Puzzle video games come in a variety of levels of difficulty. Some are mind-numbingly simple, and can be solved without much thinking.
Others, on the other hand, can be so difficult that players give up and never play the game again.
Furthermore, these games can be found in a variety of genres. Plenty may be in a point-and-click format, with riddles solved using game logic rather than real-life logic.
Additionally, a first-person perspective is used in many games, making them feel more immersive.
Besides, a few producers, particularly indie game makers, go to great lengths to create unique puzzle video games that only a few people will be able to complete.
1. Portal 2
Platforms: PlayStation 3, Xbox One, Mac OS, and Microsoft Windows.
The two Portal games are among the best puzzle video games ever developed, yet when compared them side by side, the sequel clearly wins.
Additionally, Portal 2 is longer than its predecessor, adding riddles, a polished narrative, and a plethora of interesting set pieces to the universe of Aperture Science.
Despite the new features, the essence of Portal 2 stays unchanged. Additionally, The original Portal feels more like a tech demo after playing Portal 2.
However, the premise of navigating a test chamber using portals is still intact in this sequel, but the addition of gels, platforms.
And other new puzzle mechanisms makes the game feel broader and more demanding.
2. Discworld
Platforms: PlayStation, Mac OS, MS-DOS
Discworld is one of the most difficult point-and-click puzzle video games ever created. Additionally, You take on the role of Rincewind, a wizard who is trying to stop a dragon from tormenting the people of Ankh-Morpork.
Now, because you’re employing the game’s logic rather than rational thinking, point and click puzzle games may be quite challenging, and Discworld is well recognized for having some of the most difficult problems.
However, if you get stuck in one of these games, it’s usually best to employ everything with everything, because you never know what you’ll need to combine to progress.
3. The Notepad – Discworld Noir
Platforms: Microsoft Windows and PlayStation
There’s one thing that videogames have strangely didn’t accomplish exceptionally well: detective fiction.
Although there are games where you can play detective, there is rarely any genuine detecting to be done. Additionally, Then there’s Discworld Noir, a horribly underappreciated yet fantastic game set in Terry Pratchett’s Discworld.
It casts you in the role of the only Private Investigator in Ankh Morpork, and is both a parody and homage to classic film noir themes and narratives.
Furthermore, What does a private investigator require to solve a case? A notepad, to be precise. The game will automatically scribble down clues in the notepad for you, which is fine so far.
4. The Witness
Platforms: PlayStation 4, Android, iOS, Xbox One.
The Witness is a puzzle video game in which you wake up alone on an island with just a few hundred brainteasers to assist you.
The majority of the problems you’ll come across will involve lines, and you’ll need to navigate from the beginning to the end of a grid, touching all of the required locations.
Therefore, These line puzzles operate in unison with environmental puzzles to help you advance further around the island.
You pick up hints as to who you are and how you ended up stranded on the island along the way. Additionally, on the surface, the game appears to be straightforward, with well-designed puzzles and stunning surroundings.
In addition, The secrets of the mystery island you’re on, on the other hand, are the most intriguing elements of the game.
5. Fez
Platforms: PlayStation 4, Nintendo Switch, PlayStation Vita, Linux, iOS, macOS, Linux.
Fez is a two-dimensional but three-dimensional indie puzzle video game s Furthermore, is the one-of-a-kind game mechanic that Fez offers.
The game is played in two dimensions; nevertheless, the world is three-dimensional, but only in 90-degree increments, resulting in just four facings.
However, the rotating mechanic is crucial to the game. As it is this aspect of Fez’s pain puzzle that a changing perspective might reveal new paths and mysteries that were previously hidden.
Additionally, Fez’s main premise is to collect cubes and cube fragments to restore order to the universe. To do so, players must explore Fez’s 3D world and solve a variety of puzzles.
Furthermore, Fez stresses its puzzle-solving aspects over adversaries and bosses. Hence there are no enemies or bosses.
6. Baba Is You
Platforms: Nintendo Switch, macOS, iOS, Android.
Baba Is You is a difficult puzzle video game to define because it is unlike anything else on the market right now.
Additionally, the underlying principle is straightforward: The rules for each problem are as follows: “baba is you,” “wall is stop,” and “flag is win.”
Furthermore, it’s now up to you to solve the puzzle using those rules. In the scenario at hand, this would entail traveling to the flag as Baba, a small rabbit.
However, nothing is fixed in stone. You have complete freedom to move pieces around and adjust the puzzle’s rules.
Furthermore, the arrangement appears straightforward at first, but it gradually becomes mind-boggling.
Because nothing in Baba Is You is worth anything, an acceptable solution to a puzzle might be as simple as enabling you to move past a wall or as difficult as allowing you to move past a wall.
7. The Talos Principle
Platforms: Nintendo Switch, PlayStation 4, Android, iOS.
You play as a robot whose main aim is to solve increasingly tough puzzles across a sequence of ancient sites in The Talos Principle.
Additionally, Your creator, Elohim, urges you at the start of the game to explore the world it has made, but not to climb a special tower in the center.
However, as the game proceeds, it becomes clear that the lovely setting you’re exploring isn’t quite what it seems to be.
Additionally, The Talos Principle is a puzzle game that addresses philosophical concerns regarding artificial intelligence, and the human conscience, as well as some extremely challenging problems.
However,it’s not as humorous as some of the other books on this list, but it’s a good place to start if you want to learn about the world’s big questions.
8. The Turing Test
Platforms: PlayStation 4, Xbox One, Microsoft Windows, Nintendo Switch, Stadia.
The Turing Test is a first-person puzzle game set in space on Jupiter’s Europa moon. Play as a Space Agency engineer who has been sent on a mission.
Additionally, the goal of this operation was to figure out what happened to ground personnel who were stationed there.
However, Tom, the AI, has been busy inventing tests that only a human can solve since your arrival. These experiments, it seems, were devised by the ground crew.
Furthermore, as you try to figure out what happened to the ground crew, use varied perspectives. And the ability to transfer power between machines to answer all of the problems Tom has set out for you.
9. MYST
Platforms: Xbox One, Xbox Series, X and Series, Microsoft Windows, PlayStation, Nintendo Switch, Nintendo DS.
MYST is a first-person adventure, puzzles, and video game that is weirdly unique in that it provides very little backstory and has no clear objective or purpose.
There are no time limits or dangers to the players; all they have to do is explore and discover everything for themselves. Additionally, clicking and dragging on items in game scenes allows players to interact with the world.
In the universe of MYST, this is how you solve problems. However, to complete the game, players must find books that transport them to other eras, and then solve riddles in those mini-worlds.
Additionally, these puzzle video games have numerous endings, which encourages multiple playthroughs.
10. Opus Magnum
Platforms: Microsoft Windows, Linux, macOS
Opus Magnum is often referred to be a game of programming. You play as an alchemist who must create a precise result using raw metals and ingredients.
Additionally, the majority of puzzle solutions are rather easy, requiring you to combine A and B to form C. Opus Magnum, on the other hand, isn’t about the result. It’s all about the method.
To achieve your goal, you’ll need to construct a semi-autonomous machine using levers, cranes, and switches.
Furthermore, after a few hours of gameplay, Opus Magnum becomes more about how you solved a challenge rather than if you solved it.
Even after you’ve completed the game, you may always enhance your machines by deleting parts or adding new ones.
11. Return Of The Obra Dinn
Platforms: PlayStation 4, Nintendo Switch, Xbox One, Microsoft Windows and macOS.
This game is an excellent example of a developer producing one-of-a-kind puzzle video games. Return of the Obra Dinn is a story about a lost at-sea ship that drifts into port with no crew and damaged sales.
However, you take on the role of an insurance investigator with the ability to see and hear into the final moments of someone’s life.
Besides, you can use this power to figure out how people died so you can figure out if payment is required. Finally, you must solve the ship’s riddle to discover what happened on board.
12. Human Fall Flat
Platforms: PlayStation 4, Nintendo Switch, Xbox One, PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X and series, Google Stadia.
Human Fall Flat is a physics-based puzzle game in which you take on the role of Bob. Bob is entrusted with exploring numerous settings and solving riddles along the way, with the sole purpose of reaching the exit.
Furthermore, There are infinite methods to solve puzzles because to the powerful physics engine.
However, you can play Human Fall Flat by yourself, but it’s preferable to play with others. Two-player couch co-op is included, as well as online multiplayer for up to eight players.
You can also play around with Human Fall Flat’s physics engine when you’re not completing riddles. Additionally, everything in the game world is yours to play with and experiment with to your heart’s delight.
13. Broken Sword
Platforms: Microsoft Windows, PlayStation, GameBoy Advance,
Players assume control of George Stobbart, an American traveler who finds himself at the heart of a nefarious scheme to take over the world.
He can persevere, though, because of his astute acts. Furthermore, these puzzle video games take inspiration from real-life events and add its own flourishes to create a caper that’s as entertaining as it is tough.
However, if players are to have any chance of halting the Neo-Templars, they will need to think outside the box, but they will also need to use common sense.
The game’s most renowned conundrum is the notorious goat puzzle, but it’s just one of several that will take some time to solve.
14. Catherine
Platforms: PlayStation 4 and PlayStation Vita.
Catherine is a unique puzzle-dating sim mix from Atlus, the makers of the Persona series.
You play as Vincent Brooks, a 32-year-old systems engineer who has been putting off marrying Katherine with a “K,” his longtime fiancée.
Vincent meets Catherine late one night, who is the polar opposite of his dominating girlfriend. Vincent begins to have horrific dreams in which he must chase demons after a one-night stand.
Of course, these dreams reflect Vincent’s double life in real life, where he’s surrounded by other guys who have succumbed to infidelity.
Additionally, Catherine really shines in the dream scenes, with viciously rapid and mind-bending puzzles based on the simple notion of moving blocks.
15. Lemmings
Platforms: PlayStation 2, PlayStation Portable, Super Nintendo, PlayStation 3
Even if puzzles video games have only become better with time and better visuals, we must recognise some of the all-time greats that were incredibly enjoyable and challenging in their day, even if they aren’t very pretty now.
Lemmings is a puzzle platformer that challenges you to save as many lemmings as possible. However, it was released in 1991.
Additionally, the game challenges you to guide and defend humanoid lemmings. Who will keep traveling forward even to their deaths unless you protect them, based on the legend that the lemming mammal happily follows its pack off cliffs.
Typically, this entails sacrificing some lemmings to clear a route for others.
