Puzzle games that don't insult your intelligence

There's a difference between a hard puzzle and an unfair one. A hard puzzle has a solution you could reach by thinking. An unfair one hides the answer behind logic no human would guess.

The best offline puzzlers I've played teach you their rules early and then trust you to apply them. Hollow Lantern does this well — every solution is grounded in something you've already seen.

My tip for stuck moments: walk away for ten minutes. Half the puzzles I couldn't crack solved themselves the second I stopped forcing it. Fresh eyes beat brute force.

I also lean toward games that let you skip a puzzle after a while. It's not cheating; it keeps you moving instead of quitting the whole game out of frustration.