Boy finds sword. Boy stabs monster with sword. Boy rescues girl. Boy and girl go out for coffee or something. But what if things happen in the wrong order? Find out in Tiled Quest, an HTML5 sliding block puzzle game developed by Team Doa Ibu for the Indonesian Indie Game Festival. With it's nice mix of iconographic pixel and hand-drawn artwork and simple, intuitive gameplay, Tiled Quest is a charming little time-waster that can be immediately jumped into.
Get yourself into a bit of a sticky situation with a sliding block game all about sticking other blocks to yourself! As a smiling, orange block, slide around the playing field. Any other orange blocks you touch will stick to you and become part of your body. But if you get too big, you might have to rely on spikes and bombs to carve yourself down to size! Become the right shape to fit on top of the red-and-yellow goal!
Slide blocks to push out all the fans on each level. Sounds simple even with different, restricted movement types, right? But clean, minimalist design masks some surprisingly tricky brain teasers. Check out the full Android and iOS versions for more levels and another game mode!
Everyone needs a great sliding block puzzle in their life, so it might as well be this one. Solve each well designed puzzle by manipulating the blocks until all like colors are touching. Sound easy? Wait until sticky, sleepy, and caterpillar blocks are added into the mix.
Everyone needs a healthy dose of adorableness. And these sweet little robots provide that and more; a great mental workout in the form of a simple yet engaging sliding block puzzle game.
It's not easy being a space ninja. No matter where you go, some wayward planet somewhere is always in need of your help! In this sequel to the original, the last ninja finds himself on a planet beset by the mafia! Help him leap from wall to wall to take out every mob member in the level! He can utilize special technique scrolls and ninja clones to help him, but these mafia men are packing robot power! Learn their weaknesses and take them all down!
Building off the success of games like Triple Town, Threes!, and 2048, Letter Monsters puts a cute (and fuzzy) new face on combine-three grid games. Re-learn your A-B-C's across over sixty levels of strategic sliding, and use eight unique boosters to help yourself out on iOS, Android, and in your browser!
Possessing humans and stealing souls is all in a day's work for one demon. Too bad there's a human wizard trying to stop him from doing it! Now he'll need to gather enough souls to have the strength to challenge the wizard in battle! As a demon, you'll be zipping along the ground and finding the best path to get to the humans. But once you enter a human body, you'll be pushing blocks, potions, and buttons and collecting gems on your way to the exit!
Your little brother might constantly annoy you with his delusions of being a squid (obviously, he's an octopus), but that doesn't mean he deserved to be fished up by a bunch of sailors! Now you'll have to go Kraken on their boat and tilt your brother to freedom. Slide him onto the keys with the help of crates, carts, and TNT. Just don't dump him into the water without unlocking that cage first!
If bots could be zen, then this little puzzle would be where they lived. Connecting your bots will make them happy, but lining them up over the lightning bolts on the floor will really give them a charge! Each level can be passed as long as all the bots are connected. The real challenge is finding your way through the obstacles to reach all three chargers in each level.
Pablo Cavarez: Sliding Puzzle Explorer is your new hero. The intrepid explorer traverses underground temples like we stroll through the park. His secret is to take things one square at a time. His other secret is to get you to move those squares before taking a single step. The sliding block puzzle game is somewhat similar to Continuity in basic design, but Pablo definitely has the tougher job. How many other puzzle heroes have to use a sword?
As the last surviving apprentice tasked with the simple job of cleaning up the castle library, it seems you've accidentally dropped the Dark Grimoires of Sorth to the ground and now all the banished creatures have escaped. Oops! Hey, when a Denny's waiter so much as drops a plate they're "Now Hiring!" so this loosing-magickal-monstrosities-upon-the-earth business is something you should definitely sort out immediately if not sooner.
Since there's never been a bandwagon Tricky hasn't jumped on, he presents to you JayIs2048, a tribute to UsVsTh3m's Make Your Own 2048 generator, a tribute to Gabriele Cirulli's MIT-licensed 2048, a tribute to 1024 by Veewo Studio, a tribute to Threes by Asher Vollmer, which, of course was a tribute to the postulate that small stuff can be combined bigger stuff. There's a whole lot of tributin' going on, is what we're saying.
If you're looking for another sliding block number puzzle quick fix, Bart Bonte gives us 25. Combine like numbers while lining up red blocks to get them out of your way. Try for a high score by combining as many numbers as possible!
Taking over phones and browsers in just a few weeks, this fiendishly addictive puzzle game has just one goal... get to 2048 by swiping and combining numbered tiles until they add up. But it's harder than it seems, and players looking for simple, casual puzzling will quickly find themselves saying "just one more round", though it bears more than a passing resemblance to Threes!
Think Rush Hour mingled with Tetri but with shapes that do more than just slide, and you'll have the basic idea of what Shapist is like. More than just a sliding block puzzle game, drag, rotate, or shrink the blocks in order to uncover the grey block to continue. Don't worry about timers or scores, it's just you and the blocks.
Threes: The Demake is a clever simplification of Asher Vollmer and Greg Wohlwend's iOS puzzle game Threes!. Created by Benjamin Davis, this demake contains the basic tile sliding/combining mechanics found in its big brother. The board is filled with white, red and blue tiles. Tapping the [arrow] keys lets you slide everything in that direction, smashing red/blue tiles and identical white tiles together to increase their face value, marked by darker blocks at the top. The goal is to keep combining tiles to create as many massive numbers as possible!
Quick, what do you get when you add 10 and 10? The answer is still 10, because 10 is Again! Never mind that that makes no mathematical or grammatical sense, because all that matters is that in 10 is Again, you've got to slide numbered tiles to make stacks that up to exactly ten. In this level pack, multiplication, division, and inversion tiles are added to the mix to make the math just a little wilder and the puzzling a little trickier.
Thieves love diamonds, and there are a whole lot to collect in Theft Punk, a Road Blocks-esque sliding puzzle game from Frip. A jazzy retro aesthetic and nifty details will keep players sliding right up until the strange-but-funny end sequence.
Sometimes the biggest challenges come from games with very few rules. It's the principle behind Simple Machine's latest puzzle, in which you combine matching numbered tiles until there's only one. It's simple, it's clever, and it's difficult in the best of ways.
How can you not love the number 10? Especially if we're talking about the new sliding-puzzle from iojoe! Colorful and entertaining, with a gentle learning curve, anyone in search of a good mind-twister should definitely give 10 their a-10-tion.
The simple things in life are often the best, and Green-Eyed Games has managed to turn a simple sliding-block puzzle into a game about flowers, just by arranging blocks the right way. The rules of Petals are as simple as the idea behind it: click to combine like-colored tiles in a grid, but avoid combining tiles of different colors. That's all there is to it, and it's a great way to spend a few minutes stretching your mind. You don't even have to water it.
Squarescape is a sliding block puzzle game from Jacob Koch. Working with just a few basic colors and a minimalist visual design, the simple title challenges you to move a square around the screen in an attempt to make it to the exit. Of course, strategically placed blocks, stoppers, orbs and many other obstacles stand in your way, so it's not like you can just waltz on in there and start the end of level celebration.
Marty Sears' popular combination of anagrams, block-sliding, hilarious animations, and hair-pulling difficulty has become a quadrilogy with Blocks With Letters On 4. It's as punishing and as hilarious as it's ever been, and this time, the background is green!
Combine squishy blocks according to colour. What could be simpler, you say? Not much, but it's important to remember that simple doesn't always mean easy, and this free stylish little indie puzzler will give you far more than your value with its devilish design and 40 levels.
Developed by AtomicCicada, this block-sliding puzzle game takes an old concept and turns it on its head with a simple tweak. Giving a much-appreciated twist to a familiar format, Push Me is a refreshing and unexpectedly original piece of logic puzzlery. And with 100 levels, it'll keep your brain occupied for a nice while.
Alien Hive, a game by Appxplore is a blend of match 3, sliding block puzzles, and resource management with some alien breeding mixed in. It's all a bit reminiscent of Triple Town, where you shuffle items around to fill in gaps and help tiles evolve to be all that they can possibly be.
I've been workin' in the stockroom, all the live-long day! Nitrome's made a puzzle platformer, just to pass the time away. Can't you slide those crates around to please those cranky CEO's? If you can you'll earn some peanuts, and OH C'MON, WHO GAVE DINAH THAT FREAKING HORN? No, we don't want to hear you play Saturday in the Park again. Just help the monkey grab the goodies by restacking the boxes, and we'll talk about getting a new radio in here, a'ight?
Last Train to Timbuktu is a puzzle game by Green Eyed Games that plays like a sliding block puzzle fused with a Rubik's cube. A grid of tiles sits before you, each decorated with some grass, maybe a bit of water or some bushes, and a section of track. Simply shift the grid around so the track pieces line up, allowing the train to get from Point A to Point B unimpeded!
Sometimes a puzzle game comes along that's so smart and so well-made, you wonder why it wasn't created like a billion years ago or something. Puzzle Retreat from The Voxel Agents is one such game, combining elements from sokoban and a sliding block puzzle to create an impressively challenging game that is almost completely void of frustration. You just sit, stare, and play, all while marveling at the beautiful visuals before your eyes.
The Puddings need your help! Without legs or traction, they're helpless against the selfish humans willing to ignore their pleading eyes and chow down on them, so they need you to help them slide around and combine into more formidable monsters! With different flavours of Puddings with different abilities and a whole bunch of levels, ZeptoLabs brings another gorgeously high-quality puzzle game to your iOS.
Bart Bonte delivers a deliciously swank yet simple sliding block puzzle with a holiday spin. Push, pull, stack, and stick using the incredible powers granted to you as a magnetic star in order to assemble the shape in each stage. A stylish exercise in clever, clean design and gameplay no matter what time of year it is.
Game Balance's series of sliding-puzzles is back with a shiny new coat of sparkles in Orbox C! This installment may be a little heavy on the glitz and techno music, but the intelligent challenges should appeal to fans both new and old.
James Newcombe's massive sliding-block puzzle game makes a return in this huge sequel. Your goal is to get your four Cyads to the exit in each stage, but with lasers, bombs, glue, switches, and much, much more in the way the farther you progress, it quickly becomes clear this deceptively simple looking puzzle game is playing for keeps. With no timer or turn limit, it's just you, your brain, and some of the most cleverly designed and fiendishly huge levels around that will keep you busy for a long, long time.
In this sliding block-style puzzler by Mibix, a flying squirrel faces off against the natural predator of all rodentia: zombies. The cartoony graphics don't quite mesh with the strategic gameplay, but the levels are well designed and the scream the squirrel makes as he flies off the screen is schadenfreudely hilarious.
Death is out to do his job, and instead of going after cute things like bunnies or people who think aliens aren't real, he's hunting demons! And you get to help! This great little puzzle game from Pixelulsar uses the sliding block concept to craft 20 levels of smart planning, testing, executing, and the other kind of executing, all in the name of tossing demons into pits of lava. Neat!
Cryptica, a sliding block puzzle game from Pixibots, is like being stuck in the trap-filled tomb of some pharaoh whose devious riddles were designed to keep you busy until the end of time. And, well, that's pretty much what it is, although according to the official backstory you're hunting for lost relics by solving puzzles in crypts. Either way, there's a lot of amazing challenge to be found in this game of symbol matching and stone sliding!
Sixty levels of smooth block sliding puzzling goodness can be a little bit too relaxing, perhaps? Well don't fret, because if you want a little snark to keep you on your toes, Woodhead serves up subtle Onion-style satire with every new level. Taking full advantage of the iPhone's interface strengths, this is a great little time-waster to keep in your pocket.
Time to get your Sokoban-like on with Tom 7's puzzle game, Escape. The built-in tutorial levels start you off with a good challenge, but it's the thousands of user-made levels (and a great sorting system for them) that will heap on the entertainment and have you playing for hours. Try your hand at creating a level of your own to share with the public to see if they can succeed to escape.
Remember Pipe Dream (or Pipe Mania)? That old game where you put the pieces of pipe in the grid to make a really long chain? In Slipe, the pipework has already been put down for you, you've just got to slide it all into place. Unlike most sliding puzzles where you're just sliding one tile at a time. Slipe forces you to slide entire rows and columns, putting a tricky spin on an old classic.
An interesting combination of 2D and 3D, Rinth Island takes classic sokoban block-pushing, switch-throwing fun, throws in some tropical twists, and shakes it up to make an iOS game that's as refreshing as a hurricane (the cocktail, that is). With 60 adventure levels, 3 more modes for each level, and an in-game level editor and user-created levels, it's a lot of puzzle for the price.
Developed by Jonathan Whiting for Ludum Dare 22, Craequ throws players into a puzzling pixelated world of corridors, pushable blocks and crystal balls. It's up to the player to discover the logic behind it, but if you do, you'll feel really smart.
You know what really grinds my gears? Not being able to get that golden gear out from underneath that mess of beams and curves. In Clockwork, you can slide and shuffle your cares away in a clever puzzler where it takes perfect synchronization to free the gear from its elaborate entrapment.
So, you think you're the Sultan of Sokoban? The Titan of Tiles? The Big Cheese of Block Pushing? HA! Let's see how you fare now that James Newcombe has come back with a new release in his popular Amiga-inspired Cyadonia series. There'll be all sorts of things to trip you up: mines, arrows, pushblocks, dissolvers, switches, glue patches, bounce-backs, teleporters, one-way walls, and much, much more. It's Cyad 2, and it's ready to bring you all the pleasures of pure puzzling.
A Day in the Woods is a sliding puzzle adventure from Retro Epic that stars none other than Little Red Riding Hood. It's a simple game built around simple, classic puzzle ideas, but it's lengthy and challenging enough to provide an afternoon of brilliant entertainment. Also, one look at the game and you'll absolutely fall in love with the visual style!
There's something inherently soothing about sliding puzzles. No wait, hear me out. You're just thinking they're frustrating because so frequently they're the obstacle in your escape or hidden object game, the puzzle that rears its ugly mug when you just want to open up the safe or fix the breaker system. But if you distill it down to its essence and give it a relaxing ambiance, there's something pure and satisfying about sliding some blocks around, and that's just what this game from Ateta Games delivers.
Sticky Blocks, Aaron Maupin's new variation on the sokoban concept, introduces blocks that stick to each other as well as the avatar. With each move you make, your collection of blocks becomes larger and, possibly, more unwieldy, forcing you to consider every move beforehand!
Binary is a stylish puzzle game held together by a rudimentary platformer aesthetic. Repair orbiting supercomputers by climbing into the planet's surface and solving sliding-type puzzle games. Though the entire game is only a few puzzles long, if you're not familiar with how each puzzle works, Binary can be quite a challenge to get through.
A delightful sliding block puzzle game packed with every idea for a tile-based puzzler you can think of, including pushable blocks, lasers, mines, key-and-lock combinations, and so very, very much more. Basically, it's just a mammoth game with an incredible amount of variety. It could be tighter, but it couldn't be much more ambitious.
An attractive, isometric block-shifting puzzle game about patience, spacial skills, and not getting your feet wet. All you have to do is position the wooden blocks so that they form an unbroken path from one bank to the other. There aren't a lot of tricks after you learn the basicsm, just pure, solid puzzle-solving.
A game that combines wordplay with Sokoban-style block pushing? Are they mad?!? Arrange blocks with letters to form words by sliding them into place. Luckily, Alphabox recognizes solutions apart from the one intended, so sometimes you can get creative and mix the letters around, saving a few moves. A level editor extends the replay value of this innovative puzzler.
Blockoban is the latest from JP, who has just launched a new website that features user-created content, called Bonus Level, along with fellow game designers, Wouter and Tonypa. With names like that attached you can expect high quality, and Blockoban delivers. It's a game where you slide blocks around and try to match their colors to specific spaces. That simple mechanic is fleshed out with challenging level designs and high quality production values, delivering an experience that will keep you hooked.
In the latest puzzle romp from Nitrome, you play the part of Magneboy, an orange robot powered by clockwork, with a dial in his chest set permanently to Neutral. He exists in a strange technological void, with pillars jutting out of the infinite blackness beneath. On each level, you must guide him to a checkerboard-patterned platform (robots are naturally attracted to early 60s diners).
Taro Ito has been a favorite of ours here at JIG for several years, so it is with great fanfare that we welcome new releases from his GameDesign.jp website. The latest of his designs is this sliding-block puzzle game called Shot. The objective is to progress as far as you can, through a series of increasingly more difficult levels, by knocking all but one of the balls from the play grid.
Excit is a puzzle game set on top of a page from a spreadsheet. If you have ever wanted a game to look more like work so that you could play in the office without fear of someone glancing over your shoulder and seeing particle effects shooting toward all edges of your computer screen while you're dodging asteroids and flying monkeys, then this is for you.
Flashxed manages to breathe a little life into the familiar block-matching puzzle theme with a new mechanic: block dragging. You're presented with a set of bricks with colored orbs sparkling inside. Drag blocks left or right one at a time, and if two or more blocks of the same color touch, they smash and crumble away. It's extraordinarily perplexing at times, but that challenge is what makes it so fun.
A lecturer at The Guildhall at Southern Methodist University in Software Development for Games, Jeff Wofford has been working in the games industry for over 10 years. He has also just released this addictive little Flash puzzle game that plays like a cross between a tangram and a sliding block puzzle.
Cubrius is a commercial-quality puzzle game in which the player pushes boxes (cubes) to solve stages by removing all colored cubes from view. A variant of Sokoban, Cubrius extends the classic gameplay by introducing a variety of cube types, each with special characteristics and behavior, as well as time-based bonus scores.
Orbox B by GameBalance is a game of striking simplicity and compelling puzzle solving, and is the sequel to the original Orbox game previously reviewed here. A pure puzzle solving game with 30 levels, this one isn't the most innovative game you'll play this week, but it could very well be one of the most mind-bending.
Thanks go out to Nick Kouvaris for sending word about his latest puzzle game over at Lightforce Games, an excellent source for many wonderful and mind-bending puzzle games. CyberBox is a complete Flash remake of a DOS puzzle game of the same name created by Doug Beeferman in 1991.
Although this Flash puzzler is similar to other sliding-block puzzle games in its class, what I find special about this one is its presentation and execution. The goal of Orbox is to navigate the blue and yellow blinking box to the red goal in the fewest moves possible using just the arrow keys for control.
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