PuzzleBench: A Fully Dynamic Evaluation Framework for Large Multimodal Models on Puzzle Solving
On the map: Multimodal LLMs / vision-language models → VLM benchmarks and visual reasoning
Abstract (arXiv)
Large Multimodal Models (LMMs) have demonstrated impressive capabilities across a wide range of multimodal tasks, achieving ever-increasing performance on various evaluation benchmarks. However, existing benchmarks are typically static and often overlap with pre-training datasets, leading to fixed complexity constraints and substantial data contamination issues. Meanwhile, manually annotated datasets are labor-intensive, time-consuming, and subject to human bias and inconsistency, leading to reliability and reproducibility issues. To address these problems, we propose a fully dynamic multimodal evaluation framework, named Open-ended Visual Puzzle Generation (OVPG), which aims to generate fresh, diverse, and verifiable evaluation data automatically in puzzle-solving tasks. Specifically, the OVPG pipeline consists of a raw material sampling module, a visual content generation module, and a puzzle rule design module, which ensures that each evaluation instance is primitive, highly randomized, and uniquely solvable, enabling continual adaptation to the evolving capabilities of LMMs. Built upon OVPG, we construct PuzzleBench, a dynamic and scalable benchmark comprising 11,840 VQA samples. It features six carefully designed puzzle tasks targeting three core LMM competencies, visual recognition, logical reasoning, and context understanding. PuzzleBench differs from static benchmarks that quickly become outdated. It enables ongoing dataset refreshing through OVPG and a rich set of open-ended puzzle designs, allowing seamless adaptation to the evolving capabilities of LMMs.
Key facts. Cited by 15 papers in the map (data through 7 Oct 2026). Placed in VLM benchmarks and visual reasoning, one of 16 directions in Multimodal LLMs / vision-language models. Builds on 20 of its 39 references that are in the map. First posted on arXiv 15 Apr 2025.
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20 of 39 references.
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Other references · 19
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7 more
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- 2023Task Contamination: Language Models May Not Be Few-Shot Anymorecited by 98
- 2024GMAI-MMBench: A Comprehensive Multimodal Evaluation Benchmark Towards General Medical AIcited by 96
- 2023NPHardEval: Dynamic Benchmark on Reasoning Ability of Large Language Models via Complexity Classescited by 78
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Citing papers per year: 2025: 8; 2026: 7.
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- 2025Thinking with Images for Multimodal Reasoning: Foundations, Methods, and Future Frontierscited by 193
- 2025Perception, Reason, Think, and Plan: A Survey on Large Multimodal Reasoning Modelscited by 89
- 2025Video-Thinker: Sparking "Thinking with Videos" via Reinforcement Learningcited by 32
- 2025MME-Reasoning: A Comprehensive Benchmark for Logical Reasoning in MLLMscited by 31
- 2025ABench-Physics: Benchmarking Physical Reasoning in LLMs via High-Difficulty and Dynamic Physics Problemscited by 17
- 2025VisualSphinx: Large-Scale Synthetic Vision Logic Puzzles for RLcited by 11
- 2025Can Large Models Fool the Eye? A New Turing Test for Biological Animationcited by 6
- 2025PuzzlePlex: Benchmarking Foundation Models on Reasoning and Planning with Puzzlescited by 5
- 2026VRIQ: Benchmarking and Analyzing Visual-Reasoning IQ of VLMscited by 4
- 2026Pencil Puzzle Bench: A Benchmark for Multi-Step Verifiable Reasoningcited by 4
- 2026Reasoning or Pattern Matching? Probing Large Vision-Language Models with Visual Puzzlescited by 2
- 2026Reasoning Structure of Large Language Modelscited by 0
- 2026LongPuzzleBench: Evaluating GUI Agents on Long-Horizon Visual Puzzles28 Sep 2026
- 2026Invisible in Space, Visible in Time: Motion Vision CAPTCHA against GUI Agents23 Sep 2026
- 2026ComplexityWorld: Benchmarking Vision-Language Models on Verifiable Visual Decision Making5 Aug 2026
- 2026Reasoning Structure of Large Language Models2 Jun 2026
- 2026Pencil Puzzle Bench: A Benchmark for Multi-Step Verifiable Reasoning2 Mar 2026
- 2026VRIQ: Benchmarking and Analyzing Visual-Reasoning IQ of VLMs5 Feb 2026
- 2026Reasoning or Pattern Matching? Probing Large Vision-Language Models with Visual Puzzles20 Jan 2026
- 2025Video-Thinker: Sparking "Thinking with Videos" via Reinforcement Learning27 Oct 2025
- 2025PuzzlePlex: Benchmarking Foundation Models on Reasoning and Planning with Puzzles7 Oct 2025
- 2025Can Large Models Fool the Eye? A New Turing Test for Biological Animation8 Aug 2025
- 2025ABench-Physics: Benchmarking Physical Reasoning in LLMs via High-Difficulty and Dynamic Physics Problems7 Jul 2025
- 2025Thinking with Images for Multimodal Reasoning: Foundations, Methods, and Future Frontiers30 Jun 2025
- 2025Thinking with Images for Multimodal Reasoning: Foundations, Methods, and Future Frontierscited by 193
- 2025Perception, Reason, Think, and Plan: A Survey on Large Multimodal Reasoning Modelscited by 89
- 2025Video-Thinker: Sparking "Thinking with Videos" via Reinforcement Learningcited by 32
- 2025MME-Reasoning: A Comprehensive Benchmark for Logical Reasoning in MLLMscited by 31
- 2025ABench-Physics: Benchmarking Physical Reasoning in LLMs via High-Difficulty and Dynamic Physics Problemscited by 17
- 2025VisualSphinx: Large-Scale Synthetic Vision Logic Puzzles for RLcited by 11
- 2026VRIQ: Benchmarking and Analyzing Visual-Reasoning IQ of VLMscited by 4
- 2026Pencil Puzzle Bench: A Benchmark for Multi-Step Verifiable Reasoningcited by 4
- 2026Reasoning or Pattern Matching? Probing Large Vision-Language Models with Visual Puzzlescited by 2
- 2026Reasoning Structure of Large Language Modelscited by 0
- 2026LongPuzzleBench: Evaluating GUI Agents on Long-Horizon Visual Puzzlescited by 0
- 2026LongPuzzleBench: Evaluating GUI Agents on Long-Horizon Visual Puzzles28 Sep 2026
- 2026Reasoning Structure of Large Language Models2 Jun 2026
- 2026Pencil Puzzle Bench: A Benchmark for Multi-Step Verifiable Reasoning2 Mar 2026
- 2026VRIQ: Benchmarking and Analyzing Visual-Reasoning IQ of VLMs5 Feb 2026
- 2026Reasoning or Pattern Matching? Probing Large Vision-Language Models with Visual Puzzles20 Jan 2026
- 2025Video-Thinker: Sparking "Thinking with Videos" via Reinforcement Learning27 Oct 2025
- 2025ABench-Physics: Benchmarking Physical Reasoning in LLMs via High-Difficulty and Dynamic Physics Problems7 Jul 2025
- 2025Thinking with Images for Multimodal Reasoning: Foundations, Methods, and Future Frontiers30 Jun 2025
- 2025VisualSphinx: Large-Scale Synthetic Vision Logic Puzzles for RL29 May 2025
- 2025MME-Reasoning: A Comprehensive Benchmark for Logical Reasoning in MLLMs27 May 2025
- 2025Perception, Reason, Think, and Plan: A Survey on Large Multimodal Reasoning Models8 May 2025
Similar, not cited
Close in wording, no citation either way
- 2025PuzzleWorld: A Benchmark for Multimodal, Open-Ended Reasoning in Puzzlehunts
- 2026GenPuzzle: Benchmarking Visual Reasoning in Image Generation Models
- 2024PuzzleVQA: Diagnosing Multimodal Reasoning Challenges of Language Models with Abstract Visual Patterns
- 2024Are Language Models Puzzle Prodigies? Algorithmic Puzzles Unveil Serious Challenges in Multimodal Reasoning
- 2025GenVP: Generating Visual Puzzles with Contrastive Hierarchical VAEs
- 2025The Jumping Reasoning Curve? Tracking the Evolution of Reasoning Performance in GPT-[n] and o-[n] Models on Multimodal Puzzles
- 2026MMFineReason: Closing the Multimodal Reasoning Gap via Open Data-Centric Methods
- 2024REBUS: A Robust Evaluation Benchmark of Understanding Symbols