I have been remiss in not mentioning how much the DS game Puzzle Quest contributed to downtime on our recent vacation. For those of you who haven’t played it, Puzzle Quest is a lite-fantasy RPG wrapped around a battle mechanic that is essentially Bejeweled with some variations. It’s insanely addictive, and Eileen got her puzzle on considerably more frequently than I did. I don’t care for match-3 games normally but the added leveling up, earning gold, getting better equipment, finding runes, and so on creates a context (it’s always about context!) in which there’s enough added meaning that the games become fun.

Puzzle Quest might be the perfect airplane game.