Improve Your Mental Mettle with These Open Source Puzzle Games
Tax Your Brain, Not Your Wallet
Puzzle video games are a type of game that focuses on puzzle solving. A puzzle is a problem or set of problems a player has to solve within the confines of the game.
The puzzle genre often tests problem-solving skills enhancing both analytical and critical thinking skills. Word completion, pattern recognition, logical reasoning, persistence, and sequence solving are some of the skills often required to prosper here. Some games offer unlimited time or attempts to solve a puzzle, others present time-limited exercises which increase the difficulty of the puzzle. Most puzzle games are basic in graphics but are very addictive.
This genre owes its origins to puzzles and brain teasers. Traditional thinking games such as Hangman, Mastermind, and the mathematical game Nim were early computer implementations.
Software developers can shape a gamer’s brain in a multitude of directions — cognitive awareness, logistics, reflexes, memory, to cite a selection — puzzle games are appealing for all ages.
Many of the biggest computer games concentrate on explosion-filled genres. But there’s still strong demand for compelling puzzle games. It’s a neglected genre in the mainstream. Here are our picks of the best games. We only advocate open source games here. And we give preference to games that run on multiple operating systems.
PUZZLE GAMES | |
|---|---|
| Trackballs | Inspired by Marble Madness |
| Fish Fillets - Next Generation | Port of the Puzzle Game Fish Fillets |
| Frozen Bubble | A clone of the popular “Puzzle Bobble” game |
| Neverball | Tilt the Floor to Roll a Ball Game |
| Crack Attack! | Based on the Super Nintendo classic Tetris Attack |
| Brain Workshop | Dual N-Back Game |
| Angry, Drunken Dwarves | “Falling Blocks” Puzzle Game |
| gbrainy | Brain Teaser Game for GNOME |
| Enigma | Huge Collection of Puzzle Games |
| Amoebax | Cute and Addictive Action-Puzzle Game |
| Dinothawr | Save your frozen friends by pushing them onto lava |
| Pingus | Lemmings Like Game |
| Kmahjongg | Remove Matching Mahjongg Tiles to Clear the Board |
For other games, check out our Games Portal page.
Steve Emms
Steve Emms is the main author of OSSBlog.org. This site aims to promote open source software and hardware. Steve has written thousands of articles about open source software. He is also the creator of LinuxLinks.com.
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There’s also Simon Tatham’s collection of puzzle games which are available for most platforms: https://www.chiark.greenend.org.uk/~sgtatham/puzzles/.
Puzzles are auto-generated and range in difficulty from trivial to mind-bending.
Yes, I like these puzzle games too!