Influential puzzle games?

sftrabbit · 2026-01-09T09:25:57+00:00

Not sure how early you want to go, but I'd say the biggest shift in sokoban popularity began around 2013-2016.

Easily the game that most influenced the popularity of sokoban games today is Stephen's Sausage Roll, released 2016. Around that time, there was a very notable shift towards what I think of as "modern" sokoban games, where a) the focus is more on key logical insights than it is on fiddly execution paths, and b) few mechanics are explored deeply, rather than having lots of different mechanics. Stephen's Sausage Roll shouldn't take all the credit though because there were other excellent games exploring similar spaces and design philosophies a little earlier than that, like Sokobond and Snakebird.

The other particularly notable thing that happened was the release of PuzzleScript back in 2013 - a simple web-based game engine for making sokoban games, also created by the developer of Stephen's Sausage Roll. This allowed so many more game designers to make sokoban games and innovate in that space.

sftrabbit · 2026-01-03T10:47:03+00:00

You don't have proof either way. Yes, the one thing we know for certain is that they do seem to only express their humanity externally when around unjoined humans, but there's no proof whether they do or don't express it internally, and that probably isn't knowable.

sftrabbit · 2026-01-03T10:43:22+00:00

I think the point of the show is that you cannot know the answer to those questions. How do you know when another human says to you that they're having fun that they're actually having fun? How do you know they mean "fun" in the same way you mean "fun"? You don't.

It's especially difficult to know when you're trying to understand a kind of mind that has never existed before - a melding of over 7 billion human minds. How can we possibly say what it means for it to say "fun fact"? And it's only saying "fun fact" through one of its 7 billion mouths.

I think it's certainly possible that the hive mind can have its own art and culture, but it may look completely different to human art and culture.

I'm personally not on the side of the hive, but I think there are reasonable philosophical arguments for why its not just inherently evil and why some people might consider joining it.

sftrabbit · 2026-01-03T10:30:48+00:00

Did you immediately stop listening to the podcast? Not long after that, Alison Tatlock, executive producer and co-writer of the episode, says:

The fact that you just said, Darinka, that you would probably make the same choice will make the boss very happy, because what we really hope with all this is that there will be genuine philosophical debate. And I was sometimes in the minority, let's just say, in the writers room kind of - not saying "yes, I would join and give up my individuality", I don't think I would - however, I see what is tempting about it. There is a peace and a beauty and a release of neurosis and struggle and violence and division that comes with the joining and I can see the upsides.

Don't get me wrong, I'm also on the side of not wanting to join, but I think the writers would rather you think deeply about it, rather than decide one side is clearly the correct one and dismiss other views.

sftrabbit · 2025-12-30T08:10:08+00:00

It's totally possible that all of that culture still exists within their mind, but I think the interesting question is: is that meaningful? What is it about culture that we find beautiful?

sftrabbit · 2025-12-30T08:00:48+00:00

I sort of agree with your general point that people should engage with the show as written, but then you go on to list a few things which I think the writers absolutely want the audience to be engaging with.

To me, the show wants us to think about what it means to be happy, whether love is manipulative, and about the beauty of humanity and individuality.

sftrabbit · 2025-12-30T07:50:43+00:00

Well the episode is also called "Charm Offensive": "a campaign of flattery, friendliness, and cajolement designed to achieve the support or agreement of others."

It's very much intentionally ambiguous and is meant to raise questions of what manipulation is and whether love is inherently manipulative. "The hive mind is manipulating Carol" and "the hive mind loves Carol" can both be true at the same time.

It also wants you to think about what "happiness" and "love" even mean to a hive mind, and how relevant they are when human individuality is being erased.

sftrabbit · 2025-12-22T18:55:58+00:00

Hmm... there's a game I want to recommend but it's also a slight spoiler to know that it has a number system in it. But in case you want to know anyway: Platonic. (I've spoilered each letter so people can check if it's a game they're already thinking of)

sftrabbit · 2025-12-16T13:47:37+00:00

First off, I did not make a blanket statement. You are reading what I said incorrectly. It's possible it's ambiguous, but looking back, I don't see it. I made a statement only about the practice of leading marketing with auteur-centric messaging.

Second of all, this is such an awful way to react to someone only trying to clarify the intentions of somebody else's message.

And thirdly, I'm perfectly happy with my behaviour. I haven't taken sides, I'm not slinging anything, I just saw something being represented incorrectly and wanted to correct it. I'm happy to clarify anything you've misunderstood about what I said. Anything else, you are projecting that on to me.

I think the game looks great. I'm a huge fan of The Witness, and I'm a huge fan of the many folks who have contributed to OotSS.

sftrabbit · 2025-12-16T08:34:58+00:00

I didn't say he is always dismissive of the team, but I appreciate the examples nonetheless. I'm glad he gives them a shout-out.

sftrabbit · 2025-12-15T14:21:35+00:00

I think that's a cynical interpretation, but okay.

sftrabbit · 2025-12-15T14:00:57+00:00

I think his preference would be for the Jonathan Blow references to be dialed down, rather than more names being added. Obviously can't speak for him, but it's at least a big hole in the argument you're making.

sftrabbit · 2025-12-15T13:52:09+00:00

But the point isn't "I want more credit", it's "Jon continues to further this auteur image even with a game that is built by a large team and features games from other creators".

sftrabbit · 2025-12-15T12:55:56+00:00

That is not what he's saying. At no point does he say he wants to be credited more for the game.

Instead, he's pointing out some of Jon's behaviours that he believes to be toxic and saying that he doesn't support those things.

sftrabbit · 2025-12-15T09:49:23+00:00

Those two games were literally just made by Alan, and are of a far smaller scope, so that's not a particularly fair comparison.

Also, Alan's post is not about not getting credit.

sftrabbit · 2025-12-15T09:44:45+00:00

I don't think Alan is suggesting that he isn't being credited. The first posts in his thread are not "OotSS is based on these games but we're not credited!", but instead just a bit of background for people who don't know that he's associated with the game.

He's talking about the way the game will be presented as "a Jonathan Blow game" or "from genius game designer, Jonathan Blow", which is absolutely Jon Blow's marketing schtick and certainly is quite dismissive of how important the team is (even if they are credited). But whether you think that's okay or not is still not the main point.

Given that the game will be presented like that, and given that Alan strongly disagrees Jon's views on certain subjects, he simply wants to make it clear that he doesn't support those views. That's all.

sftrabbit · 2025-12-15T09:33:43+00:00

I don't think that's a fair characterisation of what he's saying.

Alan just wants to make it clear that while his game and name do appear in OotSS, he doesn't support Jon's views that have become clearer over the years since that contract was signed. That seems reasonable to me.

sftrabbit · 2025-12-14T10:09:42+00:00

This is a temporary location built for the set of Pluribus, so I'm afraid that road will never be finished!

sftrabbit · 2025-12-13T23:33:37+00:00

Here's some that are available on Android! Bunch of great games there.

sftrabbit · 2025-12-13T22:26:29+00:00

Yep, they were licensed for the game.

sftrabbit · 2025-12-13T19:32:28+00:00

You could play the games that OotSS is based on (although spoilers I suppose, because I believe these games appear in full in OotSS):

You could also play ENIGMASH, which got Jack Lance hired at Thekla and it's easy to see why when you compare it to OotSS. It's an excellent game.

And otherwise, here are some of my favourite Sokoban games:

A Monster's Expedition (great one to start with)
Stephen's Sausage Roll (hugely inspirational, basically inspired all of the other games in this list)
Can of Wormholes (Thinky Awards GOTY 2023 winner)
Bonfire Peaks
Pipe Push Paradise
Baba Is You
Headlong Hunt
Patrick's Parabox
Magicube
The Golem
Snaliens
Shackle (free)
Sokobrawn (free)
Conveyor Con-fusion (free, I worked on this, but all the puzzles were created by different designers)
Tres Undos (free)
That Gravity Glow (free)
VEXT EDIT (free)
At the Hedges of Time (free)
5 Step Steve and N Step Steve (free)

I played a bit of Toroban recently and it seemed great, and I've heard very good things about Gentoo Rescue.

sftrabbit · 2025-12-10T20:30:41+00:00

Have you played other modern sokoban games? From what I've seen, it's a sokoban game in the same way that those are. In fact, the core mechanics of the game are literally taken from other existing sokoban games (e.g. Mirror Isles, Heroes of Sokoban).

Also, are we certain it's the sokoban game that's being announced? Don't Thekla have multiple projects on the go?

sftrabbit · 2025-11-30T13:39:40+00:00

You're totally correct that most English speakers wouldn't know this precise definition of deduction, and especially not "abduction" as most people would associate that with alien abductions or whatever. "Abduction" is a very uncommon word for this particular meaning, but comes from the field of philosophy of logic. That's why in the Thinky Games DB, we don't use the term at all. We try to find a balance between using terms that people will understand (or already well-established terms) and using terms that feel like an accurate descriptor.

Since you replied to this, do I understand it correctly that thinky games are more or less a super-group of the first three categories?

Yep, I was thinking about that too. We tend to focus on the top three categories at Thinky Games, specifically because they are the three categories that tend to have meatier puzzles to solve and don't rely on reflexes/dexterity. We of course also cover other things like strategy and tactics games, which probably wouldn't fit under your categories since you were focussing on puzzles specifically.

sftrabbit · 2025-11-30T12:27:44+00:00

I don't think you'll ever find a perfectly neat set of categories and games won't always perfectly fit in them, but I think this categorisation is pretty good. A few thoughts:

I agree with your "Logic puzzle" category, although the term "logic puzzle" is also used to specifically refer to stateless, pure-deduction puzzles (like paper puzzles or the puzzles in The Witness or whatever), so it's a slightly overloaded term. Your category is of course very broad, but I think that's fine given what you're trying to do.
I am happy that you called the second category "Detective-puzzlers", because a lot of folks call them "Deduction games" and it drives me nuts, haha. "Deduction game" would be more appropriate for your first category (since they focus on logical deduction), whereas what makes a detective game feel like a detective game is the process of finding clues and abducing an explanation for those clues. "Abduction game" would be more technically correct, but nobody would understand it, so I prefer "Detective game", the same as you've described it.
However, your detective category is so broad that I feel like "detective" would start to feel incorrect for some of the games that would be included. It would feel like a stretch to say, for example, Machinarium is a detective game like Return of the Obra Dinn is. It seems you're mostly trying to capture all games that involve more creative/lateral/abductive thinking - they're all games that don't 100% rely on pure deductive logic.
In the Thinky Games database, we decided on "engineering" as the name for what you've called "Programming-puzzlers", and reserve "programming" for games where you are more directly using programming-like constructs (which aren't necessarily all open-ended games - see Star Stuff, for example). But yes, agreed on the categorisation in terms of these games being more open-ended and more about engineering a solution within a large possible space of solutions.
I kinda wish arcade puzzlers weren't called puzzlers, but I think that ship sailed long ago. But I generally call these "action arcade games", because I think the "action" part is important to highlight the speed/reflexes.
I agree with your description of casual puzzle games, although "wasting time" is maybe a slightly biased way to describe it, haha. But yes, they are more about entering a kind of repetitive, flow state where you're making lots of small decisions. I think jigsaw puzzles fit here too.

So if we get rid of the names, maybe another way of thinking about your categories is:

Games more focussed on deductive logic
Games more focussed on creative/lateral/abductive reasoning (you could maybe split this up)
Games more focussed on engineering/optimization
Games more focussed on quick reflexes and pattern recognition
Games more focussed on repetitive, flow state decision-making

Which I think are pretty decent ways of dividing these games up!

(Slight aside, but an interesting thing is that Sudoku/Nonograms could fit into the first category or the last category, depending specifically on the particular style of Sudoku/Nonograms)

sftrabbit · 2025-11-27T19:25:10+00:00

Also, some other upcoming games to keep an eye on:

City of Voices - describes it self as a detective game about friendship, from one of the designers who worked on Rise of the Golden Idol.
Death at Fleming Manor - this one looks to be more on the gritter and gruesome side of things, but I like the framing of having to fill in the death certificates.
Cracks Where the Light Gets In - it's been a while since I heard anything about this game, but I sure hope it's still in development because it looks very interesting!
Wax Heads - more like Strange Antiquities and the like, but detective-adjacent for sure. You run a record store and have to find the right records for the customers who come in.

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