Summary
Video games can be a surprisingly valuable source of learning. Apart from sometimes teaching playersabout topics like history, diplomacy, and mathematics, they tend to encourage logical thinking, improve hand-eye coordination, and even potentially improve social or language skills. Oftentimes, players learn these abilities without even realizing it, since they are enjoying the game too much to notice.
Puzzle games in particular can provide some of the most transferable skills, encouraging critical thinking and effective use of time management, among other useful techniques to utilize in everyday life. Covering a vast array of competences, some of the best puzzle games teach real-world skills that players can apply to their personal and professional lives.
A bizarre spin-off ofThe House of the Deadlight-gun shooter horror series,The Typing of the Deadexchanges firearms for keyboards to take down the undead. It’s a surprisingly effective transition, ramping up the difficulty as players progress through the levels and making good use of humor, even commenting on proceedings or mocking players through the words they have to type.
Set in Venice and following much the same structure asThe House of the Dead2, the game even features some of the same bonuses, secrets and rescue challenges. During boss battles, it may be required that a simple question is answered, or a longer passage is written, improving speed and accuracy while typing.
Known in the PAL regions asDr. Kawashima’s Devilish Brain Training: Can you stay focused?,Brain Age: Concentration Trainingis a great way to enhance memory and focus. Using the handheld andtouchscreen functionality of the Nintendo 3DS, players will take on brainteasing challenges that are suitable to their current proven difficulty levels.
The minigames are designed to hold attention and upgrade the player’s concentration levels, as well as test their short-term memory capabilities and general mental faculties. Dr. Kawashima, posing as a devil, provides useful information in his lectures for players to keep in mind, and also provides some fun games for players to enjoy in the Relaxation Mode, so that their brains can rest after a tough session.
Played from an isometric perspective,Big Pharmais a construction and management simulation game focusing on the pharmaceutical industry. Putting together complex production lines, medications can be crafted using raw materials, with various machines enhancing certain effects of the finished product and potentially removing negative side effects.
Successfully constructing an intricate web of conveyor belts and production lines requires a great deal of problem-solving, space management, and effective use of finances. Navigating sales is also a puzzle in itself, requiring players to pay attention to trends and fluctuations, ensuring that they don’t try to sell a drug that has already oversaturated the market.
Almost a decade since its initial release, tens of millions of players have enjoyed the hit puzzle-platform gameHuman Fall Flat, developed by Lithuanian studio No Brakes Games. The gameplay is fairly open-ended, allowing multiple creative solutionsof varying difficultyto advance through each of the dozens of levels, all of which have different themes.
Levels can be completed alone as a customizable human called Bob, learning to climb and jump, as well as using physics-based solutions to reach new areas. However, many players choose to work with others. Communication is key in multiplayer, and some solutions require players to come together as a team if they have any hope of success.
Among thebest-selling video games of all timeand still seeing new releases in its franchise to this day,Tetrisis one of the most famous video games ever made. The quintessential puzzle game requires players to carefully place falling tetronimo shapes into the space at the bottom of a grid system, with the goal of creating full horizontal lines to eliminate them and prevent the space from filling up completely, which would result in a game over.
As the game progresses, the pieces begin to fall faster, demanding that players work under pressure without making dreadful mistakes. PlayingTetrisalso helps with efficient space management, which can be used in almost every aspect of daily life, from placing furniture and organizing a refrigerator, to packing for a trip.
The 46th room is the target in the roguelike puzzle gameBlue Prince. Running out of footsteps and reaching a dead end forces a new day to begin, and players to start all over again. Still, something new is often learned every day, whether it’s a fresh strategy or part of a solution to a puzzle. Taking notes is encouraged right from the beginning, as those with good attention to detail will find more success.
Though routes will be different each day, memory, critical thinking, and managing resources are all vital for those hoping to make progress. Every day will present new goals and plenty of puzzles to solve, each requiring a wide variety of skills, and even collaboration with others in some situations.
Certainly not a game for people who struggle in stressful situations,Keep Talking and Nobody Explodessets the unenviable task of defusing an active bomb. A puzzle game thatcan be played in VR, it requires two players to communicate effectively and quickly if they wish to disarm the explosive unharmed. Only one player has access to the instructions, while only the other can see the bomb.
There are many mechanisms on the bomb, each requiring concise descriptions from the disarmer, so that their colleague with the instruction manual has a chance of figuring out how to solve it. It’s a game that’s sure to stress-test any friendship and the manner in which people convey information when they have limited time.
Consistently ranked among the greatest video games ever made,Portalis a puzzle-platformer that demands deep analytical thinking across its many physics-based puzzles. Controlling Chell, armed with a portal gun which can create portals to transfer objects between two flat surfaces, players can get creative as they tackle the problems set out by GLaDOS and the Aperture Science Enrichment Center.
Apart from the excellent puzzles,the story and promises of cakeare experiences that all players should enjoy at least once. No game demonstrates critical thinking and out-of-the-box solutions quite likePortaldoes, and these can be highly transferable skills when applied to daily life and most careers.
