About

This simple puzzle has numbered and coloured pieces arranged in a 4×4 square. The pieces can be mixed up by rotating a 2×2 sub-square of pieces - either a corner square or the centre square. The aim is of course to unscramble the pieces, restoring the starting position. It is also possible to ignore the numbers and just make a particular arrangement of the colours. The original version of Gripple was marketed by M-Squared Inc. in 1989. There are 4 colours, with four pieces of each. In the solved position, the four pieces of a colour are together in a 2x2 square. A sheet of numbered stickers was supplied with it so that the pieces could be numbered 1 to 16 in any manner you wanted. In Taiwan this puzzle was also made with numbers printed onto the pieces. Gripple was invented by Murray J. Gould, and patented on 5 April 1988, US 4,735,417. There is also a Bulgarian version of the puzzle, shown in the second picture above, which is called Colour Spectre, or Gamma. It has 5 knobs on the back of the puzzle with which you turn the sub-squares of pieces. The pieces are encased in a frame with 16 holes that allow the numbers to be seen. Most commonly it has four colours of pieces, four pieces of each colour that are numbered 1 to 4. There are also versions where all the pieces are the same colour and numbered 1 to 16. It comes in many different colour combinations. If your browser supports JavaScript, then you can play Gripple by clicking the link below: