The variety of video games available these days makes it possible to do virtually anything while playing one. You can easily spend hours at a time exploring open worlds full of secrets and bosses, slowly becoming a god-like warrior by the time the credits roll. Or, you could spend the same amount of time organizing things.

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It's difficult to hop into the latest triple-A launch after a long day. Shorter puzzle games are a perfect alternative if you want to relax without worrying about fighting hoards of enemies or paying attention to a dialogue-heavy narrative. Organization games have become more popular over the years, so if you feel like putting a few things in their proper place, these are the ones you should check out first.

Updated on January 9, 2024, by Kyle Chamaillard: Organization games have become increasingly popular over the last few years. Sometimes, after a long day, it's easier to get cozy under a blanket and play a game about putting things in the right spot. It can be endlessly satisfying, so we've decided to update this list to include even more titles about organization.

14 Bear And Breakfast

Setting up a bedroom while a lodger walks through a bathroom
Bear and Breakfast

Platform(s)
PC , Switch
Released
July 28, 2022
Developer(s)
Gummy Cat
ESRB
E10+ For Everyone 10+ due to Mild Blood, Language, Use of Alcohol

If you've ever visited a large B&B run by a single person, you might wonder how they manage to keep the place clean and provide excellent customer service alone. Organization is a key factor in operating any business, and there are plenty of management games like Bear and Breakfast that put you in the shoes of an upcoming entrepreneur trying to open and run their dream job.

When you're not expanding your inn, you'll have the opportunity to meet your guests and make sure they leave satisfied to increase your reputation and unlock new items to become even more successful. The story is fun and charming, and finding new ways to customize each room keeps the game from feeling stale.

13 Animal Crossing: New Horizons - Happy Home Paradise DLC

A Villager shows off a house to Molly
Animal Crossing: New Horizons

Platform(s)
Switch
Released
March 20, 2020
Developer(s)
Nintendo EPD
ESRB
E for Everyone: Comic Mischief

The core Animal Crossing experience is meant to be explored and defined at your leisure. The game gives you the freedom to choose how to spend your time, from fishing to befriending the villagers who move into your neighborhood. To say Animal Crossing is all about organization would be a stretch, but the DLC for New Horizons puts you in the shoes of an interior designer who must design vacation homes for clients.

Though the main goal of Happy Home Paradise is to create a room to appease the villager's requests, the DLC doesn't penalize you for doing whatever you like with the residence, so long as you include the few required items. It's more fun to do things the way you should, but Animal Crossing's stance on giving you the freedom to do what you want is never compromised.

12 Backpack Hero

A wise mouse gives advice to the Backpack Hero in a dark cellar

Developer

Jaspel

Release Date

November 14th, 2023

Platform

PC, Nintendo Switch

ESRB

E for Everyone: Mild Fantasy Violence

Most organization games are extremely low-stakes, but Backpack Hero ups the ante by putting the fate of a young mouse in your delicate hands. The game is inspired by deck-building roguelikes such as Slay the Spire, and you'll need to navigate deadly areas and survive them by strategically putting items in your bag in the correct order.

The gameplay loop is incredibly satisfying and figuring out the right order to place your items will make you feel like an organizational wizard. Backpack Hero also features a compelling story mode that tasks you with rebuilding a village using the supplies you find during your adventures.

11 Railbound

Trains travel across tracks in a desert

Developer

Afterburn

Release Date

September 6th, 2022

Platform

PC, Nintendo Switch, Xbox Series X/S, Android, iOS

ESRB

E for Everyone

Taking the train can be a stressful experience, but traveling to a new destination is usually worth the trip. Railbound puts you outside the locomotive to help a pair of canine conductors lay down the necessary tracks to make sure they can move from Point A to Point B without colliding with obstacles.

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It's a simple concept on the surface, but across over 200 stages, the developers continue to introduce new mechanics and twists that keep Railbound from running out of steam. If you like to play something before bed, there is something incredibly calming about placing the tracks in the right place to ensure your patrons make it to their destination in one piece.

10 Fill Up Fridge

A packed fridge in a kitchen

Publisher

GameLord 3D

Release Date

April 7th, 2022

Platform

Android, iOS

ESRB

E for Everyone

While organizing your fridge isn't necessary, it is nice to have everything in order. If you're one of the few people who loves putting condiments, snacks, and more delicious items away, there are a plethora of mobile apps built around the activity to enjoy.

One of the better options is Fill Up Fridge, which keeps things simple and fun. Each stage requires you to put away groceries by sorting them by height, size, and more. The levels are quick, which helps make Fill Up Fridge the perfect game to play if you have just a few minutes to spare.

9 Viscera Cleanup Detail

The top floor of a messy room

Developer

RuneStorm

Release Date

October 23rd, 2015

Platform

PC

ESRB

T for Teen: Strong Language, Blood, Crude Humor

Organizing doesn't always mean putting something away in its proper spot. Sometimes, cleaning the dust or gore off an object or area is all you need to do. Viscera Cleanup Detail puts you in the shoes of an employee who needs to clean up after an alien invasion.

While the aliens failed to take over, they left quite a mess behind, and you'll need to use a variety of tools to make everything look normal again. From incinerators to "wet floor" signs, Viscera Cleanup Detail does a great job of providing a slew of fun items to help get the job done.

8 Organizing Cats Neatly

A puzzle grid surrounded by cats

Developer

DU&I

Release Date

October 12th, 2020

Platform

PC

ESRB

E for Everyone

Cats can come in all shapes and sizes, which is the main focus of the gameplay in Organizing Cats Neatly. In this puzzle game, you will need to assess a grid and attempt to squeeze a group of cats onto it.

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Of course, the cats you're dealing with like to pose in strange positions, making it difficult to see how much room they will take up. With over 80 puzzles to solve, Organizing Cats Neatly provides quick and fun challenges that will make you wonder how many cats you could actually fit in your house.

7 PC Building Simulator

A PC sits on a desk

Developer

Claudiu Kiss, The Irregular Corporation

Release Date

January 29th, 2019

Platform

PC, Nintendo Switch, Xbox Series X/S, PS4

ESRB

E for Everyone

Building a PC can be a tedious task, especially if you've never done it before. From finding the correct parts to finally putting them all together, it's understandable why some people might just skip this task and buy a pre-built PC instead.

Not only will PC Building Simulator (and its sequel) help give you an idea of where to start when building your machine, but it's also a blast to play if you like assembling something from scratch. With a perfectly ambient soundtrack, PC Building Simulator is the perfect game to zone out to for hours at a time, while you procrastinate building a real PC.

6 Save Room

A couple of guns and plants lay in a briefcase

Developer

Fractal Projects

Release Date

April 28th, 2022

Platform

PC, Nintendo Switch, Xbox Series X/S, PS4

ESRB

E for Everyone: Mild Fantasy Violence

Resident Evil 4 is often regarded as one of the greatest and most influential games ever. It introduced a phenomenal third-person perspective that briefly reinvigorated the series, an action-packed story, and one of the best inventory systems since Diablo 2. Every item or weapon in the game takes up a certain amount of space, and you must rotate them around to make as many fit into your case as possible.

Save Room takes this mechanic and builds an entire game around it, including a similar aesthetic and soundtrack to Resident Evil 4. You don't need to worry about fighting any zombies in Save Room as you strategically organize your inventory and heal your character to progress to the next stage.

5 I Love Hue

Colorful squares assemble in front of a white background

Developer

Zut Games

Release Date

January 25th, 2017

Platform

Android, iOS

ESRB

E for Everyone

Many games that focus on organizing things often require you to place physical objects from one place to another. I Love Hue is a mobile game that removes the everyday objects we are used to moving in video games and replaces them with spectrums of color that you need to re-organize by their shade.

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Each puzzle is visually pleasing and incredibly relaxing to solve. There is something extremely calming about organizing colors by their hue that very few games replicate, which makes this one of the more unique titles in the genre. It is not very long, but the satisfaction and euphoria you earn after solving one of I Love Hue's color-based puzzles will last longer than you might think.

4 Wilmot's Warehouse

Wilmot runs past its inventory in a warehouse

Developer

Hollow Ponds, Richard Hogg

Release Date

August 29th, 2019

Platform

PC, Nintendo Switch, Xbox Series S/X, PS4

ESRB

E for Everyone

If you've ever been inside a giant factory, stockroom, or the back of your local Walmart, you might wonder how anybody can find anything in these massive areas. The amount of organization that goes into keeping these places tidy is surely underrated, and if you want a taste of what it must be like to do the job, Wilmot's Warehouse is a great place to start.

Wilmot's Warehouse is simple in design but has a surprising amount of depth and difficulty if that's what you're looking for. Each puzzle begins with you having to organize a shipment of items in any order you desire. After enough time has passed, you'll start receiving orders and will be scored based on how quickly you complete them. You can eventually unlock new abilities and larger warehouses based on your performance in this roughly ten-hour organization game.

3 Tetris

A large group of Tetris blocks fall from the sky
Tetris

Platform(s)
Game Boy
Released
June 6, 1984
Publisher(s)
Nintendo
Genre(s)
Puzzle

Most organization games are meant to be relaxing experiences, but Tetris can quickly become the opposite once you begin running out of places to put your bricks. The original organization game, Tetris is fundamentally about putting blocks in the right place to earn the highest score or eliminate other players if you're playing the battle royale-inspired Tetris 99.

As mentioned before, Tetris is more challenging than relaxing, but that's why it's remained so popular for so long. A version of it is available on nearly every modern platform or device with countless modes that let you play this classic puzzle game almost any way you like. It's not as calming as other puzzle games, but few games provide the same feeling when you stack the Tetris bricks up perfectly to earn a new high score.

2 A Little To The Left

A bunch of stuff lays on the floor while other items are placed inside boxes

Developer

Max Inferno

Release Date

November 8th, 2022

Platform

PC, Nintendo Switch

ESRB

E for Everyone

Many games such as Sudoku or Wordle require you to do the same kind of puzzles with varying degrees of difficulty. As fun as they can be, they can start to feel monotonous after a while and can eventually lose their appeal. A Little To The Left circumvents this issue by providing a variety of puzzles to solve instead of just one.

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Like many organization games, you will need to stack, line up, and place items together, but A Little To The Left keeps things fresh and new from stage to stage. Each puzzle becomes slightly more difficult due to a cat that lingers around the area and occasionally interferes with your progress.

1 Unpacking

A nicely organized living room with a few boxes in the corner

Developer

Witch Beam

Release Date

November 2nd, 2021

Platform

PC, Nintendo Switch, Xbox Series S/X, PS4, Android

ESRB

E for Everyone

Nobody looks forward to the moving process. Needing to store your entire life in heavy boxes that you need to carry down some stairs, up a steep incline, and then somehow down some more stairs is a dreadful experience that you shouldn't even wish upon your worst enemy. Despite the pain, the journey almost feels worth it once you begin unpacking your belongings and finally have time to think about your past and embrace a new start.

Unpacking is a short puzzle game that perfectly encapsulates the feeling of moving from your childhood home to your first apartment and beyond. Each stage has you opening boxes and allows you to customize most of the rooms of the house any way you like.

It has a subtle narrative that's told chiefly through the items the character decides to bring with her from place to place, and the soundtrack adds a certain ambiance to the experience that somehow adds a nostalgic atmosphere to Unpacking, even if you're playing it for the first time.

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