With Christmas just around the corner, it’s the perfect time to get your family and loved ones some thinky-themed presents! We’ve chosen a selection of stocking fillers that will make great presents for folks who love getting those brain gears whirring. Our list includes all kinds of stuff, from lightweight puzzles to major headscratchers, and we’ve made sure to choose gifts that won’t break the bank.
We’ve taken inspiration from last year’s gift lists, which included books, tabletop games, and logic toys - so if you’re after even more ideas you should check those out too.
So, scroll and see if anything catches your eye and Happy Holidays from the Thinky team!
Spots
If you’re after a lightweight game to play with family over the holidays, then look no further than Spots. This game involves rolling dice and then placing them on cards featuring adorable Dalmatians! We’ve chosen this game as the rules are easy to follow and - more importantly for the holidays - easy to teach to little ones and family members who would faint at the rule book for Twilight Imperium.
Honkaku mystery novels
If watching re-runs of Miss Marple, Poirot and Jonathan Creek wasn’t enough over the Christmas period, why not try and solve your own whodunnit? We recommend you check out Honkaku books - Japanese novels that are not only mystery stories but puzzle books too. The idea behind these books is to give the reader a chance to solve the mystery before the detective does. We recommend starting with The Honjin Murders by Seishi Yokomizo but if you’d like to know more about the genre check out this informative Guardian piece and helpful Crime Reads article.
Hanayama cast puzzles
We love the simple, clean designs of Hanayama’s pocket-sized puzzles. These are a step up from something that will pop out of a Christmas cracker and are perfect for keeping your loved ones busy. Hanayama puzzles are sleek and elegant, but we also love that they have different difficulty levels, letting you choose your level from fun to fiendish.
LOK and Abdec puzzle books
If you know a pen-and-paper puzzle lover look no further than Blaž Urban Gracar’s wonderful puzzle books Abdec and LOK. Both books task you with uncovering a language in a grid-based format. Abdec tasks you with figuring out the ancient writing system of the “Abb” creatures through “challenging but deeply rewarding” puzzle solving. LOK is a much more approachable book, where you need to find simple keywords in a grid and use the powers of the LOK creatures (eg. “Shade any one block”) to help you complete the puzzle. If you’re still not sure, you should play the free LOK demo over on Steam to see if you click with its puzzles (we certainly did).
Senet magazine
Board game fans and family members should absolutely nab a copy of Senet magazine. This 72-page indie print magazine is all about exploring the wonderful craft of board games from interviews with designers to upcoming games to keep your peepers on. Senet is a wonderful wealth of information about the art of board games, and it looks great too.
Pocket-sized escape rooms
An escape room that can fit in your pocket is one hell of a magic trick, but game designers have made it a reality with their pocket-sized escape room card games. The first series we’d like to highlight is Grand Gamers Guild's card-based escape rooms. When you solve a puzzle you need to enter the answer into a companion web app and then the app will tell you if you’re correct and which card to take next. We also love the EXIT escape room game series, which is a little more challenging. This activity can get the whole family involved, and add some excitement to the holiday season.
Puzzle game merch
Fangamer is a dangerous place for your wallet. Pages and pages of videogame merch that includes puzzle game merch too. To highlight a couple of our favourites, there’s a plushie of the fox from Tunic, the physical vinyl of MYST’s soundtrack, and, the newly released Baba is You pin where you can actually slide components of the pin around. There's also the Draknek merch store for other puzzle game merch. RIP your bank account.
Disclaimer: Thinky Games is part of the Carina Initiatives and may have professional relationships with individuals and businesses related to the subject of this article. Please see our Editorial Policy for details.
