Amusement devices: games – Puzzles – Take-aparts and put-togethers
Patent
1996-11-26
1999-02-09
Wong, Steven
Amusement devices: games
Puzzles
Take-aparts and put-togethers
A63F 910
Patent
active
058683887
DESCRIPTION:
BRIEF SUMMARY
TECHNICAL FIELD
The invention relates to games and puzzles, having the goal of stimulating the mental faculties. The present invention in particular relates to checkered board games or puzzles that use pentominoes or generally any polyominoes.
BACKGROUND ART
Many two coloured checkered board puzzles and games of the type involving the assembly of a number of different pieces have been developed in the past but most such puzzles and games provide a fairly limited challenge. Examples of such puzzles are disclosed in the publication COMPENDIUM OF CHECKER BOARD PUZZLES by JERRY SLOCUM AND JACQUES HAUBRICH published August 1993. Further examples are shown in the FRANSEN 1930 U.S. Pat. No. 1,752,248 relating to an educational puzzle, an 1892 U.K. Patent No 16810 relating to a checkerboard puzzle and LUERS 1880 U.S. Pat. No. 2,319,63 relating to a sectional checkered board puzzle. Even though their challenge itself may be formidable in certain cases, the puzzles or games often lose part of their appeal after the challenge has been met.
The area of mathematics dealing with polyominoes is called combinatorial geometry and information relating to such games and puzzles, including pentominoes, may be found in the publication "Polyominoes" by Solomon W. Golomb (1965). A puzzle comprising a rectangular board composed of twelve pentominoes is disclosed in the 1959 U.S. Pat. No. 2,900,190 to Pestieau. A 1993 Pentominoes game marketed by the Binary Arts Corporation Inc. builds on Golomb's 1965 work. The 1976 U.S. Pat. No. 3,964,749 to Wadsworth also discloses a puzzle involving pentominoes for a rectangular board of ninety squares.
Many puzzles have also been constructed over the past century that involve the cutting up of a standard chess board in any number of pieces and each piece can comprise a varying number of squares. These pieces include pentominoes as well as higher or lower order polyominoes. In any of these puzzles, the test is to reassemble the chess board out of its constituent pieces. No relationship has ever been established between an obverse side and a reverse side of the puzzle pieces. Whenever the pieces were coloured in a checkered pattern on both sides, the colouring was either identical or the exact opposite. No difference between the obverse and reverse sides has ever been demonstrated nor has the interchange of colours (and patterns) between pieces from the obverse and reverse of the puzzle ever been alluded to.
SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION
The present invention aims to provide a checker board puzzle or game with increased complexity and as a consequence tremendous additional variability. The present invention aims to provide a puzzle or game which allows challenges to the individual ranging from the simple to the extremely difficult. The possible uses of the present invention in its various game forms will give it great versatility. The game of chess has enjoyed a wide acceptance and represents beyond a doubt a challenge that will last. The invention at hand will lay claim to a similarly wide audience but with the possible options of extensions to very different puzzle or game domains.
The present invention further aims in one preferred aspect to provide a challenge to use polyomino pieces of any given set in association with a recessed board wherein the pieces may be returned to the recessed area of the board in order to obtain a predescribed pattern. Such pattern may comprise a checker board or territorially checkered board.
The present invention thus provides in a first aspect a puzzle comprising a plurality of polyomino pieces, each said piece having on opposite sides one or more squares, said squares in each said piece and on said opposite sides having markings such that said pieces are capable of being assembled using their obverse sides only into one or more solutions comprising eight by eight squares with the markings of the squares on said obverse side of said assembled pieces forming a checkered board pattern of two alternate markings which may be used for playing a checkers or chess
REFERENCES:
patent: 231963 (1880-09-01), Luers
patent: 1380998 (1921-06-01), Millard
patent: 1702505 (1929-02-01), Groves
patent: 1752248 (1930-03-01), Fransen
patent: 2170909 (1939-08-01), Moren
patent: 3638949 (1972-02-01), Thompson
patent: 4583742 (1986-04-01), Slinn
patent: 4699385 (1987-10-01), Bifulco
patent: 5403005 (1995-04-01), Avila-Valdez
Jerry Slocum, et al., "Compendium of Checkerboard Puzzles" (1993).
Dyksterhuis Francis Henry
Wood Mark Thornton
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