It is time, once again, for me to guide you through the latest thinky releases from the past month! There's always a surprising number of games to keep track of, so I hope this simple overview comes in handy.
This November has brought us all the variations of Minesweeper you could ever hope for, a co-operative twist on a classic Flash point-and-click franchise, and two new games from the Thinky Collective, among many more. Have a scroll through this list and see if anything piques your interest.
Pokaban
Released: 1st November Pricing: Paid Available on: Steam (Windows, MacOS, Linux)
In this creative melding of poker with Sokoban, you'll push cards around on the grid to form winning poker hands. Pokaban is also available as part of the Sokobans with a Twist bundle on Steam.
The Past Within
Released: 2nd November Pricing: Paid Available on: Steam (Windows, MacOS)
The Past Within takes the Flash game franchise, Rusty Lake, into the world of co-operative puzzle solving. With one player solving classic point-and-click puzzles in the past and the other tinkering with a puzzle box in the future, you'll need to communicate through time to guide each other towards the solutions.
How to Say Goodbye
Released: 3rd November Pricing: Paid Available on: Steam (Windows, MacOS)
In How to Say Goodbye, a narrative puzzle game with visuals inspired by the illustrations of children's literature, you'll be shifting the environment around to help ghosts traverse from the kitchen to the moon.
The Entropy Centre
Released: 3rd November Pricing: Paid Available on: Steam (Windows), GOG.com (Windows), PlayStation (PS4, PS5), Xbox (Xbox One, Xbox Series X|S)
The Entropy Centre is a first-person puzzler where you use your special time-reversing gun to solve puzzle chambers by unbreaking the broken and moving objects back along the path they traveled. Take a look at Matt's recent review of The Entropy Centre if you'd like to know a little more: The Entropy Centre - Hit the rewind.
Stars Align
Released: 3rd November Pricing: Free Available on: itch.io (Web)
Stars Align is a little block-pushing puzzler about pushing stars around on a grid so that they all have line-of-sight to each other and form a constellation. However, any stars that can see each other will be joined by a laser, blocking your ability to shift other stars around and your path to the exit!
Candle Prick
Released: 4th November Pricing: Paid Available on: Steam (Windows, Linux)
In Candle Prick, you don't stab your enemies simply to dispose of them. In this grid-based puzzle game, your goal is to put out candles using your fallen enemies to stab each other and form elaborate structures of skewered creatures that will help you reach objects at a distance (if this sounds a little disturbing, fortunately the creatures are just little marshmallow things!).
A Little to the Left
Released: 8th November Pricing: Paid Available on: Steam (Windows)
A Little to the Left is a cozy, relaxing puzzler about sorting and organizing household items until everything looks just right. Use your observational skills (and an intuition for visual cohesion) to find the satisfying solutions to these puzzles.
Magnet Block
Released: 11th November Pricing: Paid Available on: Steam (Windows)
Magnet Block has you pushing around monopole magnets on a grid to get them into their designated positions. Of course, likes repel and opposites attract, so pushing these magnets around each other can get quite tricky!
14 Minesweeper Variants
Released: 14th November Pricing: Paid Available on: Steam (Windows)
Bored of normal classic Minesweeper? Well, how about 14 new variants to keep it interesting? 14 Minesweeper Variants is exactly what it says on the tin, with lots of interesting new rules to learn and each variant available in four difficulties. While each level is procedurally generated, they can all be solved entirely deductively.
Sokobos - Aphrodite's Trial
Released: 14th November Pricing: Paid Available on: Steam (Windows, MacOS, Linux)
Aphrodite's Trial is a paid expansion for Sokobos, the classic block-pushing puzzler that blends Sokoban with Greek tragedy. The expansion adds 30 new levels with new puzzle elements and a new cast of characters.
Cavern Sweeper
Released: 15th November Pricing: Free Available on: itch.io (Web)
As if 14 new variants of Minesweeper weren't enough, here's another one! Cavern Sweeper swaps out the mines for monsters, with each monster having a different level that contributes to the numbers shown on nearby cells. Make sure to read the bestiary to understand how the cavern's creatures behave.
Puzzle Squad
Released: 17th November Pricing: Free Available on: itch.io (Web)
Puzzle Squad is a tiny block-pushing puzzle game about using two characters to lift each other up to reach the goal flag. If the mechanics remind you a little of Meet me at NooN, that is indeed no coincidence — Puzzle Squad is the result of the developer's first experiments with PuzzleScript.
Oakenfold
Released: 17th November Pricing: Paid Available on: Steam (Windows)
Oakenfold takes a puzzly approach to turn-based strategy games, showing you all of the enemies' moves ahead of time to allow you to find the optimal path through each challenge. With the use of the TimeScrubber (that's just a fancy name for undo/redo), you are free to experiment and explore your options as you progress through this apocalyptic sci-fi world.
Lab Rat-ional Thinking
Released: 19th November Pricing: Free Available on: itch.io (Web)
One of two games to emerge from the latest Thinky Collective project, Lab Rat-ional Thinking has you placing tiles on a grid to guide mice (or rats?) to their holes, but only after opening those holes by placing boxes on every switch. As you progress through the game, you'll be given additional tiles to manipulate the rodents in new and exciting ways. Both this and the next game in this list were created as part of the same collaborative project, with 46 puzzle designers expanding on the same initial "seed" level. Oh, and I have a puzzle in this game!
Flying Crowbar Factory Simulator 2022
Released: 19th November Pricing: Free Available on: itch.io (Web)
As with the previous game in this list, Flying Crowbar Factory Simulator 2022 was also created as part of the latest collaborative Thinky Collective project. This time, instead of mice we have flying crowbars and the ability to place objects is taken to its extremes (it might get a little meta!). It's fascinating to see how these two games diverged from the same initial idea!
Another Clone
Released: 23rd November Pricing: Free Available on: itch.io (Web)
From the thinky games community's leading expert in time-travel puzzle games comes Another Clone, a game about programming bots to collaborate with their past and future selves. Input a limited sequence of actions for the clones to follow and watch as they push each other around, aiming to get the crates to their designated targets.
Unsolved Case
Released: 24th November Pricing: Free Available on: Steam (Windows, MacOS)
Unsolved Case serves as a free prequel to the co-operative point-and-click series, Cryptic Killer, that is soon to be ported to Steam. You and a friend take on the roles of detectives Ally and Old Dog as you try to solve the puzzles that the twisted Cryptic Killer has set for you, passing information back-and-forth to help each other survive his traps.
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