Designer Diary - Bumfuzzled #17 - Tricky Trapeziums

Hey friends!

Honestly, I almost didn't write a designer diary about this one, as it's such a straight forward design, but lots of folks like seeing the thought process on these, so I figured I'd give it a post!

(Side note from future Chad: now that I've completed the designer diary, I realize maybe more thought went into this puzzle than I'd initially thought!)

The Starting Point

The initial layout was all done digitally for this one, laying out a series of straight lines that intersect to make various trapezoids. It was an interesting exercise creating some areas of continuous line, while breaking up other sections, until I had an arrangement I was happy with. It was important to me to have a mix of larger and smaller shapes, with the mix somewhat balanced throughout the composition.

Continuing on!

I don't think any of you are looking for a 31 piece puzzles of big, chunky pieces (correct me if I'm wrong!), so I continued on! I decided early on that I wanted to round all the corners of the trapezoids, creating a bunch of little voids in the process. Some of those voids turned out to be even a little more interesting than I'd initially expected!

I also decided to cut out the middles from the larger trapezoids, which would allow for a lot more visual interest in the color scheme, and create some neat texture of the smaller, solid trapezoids, vs. the larger ones with varying middles.


Oh right, this all needs to connect...

At this point, I had a fairly neat visual design, with one major problem. How does it all connect? I utilized a few kinds of connectors to tie it all together:



- Connector type A are bars of various lengths that protrude into the adjacent trapezoid. Nothing revolutionary here, but I wanted to maintain the angular look of the composition, and this fit nicely.

- Connector type B creates a passthrough from one trapezoid into the inner section of the adjacent trapezoid. In effect, these don't even really look like connectors in the final puzzle.

- C isn't a connector type, but I wanted to point out that I didn't want all of the adjacent trapezoids to connect. This adds a bit of difficulty, as sometimes there's no way to know two trapezoids belong next to one another, until you find the trapezoid that is the bridge piece between them.


One Final Trick!

For the trapezoids with the centers cut out, merely putting the centers back in is a rather dull and trivial exercise. Plus, the puzzle as a whole seemed like it would be somewhat easy, so I wanted the puzzle to have a twist.

In the back of my mind, I'd had the idea of adding lots of voids to connectors to camouflage a fit, and this was the perfect opportunity! You can see here what a large difference in difficulty this generates:



The image shows you three scenarios:

- The top option would be the easiest way of doing the centers. A few of the centers in the puzzle are handled this way, as it gives the puzzle better textural variety. There's always a balance of considering aesthetics vs. puzzlediness (a word I just made up; I Googled it to make sure).

- The middle option is a little harder. Still not too tough, but it does make it a little less obvious. Some of the smaller centers are handled this way.

- The bottom option obscures the true fit almost completely, and requires you to play around to find the correct fit.

This approach would have made the puzzle too difficult if not for the ability to sort by color, and it still would have been a bit too difficult had I not made two different hole sizes, which allows you to further sort the pieces into smaller groups.

My goal is always to make puzzles that are challenging, but not frustrating! Of course, that's going to vary by person, but I subject myself to my own puzzles to ensure I haven't gone overboard. You might think it's cheating to do my own puzzles, but remember I'm usually designing a puzzle about a year before I need to make the first sample. I often forget half the puzzles I've designed, and am delightfully surprised at what I designed a year earlier once they make it to the front of the production queue.  :D


The Final Result

While solve strategies may vary, if you check out our time lapse video, this puzzle is fairly unique in that it solves in three pretty concrete steps. I wish I could say this was on purpose, but this happy accident makes it a pretty unique solve vs. other Bumfuzzleds!



I hope you enjoy Tricky Trapeziums as much as I do, and look forward to walking you through the Summer 2025 series once it hits!


One Final Surprise!

Speaking of the summer series, I'll be making a more official announcement soon, but since you've read this far and I have a hard time keeping secrets, you can sneak a peek at the Summer 2025 Series here!

Love and blessings,
Chad