Puzzle games
The history of puzzle games can be traced back centuries ago and with the birth of PC, the complexity and ingenuity of these games have risen rapidly. Puzzle games genre's focus is put on testing player's thinking skills, such as pattern recognition, word completion, sequence solving and logic. Essentially, quick reflexes and coordination are not as important in these. Puzzle games exist in various forms, such as strategic, tactical, logical, trivia, word puzzles, action puzzles and many more. Puzzle games often include time limitation or a prefixed number of lives. Many traditional and already familiar real-life puzzle games like solitaire have their digital adaptations made as well.
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With a vast variety of puzzle games on the market, one can get lost in selection. For that to not happen puzzles are categorized in types and there's a bunch of them, the most common are traditional, action, arcade, hidden object, tile-matching, and puzzles that involve physics. Of course, there are many more. Here's a bit more info about the ones mentioned above:
- Traditional – old and already familiar games adapted to digital variants, a good example is Solitaire.
- Action/arcade – real-time environment, often limited time, can involve intense action as a secondary element to the puzzle solving. Such puzzles are often implemented in action/arcade or adventure genre games, good examples are Shadow of the Colossus or The Legend of Zelda.
- Hidden object – as the name suggests, a player is required to find certain objects or items in a given environment. Dark Realm and Haunted Legends are good examples.
- Tile-matching – a player is required to match a certain number of tiles to advance further. Candy Crush instantly comes to mind.
- Physics-based puzzles – such games take in-game physics into account and are very useful for understanding the principles of physics. These games are often created as flash games or games to be played on your mobile platform.