The most popular action puzzle games

If your childhood involved model trains and elaborate setups that your cat kept destroying, 3D Ultra Lionel Traintown is digital therapy. Released in 2000 for Windows XP, it mixes ...

Beetlejuice: Skeletons in the Closet is a video game based on the popular Beetlejuice franchise, which includes a 1988 film directed by Tim Burton and an animated television series...

Before Indiana Jones had a whip, Chagunitzu had block puzzles. Released in 1990 by Softdisk (and developed by a young John Romero), this game is a precursor to God of Thunder and p...

Donald’s Alphabet Chase is the video game equivalent of hiding fridge magnets and watching a duck hunt them down. In this 1988 edutainment title, the mischievous alphabet let...

Boulder Dash Construction Kit is both a full game and a level editor, built around the gameplay mechanics of the original Boulder Dash (1984). You still play as Rockford, the pixel...

Oil's Well is an action-puzzle game released by Sierra On-Line in 1983/84. It was originally made for platforms like the Apple II, Atari 8-bit, Commodore 64, and MS-DOS, but was la...

Black Hole (1993) is a space shooter where you're thrown into the gravitational madness of, you guessed it, a black hole. The physics are wild, the enemies are relentless, and you&...

This isn’t Disney’s musical fairytale—it’s a DOS game, which means Beauty and the Beast is way more "puzzle platformer" than "tale as old as time." You play...

Archipelagos is like a fever dream after watching too much Myst. You’re dropped onto strange, floating islands inhabited by stone monoliths and evil terrain-infecting sludge....

If you've ever wanted to pop bubbles while being taunted by adorable dinosaurs, Bust-A-Move Again (1996, DOS) is your jam. It’s like Tetris met a bubble tea menu and had a hy...

In Airball (1987), you don’t play a knight, a space marine, or a plumber - you play a literal ball of air. Trapped in an isometric nightmare of spikes, fans, and poison gas, ...

Sink or Swim is basically what happens when someone asks, “What if we turned a rescue operation into a slapstick puzzle show?” You guide lifeboat-juggling hero S.S. Dav...

The title Dinosaur Balls might raise eyebrows today, but in 1992 it was just a quirky DOS puzzle game. Think of it as prehistoric Bubble Bobble: you fire colored spheres to match a...

Guldkorn Expressen sounds cheerful, and in many ways it is—a Scandinavian oddity that feels like it was assembled with equal parts whimsy and educational intent. You guide a ...

Clyde is back—and this time, he's mad. Clyde's Revenge brings more levels, more traps, and slightly less mercy. Everything’s cranked up: the challenge, the mazes, the p...

Imagine being a bouncing ball in a series of floating sky islands full of monsters, traps, and puzzles. Welcome to Cloud Kingdoms, where the laws of physics politely take a backsea...

Imagine if Tetris, Columns, and a pack of highlighters had a baby. That’s Zoop. You’re in the center of the screen, and colorful shapes are marching toward you from all...