When people think about puzzle games of today, they think of games like Portal, immersing players in an adventure and story like no other, and The Witness, a game that allowed players to explore a beautiful landscape while finding puzzle boards to solve. These two games show how puzzle games can evolve beyond just the simple tile-sorting or equation-solving gameplay.
But what about puzzle games that were loved but have since been forgotten? Even some great new-era puzzle games seem to have been left behind while the games stated above get all of the love. From the old to the new, here's a look at 13 of these forgotten gems.
Updated May 8th, 2022 by Russ Boswell: There have been a lot of fantastic puzzle games that have been released over the years. The genre has been going strong since the advent of video games, with some of the most entertaining and engaging puzzle games released as far back as the NES era. Because of this, many players are missing out on some of the best puzzle games to ever hit the market, with retro gems sprinkled throughout each era of gaming. To better highlight some of the best puzzle games ever released, the following list has been updated and now has even more entries for puzzle-hungry fans.
13 Dragon's Lair
Dragon's Lair is one of the coolest puzzle games to ever hit the market and even had its own arcade cabinets back in the day. Those that wanted to join Dirk the Daring on his quest to save the princess would likely find themselves going through quarters at an alarming rate. Dragon's Lair is a fully-animated "interactive adventure" puzzle game that was partially produced by Don Bluth, the famous American animator behind titles like The Land Before Time, Anastasia, and All Dogs Go To Heaven. As a result, the game itself is beautiful, featuring incredibly detailed animated scenes that players will interact with as they attempt to keep Dirk the Daring from danger.
It's a pretty fun ride and much more engaging when players aren't flinging quarters at it in the comfort of their own home. It's a puzzle game that every fan of the genre should experience at least once.
12 Maniac Mansion
There were a lot of interesting puzzle games on the NES. Many of them were fairly basic, revolving around moving shapes, replicating patterns, or using items in a specific succession. That's what makes Maniac Mansion such a unique addition to the NES lineup. Released in 1987, the horror-inspired title is the brainchild of Lucasfilms Games (yes, the same company responsible for some of the best Star Wars games on the market). It featured an array of characters that players could swap between and played much like a point-and-click adventure game, with the added danger of a maniacal family hunting the player as they attempted to escape a strange, pixelated estate.
The character designs are adorable, the music is actually pretty great, and the puzzles can be pretty challenging as players try to keep their wits about them while escaping danger.
11 Blast Corps
Those looking for a retro challenge should definitely give Blast Corps a try. The action-puzzle game is actually pretty challenging, with many players 90s players struggling to get through some of its complex levels. It was a sleeper-hit designed for the Nintendo 64, developing quite the cult following thanks to its strange premise, unique graphics (for the time) and an array of destructible levels that had players guessing on how to make it to each goal before the timer ran out.
The iconic Rare worked on the title, and although it's a far cry from some of their later Nintendo 64 adventures, Blast Corps stands as one of the most unique releases on the console and is actually pretty engaging for puzzle fans.
10 Kirby's Avalanche
Early in the Kirby franchise, HAL Laboratory released a spin-off titled Kirby's Avalanche, which was just a re-skin of the Japenese release of Super Puyo Puyo. Despite the game not originating as a Kirby game, it remains, to this day, one of the best Kirby spin-offs.
In the game, players take on various classic enemies from the series, including King Dedede, Meta Knight, and Kracko. A remake or sequel of the game has not been made, but it was re-released on the Wii Virtual Console.
9 Scribblenauts
Write everything, solve everything. This was a tag-line to the Scribblenauts series which blew many players' minds with how many beings and objects were available to be typed in and created. As Maxwell, players were tasked to collect Starites in every level.
In order to get through each one, players must use objects that have been left for them or summon objects on their own using the touchpad keyboard. The game has had a few sequels but has not had a mainline game since Scribblenauts Unmasked: A DC Comics Adventure in 2013.
8 Bejeweled
There's Candy Crush Saga, which won the hearts of many puzzle-playing Facebook users in the early 2010s. But way before Candy Crush Saga, there was Bejeweled. The objective of Bejeweled is to swap one gem with a nearby gem in order to form chains of gems that had the same color.
If the player made chains that also had all identical gems, there would be bonus points. The game is addictive and very influential among many tile-matching games, especially considering it came out in a time before social media and mobile phones.
7 Puzzle Quest
Infinite Interactive took a different approach to its puzzle game, combining it with an RPG adventure and calling it Puzzle Quest. Players take on a character that they customize to have certain abilities and statistics, mainly based on a profession that is chosen at the beginning of the game.
Players walk around a world battling enemies, but the combat system is a tile-matching puzzle where players must create chains that are matching in order to beat the enemy they are fighting. The game does get updates, but a new installment in the series hasn't come out in over a decade.
6 Peggle
For those who want to sit back and enjoy a relaxing puzzle game, Peggle is a good one to try out. Inspired heavily by pachinko, players must try to hit marked pegs with a limited number of balls in order to advance to the next level.
The game is all about shooting the ball at the right time as it is moving on a mechanism from left to right. The game had two sequels that each performed well, but there hasn't been a single console Peggle installment since Peggle 2 came out in 2013.
5 Bust-A-Move
Also known as "Puzzle Bobble" in most countries, Bust-a-Move is another tile-matching game that was based on the 1986 arcade game Bubble Bobble. It worked like an upside-down Tetris. There would be a collection of bubbles at the top of the screen and the job of the player would be to shoot bubbles of randomly-generated colors at areas where the bubbles would match.
The goal is to clear the entire board of all bubbles. There were a plethora of sequels and remakes since the initial title, but no new installment has come out since 2011.
4 Fez
After the game was featured in the documentary Indie Game: The Movie, Fez garnered universal acclaim for its nostalgic design and rotating mechanics. Players take on the role of Gomez as he tries to put his world back together after a rift in spacetime made his 2D world 3D.
The goal is to rotate between four 2D views in order to find the right path out of a level. This innovative idea had fans clamoring for a Fez 2, which was in development until the game was suddenly canceled by creator Phil Fish after commenting on the negativity of the gaming industry.
3 Lemmings
A world-renowned game that doesn't get talked about enough nowadays, Lemmings is a 1991 puzzle-platformer that tasks the player with guiding lemmings to the end of a level. The percentage of lemmings changes per level and specific lemmings may need to be assigned skills that will help the player and their lemmings get across specific obstacles.
The game kicked off a series of sequels and spin-offs and inspired many modern real-time strategy games today. Despite its many ports, the original series hasn't seen a new game since 2000.
2 World Of Goo
The highest-rated puzzle game on Metacritic, World of Goo took physics-based mechanics and made an immensely-fun puzzle game out of them. This game is all about reaching the end of a level with enough "goo balls" to actually create the exit. Along the way, however, players must create paths with these goo balls in order to get from one part of the level to another.
Despite the rave reviews, World of Goo is often forgotten about due to receiving little fanfare upon release, likely because of the small company, 2D Boy, that made it. The two-person company has said it may create a sequel, but nothing further has been announced.
1 The Talos Principle
The Talos Principle is often overshadowed in the genre but deserves to be mentioned amongst the best puzzle games of all time. The game puts players in the role of an unnamed android who must complete puzzles to collect sigils for an entity known as Elohim.
Meanwhile, players learn the truths about the world the android is exploring and begin to face a decision as to whether or not to defy Elohim. Many prominent reviewers and fellow developers came away astonished by the experience, and a sequel is currently in the works.