What is a Puzzle Game?

Sounds like a simple question, right? One could easily think of a meaning in terms of a circular definition: a game in which puzzles are solved. But doesn’t that definition fit many games out there, especially free flash ones? Is Closure, a game we profiled earlier, a platformer or a puzzle game? In a sense, it’s a little of both — but ultimately, it’s more a game of solving puzzles than jumping around various moving platforms. And it’s better because of it.

To get a sense of what I’m talking about, just check out the Puzzle game listings on Kongregate:

Listing of Puzzle Games on Kongregate

But many of the games listed above don’t fit into the traditional definition of a “puzzle” game. There are only “Logical or conceptual challenges”, a common term used in reference to puzzle games, to the extent that you find those challenges in almost any type of game. Halo 3, for instance, has a number of logical challenges — but it certainly isn’t commonly defined as a puzzle game, as there are already well-defined genres that are used to label it — action, shoot-em-up, et cetera.

So thus, the “Puzzle” genre gets co-opted for those fascinating, esoteric games — often free flash games — that don’t really fit into any other genre. For another example, see Obechi, a game we covered last week. There’s no more of a “logical or conceptual challenge” in Obechi than in Halo or Madden, but there’s no other commonly-adopted genre that can be used to define and tag a game centered around collecting balls with rings in an abstract, 2D space.