We're excited to announce that we've developed a new connector style we're calling "split tendril connectors," and our almost-ready Crystal Grove puzzle will be the first puzzle to feature these new connectors. Here's a sneak peek - as you can see, the puzzle connects at corners, with 4 pieces together forming the connection:
Here's a little more of a sneak peek at the new Crystal Grove puzzle (designed by Tara Flannery and Jef Bambas). As you can see, all the pieces look pretty much like the ones above, but we've slightly varied each piece so pieces shouldn't fit in the wrong place.
Crystal Grove may be our hardest puzzle ever: it will have 357 pieces, and the post-impressionistic image combined with these mind-bending new connectors is incredibly challenging. Because so many of you have been asking for "really hard puzzles", we only included a smattering of whimsies, and the edge is a gorgeous irregular edge formed naturally by the tessellating pieces. In fact, I feel I should warn you - this puzzle is probably too hard for most people.
How Soon Will It Be In-stock?: We're cutting the first batch this week, so expect it in stock mid-August.
Also Coming Eventually: We're working on a couple more new puzzles with these split tendril connectors in the near-term, to give people who don't want a super-hard puzzle a chance to explore them with some easier images and smaller puzzles.
Inspiration: These new split tendril connectors are based on a tessellation by Mark Dow (who has kindly allowed us to use his tessellation for inspiration), which itself was inspired by the Thue-Morris sequence. We discovered Mark's original tessellation in Clifford Pickover's visually stunning "The Math Book," which is full of fun 1-page summaries of neat math ideas and achievements, mostly geometric.