
But the game dynamics also present a philosophical picture, which made me think of the Daoist ideal of non-action or wuwei. These fragments alone would make the game philosophically interesting. They are not just the usual suspects such as Einstein and Feynman, but also thinkers like Nicholas of Cusa, Niffari, Augustine and Clifford–his parable of the shipwreck is located, fittingly, in an abandoned ship. Throughout the island you can find and listen to audio recordings of quotes by scientists, philosophers, and theologians. The symbols found throughout the island present a set of consistent rules and thus form some sort of symbolic language, which you learn as you explore. This may not sound exactly riveting as game dynamics go, but the developers have done an excellent job making this task never boring: you need to look in the environment (shadows, reflections, patterns in the foliage, even sounds) for clues. The principle is always the same: you need to draw a continuous line from beginning point to end point, if you do it correctly, the puzzle activates other puzzles on the island.

You encounter puzzles in the landscape you need to solve.

You’re on a desert island, the only sign of life is your own shadow, lush vegetations, and sculptures of humans who seem frozen in time. My descriptions contain some minor spoilers, but I’ve avoided major ones. You can see more examples of cool philosophical games in the responses to this tweet, some of which I bought and ended up in this list. Because I made the list to brighten your day, I did not include any games that are overly sad, so no games about a child dying of cancer or about a person about to fall off a cliff in her car (both are philosophically very interesting).
#COMPUTER PUZZLE GAMES WINDOWS#
I don’t have a game console so the platforms are restricted to Windows 10, MacOS, and iOS. I like puzzle games, and I don’t do multiplayer games.

It contains mainly games I’ve played myself (at least partially, or all the way through) so it reflects one person’s taste, and leaves a lot of excellent games out. I’ve compiled a list of computer games that have philosophical substance, either in their plot lines or in the mechanics of their game play. One interesting and under-explored medium are computer games.
