Pandora’s Box is the 1999 computer puzzle game published by Microsoft.
The game was designed by Alexey Pajitnov, the Russian game designer best known as the creator of Tetris, and Vladimir Pokhilko. Rather than retelling the Greek myth directly, it uses a framing story in which the player travels through a series of puzzle challenges associated with legendary creatures and the opening of a mysterious box.
Its puzzles include variations on visual matching, pattern recognition, sliding pieces, and other forms of spatial reasoning. The design aimed to provide many self-contained challenges with different rules and difficulty levels, making it distinct from an adventure game built around one continuous puzzle system.
The title reflects the myth’s idea of a container releasing unexpected contents, but the game’s subject is recreational problem-solving rather than ancient religion. It is sometimes confused with other puzzle games from the late 1990s, especially Myst, yet its authorship and Microsoft publication identify it as a separate title.