Welcome to Puzzle Lovers! - Play Hard. Think Harder.

Brainrack, Issue #365 (Week of April 27, 2026)

Welcome once again to our weekly newsletter with puzzle game news, new and upcoming releases, giveaways, deals and bundles, spotlight on a lesser-known or forgotten game, and other stuff.

Greetings to those who’ve joined since last week! If you found us through a link to the newsletter, read the group overview to see what else we can offer, visit the forum for puzzle discussion, follow our curator for reviews and recommendations, join the No Clue Discord server[discord.gg], check out our Basic Functionality and Accessibility Guide on how to improve your games, and tell your friends if you like what you see. Thanks!

Oh no! Just when I was happy to be back on track, work got very busy, and now I’m almost a full month behind on newsletters. Sorry about that!
So, April is over, with plenty of good releases: A Little Perspective, Causal Loop, Tezzel: The Tilemaker's Tale, Homgard, Titanium Court, GRID CRYPT, Factory 95, Wordban, Infinite Cat Theorem, Towers of Scale, Cubin II, Outpacked, No Stone Unturned, Demons' Timeline, Wavekin, GRIDBUSTERS.

May is special, with lots of puzzle games getting announced, getting a demo, or getting a release. And that is because this week the Cerebral Showcase is happening, starting on Thursday with the Thinky Direct stream announcing lots of future games.

Good games to look out for (most already released): E9uations, a sokoban with math; EMUUROM, a metroidbrainia full of secrets to discover; Map Map - A Game About Maps, a 3D puzzle adventure that’s both educational and challenging, letting each player engage as little or as much as they want; BarrelBots, a 3D sokoban fully using fractional height differences; Phonopolis, a lovely dystopian adventure; Schrodinger's Cat Burglar, a quantum 3D puzzle platformer with cats; Walk The Frog, a cute and cozy puzzle in which you build the levels using sticky notes; A Thread Between, a sokoban with lots of mechanics and multiple endings across the multiverse; Feline Forensics and the Meowseum Mystery, a fun detective adventure game; Mysteries of Old Tokyo, a database dive detective game; Elfie: A Sand Plan, a cute 3D nongram-like about building sand castles matching the required projections; Uncle Lee’s Cookbook: Five Recipes for Disaster, a point&click puzzle adventure, or rather five of them; Fail Fail Succeed, a clever puzzle platformer; Searching Light, a strange and cryptic puzzle adventure with parallel worlds; Wax Heads, a kind of desk-job + deduction game in which you have to figure out what’s the best album for each customer; U.V.S. Nirmana, a zach-like from the actual Zach, build efficient circuits on your way across the universe; CD-ROM, find the 10 codes hidden inside 10 old CDs; Fragmentary, a strange puzzle game pretending to be a card-battler strategy while actually being about secrets; Trackastrophe!, a cartoony path drawing game; FROGBLOCK, a perspective illusion pathfinding game about a frog trying to eat everything; and Midnight Saturn, a cyberpunk point&click detective adventure.

See you on Thursday for the Cerebral Puzzle Showcase!

Ideally, every group member would follow our curator and vice versa, but until then, here's the changelog. And don't forget our many lists based on themes and subgenres.

New Curatees with Full Reviews:

• Messy Recipe: A Hidden Object Game (hidden object)
  
• Mystery of Myths: Whisper of Depth CE (hidden object)
  
• Puzzle Spy International (puzzlehunt)
  
• SILK - A Leo Parker Adventure (adventure)
  
• Splittown (adventure)
  
• Tezzel: The Tilemaker's Tale (sokoban)

New Curatees with Mini-Reviews:

• ℹ️ Infinity Sweeper (logic, roguelike)
  
• ℹ️ Puzzle Park 2 (exploration)
  
• Tinkering Is Enough (point&click)

Please let us know in the Curator Info thread if you'd like to write mini-reviews (max. 200 characters, positive or negative) for puzzlers that aren't curated by us yet. Examples and inspiration can be found on the Group Member Recommendations list.

The giveaways are on SteamGifts, but no need to create an account, just visit the site and log in through Steam. Good luck!

Both Nekograms[www.steamgifts.com] and Nia: Jewel Hunter[www.steamgifts.com] are available only for our group members, courtesy of the developers.


https://store.steampowered.com/app/2434290/Box_Dungeons/

A thinky dungeon crawler, but with lots of other genres mixed in. The main goal is to reach the exit in each level by sliding. But it’s far from a simple sliding game. The levels are very rich and dynamic, with things you can break, or push, enemies you can fight and kill, elevators to get you up and ledges you can fall from, deadly spikes, fragile platforms, and many others. Then there’s the fighting aspect, you have to carefully plan which enemies to attack and in which order, and when to use the few super attacks at your disposal. In a regular sliding game I usually need less than 10 seconds per level, but this one often keeps me busy for 10 minutes in each level, even if they are rather small. Granted, much of the extra time comes from the optional challenges each level may have, like killing all the enemies, or finishing within a given number of moves, or reaching alternate exits.

https://store.steampowered.com/app/4198660/Demons_Timeline/

A detective game that feels like doing a deep dive on Twitter, kind of like The Roottrees Are Dead but less about libraries and magazines, more about twitter flame wars. The story is that demons are hiding among us, killing people in weird way, but only you and your AI companions are aware of this, and you’re trying to solve these strange deaths and find the demons responsible for them. Don’t worry, there’s no AI involved, it’s just part of the story. Each level presents you with lots of tweets, retweets and replies, and the real identities of a few target people. Each target has a main and an alternative account, and you have to read through everything and try to identify those two accounts. The “detective” work is less about hard, cold facts, and more about catching a slip-up, like someone mentioning their real birthday, or that they work in the same place as another person, or accidentally using the wrong account. Collect keywords, find the accounts, and then fill-in-the-blanks about the crime and the events around it. It’s good, though be warned that there will be a lot of reading involved, and often as vapid and/or as toxic as the real Twitter.

https://store.steampowered.com/app/4226820/GRIDBUSTERS/

A logic grid game with two variants, labeling and ordering. In a grid of people, each person gives a clue. In the labeling variant, starting with only one statement you have to figure out everybody else, one by one, by combining the known clues until you can deduce one more person. You’re not allowed to just guess, though there is no penalty for doing that, but as a logic game you should only use logic. In the ordering variant, you have all the statements available from the start, and you have to move the people around until everyone is satisfied. It’s not too long, but it does get challenging.

https://store.steampowered.com/app/4287570/Homgard/

Nonograms with clever twists and a deep, mysterious story. Each level reveals a piece of a giant map and another fragment of the narrative. Put them all together, and you may uncover why the entire world is abandoned. The story is optional, so you can just focus on the puzzles, and those are excellent, though many have instead been captivated by the story. It’s not just basic nonograms; tiles can be different colors, each with its own mechanic. Any shaded green cell must also have a shaded neighbor of a different color. Red means the whole island is either entirely shaded or empty. Orange only counts areas inside orange; this means you can have 3 purple and 2 orange shaded continuously, and that satisfies a 2 3 clue instead of a 5, and many other colors, alone and in combinations. It’s a great nonogram game that’s definitely more interesting than vanilla. Highly recommended, though it does use some AI-generated graphics and music.

https://store.steampowered.com/app/2453640/No_Stone_Unturned/

Early access. A funny detective-themed adventure game, released episode by episode, with quirky animals and punny stories.

https://store.steampowered.com/app/4069940/test_project/

An experimental puzzle game without instructions. And by experimental I mean that it’s playing around with multiple windows and internal APIs. And each level is a unique idea about playing with windows. Find the hidden window, overlap or resize windows in the right way, dodge attacking windows, figure out what the strange code means, and so on. It’s really interesting, and a novel idea for what a game can be.

https://store.steampowered.com/app/4450670/Timefract/

A Sokoban with clones, time travel, and logic. This one has an interesting take on clones and time loops: instead of everything rewinding, the main character stays in place while the rest of the level runs backwards, so it’s like moving yourself into the future while your past actions replay. You can float while platforms move back in time under your feet, deadly lasers can pass through you, boxes return to their original positions, and you effectively restart the level from a different spot. You don’t have to rewind all the way to the start, either; you can roll back just part of the timeline if that’s better. This rewind mechanic isn’t solely used for the clones' assistance. Many levels don’t require rewinding at all, and many use the rewind without involving clones. Other clever mechanics include logic gates, where you must figure out which buttons to press to get the desired output, and lasers you can redirect with mirrors. It’s quite good, but it suffers from the usual downsides: of clone games, the need to time actions precisely; of real-time games, the need to react quickly to moving objects; and of non-grid layouts, the need to carefully position elements in levels that really want to be grid-based.

https://store.steampowered.com/app/3930190/Wavekin/

Explore a dying underwater civilization of fish-like creatures using song powers. It’s very beautiful, with lots of characters and a rich mythos, a lot of interesting creatures, and a unique gameplay: sing songs to interact with the characters.

https://store.steampowered.com/app/3682850/Who_Summoned_It/

A wonderful detective game set in a fantasy world. A giant booglo was summoned, and it destroyed Knotgud Castle during the much‑anticipated wedding of their princess and the vampire prince! In a case of mistaken identity, Ricky Rocktoe is summoned as the truthmeister, a specialist supposedly capable of uncovering the truth. Except that Ricky is not a specialist, and not even a truthmeister at all, so it’s up to you to guide him and help him find the truth. Part fill‑in‑the‑blanks detective game like The Golden Idol, part classic point & click puzzle adventure, part interactive novel full of dialogue, and 100% charming.

And the Rest:

• Antidote to despair (desk-job simulator, dystopian, story rich, political sim): Work as a “doctor” in plague-stricken Paris, curing people of their ailments using dubious medical instruments.
  
• Puzzle ATLAS (riddles): A freemium collection of riddles and puzzles, with most of the game available as DLCs. Lots of unique riddles, but the presentation leaves a lot to desire, it’s often unclear what the game wants and how each unique level is supposed to be interacted with.
  
• Charm Studies (nonogram): A simple nonogram with story elements.
  
• Tinkering Is Enough (jigsaw): Easy jigsaws, not as standard pictures with standard cuts, but as putting together broken objects. Each object comes with a little “story”, the customer’s request.
  
• Dungeon-Bot (programming, education): A bot programming game, write instructions that guide a robot through each level.
  
• Andrea’s Life (point&click, short, free): A short experience, repeat three times the same day in a robot’s life: turn on the power, connect wires, go to sleep. All alone in a dying world, someone keeps unplugging your battery every night. A little bit of story, a few easy puzzles, it’s not much, but you get 15 minutes of play for absolutely no cost.
  
• Bubblexity (puzzle platformer): A puzzle platformer in which you have a bubble showing an alternate version of the level. It may show a hole where there’s a wall in the real world, or a floor instead of an unjumpable void. Plus other action minigames.

And a heads up for the games covered in the next newsletter: CD-ROM, Midnight Saturn, U.V.S. Nirmana, Wax Heads.


The Demo of the Week is Tricolo.

• 👍 Ambroise Niflette & the Gleaned Bell (detective, adventure, cute): An adventure game with a detective theme, set in a very cute handmade toy world. When the famous bell of a small town gets stolen, Ambroise Niflette, the detective, is invited to solve the crime. But the invitation seems to have been sent before the bell was actually stolen! And without the knowledge of the supposed sender! Explore the town, talk to all its inhabitants, corroborate testimonies, and organize social gatherings to cause heated debates. It looks lovely and intriguing, and it adds a few new mechanics to the detective genre, but I do wish the demo had at least some “deduction”. As it stands now, it feels only like an adventure game. (my playthrough)
  
  
• 😐 Backpack Alchemist: Medieval Shop Simulator (shopkeeping simulator, block puzzle): Run an alchemy shop, packing the right items that each client needs. First, the clients aren’t very clear; they describe what they need only vaguely, so you need to determine what can “patch up scratches,” “slow down enemies,” or provide “a bit of night vision.” You buy the right ingredients, then pack them in the customer’s backpack or bag, like in a block puzzle, but there are more restrictions than just fitting everything. Some customers ask you to keep the fire away from the flammable items, and putting certain items together triggers special effects, like imbuing a sword with fire magic. Pack everything correctly, and you get paid; fail too often, and you’ll run out of money for buying ingredients. It’s an interesting take on shop simulators and block puzzles, but the game still needs a lot of polish. (my playthrough)
  
  
• 😐 BeatChip '95 (career simulator, resource management): You’ve got one month to become a successful musician. Each day, you can compose tracks (no music skills needed) for money or exposure, buy new effects and instruments, and repair and upgrade your “studio”. Each night, you can choose an activity that will help you improve. The more you practice, the better the payout. Composing tracks is simply putting beats, instruments, and sound effects on a grid. I’m not sure if it really matters how you combine them; just random placement seems to work, and the only metric I could spot is “more is better”, just add as many effects as you can afford. Seems like a basic career simulator, no puzzle skills needed. (my playthrough)
  
  
• 👍 Birds Eat Bugs (logic, pathfinding, optimization): Draw efficient paths to help birds eat all the bugs on a tree. Each level has several bugs and larvae, and two birds. You draw paths through the bugs, either going up or going down, and the goal is to eat all of the bugs in as few lines as possible, and with as few bug gaps as possible. An upward line cannot go even one pixel downward, and if it takes too long a detour between two consecutive bugs, you break the flow and won’t get a perfect score. It’s very simple in terms of gameplay, but the levels can get quite tricky. (my playthrough)
  
  
• 👍 Brushwork (nurikabe, logic): A minimalist Nurikabe, a logic game about drawing rivers and islands. While not as beautiful as Nurikabe World, the minimalist UI works, and the puzzles are good. Daily challenges with leaderboards, lots of campaign levels, from easy to very challenging. Smart hints, gently guiding you step by step. (my partial playthrough)
  
  
• 😐 D-topia (adventure, story-rich, logic): A gentle puzzle adventure from the famous studio Annapurna Interactive. And by gentle, I mean that in my half-hour playthrough of the demo, there were only a couple of minutes of actual puzzles. Which isn’t necessarily bad! It’s a more casual game focused on the story, the characters, and the atmosphere. Speaking of, the story is that you’re a new citizen of D-Topia, a helper whose job is to aid everyone in need. The way you help is by solving tiny puzzles. There are more puzzle types in the trailer, but the demo consists mainly of manipulating boxes to their intended positions, not by pushing like in a Sokoban, but by just selecting and dragging them. Like most Annapurna games, it has a great look, there are a lot of quirky characters and dialogue, and the puzzles are designed for mass appeal. But that’s not what I like, personally; I would have liked more puzzles, and more interesting ones. And even as an adventure game, the vast majority of the characters I can interact with are just basic NPCs with nothing important to say. Hopefully, in the full game they will be more relevant. (my playthrough)
  
  
• ☹️ The Fifth Bell: Frequency of Secrets (point&click, adventure): A classic point&click puzzle adventure. When a modern cassette tape is found hidden in the walls of the Strasbourg Cathedral, and the person who found it turns up dead, you are called to help investigate the mystery. Explore European cities, talk to characters, collect items, and use them in the right place to solve puzzles and figure out why the bells can destroy the entire Earth. A good idea, but the implementation is very problematic. Most of the game is AI-generated: graphics, characters, and the terrible robotic voices. The text is hard to read, there are some anachronisms, and it’s difficult to distinguish what can be clicked on. Of the many items that can be clicked on, only a few are actually relevant. And an incredible plot that sounds too much like a Dan Brown novel might not be appreciated by everyone. (my playthrough)
  
  
• 👍 The Quiet Order (star battle, logic): A classic Star Battle, using monks that need a quiet place to meditate instead of stars. Place a monk in each area, so that no two monks share the same row, column, or neighboring cell. Daily levels plus campaign levels from 6x6 to 12x12. Simple but sufficient implementation. (my playthrough)
  
  
• 🎉 Save Your Crabbies (limited moves, pathfinding): A game much like Golf Peaks or Pup Champs, you have to guide one or more crabs to safety using a limited set of move-cards. (my playthrough)
  
  
• 🎉 Tricolo (pathfinding): Move 3 colored balls through cramped 3x3 grids. Sounds too simple, how hard can a 3x3 level be? Well, very. The main obstacle is that you don’t decide which ball to move; they take turns, usually with 2 moves each, but it varies level by level, and not always symmetrical. I’ve seen 5+1+1. If you can’t move a ball, it’s game over. You also have a limited number of turns; if you don’t win before that, it’s game over. And besides just moving the balls, there are a lot of other mechanics: walls, walls that prevent only some colors from passing through, arrows that prevent movement in the opposite direction, portals… I never felt that the levels were repetitive; each one brought something new, despite remaining 3x3 in size. It had good level design, but it was missing colorblind support. (my playthrough)

If you have your own puzzler, adventure, demo, or some new content coming out on mobile or PC? Let us know in the forum or by adding sdumitriu on Steam Chat.

Free Game Highlights:

• 100 Hidden ASCII Cats (hidden object)
  
• Allelon (adventure)
  
• Back In My Day (sokoban)
  
• BlackStump (indie)
  
• Board Forge (board game, trivia)
  
• Color Connect (casual)
  
• Disillusion (adventure)
  
• The Door in The Skybox (casual)
  
• ECH8 (adventure)
  
• Endless Maze (immersive sim)
  
• Forestress Shade (strategy)
  
• Geist Heist (casual)
  
• Grid of Change (board game)
  
• It's Too Late to Apologize (sokoban)
  
• Hidden Objects - Items Find (hidden object)
  
• I Want You To Notice Me: His Story (casual)
  
• Jewels of Rome: Match-3 Game and City Builder (match 3)
  
• Jigsaw Puzzle Palace (board game)
  
• La Vida de Andrea (adventure)
  
• Membrillo Hid My Socks (point&click)
  
• No Guess Minesweeper (logic)
  
• Pet Troll (platformer)
  
• Qiú 泅 (platformer)
  
• Rootnote (exploration)
  
• Without Regret (adventure)
  
• XorO (match 3)
  
• Your Friend Sam (adventure)

Paid Games - Now Free:

• 31 Room (shooter)
  
• Chessie Chicken (strategy)
  
• Goblin Chess (board game)
  
• Red Man (hidden object)

Here are a few quick & easy ways you can help us out. A little can go a long way; otherwise, we'll never achieve world domination.

• Feedback is important, so let us know what you like or don't like.
  
• Follow our curator and get notified about new additions and reviews.
  
• Tell your puzzle- and/or adventure-loving friends and your favorite developers about us and our Basic Functionality and Accessibility Guide.