Puzzle games come in a variety of styles, from mindless relaxation machines to hardcore logical quagmire, and we’ve got everything on this list.
From classics like Threes! and Braid to new-school entries like Lorelei and Laser Eyes and Escape Academy, there’s always a puzzle game to play between meetings, on a Sunday afternoon or with a group of friends on the couch.
Here we’ve compiled some of the best puzzle games to activate your brain in new ways or unwind after a long day.
Three’s!
Three’s! took the mobile gaming world by storm almost a decade ago – it was the original “sliding number” puzzle game. Because the three-person development team behind Threes! dared to take money for their game, a lot of smaller clones quickly sprang up. But Threes! is the most satisfying experience, and it’s now part of Apple Arcade.
Like most of the best mobile games, the mechanism here is extremely simple and very satisfying. You slide numbers on a four-by-four grid, trying to combine 1s and 2s to make 3s, and then combine threes to make ever-larger numbers. Each new number greets you with a fun catchphrase, and the game has a great score that never gets old. If you’ve never played Threes! in its heyday, this is your excuse to dive in.
Mini Motorways
Mini Motorways and its predecessor Mini Metro are games that can be simultaneously calm and extremely stressful. That calm comes from developer Dinosaur Polo Club’s simple animations, bright but somehow muted color schemes, and minimal music and sound effects. The tension comes from the gameplay, which always spirals out of control.
In Mini Motorways, you’re tasked with building roads to connect homes and businesses and keep traffic moving. It starts out simple enough with a few houses and a few different destinations, but your city grows bigger, there are more cars on the road, and the layout that was so efficient just a few minutes ago suddenly becomes stressful. Mini Metro has a similar atmosphere, as you build subway lines and stations on a map that resembles some of the world’s biggest cities.
Both games end when the stations get too crowded or the cars can’t reach their destinations. The last few minutes before everything is over are very stressful, as you try to rearrange the streets or completely change the subway’s design to keep up with the influx of passengers and get the highest score you can.
But there’s a kind of peace when your subway line is just running or when everyone in your city can go to the store. There’s almost endless replay-ability here, too.
Lorelei and the Laser Eyes
Lorelei and the Laser Eyes is a third-person noir detective game set in a haunted hotel with impossible architecture and terrifying history. Its corridors are filled with logic-defying puzzles about magicians, labyrinths, astrology, filmmaking, tombs, and physics, and it’s not even clear why the protagonist is there in the first place.
With 1800s artifacts, 1960s set pieces, and 2010s technology, it’s barely clear where she’s from when she’s there. A lack of direction is a major tenet of the game, resulting in a sense of solitude that’s deliciously unsettling. It’s also empowering. The hotel in Lorelei is a playground of mysteries with no set path for players, and every scene has a rich density of puzzles and lore.
Lorelei and the Laser Eyes is terrifying and emotionally powerful, and its visual vibe is “David Lynch does Kentucky Route Zero.” The whole thing is as deeply, endlessly satisfying as a puzzle-solving experience. For lovers of puzzles and psychological horror, this is one of the best games of the generation.
Grindstone
I’ve been playing Grindstone since Apple Arcade launched in 2019. This puzzler does almost everything right, introducing you to the marauding Viking-type Jorge, who has to fight his way through a board full of cute but creepy enemies. From your starting point, you can trace a path through the baddies, cutting down enemies of the same color in a single move.
Build up a big combo, and you’ll get a Grindstone – this lets you switch to another color of enemies in the same chain, making it possible to create bigger and more complex runs across the board. To beat a level, you usually have to kill a certain number of enemies, or defeat a few high hit-point baddies.
That’s the core mechanic, but developer Capybara Games has thrown in a ton of variety into Grindstone. The longer you’re on the board, the more aggressive the enemies become – so while you can collect a lot of loot, you can also end up in a situation you can’t escape from. There are world bosses that cleverly use mechanics from previous levels, plenty of items you can unlock and use to even the odds, and a few extra game modes that keep things fresh.