Puzzle games have been a staple of the gaming community since Tetris made its debut in 1984. Testing everything from spatial reasoning to logic and communication, these are a few of our favorite VR puzzle games worth checking out.
1. Gravity Lab
Gravity Lab is a physics puzzle game. While it can be a little more complicated than some of the other games on this list, the sense of accomplishment also grows.
Players are tasked with a series of increasingly difficult challenges. Most of them consist of guiding a group of small spheres to a goal using the items at your disposal. Mastering the different tools and using gravity and physics to your advantage will be key.
If you feel like taking on some short, visual puzzles, then give Gravity Lab a play.
2. Keep Talking and Nobody Explodes
Keep Talking and Nobody Explodes is possibly the most frustrating game on this list. However, it may also be the most entertaining and makes a great party game.
Keep Talking and Nobody Explodes is a two-player puzzle game taking the form of bomb disposal. One player uses the VR headset and is the only one who can see and interact with the bomb. The other player has the “Bomb Disposal Manual” which has the solutions to the different puzzles on the bomb, but they can’t see the bomb. This means communication is paramount.
I can tell you from experience, if you stream the VR headset to a screen for friends to watch, the entertainment will come from watching and listening to the insane, high-pressure attempts at describing the bomb and solutions.
3. Please Don’t Touch Anything
Please Don’t Touch Anything is a fantastic game that encourages you to disregard the title’s instructions and touch everything.
Players sit in front of a screen with a single red button on the desk in front of you. The goal here is to find all the secrets and unlock all the endings. Players will use trial and error to find the many, many solutions. Some will be quick. Some will be frustrating and all will be entertaining.
In VR the different endings can be startling, but that adds to the feel of this quirky, and often hilarious game. If you’re a fan of logic puzzles or escape rooms, Please Don’t Touch Anything is for you!
4. The Room VR: A Dark Matter
The Room VR: A Dark Matter is an atmospheric sequential puzzle game. Meaning, you have to solve most of the puzzles in order. Also, you will gather tools or items along the way to help solve puzzles later. Almost like a series of puzzle boxes.
The Room has had several great installments over the years for both PC and mobile. A Dark Matter has been created from the ground up for VR, and it really shows.
There is a story to be had here, (which is surprisingly good) but the real draw is the puzzles themselves. Like they were created by a master craftsman, they are ornate, beautiful, and intriguing. Check out The Room VR: A Dark Matter for some chill, atmospheric brain-teasing.
5. Darknet
Image Credit: E McNeill
Darknet is an incredibly addicting puzzle solving game. Running under the guise of infiltrating sensitive data on the dark web, the story is extremely loose. I played this game for years, actually. Since the first VR headset I owned: the Samsung Gear VR for the Samsung Note 4 phone. I was an early adopter of the technology, and played a lot of very basic games. Then there was Darknet.
Each puzzle is procedurally generated, so the replay value is high. It’s also a different type of puzzle that makes it hard to explain in text. Perhaps that’s why it doesn’t get the love it deserves.
The basic goal here is to take out the central area of a spiderweb of “nodes”. To do this you have to take out the smaller “nodes” to break shields and gain currency to get more items to make the attack on the final “node” easier.
It’s difficult to paint a great picture here, but if there is one game on this list that I would say is a “must-play”, it’s Darknet!
