What type of strategy game is this? You rearrange positions?

What do you call games where you have to move and re-arrange cars or boxes to move a goal box into a location. There have been games like this since Atari, as far as I know. It's some kind of tactical game. I can maybe draw an example, as a kind of flow chart:

1.

Goal Block Item
xxxx       xxxx

2.

Goal       Item
xxxx Block xxxx

3.

Goal Item  <--
xxxx Block xxxx

4.

WIN  <---------
xxxx Block xxxx

If you possibly know the first game of this kind, I would be interested in that, or any game names. If you add pictures or media or links to the same, that would be useful.


Solution 1:

I'd say puzzle game, and more accurately sliding blocks puzzle game.

Examples of sliding puzzles

  • Fifteen puzzle
  • Inakube
  • Klotski (mentioned here by Hex)
  • Minus Cube
  • Jumbly
  • Sokoban (mentioned here by Konrad)

Otherwise, there's also a list of puzzle game types on Wikipedia, but I think that the previously given term is the best match.

Solution 2:

Sounds like Sokoban (or its clones) to me.

Solution 3:

I know a nice flash version of this called Gridlock. There was a Windows version of this game quite a few years back called Klotski.

These games generally seem to fall into the "sliding block puzzle" category.