In the third and final installment of the series, House of Da Vinci 3 rounds out the trilogy with more of the beautiful scenery and challenging puzzles that players have come to know and love. The blend of adventure, mystery, and problem-solving has made the series popular among puzzle fiends.
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Although the House of Da Vinci series has reached its conclusion, there are plenty of other mystery games out there to keep the gears turning. For those players who are left wanting more, these games are sure to scratch that puzzle-solving itch.
10Device6: For The Bookworms
If you’ve ever wanted to play your way through a mystery novel, this is the game for you. The adventure is mostly text-based, but it’s brought to life through sound effects, interactive puzzles, and words that branch and turn into different pathways. The text of the story acts as a map, and as you go along you’ll find more questions before you find any answers.
Many levels will have players scrolling back and forth to find that one clue disguised as an insignificant detail. Device6 is a great brain bender, forcing you to use both sight and sound to parse some of the more challenging riddles.
9The Witness: Grids And More Grids
The Witness is an open-world, puzzle-centered game set on a beautiful island. With no context or memory at the start of the game, your goal is to explore the colorful landscape and gather clues.
All of the puzzles in this game, while each one is unique, share a similar format. They are all grid-based and involve drawing a path to solve them. Though the puzzles themselves are two-dimensional, clues lie in the environment, with some solutions only revealing themselves from the right viewpoint.
8The Case Of The Golden Idol: A Multiple Murder Mystery
This indie adventure game centers around 12 strange deaths that take place over a 40-year span. Set in the 18th century, the point-and-click gameplay involves investigating crime scenes, deducing motives, and choosing suspects. In each diorama-style scene, the player collects a series of words which are then used to fill out scrolls to solve each case.
An ominous soundtrack helps set the tone for this gruesome multiple-murder mystery. The distinctive pixel art and play style make for a challenging, spooky, and ultimately rewarding mystery-solving experience.
7We Were Here Forever: When You Can’t Do It Alone
This puzzle adventure game is different from most others because it can only be played co-op. This fourth installment of the We Were Here series has players work in tandem to escape the dark realm of Castle Rock. As the story unfolds and the scenery changes, communication, observation, and teamwork are the only way to solve puzzles and move forward.
Related:The Best Co-Op Indie Games
There’s a refreshing variety in the puzzle type, covering everything from logic problems to navigational puzzles to challenges that test your descriptive skills. It’s the perfect adventure game for friends who love puzzles.
6Year Walk (And Companion): If You Like Getting Lost In The Woods
This is the puzzle game for lovers of folklore and mythology, but not for the easily deterred. It won’t hold your hand. As you wind your way through a gloomy forest in the dead of winter, you will encounter all manner of spirits and creatures with strange tasks to complete. Some of the puzzles are so understated that you might not even realize you have come across a puzzle until you begin tinkering around.
The Companion is to be downloaded after your first play-through; it fills out the background for characters, explains symbolism and lore, and adds new depth to the story.
5Professor Layton And The Curious Village: Puzzles Big And Small
Originally a Nintendo favorite, this charming mystery game is alsoavailable on iOS and Android. Explore the mysterious village as you collect clues, question quirky townsfolk, and reason through more than 130 riddles and puzzles.
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Most of the game is spent unlocking and exploring the map, looking for puzzles you might have missed, hidden hint coins, and clues to solving the overarching mystery of the strange little town and the wealthy family that looms over it. With charming protagonists, soothing music, and endearing animation, The Curious Village makes for a pleasantly head-scratching play through.
4The Room 4: Old Sins – Fun With A Dollhouse
The Room and The House of Da Vinci series usually get mentioned in the same breath when talking about linear, puzzle-driven games. The two series do have much in common, and if you enjoyed one, it’s likely you’ll enjoy the other.
The Room 4: Old Sins doesn’t pick up where the third game left off, but rather it introduces new characters in a fresh setting. The player is tasked with solving the disappearance of a prominent couple through an examination of a strange dollhouse in their attic. With various creative puzzles and a plot that is slowly pieced together, this series is one of the best-known inthe mystery genrefor a reason.
3Superliminal: Inception Meets Alice In Wonderland
Like the House of Da Vinci series, Superliminal is afirst-person puzzle-solving gamebut in a much more surreal setting. This dream-like world plays with perception and perspective, forcing you to think outside the box. The atmosphere of the game is equal parts eerie and charming.
The simple storyline plays out through bits of narration and the shifting environments of different levels. It is ultimately a game revolving around the inner workings of the mind, forcing the player to give theirs a good workout to find their way out of the haunting dreamscape.
2The Turing Test: Mystery In Space
Set on Jupiter’s moon, Europa, The Turing Test is a first-person puzzle game centered on investigating a missing ground crew. The puzzles that the protagonist, Ava Turing, must solve have been left behind by the vanished crew and can apparently only be solved by a human.
A fitting game for our current AI landscape, this game explores the connection between human and machine intelligence. This extra-terrestrial adventure is made for lovers of science fiction and brain-teasers alike.
Rural Kansas circa 1965 is the perfect setting for a perfectlycreepy murder mystery. This first-person horror game curates a sense of dread for the player while they work to solve the murder of a secretive professor.
Not only are there clues to be collected and secrets to be uncovered, but the stakes are heightened by the presence of a masked murderer who would rather keep these things hidden. This element of urgency adds an exciting twist to what might otherwise be a run-of-the-mill mystery game.
