Explore a hole new world in free puzzle game Hole and Box

(Image credit: Mario8664)

If nothing else, you should play Hole and Box for its smooth jazz rendition of Greensleeves, which is chill and cheesy in the best possible way. But the game beside it is equally interesting, and pretty original for the now-established block-pushing puzzle genre.

As in Donut County, you play as a hole. But, rather than swallowing things up, you're a hole that can attract boxes towards you, because...well, I have no idea. Maybe you're using a big magnet under the earth. But as your goal here, during each stage, is to drag a cardboard box onto each patch of dirt, your holey magnetism certainly comes in handy.

It wouldn't be much of a puzzle game without some limitations, and here you're limited by the obstacles that stand between you and boxes, and by the fact that—if you're lined up with multiple boxes at once—you'll drag both simultaneously, and you might not want that. Additionally, the hole can only pull from a distance, so if a box ends up next to you, you may get stuck.

While it's kind of an odd mish-mash of an idea, it's one executed with a great amount of style, from the lovely, soft art style to—as I already mentioned—its soundtrack of mellow, smooth jazz cheese.

For more great free experiences, check out our roundup of the best free PC games.

Tom Sykes

Tom loves exploring in games, whether it’s going the wrong way in a platformer or burgling an apartment in Deus Ex. His favourite game worlds—Stalker, Dark Souls, Thief—have an atmosphere you could wallop with a blackjack. He enjoys horror, adventure, puzzle games and RPGs, and played the Japanese version of Final Fantasy VIII with a translated script he printed off from the internet. Tom has been writing about free games for PC Gamer since 2012. If he were packing for a desert island, he’d take his giant Columbo boxset and a laptop stuffed with PuzzleScript games.