Through the years, solving puzzles in one way or another has become a form of entertainment and mental gymnastics to many. Being immersed and deeply interested in a particular activity helps to put other thoughts aside for the moment, focus on the task at hand, and temporarily forget about the stresses and problems of everyday life. Taking time off for a game or two will do wonders for one's frame of mind.

With the advent of both augmented and virtual reality technologies, puzzle-solving has gone further regarding immersion and fun. The ability of VR to block everything out instead of an alternate isolated reality is the perfect place to focus on one's puzzle-solving skills. With that, let's look at some puzzle-solving games in VR worth the visit, look, and play in a realm that will bring awe and wonder to the human mind—the realm of puzzle-solving in Virtual Reality.

Tetris Effect VR

Almost every gamer (in one way or the other) is familiar with Tetris. The game of directing blocks as they fall into a rectangular frame to fill it to a certain height completely has come a long way from being Alexey Pajitnov's pet project back in 1985. Tetris is a game that will need the player's full attention to position the Tetrimino blocks perfectly into place as much as possible. To make things challenging, the cube-like blocks have different patterns or shapes, like jigsaw puzzle pieces that the player will have to put together intricately.

The pieces eventually start flowing down much faster as the game progresses, and the player must adjust their speed accordingly to get the details in place. With Tetris in VR, the difficulty goes a bit higher than a handheld game console or PC. Tetris in VR is fantastic with everything around you, and the Tetris frame continually changes in a cacophony of sights, music, and sounds depending on the location of the level, from the deep blue sea to the far reaches of space. The music is so fantastic and relaxing, and the visuals are so beautiful! However, you do have those blocks to fit perfectly into the frame.

Cubism VR

Two words can fully describe this game: immersive and relaxing. Cubism will remind you of Tetris in that you must fit the Tetrimino blocks in their proper place. However, Cubism is a game of hand-tracking, grasping VR 3D blocks, and manually and correctly placing them into different frames that may be a simple square to a complex cubical orthographic projection.

The tricky part is choosing which piece and where to fit it exactly. As you busy your mind to solve the puzzle, beautiful piano music will be played at specific intervals that will lighten your mood (especially if you love the classics). In VR, the effect is so profound that puzzle-solving becomes fun, and stress is definitely and temporarily forgotten.

Puzzling Places VR

Putting the 3D pieces together in Puzzling Places VR got much more complicated. However, some players will have lots of fun with this. For those who have created their diorama projects in school, Puzzling Places is just like that. However, all the parts have been chunked down into tiny-whiny odd-shaped pieces that you must assemble to come up with the whole thing. Oh, they'll fit alright! You have to find them. You can build many things, including cathedrals, mansions, roads, etc.

For those who love and have seen the movie "Timeline" starring the late Paul Walker, think of "Castle Rogue" in the battle of Castlegard in 1357 France. There was this intricate castle diorama in the film. With lots of pieces to go through and a soothing ambient background, here's your chance to make one of your own.

A Fisherman's Tale VR

Not all puzzle-solving games look and play the same. There are times when combining two or more game genres works to the advantage of both the designers and players. A Fisherman's Tale is such a game. Part adventure, part puzzle-solving, the game focuses on finding immediate solutions to problems that pop up within the small environment of the game.

What makes the game awesome is that it is a sort of nested game within a game. You control a wooden fisherman character that runs a lighthouse. He can do things with the help of a smaller model of himself and the lighthouse he lives in. By manipulating his smaller version and the things around him, you will have to help him solve several intricate puzzles to light up the lighthouse in time for a coming storm, thus assisting ships to pass by to safety. With excellent graphics and environmental ambiance, being a lighthouse operator in VR has never been so enjoyable.

Myst VR

One of the many things that made Myst such a unique game in the '90s was the puzzle-solving aspect of the game, where you had to focus your thoughts on how to get through it. Even on a CRT screen during those times, the graphics and ambient sounds were astounding, turning Cyan, Inc. into a well-known developer brand.

The story of being thrown onto Myst Island with all the weird structures and devices left behind and the need to travel to different ages to decide on the right course of action has led many gamers to spend hours on end with the game. Imagine it today completely rebuilt for VR. Not ported but rebuilt from the ground up. Cyan has scored once again with this VR version of the game, where you feel you are on the island, and everything you do is happening, not just something you see on a screen.

VR 2048 Puzzle

The 2048 puzzle game was an open-source JavaScript and CSS project in 2014. The game had you move numbered tiles around the grid to place same-numbered tiles adjacent to each other to merge. When two tiles merge, they assume the sum of each tile combined. So if you have two touching tiles numbered four each, they combine into an 8. You move the tiles around to keep doing this until you get two tiles to incorporate into 2048. That's two tiles with 1024 each.

Today, the game has finally made it to VR. In a straightforward mode, the gameplay is the same in VR as with a flat-screen device. You'll have to swipe the tiles around to get a 2048. However, VR allows one to move around inside a game world. The tiles can become numbered cubes you must pick up and throw at a same-numbered cube within a specified area. The same effect is that a two cube hitting another two cubes becomes a four cube. Of course, a lot more movement is necessary to throw those cubes, but in VR, the effects are worth it.

There are many other puzzle games in VR worth playing, but for now, the examples given would suffice well as a cross-reference of the entire VR game genre. However, if you're interested in getting into puzzle-solving games, you can try out fun 2048 Games and check out the contents there.