About the original game
Microsoft Pandora’s Box, released in 1999 and designed by Alexey Pajitnov, combines visual puzzles with a journey to recover pieces of a mythical box. Its puzzles use images of art and landmarks, challenging players to recognize and reconstruct what they see. This is the original Microsoft PC game, rather than a modern game or arcade device that shares the Pandora name.
Edition: Original 1999 Windows puzzle game
Original creators: Microsoft · game design by Alexey Pajitnov
Status
The original game runs in your browser: menus, the story, puzzles and saved players work. We are still checking every puzzle type in different browsers.
Use the game’s own Save and Back controls, then “Save files & stop” on the play page, to keep progress.
How to play
- Click a piece to pick it, then click where it goes to swap. Drag to move it.
- Esc opens the game’s menu. It also skips the intro movie.
- In the Overlap puzzles, right-click rotates a piece.
- The keyboard is for typing your player name and for menus.
The game offers its story, which starts on a World Map with the first level in New York, a Puzzles Only mode and a Tutorial. The Tutorial teaches ten kinds of puzzle: Rotascope, Slices, Outer Layer, Jesse’s Strips, Overlap, Interlock, Find and Fill, Lens Bender, Focus Point and Image Hole. We have completed each of them in testing.
How it runs in your browser
Boxedwine runs a Wine 6 file system in WebAssembly, and the unchanged English retail game with its 1.00a patch plays in an 800 by 600 window. The download is large because the game’s files are installed from a verified archive on every start, about 450 MB of game and about 140 MB of runtime. Your saved players are kept separately and are not downloaded again. Only one tab can run the game at a time. Sound and Music switch on and off separately in the game’s own Options. We have tested it in Chromium and Brave, and Firefox and Safari are untested.
Credits
Microsoft Pandora’s Box, 1999, from Microsoft, with game design by Alexey Pajitnov. The browser runtime is Boxedwine, licensed GPL v2 or later.
Before you play
Can I play Microsoft Pandora’s Box online here?
Yes. Open the play page; the game starts by itself once the download finishes. Expect about 600 MB each time, so use a fast connection.
Is this the game by the creator of Tetris?
Yes. This page concerns Microsoft’s 1999 visual puzzle game designed by Alexey Pajitnov.
What is still being checked?
Every puzzle type. If something breaks, tell us through the Help page.
Why is the download so big?
The original game shipped on a CD with large data files, and its biggest single file is about 231 MB. This page installs them from a verified archive on every start. Your saved players are kept separately.
Original game information
Microsoft’s original Pandora’s Box announcement ↗
Original game identity, designer and visual puzzle concept. This source describes the original game, rather than verification of our browser project.
