The authors show that there are underlying mathematical reasons for why games and puzzles are challenging (and perhaps why they are so much fun). They also show that games and puzzles can serve as powerful models of computation-quite different from the usual models of automata and circuits-offering a new way of thinking about computation. The appendices provide a substantial survey of all known results in the field of game complexity, serving as a reference guide for readers interested in the computational complexity of particular games, or interested in open problems about such complexities.