Polyforms are sets of all possible shapes constructed from multiple basic units (squares, triangles, etc.) following some simple rules. These shapes can then be combined into larger shapes, often in many different ways. These are polyform puzzles. (More info in the FAQ.)
Polyform Puzzler is a set of solvers for many polyform puzzles (like Pentominoes and Soma Cubes), and a software toolkit for exploring & solving polyform puzzles. It consists of a set of front-end applications for specific polyform puzzles and a Python library that does the heavy lifting. New polyforms and new puzzles can easily be defined and added. Python 2.5 or higher is required, but the latest 2.x.y is recommended.
A Sudoku puzzle solver is also included. The same back-end puzzle solving engine is used to solve Sudoku puzzles and polyform puzzles.
Here are some examples of polyform puzzles (all solved & drawn by Polyform Puzzler!):
All the details are in the FAQ and the Puzzles & Solutions doc.
Polyform Puzzler also solves Sudoku puzzles!
To get up & running quickly, see the Quick-Start section of the README file.
Polyform Puzzler is copyright ©1998-2015 by David J. Goodger and licensed under the GNU General Public License version 2.
Get the latest project snapshot (recommended; it's updated continually).
To access the SVN repository directly use the following Subversion command:
svn co https://puzzler.svn.sourceforge.net/svnroot/puzzler/trunk/puzzler
Subscribe to the checkins mailing list to get checkin notifications by mail.
You can also browse the repository trunk, including the solutions and the Python source code ("puzzler" package).
Get releases from the project files page (infrequent and probably out of date; I recommend the project snapshot instead).
Get a tarball of the solutions (or view the solutions online here).
Mailing list: | puzzler-users@lists.sourceforge.net (subscribe) |
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Patches: | via the SourceForge patch manager |
Bug Reports: | via the SourceForge bug tracker |
The Puzzles & Solutions document lists all implemented puzzles and solution counts where known. We include a directory containing solutions to the puzzles Polyform Puzzler solves. These solutions are also available as a Gzip-compressed tarball.
In addition to the main Polyform Puzzler code, in the "misc" repository there is some maze-generating code.