Designer Diary: Crafting a Unique Puzzle Treehouse!

Hello Puzzle Friends!

Time to dive back into one of my design processes for one of the brand new Fall 2025 puzzles (currently on preorder at a nice early bird discount!).

Bumfuzzled 23: Arboreal Abode was definitely a subject-matter-first design, rather than one where I was intentionally after a certain cut scheme or solve experience. It's always fun to see what surprising outcomes happen with a theme-forward design, as so many different unexpected solve patterns can emerge! While I have skills, a lot of out outcomes are somewhat accidental or discovered somewhere along the process.  :D


The Initial Sketch

When I looked up the files, I found I designed this puzzle back in May of 2024. It's always funny to look back at my first sketches, over a year removed from the process, to see what I chose to hone in on, and what I chose to punt until later in the process.


In this one, I got rather detailed and exact with certain sections, and just plain punted on other sections for future iteration.  :D I think it's because I like to feel forward progress, so rather than hem and haw about everything on the first pass, I'm willing to zoom through tricky spots to get a draft finished.

I can see here that some of it is because it made more sense to do certain sections digitally. I see I put a lot of w's on this draft, which stood for "window". Things that need to be uniform or neatly spaced are way better to do digitally, where I can easily move/resize them until the positioning all looks right (that will all show up on the next draft I show you!).


Zipper Connectors

I highlighted one section in red; when there are two large adjacent sections in a puzzle, separated by a straight line, I love to connect them in some creative way. While it would be easy to just add a few knobs and be done with it (which I eventually did in many areas of this puzzle), there was enough room here to do something different while adding visual interest.

I also employed what I call "zipper connectors" back in Bumfuzzled #13: Skyline Oasis.

In Skyline Oasis, they were very abstract. It looks like I hadn't decided on this treehouse puzzle what exactly I wanted them to look like in this first draft; just that I liked the idea of zipper connectors there. I'd later decided to make them a bit thematic to the puzzle.


The Second Pass

It looks like my second pass was primarily after some digital work of adding windows and some other areas that needed to be more architectural, like doorways and the abstract spiral staircase.

One of my favorite developments at this stage was the repetition of a kinda-sorta teardrop-shaped dropout (maybe this shape has an actual name?). It's not something that exactly jumps out at you in this puzzle, but subtle design elements like this can really make a design pop. It also adds some airiness to the otherwise solid tree base.

At this point, I'd also solidified a lot of the areas I'd previously punted on until later. The final revision would bring a few more edits, but the general layout is almost nearly complete at this point. Now on to the pesky part of cutting the design up and ensuring everything connects!


The Nitty Gritty


Unless I'm aiming for an extra difficult puzzle, I often like employing a couple of disparate cut styles in each puzzle, which aids a bit in solving.

Here, I used some pretty fine geometric knobs to ensure connectivity along a lot of the straight edges (the same connectors I use for the outer frame connections in Party in the Back puzzles). Fine connectors like this are often necessary in theme-first puzzles, as I'm trying to fit connectors within the confines of whatever it is I'm illustrating.

I mixed these with some rounded knob connectors throughout the puzzle. The abundance of this one connector type adds a bit to the difficulty.

I contrasted these fine connections with fairly elaborate, chunky random-cut connectors for the rest of the puzzle. The contrast of architectural vs. free-flowing is fun, and helps you, the solver, out a bit!

Drop-outs also present the opportunity to add some unique, trickier-than-usual connections. I highlighted a couple in red, where connectors jut into or through voids.


The Final Payoff!

Nearly a year later (which seemed to go so fast; is anyone else experiencing that lately?), Arboreal Abode's time had come to be produced. My first sample arrived, and I loved the result here.


As usual, I must have done some digital final fine-tuning after that last scan, as I see one or two tweaks. If you like playing Where's Waldo, see if you can spot them!

You can see how those teardrop shapes really pop in the final production, especially since that section is otherwise a light color. Our on-brand color scheme also makes for a super fun treehouse. As a grown child, I'd love to explore this thing!

Thanks for listening to me ramble about the details of these unique wooden puzzles of ours, and I really look forward to hearing your feedback once they hit your puzzle tables in November!

Love and blessings,
Chad

P.S. Just as a final reminder, this puzzle, along with the rest of the Fall 2025 Collection and our Party in the Back Series, is available via crowdfunding at preorder pricing as of the time of this blog post. Only about a week remaining to save nearly $100 on the full collection of new puzzles:

https://gamefound.com/projects/puzzle-bomb/the-grand-return-of-party-in-the-back-with-three-new-bumfuzzled-companions?refcode=JX_ZQEnn8UmKsRusMneaBg