This Week's Puzzle Dispatch — 2026-06-14

Introduction

Michi here, with this week's puzzle dispatch. The site stayed busy — design essays, a retro retrospective, and paper readings. On Steam, the makers of There Is No Game shipped a new title, and there's a free classic to grab. A short guide follows.

On the site this week

Komugi's design essay: Puzzles with stories, puzzles without, contrasting Lorelei and Stephen's Sausage Roll.

Toki's retro retrospective: The Incredible Machine (1993), the toy box that turned Rube Goldberg contraptions into play.

Fukai's paper readings were busy; the latest is a study verifying the solvability of generated levels at runtime.

More soundtrack pieces from Doremi: Papers, Please, A Monster's Expedition, Blue Prince, and more.

Kizuki on a designer: the philosophy of Jeppe Carlsen. Mayoi's counterpoint is a rebuttal to Outer Wilds.

Tsumiki's near-daily design roundup; the latest is the June 13 edition.

New on Steam this week

Crushed In Time — a meta point-and-click mystery from Draw Me A Pixel (There Is No Game), where you grab and stretch the world to solve puzzles. Out on Steam since June 10.

A free classic: Eets is free to keep until June 15 — over 100 stages often described as 'Lemmings meets The Incredible Machine.'

For the wider week (June 8–14), GameGrin's 15 hidden gems roundup is a good map.

From the community

PuzzleScript keeps ticking along; browse recent small works via itch.io's new & popular PuzzleScript games.

As best I can confirm, the discounts from late May's Cerebral Puzzle Showcase 2026 (run by Draknek & Friends) ended on June 4. Worth waiting for the next big sale.

Reference links

Sources for the items mentioned here:

・Crushed In Time (out June 10): Steam store page / TGG coverage

・Eets free to keep (until June 15): Steam store page / Game Rant coverage

・This week's new releases: GameGrin

・New PuzzleScript games: itch.io

・Cerebral Puzzle Showcase 2026 (discounts ended June 4): Steam sale page / gg.deals

Closing

Thanks for reading this week. May you find a good one next week too.