to be the first to own five fields in a row.

Flipped: Micro Care Edition (link)

Player has to flip tiles to single color. Tiles are flipped using a pattern, which there are multiple to choose from in every level.

Fly Simulator (link)

One player is a waiter trying to earn points by serving pizza to customers while the other players control flies. Flies are trying to feed and mate so that they grow larger and extra AI controlled flies are created. The waiter has various weapons to control the fly problem and tools to keep the pizzeria clean.

Freak Out (link)

There is a grid of cells. Balls of different colors appear in the center and you have to make them jump around the grid to get three of the same color in a row and thus destroy them. The cells can have obstacles on them or can accept only balls of certain color. Completing a level may also have additional requirements like forming a certain pattern.

Gear Works (link)

You have a limited time to place gears on pegs in such a way, that the powered gear at the engine is connected to all the other starting gears. After placing a gear, you get a new, randomly selected gear. Gears can have different sizes and may be able to turn only one way. Gears of different color are worth different amount of points. There are also two enemies, which move around the pegs and can destroy them. The enemies can be temporarily stopped by placing gears over them. You can also get helpful items, like bombs to remove badly placed gears.

Gold Monkey (link)

There is a grid of numbered tiles. From a starting point, you click on any of the neighboring tiles, which will uncover the specified amount of tiles in that direction. The last uncovered tile is the next starting point. The goal is to uncover all tiles without moving outside the grid, exposing any tile twice or touching a forbidden tile.

Gomola Speed (link)

You control a snake. The snake's length is increased by collecting pieces in the level but touching enemies will disconnect them again. Enemies can be stunned with timed bombs. Stunned enemies and items can be collected by curling the snake around them.

Gorby no Pipeline Daisakusen (link)

You have to build a pipeline between the left and right sides of the screen. You build it by stacking pieces on top of each other, similar to Tetris.

Gordello's Demise (link)

Text adventure game, which is split into two screens, so that player can control two characters at the same time.

Guardians (link)

You have limited time to get enough points by placing tiles of the same color next to each other, so that they form a wall that can not be moved anymore. There are balls that bounce around and hit the walls. If they hit a tile, they will destroy it, and if they fly through a hole, they will take away some time.

Heaven & Earth (link)

Collection of puzzles. There are puzzles with a pendulum, that must be navigated to the correct spots, which are pulling at it. Then a card game, where you maximize score by achieving the best combinations of cards and taking into account extra bonuses randomly assigned to cards. The rest of the puzzles involve various amounts of cursors, which can each move differently in response to mouse movement, and getting those cursors to the right places in a maze or moving blocks around.

Hyper Aggressive (link)

There is a grid of binary values. Each player owns tiles of their color. Players take turns applying binary operations to a selected part of the grid. The goal is to switch all fields of your color to the value of 1 before your opponent does it.

Incredipede (link)

Before each level you design your creature. The creature consists of central eye from which you can stretch out appendages and connect them with muscles. In the level you move the creature by controlling its muscles. The goal is to collect items for better score and get to the exit.

Infinifactory (link)

In a limited 3d level, you place conveyor belts, rotation blocks and other pieces to move around material and shape it into desired product.

Janken Disk Jō (link)

You must find a way through the levels. There are three types of statues, which can be pushed. The statues represent and follow the rules of rock, scissors, paper. When a statue is moved next to another statue, they will damage and possibly destroy each other according to the rules and their strength represented by color. You can also remove statues using consumable items.

Jantei Monogatari 2: Uchū Tantei Divan - Shutsudō-hen (link)

Mahjong, but you can buy special powers between matches.

Kinetic Connection (link)

You have to arrange tiles correctly to form a picture, but the picture is animated.

Kret (link)

You move your character in the level to remove blocks of various shapes. The blocks are stacked on each other and whenever a block is removed, the blocks over it fall down until they sit on the bottom again. If you get hit by a falling block, you die.

Kyodai Mahjongg (link)

Mahjong solitaire with various layouts, skins and other customization options. Additional game modes included are:
Memory - reveal hidden tiles to match the same ones.
Rivers - match a tile only with tiles that it can reach with at most two turns.
Clicks – remove groups of tiles by clicking, remaining tiles fall down and left.
Slider – slide tiles to remove tiles by forming lines. Tiles keep appearing.
Hashira – Tiles fall down, you need to make matching rows to make them disappear.
Kumika – remove tiles by swapping them to form matching rows.

Log!cal (link)

The screen consists of cylinders with four slots and tubes connecting the cylinders. Colored balls are sent to the screen, which will fit into the cylinder slots. Player can rotate the cylinders and eject balls from their slots to move them around through the tubes. The goal is to fill each cylinder with balls of single color.

LogicBots (link)

You design a robot to beat the level. You place sensors and other parts on it and then wire them to circuit boards which you place inside it.

Loom (link)

Player can play notes to manipulate objects, like change color, open or turn invisible. Each action is represented by a series of notes and they can be learned during the game. Notes can be played in reverse to do an opposite action.

Loop Eraser (link)

On the screen there are pipe blocks that can be rotated. When they become disconnected, they fall down. The goal is to remove all the blocks by creating loops with them.

Magical Puzzle Popils (link)

You have to get to the princess in the shortest amount of moves possible. There are various blocks with different properties. Some blocks can be passed through, others block you off, work as teleports and more. You can destroy some blocks, which causes the blocks above to fall down. Falling blocks can kill you and the princess.

Mazemaker (link)

You must get to the end of a generated maze. The mazes have multiple floors with stairs to move between them.

Mice Men (link)

Two players are trying to be the first to get all their mice to the opposite edge of the screen. The mice are randomly placed on their player’s half of the screen. The screen is a grid and there are obstacles on it. During their turn, the player chooses one of the grid columns, where they have a mouse and will shift it one cell up or down. Then all the mice try to move forward until they hit an obstacle or another mouse. Gravity also applies and player’s can’t keep changing the same column.

Mushroom 11 (link)

You have a green mass that you need to get to the end of the level. You can erase parts of the mass which will cause it to regrow on the other side. This way you can move it around, divide it and shape it to beat the level.

Mystery Circle (link)

There are blocks falling down from the top of the screen and they stack up on the bottom of the screen. You have to prevent them from filling up the screen by moving your spaceship around the edge of the blocks. Once a block is encircled, it will disappear. Your spaceship can move through the blocks too, but it is slower while doing so. Once per game you can also instantly remove all blocks around the spaceship.

Nyet 3: The Revenge of the Mutant Stones (link)

Complete a certain number of rows with tetris blocks. Each level has special rules to raise difficulty, like adding blocks, moving blocks, making them invisible and more. Completing a level gives money that can be used to buy tools that make the levels easier and also to save your game.

Oxyd 2 (link)

You control a ball with your mouse. The goal is to bump into pairs of the same colored blocks to activate them and get to next level. Levels have surfaces with different properties, blocks that can be moved and have effects like reflecting laser, allowing to move in single direction only or moving items through pipes, and items that allow to blow up blocks, jump, levitate etc. Some levels are played by two players at the same time.

Portal 2 (link)

You have a gun that can place up to two portals on flat surface. The portals are connected and can be used to transfer yourself and other objects to hard to reach places or accelerate through repeated falling. Levels may contain automated turrets, lasers and liquids that bounce or speed you up. There are also levels for two players.

Recursive Ruin (link)

Find a way through levels with recursive environment.

Revelation (link)

Level has multiple dials with 4 colors. Some of them can be rotated. When the same colors get next to each other, it causes the dial to rotate. The goal is to get the dials into the right orientation within the time limit and avoid matching flashing colors, which trigger an alarm.

RiME (link)

There are puzzles that are solved by lining up objects and shadows in your view.

Sabnack (link)

You control a character, who can make a statue next to him become alive. He can have up to 8 companions around him, which will move with him. When they get too far away from the player's character, they turn back to statues. To complete the level, a fairy statue must be delivered to specified spot. Other kinds of statues are used to defeat enemies and solve puzzles.

Saper (link)

The goal is to detonate all bombs on the level and get to the exit. This is complicated by the fact that explosion removes the ground tiles. There are boxes that can be moved, mines and special tiles like slippery ice, sand that disappears after stepping on it or tiles that fill up empty space.

Shenzhen I/O (link)

In a limited space you place and connect components, some of which are programmable, to process the input signals into desired output.

Shockwave (link)

You can move blocks by shooting them, but instead of the shot block moving, the edge blocks are pushed away.

Sid Meier's Covert Action (link)

The game generates a plot involving various characters. The player can wiretap phone calls, search buildings for documents, follow suspects from known building to another and arrest people or turn them into a double agent. From the gathered information, the player has to deduce who else is involved in the plot, who is the mastermind, where they are and arrest them before the plot is executed.

Splash Lake (link)

You need to make all enemies fall into water. You and enemies are walking on tiles suspended over water, which are connected to tiles with supports. You can crack suspended tiles to disconnect them from the support tiles and cause them to fall into water with anyone, who is standing on them.

Super Bomberman: Panic Bomber W (link)

Each player is trying to stack blocks to create rows of the same color. Achieving that adds bomb blocks which can be triggered to destroy your blocks and send them as garbage blocks to the opponent's screen. Player also has a meter that gives them giant bomb when it fills up. There are random effects applied to players, like reversing controls or changing blocks. Player is defeated when their screen is completely filled up with blocks. Battle mode for four players.

Superliminal (link)

Moving items around will change their size according to perspective. Some levels have non-Euclidean geometry.

Tandis (link)

Player has to create certain shapes by dragging the starting shape through various spacial transformations.

The Curse of Ra (link)

Player moves a scarab over blocks. Some blocks can be moved around, other blocks work as teleporters or traps. The scarab has to move on a block with a symbol and match it with another block of the same symbol. However, the blocks must be on the same vertical or horizontal line, the scarab must escape before the block disappear and when all blocks are matched, the scarab must be able to get back to the starting block.

The Longing (link)

When you start the game, a 400 day real time count down begins. Once the time is off, you win the game. The timer is ticking even when you are not playing the game but can be sped up by finding items to improve your living room and books to read.

Tilt (link)

A sliding puzzle, but the tiles form a path. A ball moves through the paths and your goal is to get it to the target tile, while avoiding dangerous tiles.

Wordtris (link)

Letters fall down and you have to place them in such a way to form words, so that the letters are removed and you avoid running out of space.

World of Goo (link)

You use various types of goo balls to build a structure that will reach the pipe. Balls that are left will go to the pipe. If there were enough of them, you complete the level.

Yet Another Tetris Clone (link)

Like Tetris, but there is a mode in which the player selects which pieces will appear and the computer must deal with them instead.

Zig Zag Flag Shag (link)

You have a limited amount of single square moves and multiple square jumps. You have to get through the level to reach the flag.

Honorable mentions

Armed & Delirious
Captain Blood
Casino
Cubulus
CyberSpace Crossword
Dark Seed
DaSi
Eastern Mind: The Lost Souls of Tong Nou
Eternam
L'Ange et le Demon
L-Zone
Laser Lords
Limbo of the Lost
Mutant Beach
Papers, Please
Ring: The Legend of the Nibelungen
Rogue Bit
Soma
Space Quest IV: Roger Wilco and the Time Rippers
Star Wars: Yoda Stories
Super ZZT
The Endless Forest
Who Wants to Beat Up a Millionaire

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