WHAT TO PLAY
Puzzle games
340 games in the catalog
Logic games rest on rules you can explain in a minute and on solutions you have to find with your head, not with quick fingers. The genre takes in falling-block games like Tetris, box-pushing, colour matching, physics puzzles, and games where you progress by working out how the world behaves. They share one thing: you get better not by aiming more accurately or running faster, but by thinking more carefully.
It grew out of paper puzzles and mathematical games and reached computers early, because logic needs neither much memory nor flashy graphics. Sokoban appeared in Japan in 1982, Tetris two years later in Moscow. Games like these fit almost any machine and suited short sessions.
The genre lasted because its core never wore out. What changes is mostly the carrier: handhelds, the web browser, the phone. Each time someone found a way to serve an old puzzle on a small screen in a few minutes.
Today (2015 onwards)
71 games in the catalogSince 2015 logic games have split in two. On phones, free-to-play games such as Toon Blast or Gardenscapes lead, pairing matching with restoring a garden. The second stream is small independent games that explore one idea in depth: Baba Is You (2019) lets you rewrite the rules by arranging words, The Witness (2016) teaches its rules only through its puzzle panels, and Into the Breach (2018) is turn-based tactics where you see in advance what the enemy will do. Tetris got a VR form in Tetris Effect (2018) and a 99-player online battle in Tetris 99 (2019).
PS5 Alone in the Dark
A remake of the 90s classic: Lovecraftian horror in a crumbling mansion in Louisiana.
PC ANIMAL WELL
A combat-free metroidvania from a solo developer; puzzles are solved with strange tools, not weapons.
PS5 Silent Hill: The Short Message
A short, intimate probe into guilt and mental anguish - an unusually personal psychological horror.
PS5 Cocoon
A minimalist puzzle adventure from the designer of Limbo — worlds nested one inside another.
Quest Eye of the Temple
Room-scale platformer: the player climbs by actually walking around the room, with no virtual locomotion.
PS5 Chants of Sennaar
A language puzzle without a single word: you decipher the pictograms of the Tower of Babel's levels.
PSVR2 Moss
A charming platformer where you tilt dioramas as a ghostly presence while the mouse Quill solves puzzles.
PSVR2 Moss: Book II
The sequel starring the mouse Quill; now you can also pilot old guardian robots and solve puzzles.
Pikmin
První Pikmin na Switchi s ovládáním pro Joy-Cony a gyroskop.
Switch Pikmin 2
Dluh, jeskyně a dva kapitáni znovu na Switchi, s gyro ovládáním.
Series Planet of Lana
An atmospheric platformer where a girl solves puzzles together with her feline companion Mui.
PSVR2 Tetris Effect: Connected
A hypnotic audiovisual Tetris show, now with co-op and competitive multiplayer.
The HD generation (2005–2014)
116 games in the catalogAfter 2005 logic games went in three directions. The Nintendo DS touch screen (2004) and later the iPhone with its App Store (2008) gave fingers direct access to the playing field, and match-three games such as Puzzle & Dragons (2012) began pairing it with collecting characters. On PC and consoles, Valve's Portal (2007) showed that a physics model of the environment could be the puzzle itself: one tool, the portal gun, carries the whole game. On the web, Line Rider (2006) let you draw a track for a sledder and watch how it fares. Digital stores also let small teams release unconventional ideas.
Web 2048
Merge tiles with matching numbers up to 2048; the minimalist puzzle viral hit of 2014.
Mobil Best Fiends
A match-3 puzzle with an army of cute bugs; an easygoing puzzle with distinctive characters.
Wii U Captain Toad: Treasure Tracker
The Captain can't jump because of his giant backpack; instead, you rotate the diorama to find a way through.
Escape Plan Ultimate
Ultimate edice vyměnila dotykové panely Vity za páčku DualShocku a přidala 19 hádanek.
Mobil FRAMED
Rearrange comic panels so the hero's escape from pursuers turns out well.
Mobil Hitman GO
Hitman as a turn-based board game; stealthy strategy on diorama tiles.
Mobil Monument Valley
Impossible Escher-esque structures in a short but visually stunning stroll.
PC Never Alone
Kooperativní pohádka z Aljašky vznikla ve spolupráci s Iñupiaty.
PS4 Oddworld: New 'n' Tasty
A complete rebuild of the 1997 Abe's Oddysee in modern 3D graphics and sound.
3DS Professor Layton and the Azran Legacy
Wraps up Layton's second trilogy and the search for the frozen tombs of the Azran civilization.
Wii U The Swapper
Atmospheric sci-fi puzzle adventure; cloning and consciousness transfer between copies.
Mobil Threes!
An elegant sliding puzzle about adding up tiles; the original later overshadowed by 2048.
The arrival of 3D (1995–2004)
69 games in the catalogThree-dimensional graphics reached logic games slowly, because their core did not need them. Attempts were made anyway: Kula World (1998) rolled a ball over the faces of cube-shaped mazes, where ‘down’ changes as you cross an edge, and Wetrix (1998) had you build terrain that could hold water. The bigger shift came elsewhere. CD-ROM and pre-rendered backgrounds allowed more cinematic puzzle-platformers such as Oddworld: Abe's Oddysee (1997). And the web browser brought Bejeweled (2001) and, with it, three-in-a-row matching to people who had never played a game before.
PC Fish Fillets 2
A Czech puzzle game about two fish who solve puzzles together in a sunken house.
PS2 Katamari Damacy
The brilliantly wacky original about rolling a sticky ball, pure joy of play without any violence.
PSP Lumines
A hypnotic music puzzle; the PSP's flagship.
GBA Mario vs. Donkey Kong
The 1981 arcade rivalry, in a clever mix of puzzle game and platformer.
PS2 Puyo Pop Fever
Puyo Puyo with Fever mode — a filled gauge opens a window for a devastating chain combo attack.
PS2 Super Bust-A-Move
A bubble-puzzle classic; you aim and shoot colored balls before they fill the screen.
A800 Yoomp!
An acclaimed homebrew mix of action and puzzle; original gameplay on old hardware.
GBA Yoshi Topsy-Turvy
A cartridge with a tilt sensor; you tilt the handheld to affect the world's gravity.
GBA Zoo Keeper
A Japanese timed match-3 with animals; swap tiles and build long combinations.
GCN Bust-A-Move 3000
A classic bubble puzzle game from Taito; aim, shoot colored bubbles and don't let them drop lower.
GCN Super Monkey Ball 2
The sequel adds a story mode and even more refined, at times devilish courses.
GBA Super Monkey Ball Jr.
A rare true 3D experience on the GBA - you roll a ball with a monkey inside through a maze above a chasm.
8- and 16-bit (1986–1994)
52 games in the catalogAfter 1986 logic games split into subgenres. Falling blocks found followers: Columns and Dr. Mario (both 1990) replaced clearing lines with matching colours. The Game Boy, sold with Tetris in the box (1989), turned the puzzle into a game for everyone and showed what handhelds could do. On mouse-driven computers came Lemmings (1991), where you do not control one character but hand out jobs to a crowd that marches relentlessly forward. Oxyd (1990) had you steer a marble with the mouse and find pairs of matching stones. What they shared was dozens to hundreds of hand-built levels with rising difficulty.
GB Bomberman GB
Pocket-sized Bomberman; cross-shaped blasts, collectible bonuses, and a maze full of destructible blocks.
CD-i Hotel Mario
A Nintendo-licensed platformer built around a single idea: closing doors.
SNES Kirby's Dream Course
Mini golf with Kirby; unexpectedly deep.
GB Pac-Attack
A falling-block puzzle game in which Pac-Man himself occasionally shows up, gobbling ghosts.
MAME Puzzle Bobble
A little dragon fires bubble after bubble; one of the most addictive puzzle games in arcades.
Neo Geo Puzzle Bobble / Bust-A-Move
The dragons from Bubble Bobble star in a puzzle game so addictive it defined an entire genre.
3DO The 7th Guest
A horror adventure in toymaker Stauf's house; one of the first titles built purely for CD.
GB Wario Blast Featuring Bomberman!
Unusual crossover: classic Bomberman from Hudson Soft with Wario instead of the second little guy.
NES Wario's Woods
The last licensed NES game in America (1994); instead of blocks, you control Toad.
MD Dr. Robotnik's Mean Bean Machine
A reskinned version of Puyo Puyo set in the Sonic universe; the same addictive mechanic, a different coat of paint.
DOS The Incredible Machine
A physics toy and a puzzle at once; you build absurd contraptions out of pulleys, ropes, and cannons.
MD Wiz 'n' Liz
A wildly fast game from Bizarre Creations; you rotate the level while chasing hopping rabbits.
The beginnings (until 1985)
14 games in the catalogIn the early years logic games were not yet separate from the rest of the arcade. The puzzle hid inside games like Q*bert (1982), where you hop across cubes in a fixed pattern to change their colour, or Boulder Dash (1984), where rocks fall as you dig and the order of your moves has to be planned ahead. Hardware allowed only small, fixed screens, so levels were built as self-contained caves or rooms you could replay until perfect. The turning point came in 1984 with Tetris, which Alexey Pajitnov wrote in Moscow: no story, no character, just falling shapes. It showed that logic alone could carry a whole game.
SG Doki Doki Penguin Land
An unusual mix of platformer and puzzle; a penguin delivers a fragile egg, not itself.
Eggerland / Lolo
The predecessor to Nintendo's Lolo; elegant single-screen puzzles with no shooting or jumping.
ZX Boulder Dash
Dig through dirt, collect diamonds, and run from boulders; a classic of the puzzle-action genre.
C64 Impossible Mission
"Stay awhile, stay forever"; an acrobatic puzzle classic with digitised speech.
SG Lode Runner
A classic with a perfectly conceived principle: collect gold, dig holes, escape enemies.
MAME Marble Madness
An isometric marble maze controlled by trackball; Atari's rolling physics and a race against the clock.
NES Tetris (Nintendo)
The two best puzzle games on the console.
A800 Drelbs
A curious blend of logic and action; rotate doors to seal off cells in a grid.
G&W Mario's Cement Factory
Mario with a shovel at the cement factory watches over overflowing concrete; a small, tense game of timing.
G&W Donkey Kong (G&W)
The handheld Donkey Kong from 1982, birthplace of the D-pad; a turning point in controls.
MAME Q*bert
After a wave of shooters came a hit that shot at nothing at all — it just hopped across cubes.
MAME Wizard of Wor
A maze shooter with a radar that reveals monsters even outside the player's view.