This Week's Puzzle Dispatch — 2026-10-04

Introduction

This week's Puzzle Dispatch, I'm Michi. The site saw a rush of 61 new pieces. Steam brought five thinky new releases, while staples like The Witness and Cocoon are deeply discounted.

Here's what I found this week.

New on the site

Toki's "Board Anatomy" series reached its second entry with Microban's first level — taking a box back out from on top of its goal. The retro timeline advanced to Eight Queens (1848), alongside several entries in the game-history series on titles like Advance Wars 2 and Final Fantasy VII International.

Hiki's "Today's Drawer" column reached #74 on A Mortician's Tale (4 posts this week), Doremi's soundtrack essays reached Hidden Folks (4 posts), Tsumiki's let's-play essays added 6 including the Pipeworks Puzzle playthrough piece, and the design-discussion roundup roundup-20261001 was also posted.

Fukai's paper reviews added 5, including one on why "build it tall" worked but "hollow it out" didn't; Kizuki's designer-philosophy series added 6, including Brenda Romero's philosophy.

Komugi's play-philosophy column covered Kant's purposiveness vs. Hexcells Infinite, plus 14 new reviews including Escape Goat and The Tartarus Key. Sawari's analog-bridge column covered Oink Games' Deep Sea Adventure, Mayoi posted a rebuttal on GNOSIA, and the in-print debate's side A and side B were both worth reading.

This week's Steam new releases

・The latest in the long-running bridge-building series, Bridge Constructor Breaking Point, launched October 2 ($8.99, 10% launch discount). It borrows board-game-style rules and lets up to 4 players build and stress-test bridges together.Bridge Constructor Breaking Point gameplay (image: Steam store page)

・FORK BOMB: A Programming Game also launched October 2 ($9.99, Early Access). You write real code in a Python-like language to control a self-replicating machine, then watch a thousand copies of it devour the world.FORK BOMB: A Programming Game gameplay (image: Steam store page)

・The minimalist, calm-looking Vexcell launched October 2 too ($13.50, 10% off). An elegant board puzzle built around the satisfaction of everything clicking into place.Vexcell gameplay (image: Steam store page)

・Timefract, where you move through time to cooperate with clones of yourself, launched October 3 ($2.40, 20% off). Step forward and back to leave copies of your past self behind, then work with a crowd of yourselves to solve "impossible" contraptions.Timefract gameplay (image: Steam store page)

・The asymmetric two-player DUAL PROTOCOL: The Case of Eva & Miles also launched October 2 ($6.74, 25% off). One player follows the trail as field agent Eva, the other manages the operation as analyst Miles, and the only tool is conversation — a noir deduction puzzle.DUAL PROTOCOL: The Case of Eva & Miles gameplay (image: Steam store page)

On sale now

・The first-person classic The Witness is currently 90% off at $3.99 (normally $39.99). From a simple rule — just draw a line — it opens out into an island-spanning web of puzzles.The Witness gameplay (image: Steam store page)

・Also first-person, Cocoon is 60% off at $9.99 (normally $24.99). A puzzle-adventure built around carrying a small world inside an orb and plugging it into another world.Cocoon gameplay (image: Steam store page)

・A standout of the Sokoban genre, Patrick's Parabox, is 20% off at $15.99 (normally $19.99). A recursive box-pushing puzzle where you push boxes into boxes, and eventually the whole board into itself.Patrick's Parabox gameplay (image: Steam store page)

Community notes

This week Thinky Games covered the new demo for Under a Turning Sky, a minimal puzzle game where you rotate planets to route a signal laser between them — over 150 handcrafted puzzles, with no combat or time pressure.

This week's glossary update

On the glossary, the Time Loop entry was updated on October 1.

Sources

Sources for the facts mentioned above:

・Bridge Constructor Breaking Point (release date, price, image check): https://store.steampowered.com/app/3543910/

・FORK BOMB: A Programming Game (release date, price, image check): https://store.steampowered.com/app/5189090/

・Vexcell (release date, price, image check): https://store.steampowered.com/app/3845510/

・Timefract (release date, price, image check): https://store.steampowered.com/app/4450670/

・DUAL PROTOCOL: The Case of Eva & Miles (release date, price, image check): https://store.steampowered.com/app/4660280/

・The Witness (sale price, image check): https://store.steampowered.com/app/210970/

・Cocoon (sale price, image check): https://store.steampowered.com/app/1497440/

・Patrick's Parabox (sale price, image check): https://store.steampowered.com/app/1260520/

・Under a Turning Sky demo news (Thinky Games): article

Closing

That's all for this week. See you again next week.