Puzzle video games make up a broad genre of video games that emphasize puzzle solving. The types of puzzles can test problem-solving skills, including logic , pattern recognition , sequence solving , spatial recognition , and word completion . Many puzzle games involve a real-time element and require quick thinking, such as Tetris (1985) and Lemmings (1991).
17-428: Drop7 is a puzzle game developed by Area/Code Entertainment, for Android and iOS . The game is played with touch controls on a 7x7 square grid. In each round, the player places a disc that falls from the top of the grid. Each disc has a number 1–7, or a blank. Whenever the number of any disc matches the number of contiguous discs in a row or column, that disc disappears and also hits any blank discs it touches. When
34-409: A blank is hit twice, it turns into a numbered disc. After a number of turns, the round ends and a full row of blank discs emerges from the bottom of the grid. There is no time limit, and discs may be dropped at the player's leisure. The objective is to eliminate discs and score combos for as long as possible until either the grid overflows or the grid is full and it is impossible to place another disc. If
51-497: A series of creatures walk into deadly situations, and a player assigns jobs to specific lemmings to guide the swarm to a safe destination. The 1994 MS-DOS game Shariki , by Eugene Alemzhin, introduced the mechanic of swapping adjacent elements to tile matching games. It was little known at the time, but later had a major influence on the genre. Interest in Mahjong video games from Japan began to grow in 1994. When Minesweeper
68-693: Is a precursor to puzzle-platform games such as Lode Runner (1983), Door Door (1983), and Doki Doki Penguin Land (1985). Blockbuster , by Alan Griesemer and Stephen Bradshaw (Atari 8-bit, 1981), is a computerized version of the Rubik's Cube puzzle. Snark Hunt (Atari 8-bit, 1982) is a single-player game of logical deduction, a clone of the 1970s Black Box board game. Elements of Konami 's tile-sliding Loco-Motion (1982) were later seen in Pipe Mania from LucasArts (1989). In Boulder Dash (1984),
85-415: Is exactly like Normal Mode, except the player (and everyone else in the world) will get the same discs in the same order every time. IGN gave the game an overall rating of 8.5/10. In January 2009, IGN ranked Drop7 #2 on its list of The Top 25 iPhone Games. In their October 2013 issue, Edge retroactively awarded the game ten out of ten, one of only twenty-three games to achieve the highest score in
102-435: Is that the player must experiment with mechanisms in each level before they can solve them. Exploration games include Myst , Limbo , and The Dig . Escape room games such as The Room involve detailed exploration of a single location. Sokoban games, such as its namesake title, or block-pushing puzzle games, involve pushing or pulling blocks on a grid-like space to move them into designated positions without blocking
119-674: The Rope , as well as projectile collision games such as Angry Birds , Peggle , Monster Strike , and Crush the Castle . Programming games require writing code, either as text or using a visual system, to solve puzzles. Examples include Rocky's Boots (1982), Robot Odyssey (1984), SpaceChem (2011), and Infinifactory (2015). This sub-genre includes point-and-click games that often overlap with adventure games and walking simulators . Unlike logical puzzle games, these games generally require inductive reasoning to solve. The defining trait
136-487: The board such as Zuma . Puzzle games based on Tetris include tile-matching games where the matching criterion is to place a given number of tiles of the same type so that they adjoin each other. That number is often three, and the corresponding subset of tile-matching games is referred to as match-three games. Shariki Shariki ( Russian : Ша́рики, "The Marbles") is a puzzle video game written in 1994 for MS-DOS by Russian developer Eugene Alemzhin. The goal of
153-547: The game is to gain progressively higher scores by matching three or more balls of the same color in a line (vertical or horizontal), by swapping adjacent balls. Each swap must result in a match. Matched balls are then removed, and new ones drop from the top to fill the gaps. The game is over when no more matches are possible in the game field. Shariki proved to be influential and eventually many games that closely matched its mechanics arose. Collectively known as tile-matching video games or match-three games, these all revolve around
170-500: The goal is to collect diamonds while avoiding or exploiting rocks that fall when the dirt beneath them is removed. Chain Shot! (1985) introduced removing groups of the same color tiles on a grid, causing the remaining tiles to fall into the gap. Uncle Henry's Nuclear Waste Dump (1986) involves dropping colored shapes into a pit, but the goal is to keep the same color tiles from touching. Tetris (1985) revolutionized and popularized
187-511: The magazine's twenty-year history. In 2015, Edge ranked the game 24th on their top 100 greatest video games. Puzzle video game Puzzle video games owe their origins to brain teasers and puzzles throughout human history. The mathematical strategy game Nim , and other traditional thinking games such as Hangman and Bulls and Cows (commercialized as Mastermind ), were popular targets for computer implementation. Universal Entertainment 's Space Panic , released in arcades in 1980,
SECTION 10
#1733094469672204-399: The movement of other blocks. Similar games include Baba is You and Patrick's Parabox . A hidden object game, sometimes called hidden picture or hidden object puzzle adventure (HOPA), is a genre of puzzle video game in which the player must find items from a list that are hidden within a scene. Hidden object games are a popular trend in casual gaming . In tile-matching video games,
221-405: The player clears the screen of all discs, then the player is given a 70,000 point bonus. There are three modes available – "Normal Mode" is the basic way to play. The player will drop a mixture of colored and gray discs, and the levels will come more frequently as the player goes on; "Blitz Mode" starts with the levels coming quickly, but the player won't be given gray discs to drop; "Sequence Mode"
238-431: The player manipulates tiles in order to make them disappear according to a matching criterion. The genre began with 1985's Chain Shot! and has similarities to falling-block games such as Tetris. This genre includes games that require pieces to be swapped such as Bejeweled or Candy Crush Saga , games that adapt the classic tile-based game Mahjong such as Mahjong Trails , and games in which pieces are shot on
255-474: The puzzle game genre. The game was created by Soviet game designer Alexey Pajitnov for the Electronika 60 . Pajitnov was inspired by a traditional puzzle game named Pentominos in which players arrange blocks into lines without any gaps. The game was released by Spectrum Holobyte for MS-DOS in 1987, Atari Games in arcades in 1988, and sold 30 million copies for Game Boy . In Lemmings (1991),
272-558: Was followed by other physics-based puzzle games. A physics game is a type of logical puzzle video game wherein the player must use the game's physics and environment to complete each puzzle. Physics games use consistent physics to make games more challenging. The genre is popular in online flash games and mobile games . Educators have used these games to demonstrate principles of physics. Physics-based logic puzzle games include The Incredible Machine , Portal , The Talos Principle , Braid , Fez , World of Goo , and Cut
289-515: Was released with Windows 95 , players began using a mouse to play puzzle games. In 2000, PopCap Games released Bejeweled , a direct clone of the 1994 tile-matching game Shariki with improved visuals. It sparked interest in the match-three mechanic which became the foundation for other popular games, including Puzzle Quest: Challenge of the Warlords (2007), Candy Crush Saga (2012), and Puzzle & Dragons (2012). Portal (2007)
#671328