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17 reviews · 2 essays
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Last Week's Releases — May 25, 2026
Two puzzle releases from last week. With Thinky Direct 2026 and the Cerebral Puzzle Showcase dominating, attention went to demos and announcements — but two games actually launched: Map Map and EMUUROM.
Best Thinking-Puzzle Games on Steam 2025 — 10 Picks from Meta-Puzzles to Observation Mysteries
Ten indie thinking-puzzle games on Steam, picked for the sharpness of their design. From meta-puzzles to observation, recursion, and Sokoban-likes.
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Quantum Conundrum
A first-person physics puzzler in which a boy searches a deranged mansion for his missing inventor uncle, armed with the Interdimensional Shift Device. Swap between four dimensions — Fluffy makes heavy things weightless, Reverse Gravity flips the pull, Slow slows time — and bend boxes and physics to clear each room. Built by Portal's lead designer Kim Swift (as reported) and published by Square Enix.
puzzlepuzzle-platformerfirst-personThe Swapper
A 2D puzzle-platformer where a gun lets you spawn up to four clones and swap your consciousness between them as you descend the derelict space station Theseus. Red and blue lights bar cloning and swapping in a tight grammar while a lonely clay-modeled world quietly asks what the self is — from Facepalm Games.
puzzlepuzzle-platformersci-fiBraid, Anniversary Edition
A single-player puzzle-platformer where you rewind, pause and bend the rules of time, world by world, to clear 2D hazards and assemble jigsaw pieces. Thekla's remaster of the 2008 indie classic — fully repainted, with hours of developer commentary.
puzzleplatformerlogicToki Tori 2+
A puzzle adventure across an open forest island where your only moves are whistle and stomp. You never unlock new abilities — only knowledge of how each creature behaves — in Two Tribes' 'Metroidbrainia.'
puzzlemetroidvaniaVoid Stranger
A 2D Sokoban puzzler in which you lift a floor tile with a rod and set it down elsewhere, descending a forgotten labyrinth past traps and foes. From a handful of verbs grow bottomless puzzles and a hidden story — made by System Erasure.
puzzlesokoban-likemeta-puzzleStoryteller
A puzzle about arranging characters and scenes across comic panels to satisfy a given story title — love, revenge, jealousy — making each prompt come true as a few-panel tale. A compact narrative puzzle by Daniel Benmergui.
puzzlenarrativeThe Spectrum Retreat
A first-person puzzler set in the art-deco Penrose Hotel: you pull a colour out of one wall, carry it, and hand it to a matching barrier to open the way. Steam sits at 'Mostly Positive,' 76% of 223 (snapshot 2026-06-16); opinion splits over its double structure of puzzle and story.
puzzlefirst-personnarrative-puzzleChromaGun
A first-person puzzle where you fire colored paint at walls and roving droids, mixing primary colors to lure each droid onto a matching panel — a Portal-style test-chamber game built on a single verb: painting.
puzzlefirst-personCosmic Express
A route-drawing puzzle: lay down train tracks to pick up and drop off cute alien passengers in the right order, fitting one winding path into a tight grid.
puzzlepathfindingsokoban-likeFilament
A puzzle game where you steer a small probe to wrap a single trailing cable around pillars, solving each room of an abandoned spaceship with one unbroken, non-crossing line.
puzzlelogicnarrative-puzzleThe Turing Test
A first-person sci-fi puzzle on a moon of Jupiter: redirect energy orbs between sockets to open doors and cross a series of test chambers, wrapped in a story about machine and human judgment.
puzzlefirst-personnarrative-puzzleIslands of Insight
A sprawling open-world puzzle game with thousands of hand-crafted puzzles — line-drawing, observation, logic — scattered across a fantasy realm to solve at your own pace.
puzzleopen-worldlogicThe Pedestrian
A 2D puzzle-platformer where you rearrange and wire together public signs, building a path through the signage for a little stick figure to cross a living city.
puzzleplatformerassemblySnakebird
A snakebird grows by eating fruit, and must use its lengthening body to solve grid-based puzzles. A thoughtful sokoban-like about shape and constraint.
puzzlesokoban-likeManifold Garden
A first-person puzzle about choosing your gravity inside an Escher-esque world of infinitely repeating architecture.
puzzlefirst-personexplorationRecursed
A 2D puzzle that translates recursion into a tiny pixel-art room. The grandfather of Patrick's Parabox.
puzzleplatformerrecursiveBonfire Peaks
A Sokoban about closure — carry your belongings to the bonfire and let them burn.
puzzlesokoban-like
