SmartGames IQ Deluxe: Pentagon

The same idea as the little plastic one, in a box you would not hide in a drawer.

SmartGames' IQ puzzles have been travel-sized clamshells for years. The Deluxe line takes the same transparent-pieces-on-a-grid idea and gives it a weighted board, a proper booklet and packaging that survives being left out on a coffee table. Pentagon is the five-sided one, and the geometry is meaner than the square for exactly the reason you would expect.

One hundred and twenty challenges, ordered from mild to genuinely obstinate. Each one sets a few pieces in place and leaves you to fit the rest, and because the pieces are transparent they overlap in ways that look correct until they are not. No timer, no dice, nobody to race: the difficulty curve is the entire design. Sits alongside IQ Deluxe Circle and Square if you already have those.

Perfect for: anyone who has solved the pocket version so often they now do it without looking, and would like to be humbled again.

1 player | 120 challenges | Age 10+