About

Swissmad is a puzzle with 12 square tiles arranged the shape of a cross. The tiles are contained in a flat frame which has transparent front and back plates, so that both sides of the tiles are visible. The cross has a 2 by 2 square in the centre and arms 2 tiles wide and one tile long. The two columns of the vertical arms can slide up or down one tile, independently of each other, by pushing the two parts of the transparent front plate of the puzzle up or down. Similarly, the two rows of the horizontal arms of the cross can individually slide left or right by pushing the transparent back plate sections left or right. Each tile is red or white on the front and red or white on the back. This gives four possible tile types, and there are exactly three of each type of tile. In the standard solved position the back of the cross is half white and half red, while the front of the cross is in quarters of alternating colour. Embossed on the frame are eight patterns that you can try to make. I reproduce them below with the names they have been given in the leaflet. Time Interaction Excellence Balance Diversity Audacity Mutual help Security The leaflet quite amusingly tries to justify the names of these patterns. The leaflet itself is also in the shape of a cross, normally with the arms folded over to make it square. The arms of this leaflet show the patterns 'Time', 'Excellence', 'Balance' and 'Diversity', so by changing the order in which you fold these arms, you can have any of these patterns on the front. By some clever folding, you can however also get it to show the 'Mutual help' pattern instead. Swissmad was invented by Olivier Pahud, and patented on 16 June 2005, WO 2005/053809. Swissmad four colour patternsThere is a very rare version of the puzzle with four colours. It has a grey frame and the pieces are yellow, green, black, and purple. Every combination of front and back colours occurs exactly once. If each quadrant on the front has one colour, there are only six fully symmetric patterns the back can have. These are shown in the picture on the right. The first of these, with each colour on a diagonal line is normally considered the goal. If your browser supports JavaScript, then you can play with Swissmad by clicking the link below: