Gridlock Garden

Gridlock Garden is a clean, classic puzzler with a nice theme on top. Each level is a grid of pipe pieces you rotate and slide to connect a water source to thirsty plants. Finish a board and the garden on the side grows a little, which is a small reward but a surprisingly motivating one.

Levels start trivial and get genuinely tricky around the halfway point, adding locked tiles and limited moves. Everything is offline and there's no timer unless you turn on a challenge mode yourself. I liked doing a few boards before bed without any pressure.

It's not reinventing the puzzle genre, and the music loop gets old fast, so I usually muted it. But as a relaxing, no-stakes brain exercise you can play anywhere, it does exactly what it promises.

What we liked

• Hundreds of handcrafted pipe puzzles
• Relaxing, timer-free pace by default
• Fully offline with a satisfying garden reward