MECHANIC INDEX
Mechanics
A vocabulary of the design mechanisms puzzle games are built on, with the games and essays that share each one.
28 mechanics
- Rule Rewriting1 game — Baba Is YouPush word blocks to recompose the grammar of the level — the rules themselves become the solution space.
- Sokoban-style PushingLexicon · Playable · 18 games — Baba Is You / Stephen's Sausage Roll / A Monster's Expedition / Bonfire Peaks / Patrick's Parabox / Snakebird / Void Stranger / English Country Tune / Sokobond / A Good Snowman Is Hard To Build / Isles of Sea and Sky / Snakebird Primer / Can of Wormholes / Pipe Push Paradise / Kine / Jelly Is Sticky / Sokobond Express / Tetrobot and Co.Push objects on a grid, in the lineage of Sokoban. The weight of each irreversible move is the design core.
- Recursion & NestingLexicon · 4 games — Patrick's Parabox / Recursed / Maquette / COCOONBoxes within boxes, worlds within worlds — self-reference and looping scale as puzzle material.
- Impossible Space7 games — Antichamber / Manifold Garden / Lingo / Etherborn / NaissanceE / Monument Valley / HyperbolicaSpaces that defy Euclidean geometry — corridors change behind you, structures repeat forever.
- Perspective TricksLexicon · 6 games — Superliminal / Viewfinder / Maquette / FEZ / Moncage / Monument ValleyWhat you see determines what is — forced perspective resizes objects, photos become places.
- PortalsPlayable · 3 games — Portal / Portal 2 / Portal ReloadedConnect two distant points and carry momentum through — movement itself, reinvented.
- DeductionLexicon · 32 games — Return of the Obra Dinn / Her Story / The Case of the Golden Idol / Lorelei and the Laser Eyes / Blue Prince / The Roottrees are Dead / Strange Horticulture / Botany Manor / The Rise of the Golden Idol / Telling Lies / Shadows of Doubt / The Painscreek Killings / Paradise Killer / Overboard! / Lucifer Within Us / Murder by Numbers / Do Not Feed the Monkeys / The Forgotten City / Duck Detective: The Secret Salami / Chinatown Detective Agency / The Operator / The Shapeshifting Detective / Tangle Tower / Cryptmaster / The Vanishing of Ethan Carter / Gone Home / Strange Antiquities / Unheard ー罪の代弁ー / Scene Investigators / Sherlock Holmes: Crimes and Punishments / AI: The Somnium Files / Contradiction: Spot the Liar!Assemble the truth from scattered fragments — the reasoning happens entirely in the player's head.
- Environmental ObservationLexicon · 35 games — The Witness / Taiji / Outer Wilds / Islands of Insight / Myst III: Exile / Toki Tori 2+ / Obduction / TUNIC / Botany Manor / Call of the Sea / Isles of Sea and Sky / The Painscreek Killings / Pneuma: Breath of Life / The Sexy Brutale / Hidden Folks / ANIMAL WELL / The Looker / FRACT OSC / Riven / Ether One / Quern - Undying Thoughts / Observation / Firmament / Myst / The Vanishing of Ethan Carter / Gone Home / Supraland / TOEM / La-Mulana / Öoo / Tacoma / Scene Investigators / RiME / Minit / THE LONGINGThe world is the puzzle statement — unexplained rules read from the landscape itself.
- Language Decoding10 games — Chants of Sennaar / FEZ / Heaven's Vault / TUNIC / Lingo / Riven / LOK Digital / 7 Days to End with You / Cryptmaster / La-MulanaDecipher unknown scripts from context — hypothesis and verification until words start to mean.
- Time LoopLexicon · 6 games — Outer Wilds / Twelve Minutes / Overboard! / The Sexy Brutale / The Forgotten City / MinitOnly knowledge survives the loop — progress lives in the player's understanding, not the world state.
- Physics SimulationPlayable · 15 games — World of Goo / LIMBO / Half-Life 2: Episode One / Portal 2 / Portal / Quantum Conundrum / Relicta / Poly Bridge / INSIDE / Semblance / Vessel / Little Inferno / Mosa Lina / World of Goo 2 / Scribblenauts UnlimitedGravity, inertia and structures as material — the wobble and collapse are the fun.
- ContraptionsLexicon · 34 games — The Talos Principle / The Talos Principle 2 / Machinarium / Myst III: Exile / Q.U.B.E. 10th Anniversary / Magrunner: Dark Pulse / ChromaGun / The Turing Test / COCOON / The Spectrum Retreat / The Swapper / Obduction / The Entropy Centre / Q.U.B.E. 2 / The Sojourn / Call of the Sea / Lightmatter / Pneuma: Breath of Life / FRACT OSC / Gunpoint / ElecHead / Quern - Undying Thoughts / Hue / Firmament / Magnetic: Cage Closed / Quadrilateral Cowboy / Myst / Ghost Trick: Phantom Detective / Nauticrawl / Syberia 3 / Syberia: The World Before / The Talos Principle: Reawakened / Terra Nil / Scribblenauts UnlimitedSwitches, beams, blocks and gears — compose causal parts into one working machine.
- Point-and-ClickLexicon · 31 games — Machinarium / Syberia / Syberia II / Escape from Monkey Island / Strange Horticulture / Twelve Minutes / Hidden Folks / Ether One / Tangle Tower / Rusty Lake Paradise / Genesis Noir / Little Inferno / Thimbleweed Park / The Past Within / Broken Age / Samorost 3 / Grim Fandango Remastered / Strange Antiquities / TOEM / Syberia 3 / Pony Island / Day of the Tentacle Remastered / Return to Monkey Island / Deponia / Syberia: The World Before / AI: The Somnium Files / Inscryption / CHUCHEL / The Bookwalker: Thief of Tales / Underground Blossom / THE LONGINGComb the scene, connect items to places — the classic adventure grammar.
- Panel Composition3 games — Gorogoa / Storyteller / MoncageOverlay and slide illustrated panels — new meaning emerges at the seams between images.
- Organization3 games — Unpacking / A Little to the Left / Wilmot's WarehousePutting things where they belong is the solution — rightness of fit as the answer.
- Document Inspection2 games — Papers, Please / Orwell: Keeping an Eye On YouCross-check documents for contradictions — an ethics-and-attention puzzle shaped like paperwork.
- Constrained Grid MovementLexicon · Playable · 10 games — Snakebird / A Monster's Expedition / Snakebird Primer / Arranger / Can of Wormholes / Kine / Paper Trail / Into the Breach / Tetrobot and Co. / Lara Croft GOYour own body and trail become the obstacle — movement puzzles about why a step won't work.
- Match Action2 games — Zuma Deluxe / Tetris Effect: ConnectedReal-time matching that demands reflexes and lookahead at once.
- Puzzle Platformer28 games — LIMBO / The Pedestrian / Psychonauts / Recursed / Toki Tori 2+ / Braid, Anniversary Edition / The Swapper / The Bridge / INSIDE / NaissanceE / ANIMAL WELL / Mind Over Magnet / Contrast / Teslagrad / Gunpoint / Semblance / ElecHead / Hue / Vessel / Creaks / Somerville / Mosa Lina / Supraland / Closure / Linelight / La-Mulana / Öoo / RiMEPuzzles embedded in the grammar of jumping and moving — bodily control meets abstract thought.
- Map Building4 games — Blue Prince / Carto / Dorfromantik / Terra NilYou choose and append the space as you go — the map is a record of your decisions.
- Programming & Instruction Writing20 games — SpaceChem / Opus Magnum / SHENZHEN I/O / Infinifactory / Human Resource Machine / Turing Complete / TIS-100 / 7 Billion Humans / EXAPUNKS / MOLEK-SYNTEZ / while True: learn() / Last Call BBS / Silicon Zeroes / Quadrilateral Cowboy / Kaizen: A Factory Story / The Signal State / HUMANITY / Pony Island / shapez / DuskersNot solving but building — write instructions or wiring, let the machine do the work, then optimize forever.
- Routing & Line Drawing19 games — Cosmic Express / Filament / The Witness / The Pedestrian / Islands of Insight / Understand / Golf Peaks / The Looker / Railbound / while True: learn() / Please, Touch The Artwork / Tin Hearts / LYNE / Sokobond Express / Paper Trail / Linelight / HUMANITY / Mini Metro / Lara Croft GOThe answer is where the line goes — fit a path into a finite board, bound by order and crossings.
- Logic Grid Deduction14 games — Islands of Insight / Taiji / Hexcells Infinite / Understand / Tametsi / Murder by Numbers / LOK Digital / 14 Minesweeper Variants / SquareCells / Last Call BBS / LYNE / Into the Breach / Is This Seat Taken? / Keep Talking and Nobody ExplodesFix the board from clue numbers and rules alone — the pencil-puzzle lineage with luck and guessing removed.
- Escape Rooms & Puzzle Boxes14 games — Lorelei and the Laser Eyes / The Room / The Room Three / Escape Academy / Rusty Lake Paradise / The Room Two / The Room 4: Old Sins / The Past Within / We Were Here Forever / Escape Simulator / The House of Da Vinci / Inscryption / Keep Talking and Nobody Explodes / Underground BlossomA single room or box, peered into and turned open — the tighter the space, the deeper the nesting.
- Time Manipulation10 games — Braid, Anniversary Edition / The Entropy Centre / The Gardens Between / Timelie / Tin Hearts / Ghost Trick: Phantom Detective / Day of the Tentacle Remastered / Portal Reloaded / The Talos Principle: Reawakened / SUPERHOTRewind, stop, scrub — time as a resource you move, causality assembled from the end backwards.
- Searching the Archive15 games — Her Story / IMMORTALITY / The Roottrees are Dead / Telling Lies / Shadows of Doubt / Lucifer Within Us / Do Not Feed the Monkeys / Chinatown Detective Agency / The Operator / The Shapeshifting Detective / Observation / Tacoma / Unheard ー罪の代弁ー / Orwell: Keeping an Eye On You / Contradiction: Spot the Liar!Search and surveil the records others left — one verb, and the reordering happens entirely on the player's side.
- Light & Shadow7 games — The Sojourn / Lightmatter / NaissanceE / Contrast / Creaks / Somerville / ClosureOnly the lit is real — shadows become paths or teeth, and aiming the light rewrites the board.
- Magnetism & Gravity10 games — Magrunner: Dark Pulse / Manifold Garden / Quantum Conundrum / English Country Tune / The Bridge / Etherborn / Relicta / Mind Over Magnet / Teslagrad / Magnetic: Cage ClosedAttract, repel, choose which way is down — switch invisible fields to rearrange space and matter.