For some, the most entertaining scenarios to overcome are those laden with challenging puzzles. Earlier this year, we took a moment to discuss how the puzzle genre is mistreated or perhaps misrepresented. Bein!g on the riddle and challenge-loving side of the puzzle players, I wanted to take some time to present a few of the latest titles that are worth considering when picking up a new game for a puzzle fiend in your life; or perhaps you are that puzzle fiend yourself and are looking on what to get with your new holiday gift cards. Here are my top picks from this past year.

The Entropy Centre

If you are a fan of the Portal-style puzzle series, then this is a strong recommendation choice! Here’s a gist of the story:

After waking up with no memory, you find yourself in a living quarters area that seems to have been abandoned to the point that vegetation has grown. It isn’t long before you realize the entire facility you are in seems to be in the same state of disrepair! Once you make it a bit further into the facility, you come across an Entropy Time-Manipulation Device that quickly reveals itself to be a sentient AI named Astra.

After meeting your sentient, gun-shaped device, you will come across your first puzzle area and learn the basics. Getting no proper answers from Astra as you solve the first few areas and hearing an automated system send out warnings of a cataclysmic event about to take place on Earth, you will finally reach the main Entropy control room. Here you helplessly watch as the Earth’s cataclysmic event destroys it and your work begins to power up the Entropy device that this whole station is built around using to rewind Earth in time for them to stop the event from happening.

Unfortunately, the Entropy device doesn’t have enough power to take Earth back in time before the cataclysmic event! No worries, as Astra informs you that you can charge the device by solving more puzzles. This begins the journey through the facility where you will learn the truth behind what happened to the facility, where everybody went, and even some details you didn’t know you needed to know about.

Type: Story-Based Puzzle, Light-Platformer
Our Review: 10/10 - read here

The Entropy Centre is out now on PC via Steam, PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, Xbox One, and Xbox Series X|S.

TUNIC

Tunic opens with the titular character awakening on the shore of a strange and mystical island, much like Link does in The Legend of Zelda: Link’s Awakening. The one, major difference is that there’s no clear reason for how Tunic arrived on the island or why the island is significant. These details emerge over time, slowly unraveling as players interact with more and more of the world around them.

There’s an incredible amount of lore to unlock, and taking the time to dig into all the nuances of Tunic’s story offers both compelling, in-game rewards and the satisfaction of uncovering yet another of the game’s many mysteries. There’s even a set of secret objectives that, when completed, unlock the game’s true ending.

Type: Puzzle, Adventure
Our Review: 10/10 - read here

Tunic is available now on PC via Steam, PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, Xbox One, Xbox Series X|S, and Nintendo Switch.

Escape Academy

After visiting an escape room for fun, it doesn’t take long before you realize something is off. Continuing to use escape room puzzle-solving methods, you will end up finding yourself going through a secret entrance and learning that this escape room is actually an surprise entrance exam to see if you are worthy to attend the Escape Academy.

Proving yourself capable, you are offered a chance to attend and to agree you simply have to step on the train. Once you’re there, your first year begins and it is going to be a bit more exciting than you could initially imagine!

Type: Escape Room
Our Review: 9/10 - read here

Escape Academy is now available on PC via Steam and Epic Games Store, PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, Xbox One, Xbox Series X|S, and the Xbox Game Pass.

Lumote: The Mastermote Chronicles

As a little green blob underwater, you may expect some floating or swimming physics, but that is not the case. Instead, you have simple controls: movement, jump, double-jump, and grab. Everything in this game will revolve around these few actions. With these controls, you begin your journey of turning all towers that are red into the color blue.

Type: Puzzle, Platformer
Our Review: 9/10 - read here

Lumote: The Mastermote Chronicles is now available on PlayStation 4, Xbox One, Nintendo Switch, and PC via Steam, GOG, and Epic Games Store.

Q.U.B.E 10th Anniversary

Both versions of Q.U.B.E are playable in this new iteration. The original 2012 version just sticks to the puzzles with no story elements as well as the 2014 Director’s Cut with a fully voiced narrative. The story in Q.U.B.E can have a surprisingly dark tone which I enjoyed quite a bit. You wake up on an alien craft with amnesia and completely isolated from civilization. Your only source of information comes from a voice communicating to you from the international space station. Your goal is to unlock the mystery of the alien craft to stop it from crashing into Earth and killing all of human civilization.

I respected the effort that Q.U.B.E attempts to grab your attention with a puzzle game that has you manipulating cubes for three hours. The game creates a diverging plot by implementing another voice into the mix. This unknown voice is also feeding you information about the cube and starts to create doubts in your mind that everything you are doing and your entire purpose is a lie. These conflicting voices had me constantly guessing which one was telling the truth about my true purpose in the exotic cube.

Type: Puzzle, Platformer
Our Review: 8.5/10 - read here

Q.U.B.E. 10th Anniversary is available now for Xbox Series X|S, Xbox One, PlayStation 5, PlayStation 4, Nintendo Switch, and PC via Steam and EGS.

Eternal Threads

Humanity has let science take themselves too far and has effectively broken the timeline. This left the world in a state that forced an organization to begin putting all their time, effort, and resources into fixing it. However, the only way to fix it is to do the same thing that broke it, only this time more strategically. By that, I mean they have to time travel back to key points in time where their timeline was broken and fix what happened one event at a time.

To do this work, they train agents to be the ones to go back while an operator works from base and communicates with them. Taking the role of Agent 43, you are sent back to a house fire that killed six people that were all supposed to survive. Skipping the obvious step of just preventing the fire, as it shows that that action will have adverse effects further down the timeline, you will have to go through the events that took place in the house over the last eight days and alter the decisions the housemates made in order to ensure they all survive the fire.

Type: Narrative Puzzle
Our Review: 9/10 - read here

Eternal Threads is now available on PC via Steam, PlayStation 4, and Xbox One.

Syberia: The World Before

Continuing the tale of Kate Walker’s journey, this time the story mixes with that of a Dana Roze from the 1930s. After a saddening fate met her partner that was imprisoned with her at the salt mines, Kate vows to hold her promise to pursuit the woman of a painting they found together that looked a lot like her. It turns out, the woman from the painting is Dana.

This journey will take Kate through various parts of the town of Vagner and will coincide with the events that Dana took in her lifetime. While the goal isn’t entirely clear, Kate continues to search for everything she can learn about Dana while she continues this journey. What she wasn’t expecting is just how personally invested she would become with the story, let alone how personal the result of the search would end up becoming.

If you are jumping into Syberia: The World Before as the first game of the series, there is a “Previously” tab on the main menu right when you first load up which will give you a preview of the last three games. It is a great way to get you caught up to where the story is now, even if it doesn’t provide the finer details such as the connection Kate has with a few characters and New York.

Type: Exploration, Narrative Puzzle
Our Review: 9/10 - read here

Syberia: The World Before is available now on PC via Steam, GOG, and Epic Games Store, PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, Xbox One, Xbox Series X|S, and Nintendo Switch.

SILT

Just as we have seen from games like Little Nightmares and Inside, this is one of those games that doesn’t really tell you the story upfront. That means what I am putting here for the story is simply my interpretation of the events and I am doing so in a way that I hope not to provide any spoilers to the game.

Being one of the few divers that are still free to move around, you set out on a mission to restart what is known as ‘The Machine’ but do this you need a lot of power. By restarting the machine, you would be able to free the divers that are trapped. Taking this mission one step at a time, you head out to face off against creatures that harness the power you need for the machine so that you can take the power and apply it to the machine.

Type: Silent Adventure, Puzzle - Light Horror
Our Review: 9.5/10 - read here

Silt is now available on Nintendo Switch, PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, Xbox One, Xbox Series X|S, and PC via Steam, GOG, and Epic Games.

SIGNALIS

After awakening from cryostasis in a wrecked vessel, a Replika named Elster heads out into a cold planet. This journey leads into an unknown underground depth where she learns of a facility that has been lost due to the totalitarian regime of Eusan that keeps an iron grip through aggressive surveillance and propaganda. This venture of finding survivors and fighting through the dystopian nightmare will be the only way for Elster to remember who she is and help her try to find her purpose.

Slight Spoiler worth mentioning: After you reach the first ending and cutscene, it will take you back to the main menu. Be sure to click any of the menu buttons (other than Settings) and continue as the game has an entire level and boss fight after this!

Type: Survival Horror, Map-Wide Puzzle
Our Review: 8.5/10 - read here

SIGNALIS is available now for PC via Steam, PlayStation 4, Xbox One, and Nintendo Switch.

LEGO Bricktales

Basically, if you enjoy the puzzle of building blocks, then this is the game you have been waiting for!

Your grandpa has asked you to come to his science lab in the basement of his rundown amusement park. After you get there, a series of slightly unfortunate events leave your grandpa trapped on a platform. In order to free him, you will need to get the power back up and running while also fixing a few broken things around the room. To do this, you will acquire the aid of a brick-by-brick building machine that your grandpa once built and lost, but has now returned.

Once this is done, your grandpa shows you what he called you over for and that is a cool portal he opened! He doesn’t know how to control it yet, but luckily your building machine does. It’s a good thing too because it isn’t long before your grandpa remembers that he is supposed to get the amusement park back up and running or the mayor is going to close it down permanently!

Once again, your building machine comes in clutch with a suggestion to use a special contraption he learned how to make and is powered by happiness crystals. The problem is, there are no happiness crystals to use! In order to gather them, we will have to travel to different lands and bring happiness to the people so that a crystal can be produced for use to gather and bring back to grandpa to fix one of the rundown rides.

Type: Adventure, Building Blocks
Our Review: 8.5/10 - read here

LEGO Bricktales is available now for PC via Steam, PlayStation 5, PlayStation 4, Xbox Series X|S, Xbox One, and Nintendo Switch.

Honorable Mentions

Of course, this year isn’t the only time to look into the latest puzzle games. Taking a quick look back to 2021, we have:

Escape Simulator

Last year, this puzzle game is one that escape room fans would definitely want to check out. Offering both single and two-player cooperative play options, a handful of pre-built rooms, and a workshop where players can create and upload more unique escape rooms.

Type: Escape Room
Our Review: 8.5/10 - read here
Launch Trailer

Escape Simulator is now available on PC via Steam, PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X|S, and Nintendo Switch.

The Room 4: Old Sins

After being hired to uncover what happened to an ambitious engineer and his high-society wife. Your search brings you to their home, the Waldegrave Manor, and leads you to the attic where you find a strange dollhouse. It doesn’t take long for you to realize the secrets you need are hidden within this tightly secured dollhouse and thus your true work of uncovering its secrets can begin.

If you find that you enjoy this game, I would recommend checking out the entire ‘The Room’ series!

Type: Escape Room
Our Review: 9/10 - read here
Launch Trailer

The Room 4: Old Sins is now available on PC via Steam.