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Invention Of the Game

• Pentomino, or five grid dominoes, is known in China as the "brain racking twelve pieces"(伤脑筋十二块) ,Some data records show that it was invented in the last century and many scholars have studied it. The invention of the well-known game "Tetris" is based on the research and simplification of five grid dominoes.
• Personal guess: Maybe its invention history may go back hundreds or thousands of years. The five small square elements are very similar to Gobang(Renju), and gobang is a simplified version of Go. It is also very similar to the pattern on Chinese mahjong. And these games are very old. This fit space logic is very similar to the tenon and mortise structure. The tenon and mortise structure appeared and applied in ancient Egyptian civilization, Lianghe civilization and ancient China. Maybe this game is a tool or toy for ancient craftsmen to study the tenon and mortise architectural structure.

Why Make This Game

• After the Spring Festival, I strolled around Zhengjia Plaza in GuangZhou on Sunday, February 13, 2022, I found that there was a building block toy named "catamino" in a toy store. Generally, I was not interested in this childish toy, but after the clerk explained it patiently and tried it for a while, I found that the game was surprisingly difficult and full of challenges. After going home and consulting relevant materials, I found that it was a very difficult mathematical problem and a very interesting spatial logic game.
• The original "brain racking twelve pieces" was so difficult that it was a very interesting game because its nightmare difficulty was daunting and out of reach. It must be redesigned to bring happiness and challenges to more people.