The Thinky Awards are back for 2025! It's the biggest celebration on the internet of the incredible work being done in the world of puzzle-adjacent games. Our awards page is now live where you can see the games nominated in all the various categories and even cast your vote for the three audience awards. Here's the big reveal, the games from the last year that have been nominated for Game of the Year:
The public submission of nominations concluded a few weeks ago and we've been busy collating and curating them to arrive at the full official lists of nominees. Here are all the categories being awarded this year:
- Game of the Year (Jury & Community)
- Most Anticipated Game
- Best Approachable Game
- Best Art Direction
- Best Challenging Game
- Best Content Creator
- Best Puzzle Design
- Best Expansion
- Best Free Game
- Most Innovative Game
- Best Pen and Paper Puzzle
- Best Strategy Game
I won't list out all the nominated games here, as the awards page has all that info, but I will show off the games in the categories that you can vote for: there are three categories that are decided via audience voting (that's you!) those being the Most Anticipated Game, the Best Content Creator, and the Community Game of the Year (we're giving out two of those.) Here are the rest of the relevant nominees:
You can make your voice heard by voting now on the awards vote page until voting closes on Sunday, January 4th, and check out the rest of the nominated games on the awards homepage. If the games have made it onto these lists, it means there are likely a lot of people who think they're worth your time... definitely a good place to start if you're looking for interesting offerings released in the last year.
The awards page also has tabs for our previous Thinky Awards in 2024 and 2023 so you can peruse the past winners. We'll be reporting back sometime in early February to announce this year's winners, and you can be sure we'll be letting you know loud and clear when the big event is approaching.
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.
