Best Puzzle Games on the Game Boy

Puzzle Games are one of the things the Nintendo Game Boy is genuinely for. The ones worth playing start with Tetris, Donkey Kong, Wario Land.

The Game Boy and Puzzle Games

Four shades of grey and ten years of battery life. The Game Boy's constraints produced a library built around short sessions and pure ideas, and one of them ate the world.

This is one of its strengths. Puzzle games and creature collecting. Tetris and Pokemon are not just the best-selling games here, they are the two best fits for what a handheld is.

Filtering to puzzle means you want to understand something rather than execute it. It is the right filter when what you liked was the click of working out how a system worked.

The Puzzle Games Worth Playing

  1. 1. Tetris

    Follow the link for hand-written recommendations if you want more like it.

  2. 2. Donkey Kong

    Follow the link for hand-written recommendations if you want more like it.

  3. 3. Wario Land

    Follow the link for hand-written recommendations if you want more like it.

  4. 4. Mole Mania

    Follow the link for hand-written recommendations if you want more like it.

  5. 5. Dr. Mario

    Follow the link for hand-written recommendations if you want more like it.

  6. 6. Pokemon Pinball

    Follow the link for hand-written recommendations if you want more like it.

  7. 7. Game and Watch Gallery

    Follow the link for hand-written recommendations if you want more like it.

What Makes a Good Puzzle Game

The moment of understanding as the reward. Good puzzle games teach a rule, let you feel clever, then show you the rule was smaller than you thought.

Momentum. Puzzle games are paced for twenty minutes at a time and most of them get worse past an hour.

Frequently Asked Questions

What is the best puzzle game on the Game Boy?

Tetris is the usual first answer, and there are 7 in the library we cover.

Was the Game Boy good at puzzle games?

Yes — it is one of the things the machine is known for, and there are 7 in the library we cover.

Are puzzle games easy?

Rarely. A friendly art style is not a difficulty setting — some of the hardest games ever made look like children's books.

How do I know if a puzzle is fair?

In a well-designed game the piece you are missing was taught two rooms ago. If a solution only arrives by trying everything, the design is the problem, not you.

How is this list put together?

From the games this site covers on the Nintendo Game Boy, matched against hand-mapped gameplay categories rather than a storefront's genre tag. A page only exists where there are at least four, which is why some console and genre combinations have no page at all.

Puzzle Games on Other Consoles

More From the Game Boy

Or browse the whole Nintendo Game Boy library.