10 Best Puzzle Games for Beginners

Thanks to the video game industry's diversity, you can spend years of your life enjoying the interactive medium without ever touching entire genres.

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I started with MMORPGs and didn't play my first FPS until ten years later, for example, and instances like this abound in an art form where tastes, both for creating and playing games, are extremely mixed.

This multiplicity also extends to the genres themselves, as each one has its own branches that allow you to enjoy completely different formats, even though the core gameplay remains the same.

Therefore, in order to reconcile this depth with the desire to explore a new style of play, I invite you to read this list of ten best puzzle games for beginners.

10 Arrog

Aesthetically Beautiful, Mechanically Accessible

Assuming your knowledge of puzzle titles is completely nonexistent, or even your affinity for video games in general, Arrog is an excellent starting point thanks to its beauty and accessibility.

Lasting only thirty minutes, the game takes you through a series of constellation puzzles where you have to align shapes to allow the stars to flow, along with minor interactions related to choosing the order of certain actions in different contexts.

The true strength of its premise lies in its thoughtful story and stunning visuals, which boast a magnificent, impressive aesthetic, and it's also a great introduction to puzzles because it relies more on traditional logic than on the usual mechanical tropes found in video games.

Furthermore, the feeling of having finished a game always provides a boost of motivation that encourages you to keep progressing to see what new challenges you can overcome, making Arrog a simply perfect debut title for you in the genre.

9 PancitoMerge

Gastronomic Complexities

A few years ago, a physics-based puzzle phenomenon called Suika Game became a global sensation, sparking a craze for the concept that spawned successors like PancitoMerge.

With its charming art style and Mexican setting, its premise is as simple as combining various ingredients from the Central American country's rich gastronomy to create increasingly complex desserts.

Considering you're in a shop and can give away the desserts you make to the diverse clientele who come to your store, it's a pleasant experience that emphasizes the unique aspect of making judgments on the fly, adapting to the circumstances presented by randomness.

Anticipating upcoming decisions before releasing a meal, knowing which item to discard from the bag to free up more space, taking into account the physics inside to know where your throws will land... PancitoMerge is simple but with a discernible challenge, allowing you to advance in the genre's complexities.

8 Is This Seat Taken?

Particular Locations for Particular People

Choosing where to sit in public places isn't usually a fun activity, but Is This Seat Taken? transforms a routine task into a truly charming and tough gameplay experience.

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As the chair coordinator in this delightful world of geometric shapes, each level presents you with a group of inhabitants who have their own preferences regarding where they want to sit, forcing you to juggle all their wants and whims.

It might seem simple, but when you're faced with a bus of 20 people who don't want to be near anyone, avoid smelly people, or be near a specific person, you realize that straightforward premises can also be complex.

Each level is demanding in itself, though the best thing about Is This Seat Taken? is how it adapts each one to a different situation, with evolving mechanics that blend seamlessly with the environments it presents, making the experience truly commendable.

7 Dead Take

Horror's Cryptic Side

Since we already have pattern-recognition puzzle games, physics-based adventures, and experiences with specific victory conditions, we also need to highlight projects like Dead Take to cover the popular horror variant.

The combination of both genres has been remarkably consistent over the decades, but this particular game leans more towards mechanical dilemmas than entity chases or jump scares, creating an imbalance that, for this occasion, works in this list's favor.

However, it's also worth including simply because it's phenomenal, with a great atmosphere of tension, an intriguing story about frustrated filmmakers, and highly creative puzzles that, in addition to being cognitively challenging, have the added pressure of being in a mansion that wants to drive you away.

Said fusion of sensationsthe calm that comes with solving a puzzle and the pressure of being in an unwelcoming placeis what makes Dead Take so compelling, as it prepares you for two genres simultaneously through thought-provoking trials, exploration, item-based progression, and more.

6 Arashi Gaiden

A Turn-Based Puzzle

Part of the genre's charm is that, with enough abstraction, anything can be considered a puzzle game, which is a concession I'll make specifically to include Arashi Gaiden.

This grid-based title is also a turn-based game where your warrior moves through levels against mobile opponents with diverse characteristics, whom you must defeat by passing over them with vertical or horizontal movements (like a chess rook) and using your abilities.

Nevertheless, as the positions of the enemies and environmental elements within the small stages are always the same, each combat feels like a puzzle with limited possible responses where you struggle to retry from the beginning to find the exact combination of movements, powers, and positioning to advance.

Except for the boss fights, which are more dynamic and hardly feel turn-based, Arashi Gaiden is an extraordinary opportunity to try a challenge where the density of solutions encourages creativity in deciphering conflicts, rejecting the static comfort of traditional puzzles.

5 Pony Island

The Devil's Designs

Daniel Mullins is among the scene's most innovative independent developers, and through Pony Island, he introduces his frequent fourth-wall breaks, which, coincidentally, are often seen in the puzzle genre.

I admit this is a bold recommendation because the challenges the game presents are so varied and unique that it's almost difficult to assign it to a distinct subgenre, though that's precisely where the value of this suggestion lies.

It's not only a captivating work due to its aesthetics and singularity, but it also prepares you for the lack of structure and linearity that the genre has exhibited in its modern state, where many products opt for unique ideas with few precedents.

Belonging to a single genre helps generate patterns useful for subsequent experiences, but Pony Island is the necessary break that teaches you that you won't always be familiar with the mechanics and, therefore, relearning is always essential.

4 Superliminal

Dependent on the Perspective

Changing perspectives is undoubtedly a crucial skill for puzzle games, but this takes on a considerably different meaning when it comes to Superliminal.

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Instead of being a metaphor, it becomes a reality, as the entire gameplay revolves around the camera's viewpoint, which helps to alter the size of the items and environments around you.

The complexity increases through a less intuitive design where the possibilities are numerous but the answers few, forcing you to think outside the box constantly to solve its intricate visual challenges.

I wouldn't dare say it's difficult, though it's founded on a premise previously unseen on the rest of the list, and the magnificently captivating nature of its concept demands a level of concentration from the player far above the average.

3 Desktop Explorer

As Creative as Demanding

Desktop Explorer is a recent marvel of puzzle games I'm including as a recommendation for beginners only if you've surpassed the list's entries so far, because it's an amalgamation of mixed styles that elevates its proposal's intricacy.

Puzzles based on texts, images, exploration, items, visualsyou name it: if it's ever existed in the history of this genre, chances are this intriguing detective story about computer culture between the '90s and 2000s has it represented.

It's both an ode to everything that came before it and an extremely creative iteration of it, permeated by a genuinely interesting story involving family traumas, the difficulties of adolescence, and the problems of online anonymity.

That being said, Desktop Explorer represents a significant leap in difficulty compared to the other entries on the list, so its exceptional quality will be reserved for those who have decided to delve deeply into the genre.

2 Return of the Obra Dinn

Written Connections

Knowledge-based puzzle games are among the least common but, with representatives of this breed like Return of the Obra Dinn, you truly come to appreciate each one as if it were the last bottle of water in the desert.

This type of experience relies strictly on the information the player possesses about its universe, which they gradually uncover in order to draw their own conclusions without the developers' guidance.

In this case, the objective is to discover what happened on a ship whose dozens of crew members perished, allowing us to travel back in time to see their respective demises and, in the process, identify them to complete the events' record.

Return of the Obra Dinn is centered on deduction, as inference is what allows you to know the crew members' causes of death, nationalities, responsibilities, names, etc., and blind guesses won't cut it; you have to correctly identify three at a time for your guesses to count as correct.

It's a masterful combination of setting and history to envelop an outstanding playable concept, which will have you revisiting the past again and again until you finally reveal what transpired at the Obra Dinn.

1 Portal

Time to Include Movement

Portal is a must-play for both newcomers and veterans of the industry because it encapsulates many of the reasons why this medium is so amazing, though for the former, it comes with an exigent novelty.

Unlike most titles, Valve's game isn't just about deciphering the logical sequences of each puzzle you encounter; it also demands the movement and reflexes of a first-person shooter.

Although there are no enemies to shoot, but rather walls to direct the portals that shape each level, simply knowing what to do isn't enough, as you also need the motor skills to execute it, which becomes increasingly difficult as the campaign progresses.

All of this, of course, is within a framework of relative accessibility that prevents Portal from being frustrating, but both your brain and your hands must be in the right positions to fully experience this hilarious yet unsettling story.

However, the effort is worthwhile both because it's a masterpiece and because it encompasses the final qualities you will need to master the puzzle genre regardless of the variations you'll encounter.

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