What Are We Playing? [Oct 2025]

Periodically on this blog we highlight a handful of tabletop and digital games to spread the word about interesting experiences and support other creators. Here's our October edition, which includes a variety of puzzle games in different mediums.

Chapter 1 of Interstellar Adventures by Minty Noodles

Interstellar Adventures is a cooperative, narrative-driven puzzle game that can be played completely offline. I got a chance to play the demo chapter, so some things I experienced may change before the game is released. Overall, it was exciting to see a game with this level of character design and world-building.

I loved the art—it felt like I was reading a comic book as I played through the game. The puzzling felt a little light, and it would have been nice to see some more puzzle content, but my understanding is that the subsequent chapters will be meatier than the first. Even though the game is primary card-based, they managed to squeeze in a fun reveal at the end of the chapter. I also enjoyed the optional mini dexterity challenges. Even though they weren’t required, I felt they added a fun element to the gameplay.

I appreciated the crew cards from a story-telling standpoint, but they felt a little underutilized. Similarly, I appreciated having analog hint cards to help when I needed a nudge, and, while I understood their thematic purpose, I was not sold on the hint penalties.

Chapter one ended on a cliffhanger, and I’m definitely left wanting more! I’m excited to spend more time in this world, and look forward to playing the full game. This game is currently raising funds—check out the Kickstarter page here.

Difficulty: 2/5

Time: ~30m

Image via Steam

Tunic by Finji

With its cute Link (from The Legend of Zelda)-inspired fox avatar and land exploration, Tunic feels like a love letter to the Zelda games. By completing dungeon crawls and solving mini puzzles, you gather the pages from the game manual and piece together how the game works.

I had originally stepped away from this game after finding the combat too punishing, but returned to it after learning that there is a “no fail mode” hiding in the Accessibility settings that prevents you from dying in battle and having to start an encounter over. This was a relief and allowed me to focus on enjoying the story, though I did wish that combat would pause when you entered a menu screen.

The puzzly sections appear later in the game, meaning there are often many secrets left to unlock once you are done with the "main" gameplay. This can lead to some frustration, because you can only get the “best” ending if you find everything that’s hidden in the game. Additionally, I found the mechanic for the last puzzle to be clever, but incredibly tedious, which slowed down my momentum and interest right at the end. This game rewards those with patience, but does have a lot of fun elements to explore.

Difficulty: 4/5

Time: ~13 hours

The Woman in the Fog by Exit: The Book

From the creators of the Exit: The Game series, The Woman in the Fog is an interactive graphic novel about three friends working their way through a mysterious mansion. This was a really novel concept (pun intended) and I found the artwork to be more exciting than what I have seen in the boxed EXIT games,

The story was well-written as a whole, but the text was sometimes very small—I can imagine many people struggling to read it without a magnifying glass. This was also true for the answer-checking mechanic—it was cool, but parts of the diagram were small and hard to read, so I wasn’t sure if I assembled it correctly. The book itself was used in some very interesting ways, but this occasionally made the puzzles not make sense within the story. I also ran into an issue with the first puzzle where I figured out the solution, but could not actually make the puzzle work.

The answer to every puzzle was a three digit code, which worked smoothly for this style game. However, I had some difficulty with the answer-checking mechanic beyond text size. When you submitted a correct code, you were directed to a new page, and I had trouble keeping track of which page I had come from. Additionally, you were sometimes redirected to another page while just reading the book, which seemed unnecessary and disrupted the flow of the graphic novel portions, especially because the story was linear. At one point I skipped ahead one page and, while I managed to get to the ending, I accidentally missed a huge portion of the book and then had to backtrack. So, if you play through this game, make sure you stop at each puzzle.

Overall, the puzzles didn't quite hit for me, but this felt like more of a matter of personal preference rather than an issue of quality. I have to commend the EXIT team for trying a new format, and I look forward to trying more EXIT graphic novels in the future.

Difficulty: 3/5

Time: ~2 hours

The Fifth Column by Puzzling Pursuits

The Fifth Column is a puzzle mystery game where you play code-crackers in 1945 tracking down a group of Nazis who have fled to New York City and are planning something malicious. While World War II is not my favorite historical topic, I enjoyed the gameplay as a whole.

The puzzles were solid, with many clean, multi-step solves and some novel concepts. There was one moment where we felt like we had skipped a puzzle and, while we ended up solving it eventually, it would have been too easy to bypass it altogether.

The materials were nice quality and I appreciated the moments of authenticity and historical inspiration (though the actual quotes from Hitler were not my favorite part of the game). I played with a group of five and there was enough material for us all to be puzzling simultaneously. Additionally, the hint system, while relatively basic, always helped us get back on track the few times we needed it. Overall, this was a solid game with some interesting puzzles.

Difficulty: 3/5

Time: 1-2 hours per chapter (2-4 total)

Strange Jigsaw by FLEB

Strange Jigsaw is a puzzle video game that, in spite of its name, actually has a variety of puzzles types. If anything, jigsaw pieces are merely an inspirational jumping off point for the content of the game, which is full of fun "aha" moments and satisfying solves. The puzzles kept my wheels turning and I often had to think outside of the box. It was not so challenging that I found myself constantly looking for help, but I did get a little stuck once or twice.

The game doesn’t take itself too seriously, and the wholesome humor added to the experience. The graphics are understated, but work well with the theming of the game. There was a pleasant sense of progression throughout, and, if anything, I wish the game was longer so that the creator could have explored their concepts even more deeply.

If you want to play puzzles to wind down at the end of a long day, or are just looking for a relaxing game you can solve in 1-2 sittings, this is a great choice.

Time: 2-3 hrs

Difficulty: 2/5

What have you been playing lately?