Nobody likes to play games that are too easy. After all, the challenging aspect is a key part of the playing experience. If you were an accomplished pool player, it simply wouldn’t be fun to play against a complete beginner. When playing games, there has to be an element of reward, and that’s only possible when there has been something to overcome.
All games present their own challenges; they wouldn’t exist otherwise. But some games go above and beyond, offering a level of challenge that makes the game engaging — and also sometimes frustrating. If you’re looking for a game that’ll have your brain working overtime, then try one of the following.
1. Chess
It seems like a cliche to include chess, which is widely regarded as the ultimate “thinking person’s game,” but we had no other choice. There’s simply no other game on the planet that can compete with it in the challenging stakes.
What makes chess so challenging is that it’s an old, old game, and that means there’s a near-endless number of strategies and methods that you have to learn before you can call yourself a great player. Even if you think you’ve got a natural talent for the game, there’ll still be more than 1500 years worth of knowledge you need to understand before you can feel like you’ve got a true grip on the game.
It’s arguably never been easier to become a chess master than right now, thanks to the sheer number of resources players have at their disposal. However, it has arguably never been more difficult to reach the top since the game is so popular and there are many, many players.
2. Crosswords
If you’ve never learned how to complete a crossword puzzle, then you’ll completely understand why we’ve included it on this list of more challenging games. From the outside, those clues may as well be in a foreign language. Things become more manageable once you’ve got a bit of experience of the game under your belt.
Still, any experienced crossword player knows that you can never become too comfortable. Expert-level crossword puzzles intentionally deceive the player, and they also use new methods of devising clues that have never been seen before. As such, you can never really complete this game, since there will always be a clue that leaves you a little stumped.
3. Poker
Poker is much younger than chess (around 200 years old versus 1500 years), but it’s on its way to becoming just as complex. Anyone can learn poker online and be playing at a respectable level within a few weeks, but mastering the game takes much longer.
In fact, it might not even be possible — even the best poker players in the world recognize that there are still things about the game that they don’t know. It’s not just about understanding the rules of the game, but about keeping up to date with the game’s evolving strategic approaches. A beginner planning to become an expert player will have to dedicate many hours to studying the game each week.
4. Bridge
That bridge is such a complex game is both a blessing and a curse. On the one hand, it’s allowed it to become one of the most popular games in the United States — there are some 25 million people who play bridge regularly. On the downside, the complexity makes it difficult to learn, so it’s unclear whether the game has much of a future. If you can go through the learning process, then you’ll discover that bridge is a highly rewarding, highly social game that stays with you for the rest of your life.
5. Go
Some games look difficult but are actually quite easy. Some games appear easy but then become more complex the more you play. Go falls into that category. How complex? We’ll let this quote give you an idea: “There are more possible moves playing Go than there are atoms in the universe!” Ouch.
