Action oriented puzzle games
Action puzzle games are a hybrid genre that combine elements of both action and puzzle games, requiring players to manipulate a character or solve problems within a real-time environment. Unlike traditional puzzle games that often allow for careful, turn-based thinking, action puzzle games demand quick reflexes and fast decision-making.
These games often involve navigating characters through obstacle-filled environments (thing about puzzle platformers). The core gameplay still revolves around problem-solving, but it’s layered with the intensity and pacing typically found in action titles.
These games often involve navigating characters through obstacle-filled environments (thing about puzzle platformers). The core gameplay still revolves around problem-solving, but it’s layered with the intensity and pacing typically found in action titles.
Most popular action puzzle games
Sort by:
3D Ultra Lionel Traintown
Windows XP/98/952000 Dynamix
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 puzzles, deliveries, and train management in a world where everything is charmingly cartoonish. You’ll haul ice cream, dodge cows, and solve math problems disguised...
Airball
DOS1987 MicroDeal
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, your squishy self must navigate hazards that clearly hate balloons. The controls are floaty (pun intended), the graphics are colorful, and the entire experience is wonder...
All Dogs Go to Heaven
DOS1989 Polarware
This 1989 game is based on the animated movie where dogs die, go to heaven, then come back for revenge (sort of). The DOS adaptation? Well, it’s more like All Pixels Go Nowhere Fast. You jump, you dodge, you squint at the screen wondering what any of it has to do with the movie. But hey, the music’s charming, and you’re a dog. Kid...
All New World of Lemmings
DOS1994 DMA Design
Released in 1994, All New World of Lemmings gives our suicidal little friends a new lease on life... and new outfits! The puzzles are tougher, the graphics are cleaner, and the frustration level? Sky high. But it’s all part of the charm. Watching dozens of tiny lemmings either succeed brilliantly or walk blindly into doom is still weirdly sat...
Archipelagos
DOS1989 Astral Software
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. Your job? Purify the land by destroying said monoliths - because obviously. The visuals are surreal, the soundscape unnervingly tranquil, and the gameplay strangely hypn...
Arkanoid
DOS1988 Taito
Arkanoid is a classic arcade video game that was first released in 1986 by Taito. It is a breakout-style game, which means that the primary objective is to break a wall of bricks or blocks by bouncing a ball off a paddle at the bottom of the screen. The game takes its name and inspiration from Atari's Breakout, which was released in the 1970s. ...
Arkanoid 2: The Revenge of Doh
DOS1989 Taito
Doh is back, and he’s mad - presumably because no one understood what he was in the first place. Arkanoid 2 takes the original formula and dials everything up: more levels, more power-ups, more neon madness. It’s still paddle-meets-brick, but now with branching paths, weirder enemies, and a storyline that sounds like it was written on a...
Beauty and the Beast
DOS1992 Infogrames
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 as the Beast, leaping around levels, solving very 1992-level logic puzzles, and trying to avoid a fate worse than bad animation: being boring. Surprisingly fun and mildl...
Beetlejuice: Skeletons in the Closet
DOS1992 Riedel Software Productions
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 that aired in the late 1980s and early 1990s. The game involves controlling Beetlejuice as he attempts to clear skeletons from various closets in a haunted house. T...
BitStorm
DOS1999
1999’s BitStorm is what happens when someone decides to make a strategy game and forgets to put the brakes on the caffeine. It’s fast, it’s furious, and you’ll probably lose your first five games before realizing how to build anything that doesn’t explode in five seconds. Set in a vaguely cyberpunkish future full of fl...
Black Hole
DOS1993
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’ll wonder if Newtonian mechanics were written by a drunk alien. It’s got that early-’90s “I don’t know what’s happening but I’m ...
Bomb Jack remake
DOS2002remake
The classic bomb-defusing, platform-hopping, enemy-dodging chaos of Bomb Jack gets a fresh coat of pixels in this 2002 DOS remake. You’re still the tiny superhero hopping around grabbing bombs while evil smiley faces and floating pyramids try to end your run—because of course they do. The updated version keeps the original’s frant...
Bombuzal
DOS1989 Image Works
Part puzzle, part platformer, part “what is even happening,” Bombuzal (1989, DOS) is a game where your job is to blow up every bomb on the screen—while not accidentally turning yourself into pixel confetti. Each level is a tiny tile-based puzzle of doom, requiring careful planning, reckless courage, and a few lucky guesses. The he...
Boulder Dash
DOS1984 First Star Software
Boulder Dash is a classic action-puzzle video game that was first released in 1984 by First Star Software. In Boulder Dash, players control a character named Rockford as he digs through caves to collect diamonds while avoiding falling boulders and other hazards. The game is set in a scrolling, grid-based environment, and players must strategic...
Boulder Dash 2: Rockford's Revenge
DOS1985 First Star Software
Boulder Dash II is the sequel to the original Boulder Dash game. It was released in 1985 and follows the same basic gameplay mechanics as its predecessor while introducing new levels and features.In Boulder Dash II, players once again control the character Rockford as he explores caves, collects diamonds, and avoids various hazards such as falling ...
Boulder Dash Construction Kit
DOS1987 First Star Software
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 pixelated, googly-eyed spelunker, digging through caves, dodging falling boulders, and collecting diamonds before time runs out. But the real star here is the Construction Kit...
Bust-A-Move
DOS1997freeware Taito
Chagunitzu
DOS1990 Softdisk Publishing
Cloud Kingdoms
DOS1990 Logotron
Clyde's Adventure
DOS1992freeware Moonlite Software
Clyde's Revenge
DOS1995freeware Moonlite Software
Contraption Zack
DOS1992 Presage Software
Daffy Duck PI: The Case of the Missing Letters
DOS1991 Riedel Software Productions
Diggers
DOS1994 Millennium Interactive
Diggers 2: Extractors
DOS1995 Millennium Interactive
Dinosaur Balls
DOS1992 Amwa (HK) Computer Co.
Donald's Alphabet Chase
DOS1988 Westwood Studios
DX-Ball 2
Windows XP/98/951998protected Longbow Digital Arts
DX-Ball 2 is a popular brick-breaking game that was first released in 1998 by Longbow Digital Arts. It serves as a sequel to the original DX-Ball, which was inspired by the classic arcade game Breakout and its successor Arkanoid. The core mechanics of DX-Ball 2 involve controlling a paddle at the bottom of the screen to bounce a ball upwards. ...
Future Classics Collection
DOS1990
Gapper
DOS1986