I know a great deal of bridge players who also enjoy other games, puzzles and challenges.

I also happen to know a great deal of other games, puzzles and challenges. 

While not everyone might describe themselves as a traditional gamer, I’ve always encouraged bridge players to dip at least their toes into the forays of general gaming. (Most of them, so far, have enjoyed it.) 

Have a few moments and a PC to spare? 

Here are some great PC puzzle endeavors for bridge fans.

#1: Abstractica 1, 2 & 3 (2006)

Abstractica is a puzzle game like I guarantee you’ve never seen before. The premise is simple: answer the questions. The premise is also one of the hardest things possible to achieve.

I’m not kidding. 

The draw of Abstractica is that only a handful of people have ever been able to solve the entire thing from start to finish.

Riddles are everything from difficult questions to built-in puzzles that require a click in just the right place.

If you like puzzles, you’ll love this.

#2: Ghost Master (2003)

Ghost Master is a top-down strategy game with a difference: you’re playing the antagonist.

The different levels of the game are centered around hauntings, and the premise of the game is controlling the various ghosts, ghouls and spirits to chase the humans off the table.

What’s great is the fact that it actually makes you think. 

The game is also filled with smaller challenges to complete: these are a lot harder than they seem at first.

#3: Sherlock Holmes: The Awakened (2006)

As a fan of the Sherlock Holmes series, it’s hard to find a game that does it any justice as a puzzle-solver.

Sherlock Holmes: The Awakened is a first-person exploration game that blends walking around a reproduction sandbox world while solving puzzles, interviewing suspects and finding clues. (If you’d just like to screw around the game for a while, that’s entirely possible too, and with a lot to explore.) 

This game blew my mind when I first played it. It still does.

In-game riddles requires thinking about combined elements of the game that you won’t necessarily find in the same place.

As a bonus, the game’s entire tone is dark, eerie and fitting.

Good luck with this one.

#4: Uplink (2000)

Uplink is a game that puts the player in the seat of a fictional hacker in the future. (Back then, the future was the year 2010, which is now past us – but of course, the concept is still the same…) 

It’s what computer hacking looks like in every cool movie about it ever made: think Hackers and The Matrix. 

And it’s actually a really challenging game. 

The game leaves players to do what they want: free choice is a huge one in this, and the game angles one way or the other depending on what you do (or who you’ve messed with).

Players can choose small hacks or huge heists: entirely up to you.

#5: System Shock (1994)

System Shock is a mixture of a first-person shooter and adventure game based around, well, an inherent fear that we seem to have of artificial intelligence going wrong – if you added zombies.

It’s the first shooter I ever encountered where simply shooting your way through the level wasn’t enough.

System Shock (and subsequent sequels) are wonderfully complex in their puzzles, and require really considering how to use available resources.