(2012-10-04) Added Hexominoes: Many puzzles added
(2012-04-09) My account of G4G10 (blog article): I posted an account of the 10th Gathering for Gardner to my blog.
(2012-04-04) Talk from G4G10 Posted: My talk presented at the 10th Gathering for Gardner (G4G10).
(2012-03-31) G4G10 "X" Puzzles: Puzzles designed for the 10th Gathering for Gardner (G4G10).
(2012-01-15) New Puzzle Type: Polytwigs! (Hexagonal-Grid Polysticks): Many polytwig puzzles added.
(2011-10-01) Heptiamond & Hexiamond Puzzles Added: 19 heptiamond & 1 one-sided hexiamonds puzzles added.
(2011-09-16) New Puzzle Type: Polytrigs! (Triangular-Grid Polysticks): Several polytrig puzzles added.
(2011-09-16) Python 2.5 or Later Now Required: The latest Python 2.x.y is recommended (2.7.2 as of this writing).
(2011-06-26) Hexiamond Puzzles Added: Several hexiamond puzzles added, including a one-sided hexiamonds puzzle, "O'Beirne's hexagon".
(2010-09-26) Polyform Puzzler Talk (PyCon India 2010): Gave a talk at PyCon India 2010 in Bangalore: "Polyform Puzzler and a Pythonic Algorithm X".
(2010-09-25) New Solver Backend: Added a second implementation of the exact cover solver, faster and simpler (exact_cover_x2.py). Based on code by Ali Assaf.
(2008-11-05) Sudoku Solver Added: Added software to solve Sudoku puzzles, using the same core engine that solves polyform puzzles. See the Sudoku section of the README file.
(2008-04-13) Polyform Puzzler Talk Video (Montreal Python): Video of my February 7 talk at the Montreal Python users group meeting is now up on the web. It was a lot of fun, and the group seemed to enjoy it.
(2007-04-06) SVG Image Generation Added for Polysticks: And a couple of new polystick puzzles too!
(2006-10-03) Added "How to Extend Polyform Puzzler" Document: The beginnings of development instructions; available here.
(2006-09-22) X3D 3-D Model Generation Added: For polycubes (pentacubes, tetracubes, solid pentominoes, soma cubes).
(2006-09-19) Automatic Save/Restore State Added: Added the ability to automatically save & restore the session state to a user-specified file (-S/--save-search-state option).
(2006-09-12) Pentacubes Plus Puzzles Added: Sold under the name "Super Deluxe Quintillions" by Kadon, these 30 pieces are the 29 pentacubes plus a second L3 piece (a.k.a. J3), allowing the construction of box shapes.
(2006-09-04) Tetracube and Pentacube Puzzles Added: Several initial tetracube and pentacube puzzles were added; more to come.
(2006-08-31 -- 09-03) SVG Image Generation Added: For polyominoes, polyiamonds, polyhexes, and polycubes (so far).
(2006-08-28) Heptiamond Puzzles Added: Four heptiamond (order-7 polyiamond, triangle-grid-based) puzzles added.
(2006-08-26) Hexiamond Puzzles Added: Eight hexiamond (order-6 polyiamond, triangle-grid-based) puzzles added.
(2006-08-21) Tetrahex & Pentahex Puzzles Added: Four hexagon-grid-based puzzles added, along with initial unit tests.
(2006-08-08) Polyform Puzzler 1: first release: Ready for download. But I recommend downloading the project snapshot or accessing the SVN repository directly for up-to-date code.
(2006-08-07) Polyform Puzzler: project open for business: Registered on SourceForge in 2000, this project has been dormant since. Not any more! We now have code in a Subversion repository, a mailing list and snapshots. Get puzzling!

Contents

Overview

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!):

docs/images/ominoes/pentominoes-6x10.png

Polyominoes, Pentominoes, & Hexominoes: 6×10 Pentominoes Rectangle (also, An Introduction to Polyominoes)

docs/images/iamonds/hexiamonds-trefoil.png

Polyiamonds & Hexiamonds & Heptiamonds: Hexiamonds Trefoil (also, An Introduction to Polyiamonds)

Polyhexes & Pentahexes: 10×11 Pentahex Parallelogram (also, An Introduction to Polyhexes)

docs/images/cubes/pentacubes-5x9x9-fortress.png

Polycubes & Solid Pentominoes & Pentacubes: Pentacubes 5×9×9 Fortress (also, An Introduction to Polycubes)

docs/images/sticks/polysticks-1234-3x7-diamond-lattice.png

Polysticks: 3×7 Diamond Lattice (also, An Introduction to Polysticks)

docs/images/trigs/tritrigs-hex-3x1-ring.png

Polytrigs (triangular-grid polysticks): Tritrigs 3x1 Semi-Regular Hexagon Ring (also, An Introduction to Polytrigs)

docs/images/twigs/pentatwigs-triangle.png

Polytwigs (hexagonal-grid polysticks): Pentatwigs Triangle (also, An Introduction to Polytwigs)

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.

License

Download

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).

Feedback

Mailing list:	puzzler-users@lists.sourceforge.net (subscribe)
Patches:	via the SourceForge patch manager
Bug Reports:	via the SourceForge bug tracker

Documentation

Solutions

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.

Extras

In addition to the main Polyform Puzzler code, in the "misc" repository there is some maze-generating code.