The Puzzle Pits

The Puzzle Pits is a Soko-Ban variant in a fantasy setting, presented in an overhead isometric view. The player character is an apprentice of an old wizard named Master Flosh, who trains the young man's mind by sending him into pits where he needs to push barrels over blue spots.

While the game starts as a straightforward Soko-Ban variant, very soon it starts to gradually introduce more and more new and original elements, such as crates that can be pushed but do not need to be moved to any particular places, water holes, switches and magical items, all of which serve to create puzzles of increased complexity and variety. Moreover, each puzzle has a secret solution in addition to a regular one. The game tracks how many moves it takes for the player to finish a level, but does not have a time limit and does not punish the player for retrying a puzzle. Upon successful completion, a password is provided to access that level from the main menu.

The Puzzle Pits was originally sold commercially, but the developers released the full game as freeware in the early 2000s, and the source code was also made available. The full version has 40 levels.