Thinky Essentials — the most influential, must-play thinky games

If you're new to thinky games or just want to explore some of the most influential and much-loved games in this space, our team has put together the following list of Thinky Essentials.

We aim to keep this list relatively short so you're not overwhelmed with choice, but there are of course so many other wonderful thinky games for you to discover. If you'd like to know which games are the most-favorited by our website members, please take a look at our best thinky games list.

Baba Is You
A tricky puzzle game about changing the rules.
Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney Trilogy
Search for clues and seek out the truth to defend the wrongly accused in court.
Return of the Obra Dinn
A grisly detective mystery aboard a ghost, merchant ship.
Into the Breach
Pilot your mech squad through puzzly tactical encounters.
Opus Magnum
Program a transmutation engine to concoct potions and poisons.
Recursed
The rooms are items and the items are rooms in this recursive platformer.
Stephen's Sausage Roll
A difficult sausage-rolling sokoban odyssey.
The Witness
A beautiful island of maze-like line-drawing puzzles.
Her Story
Search through live action interrogation footage to unravel a detective mystery.
Snakebird
Eat fruit and reach the portal — a challenging, puzzly twist on classic snake mechanics.
The Talos Principle
Overcome Elohim's tests in this philosophical first-person puzzler.
Desktop Dungeons
Balance out fixed-value fights with health-restoring exploration to overcome knotty dungeons.

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