Greatest Puzzle Games of All Time

10. The Room (Series)

This series embodies the puzzle game genre with intricate object manipulation mechanics. You find yourself locked in a room surrounded by many objects. You have to explore the objects and discover hidden details. As you unpick your surroundings, the game unfolds.

This series offers players countless "Aha!" moments. It's quiet. It's eerie. It's absolutely delightful. If you've ever done a physical escape room, you can imagine The Room as the digital analog, but where there are no restrictions on what can be built or included in the puzzle.

Visually, The Room adopts elements of steampunk as well as 1920s, pre-modern technology tropes.

Explore the world, discover what is part of the game and what is ambience. Find your way. Highly recommended.

9. Hexa Sort

This game can be summed up in one phrase: satisfying animations. The game creators have absolutely dialed in how to make a simple drag-and-drop interaction feel like a cascade of chunky, satisfyingly weighty hexagons. The way the pieces switch and swap into positions is deeply pleasing. Visual timing. Animation rhythm. It's got it all.

Hexa Sort gives you coin collection on top of combine-the-stacks game play. The pace set by the player, making it an excellent casual game. Unlike other swap-based games, Hexa Sort includes a lightweight logic component -- requiring you to think carefully about where to place each stack such that you don't get stuck with un-fixable stacks.

8. Woodoku

As a casual game, Woodoku stands out for its simple UI and real-world-like visual styling. It's the definition of a casual game. If Tetris and Sudoku had a love child, it would be Woodoku.

Woodoku features an endless game play style that makes it easy to get addicted to. Players must use their critical thinking to choose the wisest placement of the blocks.

Simple mechanics. Delightful gameplay.

7. Wordle

On the opposite end of the spectrum from Woodoku, we have Wordle. Wordle is a game of few actions and a great deal of thinking. What makes Wordle one of the greatest games of all time is how it combines dead simple game play mechanics with a tantalizing difficult memory mapping challenge baked in.

Wordle reached pop culture celebrity February of 2022 and was subsequently acquired by the New York Times newspaper. Part of its rise to fame is just how simple and straightforward the game is while still being delightfully challenging. Whether you're a linguistics PhD or someone who hates to read, Wordle is accessible.

6. Cut the Rope

Timing, timing, timing. Cut the Rope is one of the greatest puzzle games of all time for its mixture of puzzle solving and easy-to-understand game play. The devil is in the timing with Cut the Rope. Every player can see at a glance that there's an order of operations. Where Cut the Rope becomes challenging is in timing the cuts such that the physics simulation leads to the right thing happening at the right time.

Collecting the stars in Cut the Rope can be extremely challenging. Combined with bright colors and satisfying animations, Cut the Rope is easily an all-time standout.

5. Two Dots

Two Dots is one of the greatest puzzle games of all time due to its dead simple and extremely satisfying mechanic of connecting the dots. Every player of this game will likely recall connect-the-dots drawings from their childhood. Two Dots pulls this mechanic into the touch screen era.

Two Dots is the industry standard for dot and line games. It also features a seemingly endless array of levels and challenges. Two Dots has the delightful mechanic that when you release your finger, the dots animate away in the most absurdly pleasing way.

4. 2048

It's hard to say just how impactful 2048 has been on the world of casual gaming. It combines a simple directional swipe mechanic with powers-of-two multiplication in a way that no one would have predicted to be so challenging or delightful.

What 2048 offers the player is a game which feels instantly "easy" and then becomes extremely challenging as the numbers ramp up. The challenge comes from the inherent randomness built into the game. Every time the player interacts, a new piece is added. That pieces can help or hinder the player largely based on their strategy.

2048 is a game all about organizing and turning an inherently chaotic input into a more and more stable set of numbers.

Few moments in games are more satisfying that combining twos, then fours, then eights, and so on until you hit the jackpot -- 2048.

3. hocus

Similar in mechancis to Monument Valley, hocus brings M. C. Escher-like level design to your smartphone. To say that hocus is a game where you move a block along a path is accurate, but in no way captures just how captivating this game can be.

The secret to hocus's addictiveness lies in its bending of real-world physics. Much like Monument Valley, hocus offers the player a chance to throw away gravity and treat the world like a scene from Labyrinth. You move your block along, around, over, or across boundaries that the real world would not permit.

hocus offers an austere visual aesthetic combined with brain-bending, paradoxical level designs. Combined with a simple navigation mechanic, it's an easy bet for one of the great puzzle games of all time.

2. Monument Valley (Series)

The gently RPG cousin of hocus, Monument Valley features similarly brain-bending levels. However, Monument Valley layers on a story and a lore that takes it far beyond the austerity of hocus. Characters and character progression make Monument Valley a game that you can connect with in more depth than your average game.

Monument Valley is also a breathtakingly beautiful game. Every level is a visual delight that easily stands on its own as a poster or wallpaper.

Combining all of the above with the delightfully brainbending mechanics, Monument Valley stands up as one of the greatest of all time. It combines all the intricacy of The Room with the physics defying wonder of M. C. Escher and layers on its trademark visual wonder. Highly, highly recommended.

1. The Witness

In the tradition of PC Games like Myst and Riven, The Witness stands out as perhaps the greatest puzzle game of all time. It's markedly different in tone and feel from the rest of the puzzles in the list. Like The Room, it is quiet and slow paced. It also features an incredible amount of lore and intricacy.

The Witness combines 3D open world mechanics with 2D puzzle solving mechanics. The Witness also features physics bending environment puzzles that seamlessly real-world elements into flat 2D puzzles. By combining follow-the-line mechanics with maze solving, The Witness constantly gives players something to do. However, The Witness also includes lots of time spent chin-scratching trying to understand the mechanics in front of the player.

Visually The Witness is an absolute triumph. It has beauty and variety far beyond what anyone would expect at first blush. It begins with a science fiction feel which instantly transforms into a utopic wonderland. As the world expands, you explore dreamlike environments that are constantly surreal yet pegged to the real-world at every turn.

The Witness is a progressive game. The player learns the ropes puzzle-by-puzzle. The Witness exposes the player to many puzzles which they can't solve and must revisit in the future. The aspect of the game play leads to many to frustration, However for those who perservere, The Witness gives and gives and gives. For our money, The Witness is the greatest puzzle game of all time.