Thinky Third Thursday

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Thinky Third Thursday
November 2025

Welcome to the November 2025 edition of Thinky Third Thursday - a roundup of games that the puzzle experts from Draknek & Friends think are worth your time.

From the Draknek & Friends Official Podcast

Recent thinky highlights

This month's edition features even more games than usual, mostly small releases that aren't getting much hype outside of the thinky puzzle world. We're really feasting over here!


Spooky Express, by Draknek & Friends
It's been a month since the launch of our spookiest train-themed puzzler here at Draknek & Friends, and the reviews have been fang-tastic. From being described as "a Game of the Year contender" by Stephen Totilo at Game File, and "seasonally-appropriate, varied, and delightful" by Thinky Games, we're thrilled at the response. If you don't have your copy yet, it's available on Steam, itch, iOS, and Android.


Grooveyard, by GuavaGoose Games
Plot your path and hit play! Grooveyard is a puzzle platformer with "more backbone" than average, and features a charming Halloweeney lofi soundtrack to boot. It's a bone-afide good time! Disclaimer: it's currently bundled with Spooky Express in the Hauntingly Good Puzzle Games bundle, but that's just good taste on everyone's part.


Prince of Darkness Jr., by Pond Area
Vamps vs Lamps" is one of the best taglines I've heard all year, and Prince of Darkness Jr. lives up to it delightfully. In this game, you play a tiny vampire trying to find a safe route through the manor by pushing boxes in front of light sources. It has a gentle-ish difficulty curve with some satisfying puzzles. Oh, and this is the other game Spooky Express is currently bundled with alongside Grooveyard. These three puzzlers are excellent to sink your fangs into as the nights grow longer.


Riddlewood Manor, by Peanut Button
When you mix first-person escape rooms with a healthy dash of Halloween humour, you'll get something like Riddlewood Manor. As well as charming point-and-click puzzles, another tool you have in your puzzle solving arsenal is death itself. Die repeatedly in delightfully absurd ways in order to solve the mystery of the Riddlewood family's fate, but be sure not to summon any demonic entities along the way or things might get complicated.


The Séance of Blake Manor, by Spooky Doorway and Raw Fury
If you've been missing Blue Prince, The Séance of Blake Manor comes very close to satisfying that itch. It's another sprawling, horrifying mansion that hides sinister secrets, but in Blake Manor roguelike exploration is swapped out for more classic escape room puzzles and an investigation fuelled by logical deduction. As you play, the clock ticks ever closer to your deadline, the séance itself. "I know not what to expect, but I know when to expect it..."


A Case of Fraud, by Hesperus Games
A Roottrees-like that's well worth investigating is A Case of Fraud from New Zealand based studio Hesperus Games. The core gameplay centres around piecing together a family tree from names, photos, and even the identities of pets by rooting through (yes, pun intended) evidence such as letters, post-it notes, and print-outs. It's a short game but its puzzling holds up very well.


Orbyss, by Misty Whale
If you like games about spherical objects then oh boy do I have a recommendation for you. This 3D puzzle platformer is all about getting your orb to the exit, and in order to do that you have to control and manipulate the many other orbs, each one doing its own orby (and puzzley) thing. There's a real mix of puzzle types spread across the levels, making the mechanics stay fresh and interesting.


The Apothecary of Trubiz, by kinjo and Image Labo
Chants of Sennaar meets Strange Horticulture in a strange, muted apothecary on the streets of Trubiz. In this short puzzle game you're tasked with mixing and proscribing potions in order to cure various villagers for their ailments, but your guidebook is written in an unintelligible, fictional language. The two core mechanics (deductively solving the cures, and linguistically solving the language) are more forgiving than their puzzlier counterparts, but together they make for a satisfying solve. Who knew 'brewing together' two fun thinky mechanics would make something this special.


MotionRec, by HANDSUM and PLAYISM
MotionRec has a clever time-loop mechanic that turns every action you could possibly take into a reusable tool. For example, record yourself riding a moving platform, then play it back to launch yourself skyward later in the level. As the platformer style levels ramp up in difficulty, you'll have to get creative with your recordings to reach the exit. Overall, it's a puzzle game you shouldn't hit skip on.


Puzzle Depot, by Laughing Manatee Games
Puzzle Depot lets you live the dream of playing a sokoban that's actually about being a warehouseman and pushing boxes and crates around. Truth in advertising! But that's just the starting point - over the course of your adventure you'll encounter robots, giant bugs, lasers, slime, explosions, and various other things your character wasn't really trained for. The notable part of this game (aside from its decade-long development time) is that each level is sprawling and interconnected, with several optional goals pushing you to find non-obvious solutions.


Various games from ThinkyCon Jam
This month also saw the ThinkyCon Jam 2025 take place, as a tie-in to ThinkyCon, organised by ThinkyGames.com. There were some great talks, and some great games inspired by those talks! Of the 40 entries to the jam, I particularly enjoyed Samuel's Sickoban, by spratt and Boxception, by Joszs.

While we're talking about their event, here's a quick clarification, since we've seen people occasionally get us mixed up: ThinkyGames.com and Draknek are different teams! Even though we both use the word "thinky", and they cross-post this newsletter to their site, and we've collaborated on their Thinky Direct, and they've collaborated on our event Cerebral Puzzle Showcase, we don't run that site and they don't write this newsletter or make our games! I may have been the first to coin the "thinky" term but we all thrive in the shared thinky ecosystem.

Thinky releases from the past month

Free games:

Paid games:

New demos:

Upcoming games to watch for

Before we wrap up, I wanted to highlight a couple of upcoming releases both slated for December 1st.


Toroban, by Hebert Games LLC
Sokoban on a torus makes Toroban, and infinitely wrapping puzzle geometry is an intriguing idea - watch the trailer if you don't believe me. Thinking about this one for too long makes my head hurt in the best possible way, but I can't wait to check it out.


The Art of Reflection, by Hydrozoa
The Art of Reflection takes a deceptively simple premise (mirrors!) and turns it into something genuinely mind-bending. Early puzzles introduce some basic ideas - if your key won't fit the lock, try mirroring it! Later levels have players using mirrors to shift gravity, building complex labyrinths and bending perspective in surprising ways. This game's demo has generated a lot of interest so far, and so the game's full release next month is definitely worth "reflecting" on.

That's it!

We'll be in touch again soon with an exciting announcement - watch this space!

Until then, did you particularly enjoy any of the games from this packed month of releases, or do you have a recommendation for a game I should check out? Please send me a message!

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