Marvel-style Superhero Games

Jigsaws, sliding boards and memory grids of fan art.

Deadpool Jigsaw Puzzle

Iron Man Math3 Puzzle

Hulk Superhero Match3 Puzzle

Hulk Jigsaw Puzzle Collection

Iron Man Jigsaw Puzzle Collection

Lego Marvel Super Heroes Puzzle

Bucket fill or brush on hero outlines, no wrong answers.

Coloring Book for Deadpool

Coloring Book for Captain America

Captain America Coloring

Deadpool Coloring Book

Avengers Coloring

Pick a piece count and drag a hero scene back together.

Deadpool Jigsaw Puzzle

Iron Man Jigsaw

Hulk Jigsaw Puzzle Collection

Iron Man Jigsaw Puzzle Collection

Capes without the license

The games here are fan-made and inspired titles from licensed third-party providers; none is an official product of the comics publisher or the film studio, and nothing on this hub is affiliated with or endorsed by either. The label collects every game whose title names the publisher, its hero team or one of its best-known members: the armored inventor, the green giant, the hammer-wielding thunder god, the shield-carrying soldier, the red-suited mercenary and the clawed mutant. What the providers make from those names is a shelf that leans toward the still and the small. Jigsaws and picture puzzles built on fan art are the largest group, followed by coloring pages, then the games that move: a rooftop run, a repulsor-boosted dash, a smash-everything arcade and a parkour course with a hero skin.

A few titles are more ambitious, with a side-scrolling fight against waves of robots, a bubble shooter with hero heads for bubbles or a kart race with the team on wheels, and a few costume rooms let you assemble a suit piece by piece and then pose it for a photo. The thunder god's name also drags in a handful of unrelated titles about a viking treasury or a king, which the label cannot tell apart, so a thumbnail that looks nothing like a superhero probably is not one. If the hero is what matters more than the studio, the broad hero games hub gathers every caped fan game across publishers with the same runs and jigsaws, and the web-slinger, the dark knight and the man of steel have their own shelves at Spiderman games, Batman games and Superman games, where the rooftop runs are more plentiful.

How the fan games play

The puzzles are the easy way in. A jigsaw shows a hero scene, asks how many pieces to cut it into and hands you a scattered pile; a coloring page fills with a bucket or a brush; a memory grid flips pairs of cards with the cast on the back. None of it can be lost and none of it needs reading, which is why it makes up so much of the shelf. The moving games are short and repeatable. A parkour run scrolls the city, with a tap to jump between rooftops and a slide under a beam, and the run ends at the first missed gap. The repulsor dash is a runner with a boost meter. The smash arcades hand you the green giant and a street full of cars, and the score is the damage.

The fights are the closest thing to a superhero game as the films imagine it: a side-scrolling brawl with a punch, a kick, a special move on a cooldown and a health bar that does not refill between waves, so the skill is in not taking hits rather than in dealing them. They are uneven in quality, since the studios vary and some are the same engine with a different sprite, and the popular row below is a better guide than any thumbnail. The fan games do not retell any story; they borrow a suit color, a silhouette and a signature move, a repulsor blast or a thrown shield, and attach it to a browser genre that already existed. The jigsaw games and coloring games hubs hold the plain versions of the puzzles with every other subject, and fighting games the brawls with every other cast, where the better-made titles tend to live.

Categories:Coloring

Keys, thumbs and who it suits

On a desktop the runs and fights use the arrow keys or WASD, the space bar to jump and one or two letter keys for a punch or a special, and the start screen shows which; the puzzles are drag and click. On a phone the runs are one thumb, the fights put a small cluster of buttons under the other one, which is workable but cramped, and the puzzles are drag and tap, which is where a phone is at its best. Art is flat fan illustration rather than 3D, so loading is quick even on mobile data, and nothing installs or asks for an account. A run or a smash round lasts a minute and restarts with a tap, a jigsaw as long as you like, and progress in the multi-level fights usually saves in the browser so a campaign can be finished across several sittings.

The shelf splits by age. The jigsaws, coloring pages and memory grids suit a young child who knows the heroes from a lunchbox and wants to spend time with them; the runs and dashes suit a child who can time a jump and does not mind restarting; the fights and the smash arcades have cartoon violence and a health bar, so a look at the game page is worth it before choosing for a small child. Older fans should not expect the depth of a console title or a licensed mobile game, but the parkour runs and the better brawls are genuinely fun in short bursts, and the smash arcades are a good way to spend a bad mood. The run games hub has the whole runner genre, parkour games the rooftop courses with original heroes, and kids games the safe wider shelf when the cape stops mattering.