Cosy puzzle games for a calm evening (no timers, no jump scares)

The cosiest puzzles aren't locks at all. They're little research projects: read a book, look at the object in front of you, and work out what fits.

Botany Manor is the perfect example. It's 1890, you're retired botanist Arabella Greene, and you explore an English country house and its gardens to work out how to grow fantastical plants. Clues come from books, letters, posters and Victorian contraptions. Set the temperature, light or soil just right, and the flower blooms. Lovely, right? Players adore the painterly art and gentle music, and Arabella's story of being dismissed as a woman in science gives it some heart. The catch: it's three to seven hours, many say to buy it on sale, and you'll want to take screenshots because earlier clues are hard to look up again.

Strange Antiquities is the follow-up to Strange Horticulture, and you don't need to have played the first one. You run a candle-lit occult shop in the lakeside town of Undermere, identifying arcane artefacts by checking their features against illustrated tomes, then handing the right item to customers with strange problems. Help them or curse them; your choices shape multiple endings. There's a creeping Lovecraftian edge, sure, but the shop itself is pure comfort. And there's a cat you can pet. Players call it an upgrade on the first game. If anything, it's more relaxing than challenging.

SFB Games make some of the warmest murder mysteries around. That sounds like a contradiction. It isn't.

Detective Grimoire is where the series started. The owner of a swamp tourist attraction is found dead, apparently killed by the very legendary creature his business is built on. You explore the marsh, question a colourful cast and slot clues into Grimoire's thoughts to reach conclusions. Players praise the voice acting and genuinely funny dialogue and describe a cosy afternoon of sleuthing. Is it hard? No. The culprit is easy to guess and it's over in about three hours. But at its tiny price, who's complaining?

The Mermaid Mask is the big one, and players call it the best in the series. The captain of a very strange submarine is found dead in a locked room next to an ancient cauldron, and Grimoire and Sally have to question an odd crew to explain how. Clues are 3D objects you turn over for hidden details, and every suspect has a unique reply to every clue. Players love the animation, the voice cast and the orchestral score, and say the game gives you enough to name the killer before the reveal. It's mostly dialogue with fairly few real puzzles, and many references land better if you've played Tangle Tower first. Ten to fifteen hours of charm.

Okay, these two involve quite a lot of dying. But hear me out: you're the one undoing it, and you can always try again.

Ghost Trick: Phantom Detective comes from Shu Takumi, the creator of Ace Attorney. You're Sissel, a ghost who has to solve his own death in a single night. You possess objects to change what happens, and you can rewind a victim's last four minutes to save them. Players rate the story among the best in games, with a lovable cast that includes a fan-favourite dog called Missile. The puzzles are approachable timing puzzles, which makes it a great starter game. Some stretches of dialogue run long, and a few puzzles only show the next step after you fail. Twelve to fifteen hours, best played blind.

The Sexy Brutale sets a twelve-hour loop at a masked ball in a casino mansion, where the staff murder the guests the same way every time. You spy, eavesdrop and learn each victim's routine to save them, and every rescue gives you a new mask power. Players call the puzzles fair and never obscure; the flip side is that many also call them easy. The final twist falls flat for several reviewers. Still, at six to eight hours and a low price, it's a stylish, stress-free time loop.

Only got an evening? These three fit in one or two hours each.

The Mr. Rabbit Magic Show is a free gift from Rusty Lake for the series' tenth birthday. Twenty strange magic acts, each a small puzzle where you poke at props and boxes until the next surprise happens. Rusty Lake is usually on the eerie side, but this one is more playful than scary. Fans love the meta nods, and newcomers say it convinced them to buy the paid games. Costs nothing, so why not?

Take Notes is a cheap first-person escape room in an underground research bunker: 40 logic puzzles on your way to an unstable reactor. Players describe classic puzzles that are mostly not too hard, as long as you keep your eyes open. The story is thin (one reviewer says it might as well not exist), but that's sort of the point here.

The Bird of the North is a compact deduction game set in an alternate, frozen 1921. You walk through icy dioramas and match spoken lines to the characters, with decoy lines nobody said thrown in. Players call it easy for Obra Dinn veterans, which makes it a gentle introduction for everyone else.

Want to share the calm? Together: Moon Escape is a co-op puzzle adventure for exactly two players, set in low gravity on the Moon, where you try to escape a company that has built a slime empire there. Each of you sees and handles different things, in the spirit of We Were Here, so you'll be talking a lot. The nice part: there's no death and very little stress. Players call the puzzles well pitched and praise the visuals and music. Low-gravity jumping can be imprecise, and it ends on a cliffhanger. Five to seven hours, and it works online, in split screen and with Remote Play Together. Perfect for a couple of quiet evenings with your partner or a friend.

In the end, a cosy puzzle game is about trust, just like any good puzzle game. But here the deal is a bit softer: you'll get there, take your time, nobody is counting.

Want the purest comfort? Botany Manor. Want a mystery to go with your tea? The Mermaid Mask. Want a story that sticks with you? Ghost Trick. And if you want to try something tonight for free, The Mr. Rabbit Magic Show is right there. Kettle on, then :)