IQ-Square

The product development of IQ-Square (for SmartGames)

Raf Peeters, January 2025

The story of IQ-Square’s development is similar to that of IQ-Circle, but proved to be much easier.  Although the shape of a circle and a square have little in common, my goal for this and all other games in this new IQ-Deluxe category was the same: I tried to “think different”.

 

When designing a puzzle with squares, the most straightforward approach would be to use an orthogonal grid. Such grids are simple, intuitive and widely understood—people immediately grasp how to fill them with triomino, tetromino, or pentomino pieces. However, this approach has been used countless times, making it difficult to give the puzzle a unique feel or appearance. Instead, I opted for a grid still based on squares but with a twist: I offset every row slightly, creating a layout that resembles a brick wall. This seemingly small adjustment had a significant impact on the gameplay. While puzzle pieces can still be rotated 180° or flipped over, they can no longer be rotated 90°, although the irregular shapes of the puzzle pieces sometimes suggest otherwise. The puzzle pieces themselves were designed as hollow outlines, rather than solid shapes, for several reasons:

• Ease of Manipulation: With a tightly filled grid, removing solid pieces would be challenging. The hollow design allows players to easily pick up pieces by placing a finger on their inner edge.

• Grid Visibility: The hollow pieces ensure the underlying square grid remains visible at all times. This helps players check if their pieces are positioned correctly during setup.

• Visual Distinction: The hollow design also differentiates IQ-Square from IQ-Hexagon, which, at first glance, looks somewhat similar but features solid puzzle pieces.

A nice side-effect is that hollow pieces are also cheaper because you need less material to fabricate them, which aligns with my moto to “do more with less”.

Example of an EXPERT challenge (left) and solution (right) for IQ-Square

IQ-Square, a puzzle game with 120 challenges I designed for SmartGames

GAME RULES IQ-SQUARE


Before you start, make sure to rotate the game board to the right orientation. The left side should have 3 protruding parts, while the right side has 4 protruding parts. The top and bottom sides are straight. 


1) Choose a challenge from the challenge booklet. Place the pieces on the game board as shown. 


2) Fit the remaining pieces on the game board. Although the grid is made of squares, pieces in each row start in a different location to the previous row, creating a "brick wall" pattern. You can rotate the pieces 180° or flip them to their other side to make them fit. But you can't rotate pieces 90°, as they will not fit on the grid. 


3) There is only one solution for each challenge, which can be found at the end of the challenge booklet. 

Website ©2025 Raf Peeters

Products and images: © Smart