Highlights
Recent releases
Silver anniversaries
New solutions
Our hot stuff online
Other news
Old but still good news

Click on the links for full descriptions. (Links open in new window.)

Highlights:

 
World premiere! Lyn-Joy Marvel, a primer...
Developed by Jason Ancheta, a puzzle thinker from the Philippines, the 18 pieces are a super ensemble for learning and creating with the building blocks of the polyomino family of puzzles. Kadon has the widest range of polyomino puzzles developed over the last 43 years. Formulating Jason's collection as a primer, a detailed handbook for exploring polyominoes of many sizes and shapes, was a much-awaited project...   More....

 
World premiere! Our new toughie, Chunky-Octs...
Argentinian puzzler extraordinaire, Rodolfo Kurchan, proposed this 20-piece subset of Octominoes tiles as an independent brainteaser, and it was a brilliant move. These are all the octominoes that contain a 2x3 rectangle, with two squares attached in every different way. Oh, the wealth of challenges this set provides!   More....

 
World premiere! A famous grid, Tri-Chex...
We've turned a famous quilt pattern into a polyform set of 53 all-different tiles with a special color system. Hundreds of wonderful puzzle designs to build, in and out of the 11x12" tray. We've even engraved the grid lines into the tray for easier assembly. A wild experience with an elegant medium, with over a year of research into its logical secrets. A visual extra: can you see the overlapping ovals in its pattern?   More....

 
World premiere! Harrybourne Shape Puzzler...
Just 8 tiles, hundreds of figures to invent and solve. The building blocks are isosceles right triangles—squares sliced diagonally—in a unique new combination created by Jason Ancheta to entertain and challenge his kids. The ingeniously designed proportions of the tiles are different from all other puzzles of this kind. Treat yourself to the marvel of math plus art.   More....

 
World premiere! Five tricky tiles, Tetra-Tray...
Just 5 tiles, four each in four different colors, make hundreds of symmetrical quartets in a 6" tray. The brainchild of Tick Wang, this subset was selected from the 14 different "tetratan" tiles, each made of four isosceles right triangles, or squares halved diagonally. Fantastic variety of beautiful solutions—have a look!   More....

 
Gorgeous! Math jewelry, Moebius Pendant...
A Moebius strip is a unique geometric phenomenon that's 3D overall with a single two-dimensional surface. Our exclusive pendant designed by Joe Marasco is a 3D-printed track on which a closed loop of sparkling, colorful beads forms a movable Moebius structure. It demonstrates fascinating mathematics and is a joy to wear.   More....

 
A treasure... The Game of the Dragon...
A delightful new artistic embodiment of one of the world's oldest board games (the Royal Game of the Goose), and one of our most popular attractions at the Maryland Renaissance Festival, Katrina Weidig's adorable dragons lend their personalities to the race to the center of the board. Backed by the classic Viking game of Hnefatafl, the Game of the Dragon is our grandest entertainment. You'll love the custom-made miniature dragon figurines as playing pieces.   More....

 
An instant hit! Our new game, LineDance...
It was love at first sight of how lively and beautiful this game turned out. Designed by our own resident mathematician, Elijah Allen, LineDance has 16 large hexagonal tiles, each hand-inlaid with three different colors of paths. The tiles played onto the white vinyl game grid form the "board". Up to six players can participate, each with three color-coded pawns, the "travelers". The strategy: your three travelers can only use matching paths.   More....

 
Here's the buzz! Our lively puzzle, Birds and Bees...
Created by our dear, long-time friend, math professor Andy Liu, this sweetheart of a puzzle with 28 tiles is made of combinations of hexagons, squares, and equilateral triangles. The birds and bees (and a couple of worms) appear in opposite, mirror image pairs, with 14 other symmetrical shapes. They nestle on a special, famous periodic grid. Build countless designs in and out of the triangular tray. The solution shown happens to have all the matched bird pairs on opposite sides as well. Three grid cards and a nice little workbook are included. It even plays two unusual games for two players. The three colors divide into groups of 9, 9, and 10 pieces.   More....

 
Endlessly varied designs! Tangled Triangles...
With 50 triangles, divided 12-16-20 among three colors (plus two as accent colors), create the most beautiful patterns. Every design will please, as each time you create a new work of art. Symmetries are especially attractive. Send us photos of your grandest creations.   More....

 
Imagine it and build it! Our art puzzle, Handy-Octs...
A mere five pieces, each a different octiamond (made of 8 equilateral triangles joined), are your tools for a most satisfying activity: "Imagine it and build it." Form them into countless artistic and recognizable shapes. Relaxing like meditation, rewarding with creative results.   More....

 
"Fences"...elegant partners for La Ora Stelo...
La Ora Stelo's inventor, Jacques Ferroul, has designed an exciting collection of special shapes with golden ratio properties that form borders around any combination of La Ora Stelo's tiles. These nine fence shapes, a total of 142 black pieces, come in three groups or kits, each kit for certain combinations such as convex and concave figures and even beautiful stars. Build a border, then fill it. Or form a shape and then construct a border around it. There is an amazing partnership between the golden ratio tiles of La Ora Stelo and the fence segments whose dimensions are carefully calculated for the golden ratio and proportions of La Ora Stelo. If you already own La Ora Stelo, add the fences next. You'll be glad you did.   More...

 
Once-in-a-lifetime offerings... limited editions
Collectors' items, archive treasures, one-of-a-kind designs—while they last. We're selling out our special collections and archival sets of rare, vintage, and limited editions of puzzles and tilings. Once sold out, there will be no more. Many are already sold out. We have very few archival sets remaining, their quantities shown on the special order page.

 
Occasional flyers and special offers to keep in touch...
With over a year of no shows for us to display our immensely playable gamepuzzles, we've been sending well-illustrated email flyers now and then, spotlighting special features and themes you may not have seen before. Here's a chronology of what we emailed starting in 2020, and we'll add new releases as they happen. If any catch your fancy, order safely and conveniently online. We do hope to see you in the new year.

 
Gamepuzzles social media postings...
In addition to those occasional flyer mailings, we like to keep in touch also with folks in the math and puzzle world with condensed postings on Facebook and such platforms. If you've missed them, here's a running chronology. Links let you get the full story in our product showrooms, easy to order what you want.

 
Kadon Gamepuzzles® Universe... our fan site!
To our great surprise and delight, one of our puzzle-loving customers and fans, Andrzej Lewicki, created a Facebook page devoted entirely to discussions and solutions of our puzzles. His little icon, a famous sleuth, showed up now and then to add stories and smarts to the solving. Administered by a long-time fan and puzzle lover, Lee Luckeydoo Dreese, the site is open to the world, featuring any of our games and puzzles. This enthusiastic Facebook group brings out the best of art, math, and imagination, and sparkles with "the joy of thinking". It's free to join, and you can share pictures of your own solutions, and even play games with your best strategic moves. Visit, become a member, and share in the fun.

 
Art show calendar...
Check our calendar for where you can see us in 2023. In the meanwhile, browse through our website (our virtual booth!) for new and old favorites. Give your brain and artistry a thrill. You can order them safely and conveniently online. More....

 
Our YouTube page is growing...
In 2016, Kate's son, Eric, launched a channel on YouTube with a video of how to solve that most vexatious puzzle, Instant Insanity. We've added two quaint poetic videos made in 2020, featuring a variety of our products, with more on their way, thanks to the professional skills of our associate, Hans Weidig IV. We've also added cool videos explaining how to play some of our games, written, filmed, and narrated by game designer Art Blumberg. Stay tuned and check our growing list of programs to view.

 
Maryland Renaissance Festival online...
After being closed for the 2020 season, 2021 and 2022 turned out with double vigor and enthusiasm. And the online presentations will continue year-round, too, for fans to visit all their favorite artisans virtually. The MDRF Marketplace is staying open around the clock, where you can interact Facebook-style with all of us and even make purchases. A special Lane Album was added to let you find individual artists by the location of their booth; see the big maps to find each booth. Here's a chronology of all postings of Ye Olde Gamery. And here is a nostalgic hour-and-a-half visit at the 2021 Festival filmed live-stream for Facebook by Michele Schultz. Four minutes, at around 38:00, are spent in Ye Olde Gamery. More...

We win How To Homeschool seal of approval...
This fine homeschooling organization has awarded Kadon its seal of approval as one of the top 60 resources for homeschooling families! See their website for a nice little write-up about our games (you'll need to scroll down to see our listing, titled "Gamepuzzles").

 
 
Homeschooling is fun!
We were delighted to receive this photo from a proud dad who uses our Quintillions set as part of their homeschool math instruction. Creativity, spatial perception, solution-finding are all stimulated and developed with our gamepuzzles, from kids to adults. Thanks, dad!

 

Hexdominoes on YouTube!
At last, our amazing Hexdominoes has been animated with a kaleidoscopic progression of designs transforming, done by our artist friend from Slovenia, Teja Krasek. The lively musical background is a composition by another friend, piano virtuoso Sergei Novikov. You'll want to see it more than once. More....

 
Video of one Super Quintillions solution now online!
Watch a piece-by-piece assembly of how the 18 superquints build into a tower that will then slide into its box, starring Krystal Goodrich's talented hands. Filming by Elijah Allen.

 
Simply beautiful... Flashes of Life
We offer, as a small departure from physical puzzles, a book of breathtaking photography by Robert L. Steinberger, Ph.D., each image paired with a haiku by Kate Jones. Flashes of Life, The Flower Collection comprises over 100 pages of digital photography, poetic interpretations, and stories. It's the first in a series of volumes on different subjects by this great visionary whose legacy will live on in the "flashes of life" he captured during a lifetime of passionate photography. You can preview the whole book at the publisher's website, and you can also order it from us as a lifetime treasure, in the best archival quality and now also in a more moderately priced hardcover edition. More...

 
World's best music... The Caranza Collection
Caranza is the stage name of Patric Hale, a phenomenal Meistersinger who has achieved both tenor and baritone mastery of 12 genres of music in 7 languages, with moving emotional sensitivity and blow-you-away power of delivery. He has a repertoire of hundreds of recorded songs, available on 22 CDs, ranging from Elvis, Sinatra, Tom Jones and Billy Joel to Broadway tunes, German songs, Italian and German opera, and more. Here are links to four audios to give you a start. Then visit our showcase of the entire collection and order his CDs to enrich every day of your life.

Recent releases:

 
Pretty Tilings^TM — an 8-piece creative darling
This little set started as a limited edition goodie derived from a custom design made in 2021 for the University of Maryland's mathematics department for March 14, also known as pi day. It's such fun that we decided to keep it around for improvisational pleasure for ages 6 to adult. Makes a fine travel set, too.   More....

 
Twenty-Tans^TM — The latest brilliant missing link
Created by Hans Weidig IV, this latest evolution of the tangrams concept is lightyears ahead of the traditional set. Its 20 tiles cover 16 squares and form hundreds of figures with mathematical purity. Four vivid colors add visual splendor. And there's something interesting for all ages, from introductory to the most sophisticated. It had its official world premiere during the 2019 Maryland Renaissance Festival. It soon begat a little offshoot, Handy-Tans, our newest pocket puzzle.   More....

 
Hex-Pave^TM — An enchanting family of hexagon permutations
Created by Carl Hoff, these 15 tiles represent all the combinations of hexagons with sides of 1, 2, and 3 units in length, yet all their angles are equal. Although each tile is differently proportioned, they have amazing ways of forming groupings and patterns. Like any family, the uniqueness of each individual makes for surprising and delightful adventures, from lacy lattices to tightly bonded beehives.   More....

 
Shardinaires-9^TM — Our newest dissection puzzle
Created by George Sicherman and expanded by Kate Jones, the 9 strangely shaped tiles can form all 12 pentominoes and all 5 tetrominoes, besides a wealth of convex, concave, symmetrical, and whimsical silhouette figures. Two games explore unusual strategies of border formation.   More....

 
StarHex-I^TM — Our newest polyform puzzle
Created by Theo Geerinck of the Netherlands, this little brother to our beautiful StarHex-II has 14 tiles, with every combination of from 0 to 6 triangles attached on the edges of a hexagon. Developed by Kate Jones and Elijah Allen, the five colors code the pieces by type. For its world premiere, we submitted StarHex-I to the 2019 Annual Megistian Aenigma Agon puzzle competition on the Greek island of Kastellorizo, held in August 2019, and it placed first in the logical puzzle category, winning the Archimedes award. A slightly longer poetic video was shown at G4G in Atlanta in April 2022. Its collection of complex shapes and themes will keep you fascinated for years, and you can even extend its challenges by combining it with the StarHex-II set.   More....

 
Ternion Factor^TM — Our newest strategy game!
Art Blumberg's fifth beautiful and innovative strategy board game had its world premiere at the 2018 Maryland Renaissance Festival. Ternion means threes, and each turn is a triple-action adventure. Unlike any game you've ever seen, it lets you add, remove, move pieces as you choose your best combinations. If you're in Maryland, come see our booth at the Baltimore Christmas Village and have Art show and teach you this super game in person.   More....

 
The Four Horses of the Epic Ellipse^TM — a wild ride!
The ellipses referred to are the four identical parts of our Surprising Pyramid. Our resident mathematician, Elijah Allen, was toying with them one day to see what two-dimensional figures they could make, besides building a four-level pyramid. In short order Elijah and Kate had accumulated over 50 designs, and new ideas kept popping. Kate remarked that the shape of that piece was called the horse. Elijah then had the brainstorm to turn the bulky balls into flat hexagons, making them a pentahex... one of the tiles in our Hexnut set. Good idea, so here are the four horses as our newest Pocket Puzzle. Great stocking stuffer and to take along anytime for doodling and creative fun. So few pieces, such a long name, and a really tiny price.   More....

 
Cookie Jar^TM — delicious conundrums
We present a combinatorial set by Michael Dowle... a tasty dish of 13 unique tiles, each with a different combination of 1 through 6 rounded triangles attached to the sides of a concavely curved hexagon. Their symmetry patterns are a visual delight and a solving challenge. Over 100 puzzle challenges plus two games. A neat platter of ever-intriguing food for thought, perfect for your coffee table.   More....

 


Tricolor Stomachion Monograph — the latest word!
A six-month research project with Archimedes' Square (also known as "Stomachion") by Joe Marasco, Kate Jones, and Alex Streif has produced an amazing historical document, new findings after 2200 years of silence about the world's oldest documented puzzle.   More....

Silver Anniversaries!

We're celebrating these games on the 25th anniversary of our first publishing them. They have been continuously in print, 1998-2023. Click on their pictures for full descriptions and to order. See their stories in our historical notes, 1998: Boards and beauties.

• Gallop^®
  The original version of Gallop we had introduced in 1991 in a handsome acrylic form. Its inventor, Christopher Clark, then took up woodworking as a hobby and produced these magnificent wooden boards, highly polished. When we added Chris' fifth game, Sidle, in 2001, Games Magazine chose it for their list of the 100 best games for 2002.

• Iamond Hex^TM
  We'd been exploring polyform puzzles for a few years now, including the polyiamonds made of equilateral triangles from sizes 1 to 7—see our Iamond Ring, published in 1987. This large, complex set contained a subset with its own attraction for the most difficulty with the fewest pieces, and it became a stand-alone set in 1998 as Iamond Hex, irresistible ever since. In this anniversary year, we offer Iamond Hex in either black or silver-framed tray.

• Power of Two^TM
  The first of our handcrafted and laser-engraved wooden gameboards, Power of Two was invented by Arthur Blumberg, a game-loving inventor, computer wizard, and decades-long friend. The beautiful kaleidoscope-like board design turned the game into art, and it started a new theme in our product line. Games Magazine selected Power of Two for their 100 best games list for 2000, a millennial triumph. And it has been one of our bestsellers ever since.

• RhombStar-7^TM
  When mathematician Marc Pelletier showed us a version of this set with magnetic tiles that he had produced as Fractiles-7, with 7-fold symmetry, Kate immediately visualized how the set would look in the Kadon style of transparent acrylic in a 14-sided framed tray to display as a work of art with countless designs. With 84 rhombus shapes in three sizes, we styled RhombStar-7 in the color scheme that was Marc's first choice. We have not changed it in a quarter century. Beautifully intricate, with elegant mathematics.
  

New solutions:

Tangled Triangles, symmetries galore
Our puzzle fan in Shanghai, Tick Wang, has a great imagination and talent for finding beautiful symmetrical patterns with our puzzles. Our Tangled Triangles, with just 50 isosceles right triangles in 4 colors, brought out a fine collection showing his creativity in turning simple pieces into complex and ornate arrangements. (You might enjoy finding your own designs with this set, too.)     More...

 

Octiamond hearts, broken and mended
Michael Dowle, a foremost British puzzle designer, has created a great collection of octiamond hearts, spreading love all year, not just for Valentine's Day. See his amazing ways of mending broken hearts with style and symmetry.     More...

 

New discoveries for Ochominoes^TM
This puzzle continues to be irresistible even though it's a really tough nut, inspiring new investigations of its amazing properties. Here are some new symmetries formed by "clans"—all the tiles of a certain color. Each color identifies how many squares a tile has attached to its octagon-domino core. More...

 

A gallery of fantastic Hexnut II^TM designs
Nick Maeder, a New Zealand puzzle wizard, has a passion for making incredible symmetry patterns with large puzzle sets. We've been collecting his magnificent solutions and are herewith sharing them with the world in our online gallery. Delight your senses by walking through his many designs and relishing the names he has invented for them. Shown at right: "Cutwork", a dainty lace-bordered triangle around a triangular opening.     More...

 

Marvelous wrap-arounds for MiniMatch-I^TM
See colormatched solutions with wrap-around edges and one or even two enclosed colors. The solution at right wraps both left to right and top to bottom and has full symmetry of the colors as well.     More...

 

Dominoes and symmetries for Hexdominoes®
One of our bestsellers, Hexdominoes lets us make ever surprising new discoveries. What a delight that a basket of parallel "egg" patches was possible. This one was found by a visitor to Ye Olde Gamery, at the Maryland Renaissance Festival.     More...

 

The amazing designs for Trio-in-a-Tray^TM
Who would have thought that our venerable mini-puzzles, the Tiny Tans, would emerge as a Trio with such amazing variety and beauty. It surprises us with every new pattern we find. That's playable art!     More...

 

The dazzling variety of Chasing Squares^TM
With the simplicity of just two shapes in two colors comes a deluge of eye-pleasing symmetries, easy to construct yet always new and surprising. Here is a whole gallery of designs found by some of the visitors to our booth, and by our crew who can't resist toying with this one for new apparitions. More....

 

Pentominoes and symmetries for Dezign-8^TM
Here's a whole group of attractive solutions embedding pentominoes into Dezign-8 patterns, created by Alex Streif. Take a look in our gallery of variations.     More....

Our hot stuff online:

We have an InstaGram page!
Thanks to our dear friend, Violet LeVoit, there is a colorful and growing display of Kadon gamepuzzles and scenes on Instagram.

 
We have a YouTube channel!
Our fledgling YouTube presence has a growing number of videos you can watch, and we'll be adding more to demonstrate interesting aspects of our gamepuzzles. See our 6-minute tribute to Rubik's Cube's 40th anniversary and an overview of several of our bestsellers as part of a 5-minute salute to the Gathering4Gardner Foundation. Kate Jones does the narration in rhyming couplets, filmed and edited by Hans Weidig IV. We've also added excellent videos demonstrating our strategy games—Power of Two, End Point, and Ternion Factor—written, filmed, and narrated by Art Blumberg, who is also the inventor of these games. Take a look!

 
A Periodic Table of Polyform Puzzles is now on YouTube!
On March 21, 2021, Kate gave an illustrated presentation on this topic online as part of the Gathering4Gardner Celebration of Mind. It was an amazing coincidence that the talk, which is in rhyme, was given on national poetry day. The video is about 24 minutes long, followed by a half-hour interview with the host, Tiago Hirth, digging into Kate's history of starting a puzzle business and developing it into a "playable art" form of math as art. A lovely musical background by Sergei Novikov accompanies the presentation. Easy to view on G4G's YouTube channel, no need to download a large file. Let us know how you like it!

 
Our Tricolor Stomachion now on YouTube!
Joe Marasco has created a fascinating video documentary about our Archimedes' Square puzzle, also known as the Stomachion. You can watch the amazing story of the origins and development of this 2200-year-old treasure and its many solutions as Joe explains its inner secrets. See the Tricolor Stomachion.

 
Gamepuzzles on Facebook!
Kadon has its own Facebook page for wider contact with our friends and fans. It's warm and fuzzy to see how many "likes" are coming our way. Have you "liked" us yet? Please do. And we're able to share things there that don't have a place in our formal website. Check in now and then to see what other folks say. Our thanks to Elijah Allen for launching the page and helping to administer it.

So come and talk to us there! The permanent link is on the homepage (look for the blue button). Any questions about our puzzles, praise and kudos are happily received. Join the conversation and look for special features from time to time. There will be no selling, only telling, in our Facebook lounge. For ordering please come to this main gamepuzzles site, where you'll find everything we make and an easy-to-use, secure shopping cart.

 
Pentacube Videos on YouTube!
Our friend and fellow polyomino lover, Donald Kern, has created four delightful, and impressive, videos showing the "complete" set (35 one-sided pieces) of pentacubes forming amazing and difficult solutions by Don. You'll want to see these more than once:

Regular 5x5x7 Block
Two-Sided Staircase
Jagged-Edge Block
Chichen Itza Pyramid

Other news:

Kate has written a unique time travel tale that you can read online here: "When are you?", providing a fictional background to some of our historical games. All the people are real; only the circumstances of their appearance are imaginary and coincidental!

A highly condensed printable catalog has been updated and is available online as three .pdf files. It has 24 standard pages plus an order form, in full color, although it works just fine printed in gray. Feel free to download as much of it as you want, and you're welcome to print it out for Web-deprived friends, too. This catalog can also be viewed online with flippable pages:

  Our flip catalog!
Now you can view our condensed 24-page print catalog with flippable pages or even as a slide show. The Flash program lets you zoom in, turn pages, and even click on any picture for a shortcut to its website display. Get an instant overview. Just click on the little cover page thumbnail at right. Works best with Chrome, Safari, Edge, or Firefox. To print out selected pages or your own full copy, go to our print catalog file (.pdf). For special categories and cross-references, see the Search Us index.

 
Archives expanded
If you've missed previous announcements or mailings, you can still track back to see what's been happening with us by browsing through our archives, especially the annual newsletters that sum up our year's doings. Here's the Archives index.

Old but still good news:

Check out unsolved tough challenges on the Contests page. Open to the world, with prizes to be won. Happy puzzling!

We own four very cool domain aliases. Each is just a title page ("splash page") and links to the respective major sections of the official gamepuzzles website. Take a look; they're jazzy.

• www.tactilegraphics.us is an entrance to the Tactile Graphics section and to Tilings and Designs.
• www.playable-art.com is an entrance to Tilings and Designs, Abstract Strategy Games and Edgematching.
• www.polyformpuzzles.com is an entrance to the Essential Polyforms section and Polyominoes and Polycubes.
• www.thelifeofgames.com leads to our journal, The Life of Games.

Our Hexdominoes set is also a registered trademark and has its own independent website and domain name, with additional materials not found in our main website, such as the entire rule book and actual-size grids to print out for use with special figures. We plan to offer new challenges there eventually and maybe even some play-online features. A little logo for it is on the bottom of the homepage. And check out the awesome new designs we've found for this amazing set.

If you would like to receive copies of our very rarely issued bulletins or newsletters, please send us your email address and we'll add you to our confidential mailing list. We never give out our list; your privacy is safe with us. You can also subscribe and advise us of any address changes through the Contact Us page.

Here's a recap of all the gamepuzzles added to our website most recently, in case you missed their first announcement.   Twenty-Tans .... Handy-Tans .... LineDance .... Birds and Bees .... Pretty Tilings .... Tangled Triangles .... Handy-Octs .... Tetra-Tray .... Chunky-Octs .... Tri-Chex .... Harrybourne Shape Puzzler .... Lyn-Joy Marvel .... more to come soon!

Blooper Bounty — This is a standing offer:  we'll send a small prize to the first person who advises us of a mistake in this website, whether a typo, broken link or other goof. Each blooper gets a separate prize. Email us and provide your ground address, so we can mail you your prize. And thanks!

Our hot-link icons are listed, along with some surprises and hidden prizes, for those of you who care to read directions for getting around this place. For the others, there's always logic, intuition and serendipity.