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A Dark Room (2013) — The Single Fire Lit in a Room Made Only of Words
On June 10, 2013, a browser game with no images and no sound was released: A Dark Room. All it showed was a line of text and a button. Built by Michael Townsend, this experiment arrived amid the same season that produced Candy Box! and Cookie Clicker, but set itself apart with a hidden narrative. Ported to iOS by a stranger, Amir Rajan, it rose in 2014 to the top of Apple's official paid games chart. This piece traces how a single hobby project, running on nothing but imagination, climbed to the top of the market.
Skipping Stones to Lonely Homes (2015) — The Bridge of Thrown Stones That Reached a Cosmic Train
On 21 August 2015, British puzzle designer Alan Hazelden released Skipping Stones to Lonely Homes, a free browser game. In it you throw stones to build bridges and search a shipwreck for timber, all built in PuzzleScript. This small work, born outside Steam, is linked — in the designer's own words — through that year's prototype Train Braining and the 2017 commercial release Cosmic Express, all the way to Order of the Sinking Star, a major puzzle title announced for 2026. I trace this decade-long voyage.
Skipping Stones to Lonely Homes (2015) — Throwing Stones Across Islands, the Free PuzzleScript Game That Fathered Two Descendants
On 31 August 2015, London-based puzzle designer Alan Hazelden quietly published a free browser game on his own site: Skipping Stones to Lonely Homes. A Sokoban-lineage puzzle built on indirect action — throwing stones whose ripples move distant lilypads — it is, by Hazelden's own account, the prototype behind the 'spiritual successor' A Monster's Expedition (2020), and one of the starting points for Jonathan Blow's decade-in-the-making Order of the Sinking Star (2026). This piece traces how one free hobbyist game fed into two major descendants a decade later.
Free Daily Puzzle Games in Your Browser — The 2026 Guide (No Account Needed)
No installs, no sign-ups — just open a browser and today's puzzle is waiting. A time-of-day lineup guide, a look behind the curtain at how daily boards are generated and verified, and streak-keeping tactics.
Auditorium (2008) — The Birth of a Puzzle That Paints With Sound, in a Browser
In April 2008, Philadelphia studio Cipher Prime released the music puzzle Auditorium as a browser Flash game. Players redirect streams of light particles through control points to fill color-matched audio containers, completing a soundtrack as they solve. This article traces its detour through iOS, PS3, and PSP before it finally reached Steam in 2012.
Mini Metro (2013) — A Transit Map Born from a 48-Hour Game Jam
In April 2013, the Curry brothers of New Zealand built a weekend prototype called 'Mind the Gap' for Ludum Dare 26. This article traces how a minimalist transit puzzle, born from admitting what its makers couldn't do, became a Steam Early Access title in 2014 and shipped as Mini Metro in 2015.
