Games with a lot of physics puzzles?

[JoshKlint]

Hi guys, I am working on a new game and we plan on adding a lot of physics puzzles.
https://www.leadwerks.com/scp

Recently I realized I don't actually know what those physics puzzles are. All that comes to mind is the see-saw puzzle in Half-Life 2. I think Amnesia had a lot of these, but I can't actually remember any of them.

There's got to be some games that rely heavily on physics and have interesting puzzles. Can you help me out here? What games should I be looking at for ideas?

[JoeJ]

There were a few games inspired by Portal:
Magrunner (magnetism)
Antichamber (um, 'immersive sim' / Minecraft?)
Superliminal (optical illusion)
Talos Principle (light and prisms)
Mainifold Garden (abstract)
Viewfinder (projection)

Older 2D games, mostly about settign up chain reactions:
The incredible Machine
Crazy Machines

Even older:
Oxyd (rolling ball with Sokuban and many other mechanics)

Penumbra had more focus on physics and puzzles than Amnesia, especially the third part which was all about physics puzzles and not so much about narrative.

[JoshKlint]

Regarding Penumbra, do you mean the third Penumbra game, or the last 1/3 of Penumbra: Overture?

Any other first-person view games I should be looking at?

[Sweenie]

I haven't played too many first-person games involving physics puzzles like HL2 did.
The box stacking, the see-saw, the floating barrels to lift the ramp, the swamp bike, the buggy and the crane to lift the buggy and containers just blew my mind.
Amnesia and Penumbra had some good puzzles powered by Newton of course

My favorite games involving physics are Human Fall Flat, the later Tomb Raider games and my absolute favorite Zelda: Breath of the Wild and the followup, Tears of the kingdom.
The physics in Tears of the kingdom just takes the physics puzzles to a complete new level with it's vehicle construction stuff.
None of them are pure first-person though.

[JoeJ]

Regarding Penumbra, do you mean the third Penumbra game, or the last 1/3 of Penumbra: Overture?

I mean the third game, which felt more like a smaller DLC compared to the two former game. But surely very related and worth a look.

I've made a puzzle game myself for early cell phones before the smart phone era. 2D, controls like Sokuban, and a rich set of mechanics - moving crates, teleporters, circiuits guiding electricity, teleporters, predictable NPC behavior... basically all the classic puzzle stuff.
Designing puzzles is challenging. It feels impossible to come up with puzzles just in my head, or planning them ahead on paper. What worked was to play around with all those mechanics in the editor. Becasue the various mechnics affected each other, i often found interesting and non obvious effects, suitable to make a puzzle out of it.
That's something i can recommend. You can see the same with Portal 2, where they added more mechanics beside the portals. Fluids and such stuff.

If you have an idea for a new killer mechnic like the shootable portals, that's enough for one good game. But if you don't, it's maybe good to have many mechanics around, so players - but also the designer - can explore their combinations. Recent Zelda also is an example of that. (Reminds me on Garys Mod - not a puzzle game but related too)

Any other first-person view games I should be looking at?

There are not so many. I've already accepted some not so great titels at the end of my list.
Viewfinder for example has a new killer mechanic. But imo they totally failed on puzzle design.

Edit: Some more titles i do remeber are Qube, Entropy Centre, Quantum Conundrum. Not that great or remarkable, imo.