Puzzle Escape: Sharpen Your Problem Solving Skills

The virtual puzzle world is getting bigger and better every year as technology improves. The world of puzzle games provides the fans of the genre with endless hours of entertainment through their Xbox. Puzzles and games that test your skill are made to challenge you and improve your ability to think better in the real world. Despite it being challenging and capable of frustrating you if you cannot find a solution, puzzles promote and produce dopamine, which can improve your mood regardless of the outcome. Dopamine is a key ingredient in your ability to concentrate and focus, which benefits your memory and neurotransmitters responsible for thinking differently.

Puzzling power

Many years before gaming as we know it, people’s puzzles were already a popular activity and pastime. Nowadays, puzzlers have received a blessing from the virtual world. Puzzle games are the future of puzzling, from your favorite jigsaws to games that take the concept of puzzling and apply it to their environment creating the greatest puzzle games of our generation.

Improving your problem-solving skills offers more than just the intellectual drive to find a solution. This feeling is often amplified when the puzzle game has a level of competitiveness to it. The best part about sharpening those problem-solving skills is the application of these improved skills in your real and professional world. Once the screen goes dark, your mind does not follow. Puzzling activates your brain in so many ways that the “puzzling high” goes on for a healthy span after you retire from the game.

With so many fantastic options to choose from, it may be easy to get lost in the puzzling rows of head-scratchers you are faced with while browsing the most popular puzzle games. Here are some of the puzzle games you cannot miss out on.

Portal (both are great!)

Valve delivered one of the greatest story puzzle games with a unique puzzling method that completely changed the gaming scene. If you are a fan of the Half-Life universe, Portal will be a familiar landscape. Set in the same universe as the Half-Life games, the game lets you embark on the dark and twisted yet splendidly comedic journey the Portal games offer. Portal 1 and 2 are both amazing games you should definitely consider playing through at least once, and if you have a buddy try out their co-op, it is a standalone story compared to other co-op experiences.

Portal’s concept is simple, but its level design provides the complexity you want out of a good puzzler. Valve delivered a game that has gone on to influence releases like SplitGate in 2021, despite being close to twenty years old at this point. You can move around to places you could not normally get to without using a portal, and you also will use these orange and blue portals to create momentum to reach spots or clear gaps impossible otherwise. The catch is you can only shoot your portals onto walls that support your portal, and you only have two portals at any given time, which means picking your portals correctly is imperative to finding the solutions.

Tetris

It would be unfair to leave off the father of virtual puzzle games. Despite its age, it seems to be the perfect puzzle game and has stayed a favorite for many, even gathering new fans in 2021. People love Tetris! Tetris makes you smarter and has done so for decades. The simple yet perfect puzzle game of fitting shapes, while the speed and frequency continue, produces dopamine and creates a thicker cortex, further improving your brain’s efficiency. People do not realize that Tetris makes you think harder than you may realize. Next time you are busy figuring out where that next L or T is about to go, try to think of something else completely and visualize it in vivid detail. Odds are you will not be able to do both at the same time. This is because you see the shape that will come next, and immediately before it even touches the playing field, you will have to figure out where the shape fits.

Human Fall Flat

Fun with physics is the best way to describe this puzzler. This game really shines in their unique ragdoll physics engine. Playing by yourself is fun, but the game’s co-op mode is marvelous. With countless puzzles and levels to work through, it is doubtful you and your friends will get tired of this hilarious simulator. Take control of your jelly-like character and figure out challenging puzzles with your friends. By the time you find out that there are multiple ways to solve the puzzles, you are probably on your second playthrough.

Keep Talking and Nobody Explodes

This game is a stroke of cooperative genius. Voice chat is needed for this game but trust us, it is worth it. The game is nerve-wracking yet so simple with a touch of reality. The game works like this, you and a friend will be on a Discord or voice chat server of sorts, but one of you will have the bomb disarming manual, and the other is looking at a bomb. The manual does not give many visual aids, so your job as the one looking at the bomb is to describe what you are looking at so your friend with the disarming manual can determine what method of defusing the bomb will be required to make sure no one dies! You are pressed for time and cannot make many mistakes with this constraint. This game makes for some adrenaline-pumping puzzling memories that will last a lifetime, as long as you do not explode!

Puzzles for all

There is a puzzle game for everyone out there. The list has more glamorous options, but those looking for the average tabletop experience do not need to feel left out. There are plenty of wonderful simulators to satiate all those puzzling needs!