Welcome once again to our weekly newsletter with puzzle game news, new and upcoming releases, giveaways, deals and bundles, spotlight on a lesser-known or forgotten game, and other stuff.

Greetings to those who’ve joined since last week! If you found us through a link to the newsletter, read the group overview to see what else we can offer, visit the forum for puzzle discussion, follow our curator for reviews and recommendations, check out our Basic Functionality and Accessibility Guide on how to improve your games, and tell your friends if you like what you see. Thanks!

The official event of the week is the Steam Sports Fest, not that relevant for puzzle lovers, but there are at least two excellent puzzle games included, Pup Champs and Golf Peaks, and a good-looking puzzle-adventure, Jusant.

Next week, the big Steam Winter Sale starts.

The annual holiday giveaway bonanza on SteamGifts[www.steamgifts.com] is on, with 5 free giveaway entries each day.

Ideally, every group member would follow our curator and vice versa, but until then, here's the changelog. And don't forget our many lists based on themes and subgenres.

New Curatees with Full Reviews:

• A Case of Fraud (point&click, detective)
  
• Halloween Secrets: The Blood Vow CE (hidden object)
  
• Kaidogaku (logic)
  
• PANIK (strategy)
  
• Rhombus (3D puzzles, metroidbrainia)

New Curatees with Mini-Reviews:

• Star Freight (logic, path optimization)

Please let us know in the Curator Info thread if you'd like to write mini-reviews (max. 200 characters, positive or negative) for puzzlers that aren't curated by us yet. Examples and inspiration can be found on the Group Member Recommendations list.

The giveaways are on SteamGifts, but no need to create an account, just visit the site and log in through Steam. Good luck!

Both kubic[www.steamgifts.com] and Monkey King: Five Elements Survival[www.steamgifts.com] are available only for our group members, courtesy of the developers.

If you have your own puzzler, adventure, demo, or some new content coming out on mobile or PC? Let us know in the forum or by adding sdumitriu on Steam Chat.

Free Game Highlights:

• Bleentoro (casual)
  
• Built to Scale Solitaire (card game)
  
• Dungeon Run (casual, hidden object)
  
• The Fox, The Forest & The Darkness (casual, mystery)
  
• Hidden Cats vs Zombies 2 (hidden object)
  
• I Sell Lemonade: Prologue (time-management)
  
• Jurassic Wrap (platformer)
  
• Mahjong Realms (board game)
  
• Pigment (platformer)

Paid Games - Now Free:

• Cyber Workshop (casual, strategy)
  
• Era of Miracles[freebies.indiegala.com] (adventure, rpg)
  
• Tiny Divide (point&click)
  
• Turn It Around (maze)

New Content:


https://store.steampowered.com/app/2290770/The_Art_of_Reflection/

If Portal teaches you thinking with portals, The Art of Reflection teaches you thinking with mirrors. A phenomenal game all about reflections and illusions. Master entering mirrors to flip the world, reach faraway places, or even escape infinity. Highly recommended.

https://store.steampowered.com/app/3279410/The_Case_of_the_Worst_Day_Ever/

A very challenging fill-in-the-blanks detective game about real life. Instead of gruesome murders like in The Golden Idol, solve mundane mysteries like why is the cat smelly. Cute graphics, relatable misadventures, and a peaceful detective game anyone can try. I haven’t played a lot of it yet, but everybody else praises its difficult, yet well-thought-out cases. Highly recommended.

https://store.steampowered.com/app/4031810/The_Curse_We_Made/

A short point-and-click game with plenty of small and easy puzzles, a little bit creepy but more sad than scary. A decent little relaxing puzzle.

https://store.steampowered.com/app/3706120/excellent/

Sokoban inside Excel? Intriguing! Solve math riddles by pushing cells in a spreadsheet. In each level, the goal is to achieve a specific outcome, such as a number, a letter, or a phrase. Given a few blocks with words or numbers, as well as a few operations like “sum”, “concat”, or “left”, you can combine them repeatedly until you get the right result. It might sound boring, but it’s not, especially when references and recursion become part of the solution. Minimalist implementation, but the levels are good. I just wish there were a quick glossary of all the operators, since I often find myself going back to the tutorial to re-figure out how they behave.

https://store.steampowered.com/app/4153270/Kaidogaku/

A logic game, place symbols in a grid to match the row/column clues. If a row says ABAD, there are, in order, those symbols in the row, but since there are spaces as well, you don't know exactly where they are. Combine with column clues to find out where each letter belongs. I'm sure this must already have a name, but I don’t recall. It's a bit like nonograms with more than just black and white. 3 different variants, grid sizes from 5x5 to 13x13, infinite random levels, basic but decent QoL, recommended as a pen&paper logic game.

https://store.steampowered.com/app/3965930/Puzzle_Parasite/

A puzzle game with large levels and mechanics that feel like playing cricket (the British baseball). Move magic balls around to open gates, but the different types of balls respond to just some of your abilities. There are balls you can fetch, carry, and hit with your bat, but there are also balls that you can’t fetch or can’t hit, and probably balls that you can’t carry.

https://store.steampowered.com/app/2891580/Puzzled_Hive/

Multilayered pathfinding game, explore a “beehive” with many chambers and many layers, going up and down ladders to unlock doors and reach deeper into the hive. A decent puzzler full of resource management riddles and 3D exploration.

https://store.steampowered.com/app/3192970/Star_Freight/

Transfer resources between planets. Each level is a network of planets, each with resources it has to offer and resources it needs. You must find a path with your small cargo ship between the planets until all the resources are moved to the right planet, ideally with the smallest number of moves. 100 levels, more mechanics like planets forbidding certain cargo, and perishable cargo that must be delivered quickly.

https://store.steampowered.com/app/1961850/Toroban/

Like the movie Inception, but Sokoban. Clear? No? To put it simply, recursive Sokoban in nested toroidal levels. Clear? No? Let me provide more details. The whole game takes place on one giant map, with different areas behaving as levels you can go into, both with your “level 1” avatar as part of the overworld, and by going deeper into delimited areas with level 2, 3, 4, and so on avatars. Each time your level N avatar goes into a smaller part of the level, level N+1 avatars wake up and become conscious. And each level wraps around, blurring every notion of an edge so that going out of what would be the right side just puts you back through the left side, with many copies of the level and many copies of you moving in sync in the infinite world. Lots of resulting mechanics are thoroughly explored in increasingly mind-bending levels, feeling a lot like Patrick’s Parabox and Recursed, but highly recommended.

And the Rest:

• And Eyes To See : Escape Room (escape room)
  
• Drop: Save the Forest (action puzzle, educational, metroidvania): A cute puzzle about putting out forest fires. Play as Drop, a sentient water drop sent by the clouds to extinguish fires. Each level has a few stages, leaning either on the puzzle or the action side, and after finishing all the stages, you get a reward, like a new power you can use, or more health, plus a bit of information about the thing you saved. Not too hard, great for the whole family.
  
• The Kintsugi Cat (block puzzle, jigsaw, map coloring problem): A block puzzle variant, place shapes to form a shape, with the extra restriction that tiles of the same color cannot be neighbors.
  
• Linker Vibe (numberlink, logic): A simple numberlink implementation.
  
• Mahjong Realms (mahjong solitaire)
  
• Squared Straight (Rubik’s cube variant): Sequel to Glow Cubes, more Rubik’s variants, in even more sizes.
  
• Sweepminer (minesweeper): Looks like the classic minesweeper, but it’s actually mixed with different other games: push mines like in Sokoban, eat them like a Snake, chase them like Whack-a-Mole…
  
• Twistingo: Tree of Life Collector’s Edition (hidden object, minigames)

Highlighting a short and free puzzle game every week!

A new daily adventure from Thinky Games! Each day, a new puzzle awaits you, but instead of a single puzzle type, each day has something new to offer, from classics like nonograms and one-line, to unique riddles like the 3rd day slippers problem. Currently in early access, you must first solve a riddle to be allowed access. There’s an overall story, with the adventures of the Thinky mascot, trying to wake up, find the perfect slippers, fix a hot shower, avoid puddles… Lovely art, good puzzles, and all of the past games are available, so you don’t have to suffer from FOMO. Works in a browser, even on a phone.

Highlighting another free puzzle game every week!

One more submission from the ThinkyCon Jam. Try to copy a target painting, but you’re only allowed to use inconvenient brush shapes. Choose a brush, combine your colors carefully, and aim to keep the palette vibrant instead of muddy. Quite challenging for such a simple concept, especially if you’re trying to get the star for using the fewest “brush strokes”. I just wish there was an Undo. Works in a browser, even on a phone.

Every week, we’ll pick a puzzler that we like and then try to push it down everyone's throats. But with love, of course… because it's so good. Or highlight a lesser-known title that's unlikely to get curated. Comment below if you'd like to write about an undeservedly forgotten game for our next newsletter![/i]

A Monster’s Expedition is two games in one. On one hand, it’s a cute and cozy puzzler, full of charm and humor, with a little monster exploring an archipelago of connected islands, pushing logs to make bridges or rafts to move between islands, and exploring the museum of misunderstood human artifacts. On the other hand, it’s a devilishly hard metapuzzle, with very hard to reach secrets that will require you to use the trees in “unintended” ways. Whether you’re looking for a cute puzzle or a serious challenge, A Monster's Expedition is the right fit.

https://store.steampowered.com/app/1052990/A_Monsters_Expedition/

Show the world how good (or bad) you are at puzzle games by submitting your Workshop levels, guides, walkthroughs, mods, artwork inspired by a puzzler, or whatever, even if it's not a game curated by us, in this forum thread or below in the comments to be featured here next time.

Nana’s guide for Jam's Adjustable Mirrors.

Here are a few quick & easy ways you can help us out. A little can go a long way; otherwise, we'll never achieve world domination.

• Feedback is important, so let us know what you like or don't like.
  
• Follow our curator and get notified about new additions and reviews.
  
• Tell your puzzle- and/or adventure-loving friends and your favorite developers about us and our Basic Functionality and Accessibility Guide.

Welcome once again to our weekly newsletter with puzzle game news, new and upcoming releases, giveaways, deals and bundles, spotlight on a lesser-known or forgotten game, and other stuff.

Greetings to those who’ve joined since last week! If you found us through a link to the newsletter, read the group overview to see what else we can offer, visit the forum for puzzle discussion, follow our curator for reviews and recommendations, check out our Basic Functionality and Accessibility Guide on how to improve your games, and tell your friends if you like what you see. Thanks!

Another month flew by… A few good releases in October, I particularly enjoyed Puzzle Depot, NULLPTR, A Case of Fraud, Rhombus, Spell Slide, and Sliding Hero. December is off to a great start, with The Art of Reflection and Toroban already released.

Public nominations for the 2025 Thinky Awards[thinkygames.com] are now open, only for this week, so go and vote for your favorite games!

And the fifth edition of the Confounding Calendar[confoundingcalendar.itch.io] started, with one little puzzle game released every day.

Ideally, every group member would follow our curator and vice versa, but until then, here's the changelog. And don't forget our many lists based on themes and subgenres.

New Curatees with Full Reviews:

• Locked Together (horror)
  
• Markov Alg (programming)
  
• Mind Diver (adventure)
  
• Sisyphus Is a Bug (platformer)

New Curatees with Mini-Reviews:

• Dotu (logic)
  
• Home for Friends: Loving Paws CE (hidden object)
  
• Minesweeper Big Bomb (logic)

Please let us know in the Curator Info thread if you'd like to write mini-reviews (max. 200 characters, positive or negative) for puzzlers that aren't curated by us yet. Examples and inspiration can be found on the Group Member Recommendations list.

The giveaways are on SteamGifts, but no need to create an account, just visit the site and log in through Steam. Good luck!

Both Sweet Home 3: Look and Find [www.steamgifts.com] and Ornate Machina: The Thousand Trials[www.steamgifts.com] are available only for our group members, courtesy of the developers.

If you have your own puzzler, adventure, demo, or some new content coming out on mobile or PC? Let us know in the forum or by adding sdumitriu on Steam Chat.

Free Game Highlights:

• Chronigma (logic, time travel)
  
• FOGGY Golf (casual, golf, daily)
  
• Green Wave (casual, strategy)
  
• Million Card Game (card game)
  
• MindEscape (escape room)
  
• Piczle World of Puzzles (casual)
  
• The Shadow of Shadows (adventure, casual)
  
• Tichupro by Spectrum (card game)

Paid Games - Now Free:

• ChessExtra (board game)
  
• Dude Called Barry (platformer)
  
• Interballistic Symphony (indie)

New Content:

The Guardian of Nature now has the second chapter, and while it’s still free for now, it will become paid very soon. POUMOSA accidentally had an old alpha build set for downloads, which might explain the bugs I encountered.

New Demos:

There were almost no new puzzle demos this week, so I played some more good demos I missed in the past.

• 👍 Cubuleto (pathfinding, stepping, sokoban): Find your way through puzzling worlds made out of cubes. Classic stepping game, with buttons and portals and fragile floors, but also enemies that like to charge towards you when you step in their sightline. Getting enemies to the right place seems to be the focus of most levels. Decent, though the constantly moving terrain is a bit distracting. (my partial playthrough )
  
• 👍 Momento (cozy, logic, point&click): A cozy house decoration game, but a lot more puzzly than the rest. You have to tidy up a room through different stages of a person’s life. Put away toys, pack their school bag, arrange books on a shelf… And while you’re free to do that however you want, there are plenty of achievements for doing special actions, like stacking all the number blocks on top of each other, and for stacking them in the correct order, or for finding and reading all the postcards, or for putting all the sandtoys in the bucket. There are also a few gifts you can choose to influence their life, like do they get a toy dinosaur, which will lead them to a science phase, or a doll, which will lead to an artistic life? Make different choices to discover different rooms, each with its own follow-up choices, for a lot of replay value. Nice and cozy, but also thinky, like putting a bunch of A Little to the Left levels into a point&click game in which choices matter. (my playthrough)
  
• 🎉 Monocular Odyssey (sokoban, perspective illusions): A sokoban game, but the terrain is affected by perspective illusions: depending on the level orientation, tiles may or may not be neighbors. Great so far, starts a bit too easy, but it’s got good, challenging levels too. (my partial playthrough)
  
• 🎉 Network Notation (logic, strategy, resource management): Hack into a network in a thinky race against enemy defences. Each level is a graph of nodes connected by edges, with you starting in one of the nodes, and a few target nodes you must conquer. You expand node by node across connections, with each action taking some time and resources. You have a starting number of “workers”, your power, with each worker being able to maintain a conquered node, attack a new node, or defend an attacked node. There may be defense agents as well, trying to attack you once they are alerted to your intrusion, so you have to plan your strategy for each level well: do you attack quickly before the enemy reaches you, do you conquer the enemies first, do you go for compute nodes that will give you more workers, do you trigger the alarm early for a chance to win before the enemy gets to you or silently creep towards the goal on a slower route? You also get points for speed and number of conquered nodes, so you may try different strategies to maximize your score. And with these points, you buy upgrades, like faster hacking speed, or more starting power, or delayed intrusion detection. You can re-assign points before each level, so part of the strategy is also figuring out if a level benefits from different upgrades. Good, I like it. (my playthrough)
  
• 🎉 Right Click To Activate Translator (language deciphering, deduction, point&click adventure): After being transported to an alien planet, you must figure out the strange language you see all around you. Good game, much like Chants of Sennaar, though at least what's in the demo is a bit too obvious/explicit. (my playthrough)
  
• 😞 Shroud of Gloom (point&click escape room, scary, hidden object): Escape room in reverse, break into a mansion and figure out what happened to its inhabitants. A unique presentation, white on black like chalk on a blackboard, made even darker by the absence of light. More about finding and clicking on the right things and less about logic puzzles. (my playthrough)

https://store.steampowered.com/app/4051150/Chronigma/

Solve puzzles with time-travelling clones of yourself. This type of game has been done many times before, and this one is one of the better attempts: decent graphics, a decent story, good levels, and a few new mechanics. I wish there were a timer, but given that it’s free, there’s no risk in trying it.

https://store.steampowered.com/app/4119130/H3LL0_H4CK3R/

A hacking simulator game, using actual Linux commands. Crack or guess passwords, SSH into servers, curl websites, run SQL commands, check the git commit history, all to figure out what happened to your missing friend. I like that it uses real commands, even if very simplified. It relies on reading and inferring/deducing things from messages, but it also expects some familiarity with Linux tools and server infrastructure. Or maybe it doesn't expect that, and because I’m such a good hacker in real life, I found the game easy? Anyway, good story, decent gameplay, though it could use a little more QoL, and some of the puzzles are weak.

https://store.steampowered.com/app/3886360/Minefield_Fractalis/

Minesweeper, with two main additions: clicking on mines does not end the game, but throws you into a nested level you must solve to go back out, and other than traditional minesweeper with normal digits, you also have to figure out “alien” variants with strange symbols.

https://store.steampowered.com/app/1579650/NULLPTR/

The story is that you must infiltrate computer networks to extract sensitive information. But the gameplay has nothing to do with actual hacking; it’s a logic game. Figure out how to “hack” nodes by infiltrating networks and reaching nodes without getting attacked by the security systems. It’s a resource management game; you must find the best path through the network, disabling systems one by one, collecting resources that let you unlock more gates and explore further, figuring out how each type of item behaves, and occasionally being fast to avoid patrolling or sweeping enemies. A lot of levels and mechanics, an excellent thinky game!

https://store.steampowered.com/app/3508790/One_More_Experiment/

First-person puzzle game with a special gun. You find yourself abducted into a strange parallel world, full of weird objects, peculiar flora, and glitchy gravity, holding a gun that can absorb fire or water and shoot it back. Go through test chambers solving fire- and water-based puzzles.

https://store.steampowered.com/app/3600120/Squarepinski/

Jigsaw puzzle with simple square pieces, but each piece can be rotated, flipped, and enlarged. Between 6 and 30 pieces. A few settings for making the game harder/easier. Most of the images are ink/line art images, with some abstract fractal images, and some real cat and dog pictures. You can also upload your own image. Nice for a casual jigsaw game with a gimmick.

https://store.steampowered.com/app/2351640/Times_Trials/

Tetris, but instead of simple blocks and clearing lines, numbers fall, and you must form horizontal or vertical sequences that add up to the target total. Of course, later levels are more complicated, not just basic sums, but multiplications, fractions, and mystery numbers. Many different game modes, characters to unlock, cute graphics, there’s a lot to appreciate in this game.

https://store.steampowered.com/app/4052020/Trigwa/

Push items to unlock doors. But unlike a traditional Sokoban, you don’t have clearly identified targets. Each level requires you to read a little “story” and figure out how it relates to the items in the room. If the story mentions putting everybody in its rightful place, then figure out what that rightful place is. If the story is about throwing strangers into the river, figure out how to do that. You need to determine your goal, then find a way to maneuver the objects in the room to achieve that goal. It’s interesting, but I only played the demo, and that was rather easy and too slow for my impatient self.

https://store.steampowered.com/app/3121850/UHILANT/

Hitman GO with a different skin and a lot of story. The gameplay is very similar to Hitman GO, move through a grid of connected positions, turn by turn, trying to avoid enemies, collect items, talk to NPCs, and then reach the exit. The story is about a country under the rule of a fake populist promising to make the country better, only to declare war and rule with an iron fist once in power. You’re just trying to escape and move to a different country, but encounters and discussions with a few good people change your mind, and you decide to stay and fight the tyranny. The game could be good, but it is extremely buggy for now, with skipped turns, enemies hitting too late, dialog not advancing properly, miscounted goals…

And the Rest:

• Carrotour (stepping): Play as a rabbit that likes carrots a bit too much, so he got transformed into a horse. Navigate a dungeon in which you can only move like a chess knight (L pattern), collecting carrots and avoiding enemies. Portals, buttons, and the gates that control enemies, with nice mechanics that make this challenging and interesting. There are also a few chaotic, fast paced boss fights that rely more on reflexes than logic.
  
• Dotu (logic, math): Place dots in a grid so the total number of dots in a row or column matches the target. A bit like nonograms, except that instead of counting only 1 for each filled-in cell, you can fill it with more than one dot. Except that you’re not free to use as many dots as you want, some levels only give you specific dot tiles, like only using 2 dots or 3 dots, some levels only give you a fixed amount of each tile, and more such variants. Unfortunately, the majority of the levels are not very interesting; they have a lot of possible solutions, and you can solve them mostly by vibes, just put down dots, and it will eventually be solved. In later levels, when this vibe “strategy” stops working, the lack of helpful tools makes it unpleasant, as there’s no pencil marks, no drawing, and you must solve it “in pen”.
  
• The Last Case of John Morley (detective, adventure): An interactive detective story, good production value, but more interactive fiction than actual deductions. Read a lot of notes, look at a lot of things, and so the game plays itself for a few hours until it’s finished.
  
• Mini Eulerian Graph (one-line): A simple one-line game, draw a single line covering every tile in a grid.
  
• OFF BY (math): Use the given blocks with numbers, operations, and alterations to make an almost correct equation. Each level has an “off by” number, so for example, if the target is off by 2, you could say that 3+1=2 or 3+1=6 as the solution.
  
• Solid Void Art Nonograms (nonogram, jigsaw): Solve nonograms, then on top of the grid solve a jigsaw-like block puzzle. I didn't play it, but it seems needlessly 3D.
  
• taat (action sokoban): This is mostly about timing. After a few levels that introduce boxes and buttons and portals and chickens, most levels are a bit (or a lot) chaotic. Instead of modern, well-designed, thoughtful levels that feel like an old-style puzzle-action game, with hidden buttons, timing, portal mazes, waiting, fast moves… It’s not a well-made “thinky” game, but it may appeal to children and those who prefer action instead of difficult puzzles.

Highlighting a short and free puzzle game every week!

A daily puzzle from the Thinky Jam. Given three clues, all with missing vowels, figure out which common group of consonants makes up a valid solution for all of them, though the actual solution may be a different word when you add back the vowels. An extra challenge once you find the target word is to also figure out all 3 of the clues. A great word game, with both a daily level and random levels. Works in a browser, even on a phone.

Highlighting another free puzzle game every week!

A “broken” Sokoban, in which things aren't aligned properly. I won’t spoil the game more than that, but it stays interesting throughout all its few levels. Works in a browser, even on a phone.

Here are a few quick & easy ways you can help us out. A little can go a long way; otherwise, we'll never achieve world domination.

• Feedback is important, so let us know what you like or don't like.
  
• Follow our curator and get notified about new additions and reviews.
  
• Tell your puzzle- and/or adventure-loving friends and your favorite developers about us and our Basic Functionality and Accessibility Guide.

(Continued from the first part)

More new demos

• 😞 Tabula (path making, puzzle): given a few movable tiles, with walkable and blocking terrain, and a few flags, you must place the tiles so that you can walk on a path and touch all the flags and then go back to the start. Tiles can be freely moved pixel by pixel, and the order in which you stack them on top of each other matters, allowing you to cover the water on the edge of a tile with the land of another tile. It gets challenging, but given how many times I created a path with barely a few pixels to cross between tiles. I’m not sure if I cheesed most of the levels or if the solutions really are pixel-perfect. And with the long animation when finishing a level, I’m not too happy with it. (my playthrough)
  
• 👍 Tileweaver (roguelike, strategy, deckbuilder): Fight monsters in increasingly challenging runs. Each fighting stage has enemies on 3 sides of a large grid, with you at the bottom, and the goal is for you to place down tiles and make a path from your side to each enemy. Once you have a path, you draw a line between you and the monster and deal damage equal to the length of the path. Each turn, you get 3 shapes to put down, then the monsters attack. Some do direct damage, some alter the board by placing hazards or destroying your tiles. You can also collect various “action” points from the grid, which you can use to cast spells, like direct damage, adding buffs to you or debuffs to enemies. Between fighting rounds, there are also special events, like getting a new spell, a new tile, or replenishing health. It’s good, a thinky strategy game. (my playthrough)
  
• 👍 To the Carrot (stepping, logic): Help a snail get to the carrot by pushing it with toad tongues. As a very, very slow snail, you can’t move the snail directly, but you can use toads to push it with their tongues. You can also push toads with other toads, so the levels get complicated when you have to figure out how to move the snail and the toads to reach the carrot. It gets very challenging and not very rewarding with big levels and lots of toads. (my partial playthrough)
  
• 👍 Towers of Scale (math, dungeon crawler, magic tower): In essence, a math game disguised as an RPG/dungeon crawler, inspired by Magic Tower / Tactical Nexus. You’re a little hero exploring dungeons, slaying enemies, and gathering items. But it’s all about managing your HP number. To defeat an enemy, you must have a bigger HP number than theirs. After you win, you either add or remove their HP from yours. Some doors can be opened with keys, some will halve your HP. Some rooms can be opened either with a key or with HP. Most enemies are optional, but you may need their HP bonus to defeat stronger enemies. So, you must choose the best order to attack the enemies or open doors. You can just go blindly into battle, or you can design the perfect route; it’s up to you. Minimalist presentation, 1-bit graphics, lots of math. (a little bit of playing from me)
  
• Walk The Frog (jigsaw, adventure, hidden object, cozy): A little adventure game in which you must walk the frog around a level, interacting with animals and helping them. But the level itself is broken, split into squares that you must reassemble, like a jigsaw. That part is easy, too, at least in the demo, you only get around 5 tiles at a time. It’s a cute and cozy game for children. A little bit broken and lacking QoL, though. (my playthrough)
  
• 👍 Water's Way Down (puzzle platformer, physics, logic, adventure): You crashland in a strange place, where water is scarce. What’s even stranger is that you can turn yourself into water! Solve puzzles to progress, switching between the water form, which can roll through narrow tunnels, split, and short-circuit electrical devices, and the corporeal form, which can push buttons and jump. The game is still in a very early state, with placeholder sounds and graphics; however, it shows promise, with innovative mechanics, an ambitious plan for a cinematic story, and challenging puzzles. Keep it on your radar. (my partial playthrough)

https://store.steampowered.com/app/2482180/As_I_Began_to_Dream/

A puzzle adventure in which you rotate pieces of the level to be able to walk through it. Looks easy and charming, like Arranger and Paper Trail, but this time a platformer.

https://store.steampowered.com/app/3032520/BLUMA/

Activate and deactivate flowers with your magic bow, and vines grow between adjacent activated flowers. Use these vines as platforms you can jump on, or as paths for stones to roll on. It’s a lovely puzzle game that’s good for kids, but I think it’s challenging enough for adults to enjoy as well.

https://store.steampowered.com/app/3750640/Consonance/

A jigsaw like no other. Instead of solving colorful images, each level is a black and white abstract image, for example a spiral, rows of rectangles, or maybe a squiggle. If it were just that, the levels would be impossible to solve, but here the drawings move, so you’re not supposed to use “green goes with the grass, blue goes in the sky” reasoning, but watch how things move. Different grid sizes for each level, but not large enough to be impossible. I liked it, it’s a unique jigsaw idea that exercises a different part of the brain.

https://store.steampowered.com/app/3565680/DECRYPTO_Project/

Decrypt messages on an old computer. A mixture of deciphering minigames, lateral thinking, and political sims like Papers Please.

https://store.steampowered.com/app/3390310/Once_Glorious_Artahk/

A puzzle adventure, explore a mysterious world, and try to decipher its secrets.

https://store.steampowered.com/app/3148060/Penelope_Pendrick_and_the_Art_of_Deceit/

A detective/investigation adventure game, I didn’t try it but other reviews compare it to a good Nancy Drew mystery.

https://store.steampowered.com/app/3102340/Princess_of_the_Water_Lilies/

A cozy and cute puzzle platformer, but also a hard action game when it comes to boss fights. Play as a cute kitten raised by frogs, jumping through the forests and caves, and battling mechanical enemies.

https://store.steampowered.com/app/2966300/Sliding_Hero/

An adventure game with a few main aspects. You play as a captain back in medieval Italy, trapped on a strange island full of mysterious people, powerful artifacts, undead armies, and giants. You move by sliding, so the main challenge is figuring out your path through rooms. You have limited health, and weapons and armor that are only good for a few hits before they break, so the secondary aspect is figuring out the correct order in which you need to attack enemies so you don’t die. And then there’s all the lore and quests, with more powers to unlock, and old rooms to revisit. It’s great!

https://store.steampowered.com/app/3330410/Spell_Slide/

A word game perfectly mixed with sokoban. Your goal is to form valid words out of the available letters, and sometimes to collect diamonds, by moving on a grid and pushing letter blocks. A lot of variety, and it gets really challenging, especially when the rule is that you can never have invalid words, so every push must go from one valid state to another valid state. Not too big, but will keep you busy for a while, especially if you don’t want to use the progressive hints.

And the Rest:

• Abra-Cooking-Dabra (card game, cooking)
  
• Alice in the Manor (point&click, escape room, adventure): Explore a large house, solve puzzles, try to escape.
  
• The August Before (cozy): Sort your belongings in a point&click interactive story.
  
• Cube Mind (physics, logic, test chambers): Another Portal wannabe, move cubes between places to activate doors and redirect lasers.
  
• The Faith of Sin (point&click, escape room, surreal, mature): A point&click escape room that reminds me of the Rusty Lake games. Mature themes not suited for children.
  
• Funimal: Fusion Animal (logic, stepping, sliding): A colorful game in which you must get animals to meet. But you don’t control the animals, you control the terrain: you can slide a row or a column to put obstacles in an animal’s way to change their course. Claims that all levels can be finished in 5 moves or fewer.
  
• Gobotix: Duo (co-op puzzle, free): Play as two robots (co-op optional), helping each other solve physical puzzles.
  
• IT Specialist Simulator (simulator): Simulator game, do various tasks as an IT specialist, from low-level jobs like fixing network issues, to career planning and managing teams.
  
• Mimi in Meowndering House (pathfinding): Turn-based pathfinding game, help the cat collect all its toys while avoiding cockroaches, sliding on water, avoiding getting tangled in yarn or toilet paper. Cute, but a bit too basic.
  
• Minesweeper Big Bomb (minesweeper, logic)
  
• OLYEN (3D, exploration, platformer, light redirecting puzzles): Explore an ancient, deserted city. Redirect beams of light to the target spots. Read about the lost civilization.
  
• Pieces of the Past (cozy repairs): Cozy, simple game about repairing broken items.
  
• A Slice of Lunch (cozy): Pack food into boxes. It’s not a block puzzle, since there’s no grid; everything can be freely placed pixel by pixel, the food can have any shape, and you can even cut things to make them smaller. It’s a cozy “puzzle”, just moving shapes from one side of the screen to the other.
  
• Soul of Recollection (point&click, escape room, spooky): A point&click escape room/puzzle adventure, explore a school at night, trying to recover memories, escape capture, and find your way out. Looks good, and has a lot of puzzle variety. I feel that some of the puzzles are more of the “guess what the developer was thinking” variety, but there are a lot of very explicit hints to help if you get stuck.
  
• Squarely (stepping, sliding): Slide squares to their targets. Didn’t try it, but looks interesting.
  
• Sudoku Relax (sudoku, logic, math): Another Sudoku game, this one is too noisy, with lots of animations and sparkles, and sounds.
  
• That Level Again 2 (trolling, platformer, logic): All the levels seem the same, but each one has a different, unexpected solution. Troll solutions, “thinking outside the box”.
  
• TOJIBO (co-op puzzle platformer): Navigate tough levels together, catching and throwing one another. More challenging to execute a solution than to figure it out, with precise timing and coordination between the players being the focus. At least there's an in-game 3-2-1 timer for syncing.
  
• UMAMI (3D jigsaw, cozy): Build food shapes piece by piece, as a 3D jigsaw/lego puzzle.

Highlighting a short and free puzzle game every week!

A drop quote daily game. Slide down letters to form a quote, which then displays a mock article from a magic newspaper. Works in a browser, even on a phone.

Highlighting another free puzzle game every week!

A bit like Patrick’s Parabox, you’re in a grid full of boxes you can shrink down and go into. Move boxes in and out of other boxes, go deep, then go back out. Works in a browser, but not on a phone.

Here are a few quick & easy ways you can help us out. A little can go a long way; otherwise, we'll never achieve world domination.

• Feedback is important, so let us know what you like or don't like.
  
• Follow our curator and get notified about new additions and reviews.
  
• Tell your puzzle- and/or adventure-loving friends and your favorite developers about us and our Basic Functionality and Accessibility Guide.

Welcome once again to our weekly newsletter with puzzle game news, new and upcoming releases, giveaways, deals and bundles, spotlight on a lesser-known or forgotten game, and other stuff.

Greetings to those who’ve joined since last week! If you found us through a link to the newsletter, read the group overview to see what else we can offer, visit the forum for puzzle discussion, follow our curator for reviews and recommendations, check out our Basic Functionality and Accessibility Guide on how to improve your games, and tell your friends if you like what you see. Thanks!

I’m considering changing the newsletter schedule once again, going back to Mondays, but instead of a lookahead for the coming week, it’s a summary of the week before. Given that I put a lot of effort into evaluating each game, I can’t realistically play all the upcoming releases before Tuesday.

Nominations for The Steam Awards have begun, you can nominate your favorite games if you want to, although puzzle games have no chance of winning in this popularity contest. Though, if all 5000+ group members nominate a puzzle game, there’s a slight chance one can at least show up in the popular list. I for one voted for Puzzle Depot, Nurikabe World, Symphonia, Mistified and a few others.

Everybody seems to be having a Black Friday sale, so lots of games are discounted this week.

Ideally, every group member would follow our curator and vice versa, but until then, here's the changelog. And don't forget our many lists based on themes and subgenres.

New Curatees with Full Reviews:

• A Planet of Mine MasterMine Edition (strategy)
  
• Detective Club: Gallery of Shadows CE (hidden object)
  
• So to Speak (exploration)
  
• Spooky Express (strategy)

New Curatees with Mini-Reviews:

• Around the World 2: Travel to Canada CE (hidden object)
  
• Bru & Boegie: Episode 1 - Get da MILK! (point&click)
  
• Glass Masquerade 4: Constellations (casual, jigsaw)
  
• Maze of the Lich (crafting)
  
• Spell Slide (word, sokoban)

Please let us know in the Curator Info thread if you'd like to write mini-reviews (max. 200 characters, positive or negative) for puzzlers that aren't curated by us yet. Examples and inspiration can be found on the Group Member Recommendations list.

The giveaways are on SteamGifts, but no need to create an account, just visit the site and log in through Steam. Good luck!

Both of this week’s games have recently been updated, now’s the chance to take another look if you don’t own them already. Both Gemima[www.steamgifts.com] and HEXA-WORLD 3D[www.steamgifts.com] are available only for our group members, courtesy of the developers.

If you have your own puzzler, adventure, demo, or some new content coming out on mobile or PC? Let us know in the forum or by adding sdumitriu on Steam Chat.

Free Game Highlights:

• 100 Cats Lost in Italy Find & Color (hidden object)
  
• Bearly Awesome (platformer)
  
• Boxed Up! (arcade)
  
• Cats Visiting El Dorado (hidden object)
  
• Dispersio 3 (platformer)
  
• Gobotix: Duo (point&click, casual)
  
• Good Morning My Darling (point&click)
  
• JellieShift (platformer)
  
• TEMPUS: A Wizard Awakes (adventure)
• Tiny Crate (platformer)

Paid Games - Now Free:

• Cat Puzzle (roguelike)
  
• Fatal Falls (hidden object, exploration)
  
• Snap Flex (card game)
  
• Wordle 2[freebies.indiegala.com] (word game)

New Content:

The opposite of new content: The Penguin IQ Test will soon be removed from Steam. It’s a good logic/programming game; grab it while you can.

New Demos:

Catching up on demos, a few highlights: Death at Fleming Manor, Dupery, Emptiness Sire, Hope Timbre, and I forgot to mention Hamstermind a few weeks ago when I actually played it.

• 👍 Abysm (horror puzzle supaplex): This gave me strong Supaplex/Boulder Dash vibes. You must dig dirt, touch idols, dodge boulders, and outsmart hellish creatures, then safely reach the exit. The speed of the game is quite relaxed; you have a bit of time to think about your actions. The levels are small, but big in terms of tiles, with only a few puzzle elements. At the end of each chapter, there’s a boss level, with a powerful enemy to defeat. It’s a decent Supaplex-like, with interesting mechanics, though I hope the puzzles in the full game are more challenging. (my playthrough, with too many failures because I kept forgetting that, unlike in Supaplex, being near enemies also kills me)
  
• 👍 Chicks In Trouble (adventure, exploration): Mama Hen is panicking! The Baby Chicks are missing again! Papa Rooster to the rescue! You play as a rooster that has to gather the chicks from around the farm, dodging all kinds of hazards: rambling rams, muddy puddles… OK, two kinds of hazards, but probably more in the full game. But you can only take home 3 at a time, so you’ll have to keep going back and forth, deeper each time. Luckily, there are lots of shortcuts to unlock along the way, so you don’t always have to go through the entire level. It’s cozy and not too puzzly, a little adventure game good for children. (my very short playthrough)
  
• 👍 ChromaScape (stepping, sokoban, multiagent): You’re a white square, but you can split yourself into the 3 basic colors, Red Green Blue. Afterward, each color moves at a different speed, with red moving three times as fast as blue. And each color can pass through walls that don’t have it, like the red square can move through blue, green and cyan walls, and each color can only interact with objects of its color. Multiagent puzzles are hard, but when you add different speeds as well, this gets doubly hard. Even the level selection is hard, you don’t just open one level, you need to simultaneously sit on two (and perhaps three) exit tiles, with no numbers, you just figure out which combinations of tiles are possible. I wish it at least showed which levels are solved, but that’s hard to do. It's challenging, and I like it. (my playthrough)
  
• 👍 Cold Calling (funny, political sim, speedy, logic): As a telephone operator back in the days of the Cuban Missile Crisis, it’s your job to make sure calls between world leaders are successful. The main part of the game is phonecall routing. On a grid with a few holes and very short cables, you must make circuits between one side of the grid and the other, quickly. Sometimes there’s more than one call to connect at the same time. Sometimes there are “bugs” on lines that must be routed through specific devices that clean the call. And sometimes you can spy on calls. That’s the second part of the game, like in Papers Please, you have to make choices. Other people are trying to influence you, convince you to listen in on calls. And you get to pick which one of the two calls going on at the same time you listen to. It’s absurdly funny, like a Monty Python sketch, but with real people. And although there is pressure to make the connections on time, at least in the demo, I never felt quite that rushed. I’ll keep an eye on it. (my partial playthrough)
  
• 👍 Dataminers (minesweeper, roguelike): Minesweeper, but with a story of cyber espionage. Instead of just clicking on tiles in a grid, you’re a hacker/spy scaling on the outside of virtual skyscrapers. Tiles wrap around the tower, with occasional overhangs or platforms. You can only open tiles that you are next to, and you can buy and use tools to help you solve levels faster. You don’t have to clear the entire level, just a specific number, and then reach the top of the building where the main server is located. There’s also a firewall, a rising ring of fire that forces you to keep moving up. And misclicking isn’t a deadly failure, it just blocks a 5x5 portion of the tower so you can’t move through it anymore. Just don’t block your entire path upwards, and you’ll be fine. There are campaigns with branching level maps, fully voiced story messages, and more action-oriented mechanics like turrets and vaults. Very interesting, if you prefer a more immersive Minesweeper experience. (my playthrough)
  
• 🎉 Death at Fleming Manor (detective, science): Investigate crime scenes as the town's new coroner. Similar to Golden Idol, inspect images, collect names and facts, then fill in the blanks of police reports. Only one case in the demo, a car accident, with multiple steps: first identify the people involved and gather evidence, then do lab work on blood samples, then write the report with the facts of the case. Quite well done, though the case was rather easy, which is normal in a demo. (my playthrough)
  
• 🎉 Dupery (logic, single player social deduction): This feels a bit like the social deduction party game Mafia, with bad people and good people, except that it’s single player and all logical. This feels a lot like Knights and Knaves logic riddles, with liars and truthtellers. In essence, you’re a police detective, working in a town with a lot of organized crime, solving murder by murder until you get the big boss, the capo dei capi, the godfather. Each case involves a bunch of suspects, some innocent, some criminal, but also some meddlers and some traitors. Meddlers are still good, but they like to play tricks. Each role is unique, with its own behavior. Some good guys have a power you can invoke, like “tell me how many houses away the nearest criminal is” or “what is the sum of the house numbers of all the criminals”. In theory, all good guys tell the truth. But the bad guys have powers too. Not only are they usually disguised and behave just like a good guy, but they can also taint innocents and make them lie. Not every good person will tell the truth, and not everyone who is evil lies. You have to figure out who the real evil guys are and arrest them, ideally without arresting any innocents. It is really challenging, but an excellent logic deduction game. The only minor complaint I have is that there are too many roles on every level, so I had to read each one carefully. And each role can appear only once in a level; it’s not as simple as 3 identical good guys and two identical evil guys. There are 6 different good roles and 3 different evil roles you can choose from, and you see 5 apparently good guys, and you don’t even know which of the evils you’re dealing with. This is an excellent logic game! (my partial playthrough, which could really use a voiceover of my thoughts, unfortunately absent)
  
• 🎉 Emptiness Sire (stepping, logic): Trine meets Lara Croft GO. Just like in Lara Croft GO (or Hitman GO and Panda GO), find paths through networks of spots, with lots of enemies and hazards to avoid or kill. Just like in Trine, you play with one of three characters. After the initial prologue shows you that the three characters are all attracted to the same artifact, they are trapped inside, with only one able to come out at a time. But you can’t freely choose who and where they come out. There are special spots in the level where you can switch to another character. It has a good atmosphere, good graphics and music, and good levels so far. Lara Croft GO is quite popular, and this seems to be much better in all aspects so far, so it’s definitely on my wishlist. (my playthrough)
  
• 😞 Floramino (farming, time management, block puzzle): Grow flowers for impatient customers. Like most store manager simulators, there’s a queue of clients, each asking for a specific flower. You have a little land plot on which you can plant flowers, wait for them to grow, then give them to the client. The challenge (other than the short time you have to serve clients) is that the flowers have blocky shapes, like the Tetris tetrominoes, but even more varied, starting at 1 simple tile, and up to 5 tiles (as far as I’ve played). There are also weeds growing randomly, which prevent you from growing flowers until you take time to remove them. Each round requires you to collect a number of points in a given time, and between rounds you can buy and sell flower types, or buy a useful tool like fertilizer or improved shears. Too speedy and not thinky enough for me, and seems very repetitive, same gameplay just on a different shape of the land. (my playthrough)
  
• 👍 Fortune Fragments (tiling, story-rich): In a world in which everybody has power gems and fortune-telling is a serious endeavour, you’re a young fortune teller just moving to a new town. Talk to characters, predict their fate, and help them make the right decisions. The meat of the gameplay is placing hexagonal tiles with line segments on them to make symbols. A bit like a simplified Oxytone, but instead of trying to make the longest circuits, you need to make specific shapes out of 4-5-6 or more tiles. There’s a score computation as well, based on the tiles you use, the rune you make, and the terrain you make it on. You have limited turns to reach a certain score, and once you complete a level, you get to chat and decide what the client should do. This part feels like Strange Antiquities, with recurring characters, character sheets, and a story that I didn’t explore long enough to see if it turns dark or not. (my plathrough of the first few levels)
  
• 👎 Gilroy's Grove (action, farming): Defeat moving plant enemies, collect their seeds, and plant them to get hearts and weapons, repeat. I didn’t play too much of it, but it seemed all action and no puzzle. (a bit of my playthrough)
  
• 🎉 HAMSTERMIND (logic, pathfinding, maze exploration): An updated demo, with more mechanics, more levels, and more secrets. Explore the chambers of a pyramid as the legendary archeologist Hamster Jones! Each room in Hamstermind has two types of games: one in which you must explore a maze consisting of several zones that can be rotated, and one in which you must rotate a grid with falling scarabs to lead them to their target spots. This is a good game, with nice graphics, charming characters, progressively harder levels that will surely be entertaining for the whole family. New in this demo: a new thinky game to unlock paths, in which you must place turn commands in the path of a moving scarab to make it go through all the checkpoints, and a new type of game present in some chambers, a decryption/logic grid with rules you have to figure out. (my playthrough)
  
• 👍 Harmonicord (puzzle platformer, exploration): A platformer in which you play as woodland creatures, each with unique abilities, to restore the harmony. It’s got puzzles and secret rooms to discover, and it’s not too demanding on precision and timing. Add the cute characters, charming pixel graphics, lovely music and sounds, and you get an excellent cozy platformer. (my partial playthrough)
  
• 🎉 Hope Timbre (impossible geometry, exploration, pathfinding): This is what I wish Monument Valley 2 & 3 had when it comes to puzzles. Hope Timbre takes a lot of inspiration from Monument Valley, with impossible buildings that you can just flip and turn, a mysterious, almost wordless story, cute characters, great sounds and visuals. But it adds more challenging puzzles that aren’t just pushing the obvious buttons and following the straight path. And it hints at more meta-puzzles, with objects to collect that I don’t yet know how to use. (my playthrough)
  
• 😞 Hunter's Seal (papers-please-like, attention): You’re in charge of approving monster slaying quests. Each day, hunters come and request approval to go out and fight a monster. You must pay attention to the monster’s description and correctly identify which monster it is, verify that the hunter’s permit is valid, their rank matches the monster’s rank, they’re not trying to cheat you out of your fair share, and probably even more things to check in the full game. I expected it to be more like Strange Horticulture, with a challenge to identify the monster, but at least in the demo, this was rather trivial. I also expected it to be more like Papers Please, with moral decisions, funny characters, and other special interactions. It seems to be only about paying attention to details: is the permit expired? Is the number of circles around the seal correct? Is the declared monster payout the right one? Hopefully, the devs will make it more wholesome for the full release. (my playthrough)
  
• 👎 A Journey Of Light (logic, light puzzles): Light redirecting puzzles. A genre done so many times already, with some excellent (and some very bad) games already on Steam. Which one is this? In my humble opinion, this is very bad, but only because it tried too hard to be the very best, focusing on the wrong aspects. While the puzzles might be good, and I would like to try them out, the game is awful because it tries to be too pretty. I’m OK with the very abstract white lines on a black background style when it comes to playing puzzle games. No, I actually prefer simple and abstract graphics for logic games. But this one went for fully 3D environments, with realistic spotlights shining on beautiful mirrors, immersed in an animated aquarium, or one of many other environments. Just look at this official screenshot. Can you easily tell if the upper light receptor is in the same row as the hue shifter in the left corner? And because of all the nice graphics, the game ran at 13 FPS on my gaming device; I don’t think it can even do one whole FPS on my work PC without a dedicated GPU. There is a top-down view as well, but you have to switch to it for every level, and that still is unclear because not all of the 3D objects are easily distinguishable from the top, like the spotlight viewed from above looks like a black square. Good luck figuring out which side the light will come out of. (The game was so demanding that there were no CPU cycles left to do a recording of it.)
  
• 😞 Kitty Haven (logic, cozy): Find each fussy cat's favorite spot using logic. Each level is a room, with different spots where you can place cats or objects, and a bunch of cats with demands. Like, one likes to sit in the sun but hates the smell of cat food, and one that likes to be near the other cat but also wants to be near food. A lot like Einstein’s Cats, but instead of placing them in the shelves of a vertical wall, you place them on flat ground. While Einstein’s Cats was pure, abstract logic, in Kitty Haven you need to have good 2D triangulation skills, since the available spots are not in a neat grid. And this is my main problem with the game: it’s not immediately obvious which spots are “in the sun”, and it’s not obvious at all which spots are close enough to satisfy the “I want to be next to my friend” rules. I often thought the food was far enough, but it wasn’t, or I thought two cats were close to each other, but they weren’t. And by the final levels, where the preferences started forming a complex web of likes and dislikes, I was solving them not based on logic, but more on vibes, and trial and error. And just like in Einstein’s Cats, there’s a free decorating place (the Haven in the title) where you can build the dream home for the cats using the items you unlock when solving levels. (my playthrough)
  
• 👍 The Man Who Walked (15-puzzle, pathfinding): A game with two modes. In 3D, you walk a man through a little level, trying to reach the exit. In 2D mode, you can shift the elements of the level like in a 15-puzzle, except that it’s in a 3x3, so an 8-puzzle. Perhaps the full game will have larger levels. It starts simple, but it gets a bit more complex when you have to navigate stairs, L-shaped corridors, and rotating pieces. A bit too easy for my taste, but that’s expected in a demo, and the walking speed is much too slow; good thing there’s a running mode. (my quick playthrough)
  
• 😞 math is hard (math, sokoban): Push boxes with numbers and symbols to make valid equations. Unlike the much more complex Block Buster Billy and E9uations, at least in the demo, this is all basic arithmetic, with some barely complicated box pushing, more suited for children. Each level has a specific target number, you just have to figure out how to get to it. For example, the target is 17 and you have 1, 3, 4, and + at your disposal, you just have to make 13+4 or 14+3 or 3+14 or any other valid sum. It gets a bit harder later on, with a few new mechanics like a clone block that changes one block to be the same as another, and plain boxes that must be pushed on targets. Still, everything in the demo is rather easy. (my playthrough)
  
• 👍 Mewseum: Film Festival (shikaku, logic): A new shikaku game in the Mewseum series, paint-by-numbers drawing rectangles of the indicated size. Simple, but good if you’re looking for a relaxing logic game. (my partial playthrough)
  
• 👍 Netoo (logic, stepping): Move tokens to targets using rotating arms. There are pivot points and grabbers stuck on a bar, and clicking on a pivot point rotates the entire bar. Moving the grabbers over tokens picks them up, and then moving the grabbers over targets drops the tokens. If a bar has two pivot points, you can actually move it across the grid. It’s a good game, although not very intuitive. I struggled a lot with the few levels in the demo, which is rare. This is good, I’m not complaining, just saying that it’s a different kind of game that takes some getting used to. It has a minimalist UI, with no explanations, and for some reason, it didn’t work well with a controller at first. (my playthrough)
  
• 😞 Orava (point&click adventure): A point&click adventure with a squirrel who likes car racing. Explore the woods, gather items, and talk to other characters. Didn’t impress me. Although it looks cute, it also looks very unpolished. (my short playthrough)
  
• 😞 Pain-T (platformer, metroidvania): A metroidvania/platformer in which the world is hidden until you explore it. Everything is dark until you move over an area, but there are upgrades you can purchase to extend the area you can lighten up. There are also upgrades for other things, like dashing, attacking, and triple jump. Annoying enemies to fight, a bit buggy, the map isn’t always accurate, and I’m not a fan of the blind gameplay. (my playthrough)
  
• 👍 Project DOOOOORS (sokoban, stepping): Move boxes to clear the way to the exit. Technically, it’s not a Sokoban, since you pick up and carry boxes instead of pushing them. It has wonderful level ideas, with innovative mechanics and challenging puzzles. It also has an interesting presentation, with a text console for navigation, and an old CRT screen showing a poor CCTV camera feed of the levels. (my playthrough)
  
• 👍 School Night Seance (point&click escape room): Two girls exploring a haunted house on a school night, what could go wrong? An escape room with two characters, each in their own part of the house. It’s not co-op; you control both characters and can freely switch between them. It’s just so the game can have more objects than could normally fit in just one screen. The game doesn’t do a lot of handholding, and the puzzles aren’t super obvious, although there are very few actual puzzles. A lot of the clues are found in written text, like newspaper clippings and notes. And if you really need a clue, there’s a crow offering to help, but hints cost coins, which you must also find by clicking around the house. It’s got a hand drawn comic look, fully voiced characters, and decent music. Nice, worth a try. (my playthrough)
  
• 👍 Searching Light (puzzle, exploration, mysterious, adventure, hidden path, knowledge discovery): This is a very strange game. It doesn't explain anything, you have to figure out on your own what’s going on, dying and dying and dying again until you figure out what the newest trick is. The gist is that you can switch between two worlds, two slightly different views of the same level, and figure out how to stay alive. It’s not a horror survival game, but a cryptic puzzle with no explanation. If you like discovering strange worlds, this is maximally strange. What I didn’t like is that very often the path is entirely hidden until you try to walk on it. I don’t like having to explore all the walls just in case there’s a path hidden somewhere. (my brief playthrough, I would have played more but I was sleepy).
  
• 👍 Snake: Secret Treasure (snake, arcade, puzzle): Snake that's more puzzly. It’s still an automatically moving snake that can die if it goes into a wall or itself, but there are puzzle elements as well, like pushing boxes out of the way, or rationing the few shots you can get, or dodging lasers, and other mechanics. Most of the puzzles are on the easy side, though, given that the levels are big and open most of the time, and the focus is still on not dying. Fortunately, you can configure the arcade difficulty, allowing you to unwind after you die, and slow down the speed. There are also a couple of educational minigames, one in which you must collect letters in the right order to form a word, and one in which you must collect math symbols to create a valid equation. I wish it had a “No Speed” mode, in which the snake only moves when you press a button; but otherwise, it is a good mixture of Snake and puzzles. (my playthrough)

(Continued in the second part)

If this is the fourth time you're seeing this announcement, apologies, publishing announcements seems to be broken. Hopefully this time it will work.

Welcome once again to our weekly newsletter with puzzle game news, new and upcoming releases, giveaways, deals and bundles, spotlight on a lesser-known or forgotten game, and other stuff.

Greetings to those who’ve joined since last week! If you found us through a link to the newsletter, read the group overview to see what else we can offer, visit the forum for puzzle discussion, follow our curator for reviews and recommendations, check out our Basic Functionality and Accessibility Guide on how to improve your games, and tell your friends if you like what you see. Thanks!

The official event of the week is the Steam Animal Fest, with lots of adventure and puzzle games featuring animals on sale.

If you're a game developer or want to become one with a small and easy game, the 2025 Confounding Calendar is now open for submissions[thinkygames.com].

And finally, Valve/Steam just announced new hardware to be released next year: a new VR headset, new controllers, and a new gaming PC.

Ideally, every group member would follow our curator and vice versa, but until then, here's the changelog. And don't forget our many lists based on themes and subgenres.

New Curatees with Full Reviews:

• Blueprint Bob (building)
  
• Cryptigma (sokoban)
  
• NubiaPhobia (point&click, adventure)

New Curatees with Mini-Reviews:

• Death in the Manor (noir, detective)

Please let us know in the Curator Info thread if you'd like to write mini-reviews (max. 200 characters, positive or negative) for puzzlers that aren't curated by us yet. Examples and inspiration can be found on the Group Member Recommendations list.

If you have your own puzzler, adventure, demo, or some new content coming out on mobile or PC? Let us know in the forum or by adding sdumitriu on Steam Chat.

Free Game Highlights:

• Honu (logic, exploration)
  
• The Last Elixir (crafting)
  
• The Maze: Treasure Hunters (strategy)

Paid Games - Now Free:

• Donutis Simulator (3D Plaformer, Exploration)
  
• Game Breaker (indie)
  
• Summon The DUDES! (platformer)

New Content:

Gemima has a new DLC, The Ice Golem Fortress, which doubles the size of the game, with new mechanics, new puzzles, new secrets, and hints! Prism Shift added a new infinite mode. Supraworld, still in early access, added the first part of the second act.


https://store.steampowered.com/app/2122880/All_Hands_on_Deck/

A co-op puzzle platformer with silly hands as the protagonists. Fun puzzles, fun mechanics, a charming toy world, and hidden coins to find.

https://store.steampowered.com/app/3036350/A_Case_of_Fraud/

A database deduction game, very much like The Roottrees Are Dead, you have to investigate the murder of a tech company. There are two parts to the game. The majority of the gameplay requires you to fill in a company’s org chart (and the CEO’s small family for the tutorial), filling in first and last name plus their photo for 39 people, by looking through a whole bunch of documents: emails, notes, invoices, chat messages, newspaper articles, medical reports, and many others. Once you figure out almost all of the people, you have to deduce what happened: who is the killer, who has the money, who got caught on the CCTV camera, all based on the same documents from the first part, plus a few more documents from the police. It’s quite good, clever deductions, multiple hints in each document, seemingly irrelevant details suddenly becoming a key detail… If you liked The Roottrees Are Dead or wanted to try a smaller version of that, this is a great, byte-sized little mystery to try.

https://store.steampowered.com/app/3255860/Hymer_2000/

The gameplay is “recover story fragments” by “searching for keywords”. Similar to how Type Help requires you to deduce file names to access them, but in a much simpler way, you have to recover a lot of files by searching for rare words in them. You can start by searching for simple things like just the letter “a”, but the search results are limited to the first four hits. It is up to you to deduce new words to search for that are not present in the first 20 documents but will bring up the 21st. Between searches, you also explore a virtual world to discover memories. Another way to uncover bits of the story and get keyword ideas is by interacting with a computer and issuing commands that alter the world, for example, to open doors.

https://store.steampowered.com/app/3677530/Pixelogic_Nonograms_Unlimited/

A nonogram game available on the web and as a mobile app, now coming to Steam. It’s clean and powerful, with many options, good UI, and thousands of levels already available. While only a few level packs with a theme are available as a “campaign”, the meat of the game is in the daily archive, with two different games for each day in 15x15 and 20x20 sizes, plus a weekly 25x25, going back to 2009!

https://store.steampowered.com/app/3383260/Schematic_Void/

If you played the original Schematic game, at first glance, this might look like more of the same: rotate circuit pieces to connect electricity to devices. That’s not true. It’s more like There Is No Game built on top of the Schematic / Turn on the light gameplay. While it looks like all you have to do is turn connectors to complete circuits, the game is “broken” by the second level, and you have to figure out creative ways to gather tools, find secrets, reach inaccessible levels, fix a dead pixel, make an apple fall on Newton’s head, and many more such activities. While there are only 12 levels, the whole game is in fact a giant level, and you’ll have to keep jumping between “solved” levels to look for more things to do as you obtain more tools. It’s fun and creative, though having to search every one of the unlocked levels every time you appear to be stuck does get a bit annoying.

https://store.steampowered.com/app/3971000/Sisyphus_Is_a_Bug/

A short-loop precision platformer with knowledge discovery. Much like in Leap Year, you have to learn how to roll a ball of dung more efficiently. Initially, all you can do is slowly push it left and right, but by exploring the world, you’ll discover more efficient ways of travel. The goal is to reach the top of Mount Olympus before the day runs out. And given that you have only 60 seconds before the day ends, you’ll need to be speedy. And once you conquer Olympus, you’ll have to escape from the Underworld, a bigger, harder level that still has new mechanics to teach you. Plus, there’s a hard mode, taking away the fastest mechanics from you. But even if you're not a fan of speedrunning and precision platforming, you can still enjoy it by slowing down the timer or disabling it completely.

And the Rest:

• CYCLIA JOURNEY (puzzle platformer): In an infinitely repeating world, every action leads to a reaction in another part of the level. Really interesting, reminds me a bit of Recursed and Patrick’s Parabox.
  
• Death in the Manor (investigation, point&click, isometric, procedural generation): Solve crimes by talking to suspects, collecting evidence, and matching fingerprints. All in under one realtime hour.
  
• Drill Bird (mining): Dig, collect gems, use them to upgrade your skills and to hatch your egg. Like a simple SteamWorld Dig with birds and bugs instead of robots.
  
• Elementris (arcade tetris, match3): Tetris, but the pieces have different colors, aren’t actually falling, and you have to match colors.
  
• Fit My Dog (block puzzle): Fit dog-themed shapes into a grid.
  
• Hidden Cats by Louisselle (hidden object): A better-looking hidden object game, find cats in very detailed pixel-graphics scenes.
  
• Honu (logic, exploration): Explore the world solving environmental puzzles using magic.
  
• The Island - Escape Room (escape room, 3D)
  
• Knights Together (chess-like, knights): Get one chess knight to the other one.
  
• The Last Elixir (alchemy, deduction, simulation): Prepare potions for monsters, like a mix between Strange Antiquities and Cooking Simulator. Unlike the easy-to-control Strange Antiquities, this requires manual mashing of ingredients. Despite the pixelated look, it’s a fully 3D game with high GPU utilization. Looks like a student project.
  
• Lumines Arise (arcade, match4): An arcade match-4 game with great music and animations, but too chaotic for me.
  
• OVERLOOK (hidden object, point&click, exploration, minipuzzles): While at its core it’s a hidden object game, it isn’t a static image in which you have to find 100 cats, but more like a point&click adventure game in a very interactive world, and each of the objects you have to find has a purpose. Charming, relaxing, and full of fun surprises.
  
• Puzzle - LINES AND KNOTS 3 (tile swapping): Swap tiles two at a time until every line in the image forms a continuous loop, with no loose ends. Like a mixture of jigsaws and pipe puzzles.
  
• Simply Unstable (puzzle platformer): Looks like an interesting puzzle platformer, but from the trailer it seems to be quite fast paced, heavy on the platforming, and requiring both mouse and keyboard.
  
• Take7 (math): Select numbers on a grid adding up to 7, until all the numbers are removed.
  
• VORON: Raven’s Story (adventure)

Highlighting the best release of last week, at least according to the curator’s opinion.

https://store.steampowered.com/app/3108190/Puzzle_Depot/

Highlighting a short and free puzzle game every week!

A daily number puzzle in which you have to place the digits 1-5 in a 5x5 grid so that each row and column has each digit only once. But each day uses two additional mechanics, as markers between two neighboring tiles, picked from the 8 available: consecutive numbers, both neighbors are odd/even, one is odd and one is even, one is double the other, greater than the neighbor, greater than all the following numbers. There’s a “dojo” with tutorials and a few example levels, but the main focus is on the daily level, which usually takes around one or two minutes to solve. Really great for a quick math challenge. Works in a browser, even on a phone.

Highlighting another free puzzle game every week!

An easy Sokoban-like game with a story and lots of mechanics. Starting with a little child putting toys back in the box, it goes through his life all the way to hell and back. Deliver drugs, launder money, avoid cops, help spirits in hell find their peace… Crime doesn’t pay, does it? Works in a browser, even on a phone.

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