I posted about this a couple years ago, but I'm starting to get back into it and thought I might as well bring it up again for anyone who is interested. Also the site got overhauled this year and the old download link posted here doesn't work.

http://www.bricks-game.de

Bricks is a sliding puzzle game. The main goal is to get the red "master" brick to the goal spaces. But instead of being just a simple adaptation of a real-world puzzle, there are several extra elements to make puzzles more confusing. In the first game in the series, originally published for DOS in 1998, there are the following:

Barriers, dark blue bricks which can't be moved, but can be eliminated if the master brick touches every part of them (if you've ever played the old Windows game Klotski, you're familiar with these)
Trap squares, green squares that can be moved onto, but if a piece moves off of, they turn into walls
Magnets, which stick together if they touch and can't be separated after that
Eliminators, blue bricks that disappear if they touch each other
Magic bricks, disconnected purple squares of blocks that move as a single unit
Blockade bricks, yellow blocks that can't be moved until a certain key piece is used to unlock them

Later installments added new elements, which can be seen on the Tutorial section of the website.

Bricks is a bit special in that the author, Andreas, considers it to be a competition and keeps detailed records and a global score board. (The fewer moves you solve a puzzle in, the more points you get for that puzzle, so optimizing your solutions is important.) As such, computer analysis and sharing of solutions are also forbidden.

Your score also has a second purpose: in order to download the second game in the series, you need to earn 40000 points in the first game. Similarly, to download the third game, you need to earn 36000 points in the second, and so on. Only a small handful of people have made it to the most recent game! It's very challenging.

The program has several nice features such as the ability to save progress, freely undo moves, replay solutions to any point in order to optimize them, and update the in-game list of world records in case one is beat (unfortunately it can't do this automatically).

If you've been looking for a puzzle challenge, check this out! There are not a lot of people who know about it and I think it really needs more love.

Ah, I remember this. I'd like to see somebody design a sliding block puzzle solving program that incorporates the elements found in this game. I also liked the brain tests found on the same site.