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.

The University of Tokyo's 1979 Heiankyo Alien for the PC-8001 and arcades was an early "trap 'em up" puzzle action game. It was a precursor to later puzzle action games such as Lode Runner.[2]

Blockbuster, by Alan Griesemer and Stephen Bradshaw (Atari 8-bit, 1981), is a computerized version of the Rubik's Cube puzzle.[3] Snark Hunt (Atari 8-bit, 1982) is a single-player game of logical deduction,[4] a clone of the 1970s Black Box board game. Sokoban's crate-pushing puzzles from 1982 have been widely copied and its core mechanic incorporated into other games.

Elements of Konami's action-puzzle game Loco-Motion (1982) are seen in Pipe Mania from LucasArts (1989). Other early puzzle games include puzzle-platformers such as Door Door (1983),[5] Lode Runner (1983), and Doki Doki Penguin Land (1985).[6]

1984's Puzzle Panic for the Atari 8-bit computers specifically uses the word puzzle in the game's title. 1984 also saw the release of action-puzzle game Boulder Dash, where the goal is to collect diamonds while avoiding or exploiting rocks that fall when the dirt beneath them is removed. It led to a number of clones categorized as "rocks and diamonds games."

In 1985, Chain Shot! introduced removing groups of the same color tiles on a grid, then the remaining tiles falling into the created gap.[7] Uncle Henry's Nuclear Waste Dump (1986) has similarities to Tetris, though it was published prior to Tetris reaching the US, and the author claims he hadn't seen it.[8]

Tetris revolutionized and popularized the puzzle game genre.[9][10] The game was created by Soviet game designer Alexey Pajitnov in 1984, who was inspired by a traditional puzzle game named Pentomino in which players arrange falling blocks into lines without any gaps.[9] The game was a moderate success when released by Spectrum Holobyte for MS-DOS in 1987 and Atari Games in arcades in 1988, but it sold 30 million copies on the Game Boy alone.[11]

1991 saw the release of Lemmings.[12] The game involves a series of creatures who mindlessly walk into deadly situations, and the player assigns jobs to specific lemmings to guide the swarm to a safe destination.[11]

1994 was marked by a surge in interest in mahjong video games from Japan.[13][14]

When Minesweeper was released with Windows 95, mainstream audiences embraced using a mouse to play puzzle games.[15]

In 2001, PopCap Games released a graphically-enhanced clone of an obscure 1994 MS-DOS game, Shariki,[16] where the player must touch groups of three or more jewels on a grid, causing them to disappear and new stones to fall into place. A decade later, the match three mechanic was the foundation for popular games, including Candy Crush Saga and Puzzle & Dragons, both from 2012.

Since the release of Portal in 2007, there has been a rise in popularity of physics-based logic puzzle games.

Logical puzzle games exhibit logic and mechanisms that are consistent throughout the entire game. Solving them typically require deductive reasoning skills.

The Splatters, a physics based Xbox Live Arcade game

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.[17] The genre is especially popular in online flash games and mobile games. Educators have used these games to demonstrate principles of physics.[18]

Popular physics-based logic puzzle games include Portal, The Talos Principle, The Witness, Braid, Fez, World of Goo, and Cut the Rope.

These also include projectile collision games such as Angry Birds, Peggle, Monster Strike, and Crush the Castle.

These are logical puzzle games that require programming elements. Examples include The Incredible Machine, SpaceChem, and Infinifactory.

This sub-genre includes point-n-click games that often exhibit similarities with adventure games and walking simulators. Unlike logical puzzle games, these games generally require inductive reasoning to solve. The defining trait is that you must experiment with mechanisms in each level before you can solve them. Puzzle elements often do not have consistency throughout the game, and thus require guessing and checking, and exploration to reveal more of the puzzle.

These include Myst, Limbo, The Dig, Monument Valley, and escape room games such as The Room.

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.[19] Hidden object games are a popular trend in casual gaming,[20][21] and are comparatively inexpensive to buy.[19][20] Time-limited trial versions of these games are usually available for download.

An early hidden object game was Alice: An Interactive Museum. Computer Gaming World reported in 1993 that "one disadvantage of searching through screen after screen for 'switches' is that after a while one develops a case of 'clickitus' of the fingers as one repeatedly punches that mouse button like a chicken pecking at a farmyard".[22] Other early incarnations are the video game adaptations of the I Spy books published by Scholastic Corporation since 1997.

Publishers of hidden object games include Sandlot Games, Big Fish Games, Awem Studio, SpinTop Games, and Codeminion.[19] Examples of hidden object game series include Awakening, Antique Road Trip (both by Boomzap Entertainment), Dream Chronicles (PlayFirst), Mortimer Beckett (RealArcade/GameHouse), Mystery Trackers (by Elephant Games), Hidden Expedition, Mystery Case Files (both by Big Fish Games), and Criminal Case (by Pretty Simple.) [23]

A reveal the picture game is a type of puzzle game that features piece-by-piece revealing of a photo or picture.

In tile-matching video games, 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 the board such as Zuma. Puzzle games based on Tetris include In many recent tile-matching games, 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."

Other examples include Threes, Picross, and Lumines.

There have also been many digital adaptations of traditional puzzle games, including solitaire and mahjong solitaire. Even familiar word puzzles, number puzzles, and association puzzles have been adapted as games such as Dr. Kawashima's Brain Training.[24]