Why I turn off the timer in every puzzle game

Puzzle games and countdown timers are, for me, a bad marriage. A puzzle should be about thinking, and a ticking clock replaces thinking with panic. On a phone especially, where you're often interrupted, a timer just means you lose progress when real life gets in the way.

The best offline puzzlers understand this. Lucky Coins, for instance, has no timer at all, and it's better for it. You can stare at a board for two minutes deciding your move, and the game simply waits.

There's a difference between challenge and stress. A good puzzle is hard because the solution is hidden, not because a bar is draining. When I review a puzzle game, one of the first things I check is whether I can play it at my own pace.

If a game only offers timed modes, I usually bounce off it fast. Give me a quiet board and let me think. That's the whole appeal of playing on a train with no signal in the first place.