Puzzle games worth your time

A good puzzle is a locked door that wants to be opened. This category gathers the quests of the mind: planet-merging physics toys, sorting challenges, spot-the-difference scenes, jigsaws and logic contraptions where progress isn't a faster sword but a better idea. Puzzle games are the slow food of Lootara's catalog — they don't reward the quick click, they reward the pause before it, when the pattern suddenly shows itself.

How to browse: the list is ordered by quality, and the top of the shelf favours puzzles with a world attached — drives powered by solved puzzles, forges that build everything, thieves with sticky fingers. If a single game hooks you, follow its neighbours; puzzle designers borrow each other's tricks, and the shelf is arranged so similar pleasures sit close together. Everything plays in the browser, in sessions that fit between other things — though 'one more puzzle' is the most famous lie in gaming.

The realm currently holds 31 puzzle games, ordered by quality — the finest quests rise to the top.