Puzzle games built for a long flight

Puzzles are the ideal offline genre — small downloads, no server calls, endless replay. But not all of them behave once you're in the air.

I like puzzle games with generated levels or a large pre-loaded pack, so you never run dry mid-flight. Anything that streams new packs from a server is a trap.

Before you fly, open the game and let it sit on the level select screen offline for a minute. If ads try to load and freeze the screen, that's a sign the free version leans on a connection.

A tip that saved me more than once: finish the tutorial and download any optional content while you still have wifi. Then switch to airplane mode and confirm it all still opens.