The Rise of Puzzle Games : From Jigsaw Puzzles to AI Solvers

Some of the most renowned names in history and the present day, such as Queen Elizabeth II and Bill Gates, enjoy solving jigsaw puzzles. When you think about the term “puzzle”, the first image that comes to your mind is “jigsaw puzzles”, which was the first invention of this new industry. The first jigsaw puzzle was invented by John Spilsbury in 1760, which was initially named “dissected maps”. In 2025, when every aspect of human life is evolving at the speed of a rocket, the puzzles aren’t left behind.

After thousands of years of history with humans, puzzle games are still as effective as they were in the beginning. If you have been a puzzle enthusiast, you must have experienced the cognitive and emotional benefits of puzzles. In this article, I’ll walk you through the history of puzzle games and how they have evolved till this day.

What Are Puzzle Games?

Before we dive deep into the history and evolution of puzzle games especially jigsaw puzzles, I want you to know the basics of the topic. A puzzle game is a type of game that challenges and engages players to use their cognitive abilities and solve problems. In this process, the player experiences a feeling of accomplishment, which is triggered by the release of dopamine in the brain. This is the reason why solving puzzles is attractive to everyone, from kids to older adults. Different types of games engage and polish different parts of our brain, which enhances our different cognitive abilities.

So, let’s take a quick look at some of the major puzzle categories and how they enhance our cognitive abilities and emotional stimulation.

Word puzzles: These challenge your linguistic abilities and enhance your vocabulary. Scrabble and Hangman are the classic word puzzle games, while Wordle and Words with Friends are popular in the digital world.

Physics-based puzzles: As the name suggests, these involve the rules of physics, such as gravity, and to solve the problem in the game, you have to manipulate the rules and keep progressing. Games like Angry Birds and World of Goo are perfect examples of physics-based puzzle games.

Math puzzles: If you’re someone good with numbers and maths formulas (that used to go over my head in school 😣), you will enjoy the mathematics puzzle games. These games generally involve numbers, algebra, and arithmetic. Sudoku and Rubik’s Cube are the most renowned math puzzles among the long list of math-based puzzle games.

Spatial puzzles: When you are visualising an object in how it would look in 2-3 dimensions, that’s your spatial reasoning showing its power. The spatial puzzle games enhance and improve this cognitive ability. The legendary Jigsaw Puzzles and Tetris are among these games.

A Deep Dive In The Evolution of Puzzle Games including Jigsaw Puzzles

The first close-to-puzzle game was introduced in 250 BC by the Greek mathematician Archimedes. He called it Ostomachion, which was a square cut into 14 pieces of different shapes and sizes. The player had to rearrange the pieces so that they fit together perfectly in a square.

Now, let me make a massive jump through history and show you a quick close-up of the first glimpse of puzzle games on screens. Loco-Motion by Konami is considered to be the first ever puzzle video game. Later on, Jigsaw Puzzles by John Spilsbury entered into the arena. However, Tetris by Alexey Pajitnov was the game changer for screen-era puzzle games.

In the current era, we consider it the fastest technology-evolving era humans have ever experienced. Thanks to artificial intelligence and its continuous upgrades. The puzzle game industry hasn’t been behind in this impact. The puzzle games are going to be a whole different game than we and previous generations played.

This was a little trailer of what we are heading towards. Now, buckle up and fasten your screens!

The Boom of Puzzle Games in the 90s

The puzzle gaming industry saw a boom in the 90s due to continuous hit games such as Tetris, Jigsaw Puzzles and Dr Mario. If I talk about Tetris, it’s considered one of the most popular video games of all time because of its unmatched uniqueness and appeal to people of all ages. It has been downloaded more than 615 million times since its launch on mobile devices as of 2024, according to the Tetris official website. On the other hand, Jigsaw Puzzles gained phenomenal popularity among the puzzle enthusiasts due to its addictive nature. There are hundreds of groundbreaking puzzle video games that made gamers go crazy every year in the 90s.

Another notable reason for the massive success of these games among the masses was limited resources. People didn’t have as many options as they do today. So, these games brought a cultural change in the form of the rise of arcade gaming. Originally, Tetris was also released for arcade gaming. PC gaming also experienced a boom after the launch of the IBM PC in 1981. We can say that the technology advancements which were happening was one of the significant reasons that shaped this into a whole freakin’ industry.

Smartphones Entered The Scene

Now, we’re entering into “The Digital Era” of puzzle games. We’re talking about the early 2000s here, when a smartphone could be easily found in every other house. The massive culture change in people’s lives impacted the gaming industry. People preferred smartphones because of the intermittent positive reinforcement. Then, the use of these devices grew significantly till the end of the 2000s. And that’s when the internet became crucial, and the concepts of mobile gaming and online gaming were born.

Other than Jigsaw Puzzles, Candy Crush Saga, Words with Friends, Angry Birds, and Bejewelled are some of the most famous puzzle video games since the introduction of smartphones and the internet into our lives. The technology didn’t stop just there. It kept changing, growing, and evolving, and so did the humans. But the gamers and developers didn’t stop either. From mobile gaming to PlayStation and Xbox Series, the journey has been relatively fast. The Witness, Portal 2, and LittleBigPlanet are among the top-class puzzle games originally developed for these advanced gaming setups.

Artificial Intelligence Will Be The Main Character

History is repeating itself for the third time now, when a considerable change has occurred in the puzzle games. The puzzle game players who love to play Jigsaw Puzzles, have adopted and taken advantage of this change more than other gamers. Over the last two decades, developers have produced some of the most innovative puzzle games, such as Baba Is You and The Room. It has reached the peak of innovation and experimentation in games, and players have enjoyed them. Whether it’s casual games like Angry Birds, spatial puzzles like Jigsaw Puzzles or hybrid ones like Toon Blast, or mystery games like It Takes Two and Teardown, artificial intelligence is bringing another wave of mind-blowing and jaw-dropping innovation.

There are different ways in which AI can impact puzzle games:

Personalization: By using advanced strategies such as generative AI, developers are creating personalized experiences for players based on their preferences. For example, you can customize the NPCS (non-player characters) in the game aligned with your likes and dislikes. You can change the outfit, behavior, dialogue delivery, or the environment as per your preference.

AI Solvers: Solving critical puzzles has become comparatively more straightforward with the help of state-of-the-art AI Solvers, which mainly include “Block Blast Solver”. Puzzle enthusiasts can take expert advice from the puzzle solver to solve tricky puzzles in seconds. They simply need to upload their game screenshots to the solver, and it offers the best solutions to gamers.

Unpredictability: In our current era, there are countless options for each genre, including puzzle games. Players who have been into gaming for a while often get bored due to the replayability of games. They know what’s coming, which kills the excitement. Through the integration of AI in games, this modern problem can be solved.

Narrative-based Elements: Players can adjust NPCS to interact according to a story, which enhances their experience and improves retention. Each player’s choice will be different, resulting in unique puzzle dynamics and story progression.

AI companionship: AI can be your gaming buddy who will be there for you no matter what. You can give direct commands to AI through your voice while you’re playing and make it the best helper for your puzzle games. It will provide you with hints, interact helpfully, and help you complete complicated tasks in the game, as well as understand the context of different puzzle elements you might not have known before.

Let’s Conclude: The Expected Future of Puzzle Games

The concept of puzzles began hundreds of years ago, when people used their hands to rearrange a few pieces into a particular shape like Jigsaw Puzzles. Fast forward to 2025, and we’ve come a long way. AI is going to take the lead and expand this industry into a much larger, more lucrative one. Because the experiences will be made unforgettable through hyper-personalization, which will increase the revenue of puzzle games. Now, if we take one step back and try to understand the power of artificial intelligence, it’s terrifying! Do you remember? In 1997, AI Bot named Deep Blue made headlines when it won a chess game against the world champion Garry Kasparov.

At this point, as AI is changing rapidly, we should acknowledge its significance in puzzle games and how it will revolutionize the entire industry mechanism.