The Puzzle Games I Keep for Waiting Rooms

Not every moment calls for a two-hour adventure. Sometimes you've got eight minutes at the dentist and you just want a clean little puzzle. That's a genre unto itself, and the good ones share a few traits.

No timers is my number one rule. If a puzzle game panics me with a countdown, it's gone. Tangle Tower Blocks gets this right — you solve at your own pace, and the undo button lets you try things without penalty.

I also want handcrafted levels over randomly generated ones. You can feel the difference. A designer who set up a clever trap gives you that little 'aha' moment; a random board rarely does.

Keep two or three of these installed and rotate them. When one starts feeling stale you switch, and by the time you come back it feels fresh again. All of them should work offline, obviously — waiting rooms love to have terrible reception.