ABOUT Puzzle Lovers

Welcome to Puzzle Lovers!

"Life Is Better - When It Fits Together."

Puzzle Lovers is a community for players who prefer thoughtful, cerebral challenges over reflex‑driven action. It’s a place to share game recommendations, discuss clever strategies, and explore creative solutions. Whether you enjoy first‑person puzzlers, point-and-click adventures, Nonograms, Sokoban-style games, or word and number puzzles, you’ll find it all here.

We're happy you dropped by! Make yourself at home and become part of our community.

Contact: puzzleloversgroup@gmail.com

Friendly discussions on the forum

- New to the group? Introduce yourself!
- Tell us what you've been playing, puzzle or otherwise.
- Open a thread for your favorite game.
- Ask for help if you get stuck.
- Post your puzzle-related creations in our Community Corner.

Discussion Highlights

- New Releases
- Upcoming Games
- Recent Reviews
- Steam Giveaways
- Free & Paid-to-Free Games
- Community Corner Pick
- Check out our Newsletter Archives

Giveaways

We have giveaways every month. Details and links are posted in the Discussions.

Our curator page

Follow us for recommendations on hundreds of titles, usually with detailed reviews, and browse our 60+ lists for various themes.

We advocate for both puzzle players and puzzle developers. Our reviews aim to provide an objective assessment of a game’s current state, and we also work to help improve games by offering constructive feedback. On occasion, our curators are even credited in the game’s credits. We never accept compensation for our reviews or feedback.

For developers and publishers

We’re a team of experienced players, and QA specialists who’ve been playing games for decades. Our goal is to help developers and players discover better games. To support both sides, we offer free playtesting and constructive feedback.

Basic Functionality and Accessibility Guide. To begin promoting your upcoming game, feel free to create a post in our New & Upcoming Games section. It’s a great place to introduce your project and share early details with our community.

Thank you for your time, and we hope you enjoy your stay!

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RECENT ANNOUNCEMENTS

Ten Years of Puzzle Lovers

August 9 - sdumitriu | 10 Comments

Ten years ago today, on August 9, 2016, the Puzzle Lovers group was created. I wasn't there for it, so a good chunk of this anniversary is other people's history, not mine. But a decade is a decade, and it would be strange to let it pass without saying anything.

Credit where it's due: Hippyshake founded the group in 2016, and it was maintained by Dohi64 for the longest stretch of its life. Whatever else has changed, the basic principle has been there from the start and hasn't moved: honest reviews, written by people who actually played the games.

It's worth remembering what Steam looked like in 2016. A few thousand games came out that year, Greenlight was still limping along, and a curator could plausibly keep an eye on most of what mattered in a genre. Now there are more than 20 000 releases a year, and nobody can keep up with all of it. That's the single biggest change of the decade, and it's why groups like this still have a reason to exist. Discoverability got worse, not better, and puzzle games, a small genre with small marketing budgets and no streamer-friendly explosions, got hit hardest. A genuinely great puzzle game can come out and sell a few hundred copies, not because it's bad, but because nobody ever saw it.

Everything else changed too, of course. The indie scene grew enormously and got much more talented, but it also filled up with asset flips, clicker games, and now AI-generated everything. Scammers and fake reviews arrived along with everyone else. And through all of it, the small stubborn corner of people who'd rather pause and think than run and shoot kept showing up. In ten years, the group steadily grew. There are close to six thousand group members, and more than seven thousand curator followers. We've written close to two thousand reviews. Brainrack has gone out almost every week for the past seven years and is up to issue #366. There have been weekly giveaways, a playtesting offer for developers, a functionality and accessibility guide that is often referenced and shared, and a Community Corner where people post things they made. The other change I'm glad about: this stopped being a one-person show. There are around a bunch of more or less active people on the curator team now. Azzurra has been here longer than I have and is still at it, which over ten years counts for a lot more than any single big contribution. Tanner has taken over group communication recently and does it better than I was managing to. That kind of arrangement is much healthier than one person quietly burning out, and it means the group survives any one of us losing interest, which, over ten years, has already happened more than once.

Which brings me to the part I owe you. The newsletter hasn't gone out for the past few months. The honest reason is that a very busy stretch at work ran into a fair amount of gaming burnout, and Brainrack was the thing that gave way. I should have said so at the time instead of letting it just quietly stop. It's coming back shortly, I'm not winding anything down, I just needed to step back from it for a while.

Beyond that, the plan is the boring one that's been working for ten years: keep curating, keep publishing the newsletter, keep giving developers honest feedback whether or not they want to hear it, keep looking for good reviewers and playtesters to bring onto the team.

None of it works without the people reading this. Thank you. Ten years of a niche community holding together on the internet is not a small thing.

As always, please comment with any feedback, positive or negative, about the group and the curators.

Thanks for ten years of support. Here's to the next ten.

Brainrack, Issue #366 (Week of May 4, 2026)

May 29 - sdumitriu | 1 Comments

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, join the No Clue Discord server[discord.gg], 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!

A short one to catch up.

The Cerebral Puzzle Showcase is live! This is the biggest event for puzzle lovers, with more than 400 games on sale, and 150 demos for upcoming games to try. If you’re not sure what to buy, take a look at the bundles set up for the showcase, each game in those top bundles is a masterpiece that I recommend. Unfortunately for me, I already have all the games, so there’s no deal for me…

Other relevant events going on this week you can check out: Cozy & Family Friendly Games Celebration for lots of cozy games, and Strategems for strategy games

New on the Curator

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:

Fragmentary (escape room, strategy, lateral thinking)

New Curatees with Mini-Reviews:

Network Notation (strategy, minimalist)
Brushwork (type)

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.

New and Upcoming Releases on Steam

https://store.steampowered.com/app/4638110/Brushwork/

A minimalist take on Nurikabe, a logic puzzle about separating rivers and islands. Though it isn’t as visually striking as Nurikabe World, its pared-down UI works well, and the puzzles are strong. You get daily challenges with leaderboards, a large campaign that ranges from easy to very tough, random puzzles, and a timed streak mode. The hint system is smart, guiding you step by step without giving everything away. A great pick for Nurikabe fans, though some levels do have more than one valid solution.

https://store.steampowered.com/app/3968100/CDROM/

A fake OS game about hidden codes. The main goal is to get 10 codes that unlock the 10 demo CDs. For those old enough to remember the early days of personal computing, that was a thing, monthly computer magazines with a CD full of demos and shareware. So, one by one, you unlock a new CD, plug it in, explore the files on it, and put together the code to unlock the next CD. Each new level brings something new, from an image editor, a first person game-within-game, audio analysis, a platformer… A lot of creativity, especially around the middle of the game.

https://store.steampowered.com/app/4401160/Fireboy__Watergirl_and_Friends/

A puzzle platformer with up to 5 different characters, each with different characteristics. Use three hands to control three characters at once, progressing through each complicated level. Make sure that Fireboy doesn’t step in water, Watergirl doesn’t fall into lava, and guide each one of them to collect their respective gems. The other 3 characters are more quirky, one can jump really high, one is very small and can fit through narrow spaces, and one is heavy and slow, but can carry the others on its head. Challenging levels, with optional stars for collecting all the gems and finishing within a given time. A bit unpolished, but good.

https://store.steampowered.com/app/3161400/Infinity_Sweeper/

A roguelike minesweeper with power ups, bosses, different mechanics, HPs and time limits. Unlike a thinky minesweeper, there are many ambiguous situations, with nothing but lucky guesses to help move you forward, and that’s why all the powerups are important. It looks good, it’s well designed, and it’s probably one of the best minesweeper+roguelike games out there, but only if you’re loving the roguelike aspect more than the minesweeper one. I for one don’t like guessing in my logic games.

https://store.steampowered.com/app/3634010/Islantiles/

A mixture of different genres: a roguelike strategy deckbuilder board game. Colonize islands, placing down buildings that create powerful synergies, rewarding you with more cards to tackle the next island. Successful runs unlock more game modes, for lots of hours of fun.

https://store.steampowered.com/app/3909740/Midnight_Saturn/

You play as a detective investigating the murder of a despicable character. This is more adventure than detective, point & click your way through the story, getting people what they want to make them talk to you. But the game turns even darker and more sinister, with aliens and monsters and drugs.

https://store.steampowered.com/app/3897520/Pazleum/

Solve 3D jigsaws on the surface of real works of art, like sculptures and vases. The basic functionality is in place: a scrollable drawer for pieces, optional highlighting when the piece you’re holding is near the correct location, optional hot/cold hints, a decent snap area, drawer realignment, zoom, and turn. There’s also a generous amount of info about each object.

https://store.steampowered.com/app/3546820/SirKwitz_2/

A new SirKwitz game (sounds like Circuits), an educational programming game in which you program a little robot to fix up broken circuits. Very few instructions, short levels, perfect for children, though optimizing the solutions by smart use of loops and functions is a good challenge for the adults and more experienced programmers.

https://store.steampowered.com/app/2536720/UVS_Nirmana/

A surprise release from Coincidence (ex-Zachtronics), one more pseudo-programming/engineering Zach-like. This time it’s about building pipe-like structures that process metaphysical energy flows, as your spaceship travels the universe. As with any good Zach-like, the puzzles are open-ended, so the challenge isn’t in just solving every puzzle, but in optimizing your builds by building the shortest, narrowest, or fastest solution. And of course there’s a solitaire-like puzzle!

https://store.steampowered.com/app/2769240/Wax_Heads/

A kind of detective story with a musical theme. The premise sounds cozy and simple, as a new record store employee you must help patrons get the music they want. The truth is that “the client is always right” rarely holds, since the client doesn’t even know what they want. You get the girlfriend trying to surprise her boyfriend with “that album from that band where the guy left”, or the girl who wants “the new album of her favorite singer”, or you get a dad stuck in a mascot costume that muffles everything they say and you must find the album that may or may not be loud or about cats or new or old. But if you carefully investigate the people, the store and the albums, you will find an answer. It is a true deduction game in the vein of The Golden Idol, but with many more “cases” each day. There are also a lot of side activities, like playing an arcade game, designing posters, packing things, and there’s also an overall story about two estranged sisters.

And a heads up for the games covered in the next newsletter: Call of the Elder Gods, Feline Forensics and the Meowseum Mystery, Panthalassa, Mysteries of Old Tokyo, Elfie: A Sand Plan, Uncle Lee’s Cookbook: Five Recipes for Disaster, Ignore the Blackbird, Fail Fail Succeed, Searching Light.

Puzzle Game News

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:

Hero Company (strategy)
ORUN (action-adventure)
Robosynthesis (platformer)

Paid Games - Now Free:

BeetleQuest: The Puzzle Game (casual)
Imaginary Kingdom (exploration)

New Content:

Major update for Gentoo Rescue, with new mechanics, new puzzles, and lots of other QoL changes and fixes
You Are The Code added 9 new levels
A new free room for Escape Simulator 2
where's my egg? got a new mechanic and some puzzles for it

Want to Help?

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.

Thanks for reading; spread the word!