These precision-machined stainless steel puzzles from Japan have pieces that connect so tightly that their connections are nearly imperceptible. Despite having just 16 pieces each, they’re quite challenging since you can’t tell their fronts from their backs.
GiiKER’s interactive puzzle game combines the digital and tactile worlds by displaying a puzzle arrangement on its LED screen, then asking you to solve it by sliding the pieces into the proper positions. It comes loaded with more than 500 challenges. Great for kids and adults and an excellent alternative to playing on phones.
Like many of you, we’ve played Wordle almost every day since it broke out. Squirrel Monkey imagines what the hit word game might have been like if it came out in the 1980s and ran on an MS-DOS-based PC. You’ll also need a dot-matrix printer if you want to share your score.
Love to solve escape room puzzles? Ohm’s Quest is basically an escape room in a cube. It packs buttons, lights, wire jacks, an accelerometer, an RFID sensor, and a speaker to guide players through an interactive puzzle-solving experience. It comes with three games, and new games will be available via a subscription.
Nervous Systems’ unique plywood jigsaw puzzle is made of 216 colorful lizards which fit together to form a nearly infinite number of shapes. Despite the flexibility, each lizard only fits in one spot. Combine multiple Infinity puzzles to make even larger designs.
Unidragon’s flat-pack wood model lets you build a miniature muscle car. Clearly inspired by the Ford Mustang, the model has fastback styling, a mini V8 engine, a detailed interior, and its doors, hood, and trunk open. The 230-piece kit comes in red, yellow, or black, and it’s 50% off the original price at the moment.
This three-in-one puzzle box features detailed woodcut prints by artist Bryan Nash Gill. He created large-scale relief prints from cross-sections of trees by pressing the rings until they transferred from tree to paper. Each 300-piece puzzle has different colors on the bottom to simplify sorting.
Everything is awesome with these LEGO Mystery Minifigure puzzles from Chronicle Books. Each 126-piece puzzle features one of six mystery Minifigures, adding to the fun. Collect them all!
This intricate wooden sculpture offers a wonderful way to pass the time, first by assembling its 180+ laser-cut pieces to form its structure, then by guiding a marble through its 3D maze. In all, there are over 150 obstacles to navigate inside of its acrylic cube. Includes everything you need – no tools or glue required.
These connect-the-dot puzzle books are much more challenging than most, with each design made from an average of 1,000 dots. The first book’s 30 images include the Statue of Liberty, an Egyptian Pharoah, and a Day of the Dead sugar skull. There’s also an Ultimate Dot-to-Dot Animals edition.
Wrebbit’s 280-piece puzzle lets you assemble a 3D model of the Ghostbusters’ ECTO-1 station wagon. The car is covered with lots of movie-accurate photographic details, from the license plates to the roof rack filled with gadgets for detecting and dealing with the paranormal. The finished model measures 14.5″ x 4.75″ x 5.5″.
Maximum Games’ atmospheric puzzle adventure game follows the story of a young boy who shuts out the rest of the world and finds himself trapped in a nightmarish world filled with challenging puzzles, tricky obstacles, and horrifying bosses to overcome – coming to PS4 and PS5 on 5.29.2022.
Denver-based cheat3puzzles makes wonderfully-unique puzzle boxes from LEGO bricks. Among their fun and tricky collection are a miniature Macintosh computer, a vending machine, and various abstract and artful box designs. They come in easy, medium, and hard difficulty levels.
Art collective MSCHF created this combination jigsaw puzzle and sweepstakes which will give one lucky winner a million-dollar prize. Just complete the 500-piece puzzle and scan the QR code with your phone to find out which prize you won: 25 cents, $100, $1000, $10,000, or $1,000,000.
Puzzle master Alex Bellos’ book is filled with 100 perplexing lexical puzzles that are guaranteed to give your brain a workout. Challenges include pattern identification, decoding hieroglyphics, and ciphers not just in English, but in other languages both real and imaginary.
Despite having only 50 to 400 pieces, Torched Products‘ diabolical laser-cut puzzles offers plenty of challenge. That’s because each of its wood pieces has similarly-shaped edges but only fit together in one configuration. The backside of each piece is stained darker, but that’s the only help you’re getting.
After seeing a bowling ball with a square center, Ben’s Worx was inspired to make his own colorful sphere. So he submerged a Rubik’s Cube in a vat of resin, removed the bubbles in a vacuum chamber, then turned it on a lathe. The refraction of the clear resin makes it look like the cube’s corners were rounded inside of the sphere.
Unnecessary Inventions’ playful coffee table offers a clever commentary on “some assembly required” furniture. When you want to use it as a table, you need to place all 91 of its pieces in the proper places. Its top is made from baltic birch, which sits atop an MDF grid and steel hairpin legs. Measures 40″ w x 20″ d x 16″ h.
We can only imagine what the shipping company will think if they X-ray this puzzle that looks like a bomb in a briefcase. Puzzle expert Andy Gilker spent hundreds of hours creating this challenging escape room puzzle which takes about 90 minutes to complete as you and your friends work to defuse its fake explosive payload.
byKIEVWOOD’s unique coasters feature intricate fractal designs which can be taken apart and reassembled as jigsaw puzzles. They each come with an outer layer to protect puzzle pieces from sticking to your glassware. Sold in a set of six, with optional personalization. Their larger fractal puzzles are also worth a look.
Jigsaw puzzles can be loads of fun, but they also take up lots of table space. Simone Giertz came up with a solution by designing and building a an overly-complex dining table. Its tambour wood roll-top conceals a jigsaw puzzle compartment that rises like an elevator. That painter’s tape and glue clamp is a neat hack.
Ever wonder “What if the Starship Enterprise was manned by cats?” Us neither. Nevertheless, this 1,000-piece jigsaw puzzle casts felines in several of Star Trek’s most beloved scenes. A tabby plays Captain Kirk, Mr. Spock is a Mexican Hairless, and Chief Engineer “Scotty” Scott is (duh) a Scottish Fold. Beam me up, Kitty!
Maze expert Sean C. Jackson created 30 intricate mazes for fellow Star Wars fans to enjoy. Locations include the forests of Endor, Jabba’s Palace, the rocky cliffs of Ahch-To, and the corridors of the Death Star. In addition to winding your way through the mazes, each illustration contains a Where’s Waldo-style challenge.
