What’s New in Polyomino Puzzles and Their Design

The idea of using sets of polyominoes as practical assembly puzzles can be traced back more than two and a half centuries. Les Amusmens, published in 1749, included a cross puzzle made of three Z-pentominoes and two L-polyominoes. The earliest rectangular puzzle formed from polyominoes that we found, named The Jags and Hooks Puzzle, was included in Catel’s Catalogue of 1785 [1]. It consisted of four L-tetrominoes and four Z-pentominoes and the only solution is shown in Figure 1.