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[DunDunDunpachi]

The genre gets played a lot but often gets dismissed as casual fodder. What are some of the best ones from the past 10 years? I have a few suggestions of my own below but I wanna hear what the rest of GAF thinks. (secretly, I am a huge sucker for puzzle games and so I am always on the hunt for good ones)

2048 / Triple Town

These two games seem to have sparked the block-sliding subgenre into overdrive. so much so that Triple Town sued competitors for cloning their game without permission. 2048 is the purer experience. Triple Town has cuter graphics and puts obstacles in your path, kind of like Sokoban.

Puyo Puyo Tetris

Neither of the titles included here are "new". The hybrid modes aren't all that great, either. However, as a complete package this one is tough to beat: funny single player campaign, up to 4 players local, and solid rulesets for both of the namesake puzzle titles.

The Witness

My adolescent years were spent trying to untie the knots known as Myst and Riven, and The Witness is the only puzzle game since then to really re-capture the bleak, beautiful, haunting, fascinating world-building of the old Myst franchise.

Baba Is You

Feels like a brilliant programming / logic puzzle hiding behind cute graphics.

 

[iconmaster]

Great call spotlighting 2048. I continue to maintain it's a better game, mechanically, than Threes simply because finding a pair of twos is less frustrating than a pair of one and two. (One and one or two and two are just blockers in Threes).

 

[lame gag1990]

Lumines Electronic Symphony deserves a mention.

Oh shit, nearly forgot. Tetris Effect in VR is a beautiful experience too.

 

[molasar]

Misplaced (Sega Genesis)
Old Towers
Stealth Inc. series
The Room series
The Swapper
Vessel
Portal 2

 

[zenspider]

Lumines Electric Symphony (VITA), Tetris 99 (before it became a brutal Thunderdome) and Gorogoa come to mind - I'll watch this thread because I've neglected the genre this... gulp... decade.

Threes was a fun mobile game, but I think it ultimately works more like Solitaire than a pure puzzler.

 

[DunDunDunpachi]

Another two of my favs that are technically just outside of the 10-year mark: Critter Crunch and M&M Clash of Heroes.

Critter Crunch has tons of modes, items, and variants packed into it, so I give it a nod just for the wealth of content. However, the puzzle game itself is really fun and frantic. Reminds me of one of my all-time favorite puzzle games, Magical Drop.

Might & Magic: Clash of Heroes follows a bit in Puzzle Quest's footsteps by including equip-able items and an XP bar for each of your unit classes. There are lots of swingy powers so it's very fun to crush your opponent while trying not to be overwhelmed in the process.

 

[Rean no Kiseki]

Professor Layton games are pretty good.

 

[DunDunDunpachi]

Stephen's Sausage Roll seemed like a flash in the pan but I genuinely think it's one of the better puzzle games to come out.

 

[Birdo]

VVVVVV.

Shame it was delisted from PSN (Digital future, yay!)

 

[Elektro Demon]

Portal 2 and The talos principle.
I really don't believe that nobody mentioned The Talos Principle. It's better then Portal in some aspects.

 

[Heimdall_Xtreme]

Tetris

 

[molasar]

Tetris

1984

 

[Heimdall_Xtreme]

1984

Tetris effect

 

[mcz117chief]

I think Catherine was pretty good

 

[kingpotato]

Since a lot of people are selecting games older than the last decade, I put many hours into Trash Panic. Would love to see a sequel or port.

 

[Stephen Curry]

The Talos Principle should be up there

 

[Ballthyrm]

• I really liked Snake Bird, very devious short puzzles.

• Antichamber was the first successful mind bender after Portal
  
  

• 
  Return of the Obra Dinn i would also qualify as kind of a puzzle game of sort and a very good one at that.

• Gorogoa mixed storytelling and puzzle game element at the same time. A new way of looking at the genre.

 

[Vawn]

 

[janicetr]

Zachtronics. All of them.

 

[ROMhack]

The Talos Principle should be up there

This for sure. The Talos Principle is amazing, a very thought-provoking game (which you need a high IQ to fully understand etc etc).

But seriously, anybody with an interest in philosophy should play the game. It got written off as a Portal 2 clone on release but it's so much more.




Shout out to Catherine too

 

[Danjin44]

For me is always gonna be Catherine, personally find its entire puzzle mechanics fun and addictive.

 

[moniker]

The Hexcells series is great, and you can get all three games on sale on Steam now for 2.69€ which is a steal.

 

[SonicVolcano]

The Painscreek Killings

Great murder mystery with lots of puzzling.

 

[stranno]

Screamride was great.

 

[ROMhack]

Oh another mention... the games by The Tomorrow Corporation.

Little Inferno was an interesting experiment about waste (without being preachy).

Human Resource Machine was a quaint take on logic puzzles (one comp sci student described it to me as a primer).

 

[Holammer]

Made by the same guys that did Triple Town. A shame TT on PC was left behind so they could focus on the mobile version, but it's still perfectly playable.

 

[Starlight Lotice]

Escape Plan was interesting at the time on the Vita, but it was brutal.

The only one I liked which is also a Puzzle game was Fibbage on Jackbox.

Bloodstained: Ritual of the Night essentially is a Puzzle game to "beat"

 

[DunDunDunpachi]

Made by the same guys that did Triple Town. A shame TT on PC was left behind so they could focus on the mobile version, but it's still perfectly playable.

I only spent a bit of time in this one but the game got difficult very quickly for me. Good pick, I definitely need to return to it someday soon.

 

[JamesH05]

I am just heard the My Time at Portia's devs team annonced a new puzzle game, looks not bad

 

[Slings and Arrows]

Operencia: The stolen sun, is a FPS puzzle game. Some of the most fun puzzles I've solved since Monkey Island and Broken Sword.

You know it's a good game when, after gawping at a puzzle for ten minutes, you say to yourself "OHH obviously! You stupid twat!"

 

[hariseldon]

VVVVVV.

Shame it was delisted from PSN (Digital future, yay!)

Get a PC. VVVVVV is one of my all time favourite games - the music alone is fucking beautiful.

 

[memphisba]

Critter crunch is really good.

Wish i can still get it for ps4.

I love 3d Picross on 3ds too .

 

[Hypereides]

Numblast really gets overlooked. Its a fun and decent puzzle game for PS3 and PSP(or Vita?).

Stealth inc: a clone in the dark is a neat puzzle platformer.

Catherine is great. Probably one of the only big budget puzzle games in the recent decade.

 

[Airola]

Cubetractor (2013) is really good!

It's like Adventures of Lolo mixed with Robowarrior, Solomon's Key and tower defense and reverse tower defense games.
One of the best strategy puzzle games I have ever played.

It gets pretty hard very early, but for me the hook was that I manage to find a way to defeat one more enemy/obstacle and then die again, and then defeat one more, and die, and defeat one more, and die... etc. It feels really good to figure out how to get just a bit further in the level and then with that knowledge try to proceed further the next time you try. The levels are small one screen things getting increasingly more complex as you advance to higher levels, so it's not too frustrating to die over and over again and try it again.

 

[TheWanderingOgre]

I have to go with Tetris Effect.

Maybe not the best. Obviously not the most original and complex. Still, a magical experience. And I played it without VR.

 

[yxywc002]

Played:
the garden between;
Rime;
Journey;
I like puzzle games with good art.
Waiting:
Ever Forward

 

[I Love Rock 'n' Roll]

I can't believe this game is real. It's sooo good.

 

[Mr Hyde]

Machinarium and Catherine.

 

[AV]

Don't think I can see Into The Breach mentioned anywhere here, so I'll put that out there. People call it a "strategy" game but it really isn't, it's a series of micro chess puzzles and it's fantastic. Easily one of the best games of 2018.

 

[Zannegan]

999 and its sequels have a lot of puzzles in them, but I don't know if you'd call them puzzlers. I enjoyed them a lot though.

Puzzle Quest is also probably not a true puzzler, but for a different reason. I also enjoyed that quite a bit. *shrug*

 

[Starlight Lotice]

Nintendo's Bit Generation games are great!

 

[JoduanER2]

Another two of my favs that are technically just outside of the 10-year mark: Critter Crunch and M&M Clash of Heroes.

Critter Crunch has tons of modes, items, and variants packed into it, so I give it a nod just for the wealth of content. However, the puzzle game itself is really fun and frantic. Reminds me of one of my all-time favorite puzzle games, Magical Drop.

Was just about to say Critter Crunch as well, what an amazing gem. I only wish there was an active online playerbase, versus is soo much fun.