Action oriented puzzle games sorted by year, newest first
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
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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 flo...
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 wor...
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 rea...
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.&...
Bust-A-Move
DOS1997freeware Taito
Also known as Puzzle Bobble, this bubble-popping classic stars those cute dragons from Bubble Bobble, now in competitive puzzle mode. Match three colors, clear the screen, panic as the ceiling drops—repeat until addicted. Bu...
TwinBlok
DOS1996 Webfoot Technologies
Clyde's Revenge
DOS1995freeware Moonlite Software
Diggers 2: Extractors
DOS1995 Millennium Interactive
Humans 3: Evolution - Lost in Time
DOS1995protected Imagitec Design
Lemmings 3D
DOS1995 Psygnosis
Zoop
DOS1995 Hookstone
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 sides like angry abstract art. Your job? Blast th...
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 ...
Diggers
DOS1994 Millennium Interactive
Lemmings 95
Windows XP/98/951994 DMA Design
Marble Cooking
DOS1994NSFW Negative
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 writte...
Holiday Lemmings
DOS1993 DMA Design
Lemmings was one of the most iconic puzzle games ever made. It was also one of the most inventive. The idea behind those tiny furred punk suicidal rodents is truly a stroke of genius. Not surprisingly, after the huge success of th...
Lemmings 2: The Tribes
DOS1993 DMA Design
Lemmings 2: The Tribes is an abandoned puzzle game part of the acclaimed Lemmings series. It was developed by DMA Design and released by Psygnosis in 1993. Lemmings 2: The Tribes runs on DOS but was also published for Acorn, Amiga...
Litil Divil
DOS1993protected Gremlin Graphics / Gremlin Interactive
Mario's Time Machine
DOS1993 The Software Toolworks
Nanotank
Windows 3.x1993
Robbo
DOS1993freeware xLand Games
Sink or Swim
DOS1993 Zeppelin Games
The Humans
DOS1993protected Imagitec Design
The Lost Vikings
DOS1993 Silicon & Synapse
The Lost Vikings is an old DOS platform-puzzle game, developed by Silicon & Synapse and published by Interplay Productions in 1993. In The Lost Vikings you have to solve puzzles by controlling three characters (glorious v...
Thomas the Tank Engine 2
DOS1993 Peakstar Software
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...
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.&nbs...
Clyde's Adventure
DOS1992freeware Moonlite Software
Contraption Zack
DOS1992 Presage Software