If you love cracking codes, solving mysterious enigmas, or slotting in the last jigsaw piece, then you’ll love the ten puzzle board games we’re highlighting in this list. Each offers an exciting new way to challenge your brain, compete or cooperate with friends and family, and find satisfying solutions to complex challenges.
In Ubongo, players race to complete deceptively simple yet maddeningly difficult puzzles over the course of nine rounds. Each round, you’ll roll a dice to determine which pieces you can use to fill in the shape at the center of your player mat. If you fill in your shape before time runs out, you’ll get anywhere from one to four points. If you finish before the other players, you’ll get two bonus points as well. It’s a classic, easy-to-learn game that’s great for all ages.
The popular ‘escape room in a box’ series Exit has more than a few expansions that are perfect for puzzle lovers, but if you have to pick one, I’d recommend The Sacred Temple. That’s because it includes four jigsaw puzzles for the players to put together, each of which provides further clues and riddles necessary for advancing the story. You and your team of adventurers are attempting to rescue a professor from the depths of the jungle, all while avoiding dangerous looters and preventing them from stealing artifacts.
Azul is a tile placement game in which each player is assembling a beautiful mosaic for the walls of the Portuguese king’s palace. A scoring system determines the quality of your arrangement; if you can complete specific patterns and sets without wasting too many tiles, you’ll hopefully end up with the most points. You’ll be up against a brand new puzzle each time you play, and you’ll also need to watch your opponent’s boards carefully when drafting tiles.
If you enjoy tile-laying puzzle games like Azul, then you’ll also enjoy Cascadia, which tends to be less competitive but more thematically engaging. This time, you’ll be building a habitat for five types of wildlife and assembling regions where they can live using terrain tiles. Putting together specific groupings of animals and building larger habitats than your opponents will earn you the victory. It might sound simple, but it really gives the puzzle-solving part of your brain a workout.
While it may look like a daunting game because of its seemingly countless boards and tokens, A Feast for Odin is actually an exceptional tabletop experience for puzzle lovers. The gameplay balances worker placement with figuring out how to fit all the goods you’ve gathered into the space constraints of your Viking settlement. You can do so many things to rack up points, and scoring isn’t too tricky. The solo mode is also great, and you shouldn’t have too much finishing a game within 90 minutes.
Spirit Island is a complex yet rewarding tabletop experience in which you’ll defend your island against the Invaders, a corporate group hoping to extract resources from your home and settle there in pursuit of profit. Each player takes on the role of an elemental being whose aim is to protect their island. If you can rid the land of blight, prevent the Invaders from building too many settlements, and avoid the destruction of your Spirit, you’ll claim a hard-fought victory.
Calico is a cozy, minimally competitive game of quilt patterns and cats. By patching together three tiles of the same color or several tiles of the same pattern, you’ll earn buttons that count for points at the end of the game. Each of the three cats that you’ll be building your quilt for has a preferred pattern and arrangement, and if you can match these patches, you also pick up points. You’ll need to think carefully about colors, patterns, and the quilt space you have available throughout the game to win.
The cases in the Sherlock Holmes Consulting Detective series are perfect for anyone who enjoys the puzzle-solving aspects of mystery games. You’ll need to carefully examine period-appropriate newspapers for clues, travel around a map of Victorian London, and interrogate both townspeople and potential suspects. Deducing the details of the crime and figuring out who has been lying to you all along is an incredibly satisfying experience.
Mansions of Madness is a dark, Lovecraftian adventure in which the players must work cooperatively to explore the terrifying streets and hallways of Arkham, Massachusetts, and rid the town of demonic creatures from the beyond. The game operates with the support of a companion app that includes slider puzzles and other fun brain teasers that each investigator will need to solve when they encounter specific scenarios on the game board. Though these puzzles are usually not too tricky, they’re presented with near-perfect thematic gameplay and atmosphere. They also open up satisfying twists and turns in each of the game’s three story scenarios.
Turing Machine is a game of deductive reasoning and code-breaking that’s absolutely fantastic for anyone who loves solving puzzles. The players all have a specific three-digit code that they’re trying to guess and will have to ask what is essentially an analog computer if the digits they picked are correct. Each player takes numbered overlays that match their guess, stacks them together, and puts them on top of a verifier card to find out if a certain digit is more or less than a certain number. From there, they’ll ask more questions and attempt to deduce the correct combination. Though the game might sound confusing, it’s quite easy to grasp once you’re actually playing it, and it’s a blast for adult puzzle game fans.
