Perplexus is Such a %@*#$!& Cool Toy (or, Lessons in Playful Design)

One of the Coolest Puzzles You’ll Ever Try to Solve

Ever play a labyrinth game — tilting a maze board just so to move a steel ball around wooden rails, avoiding holes along the way? Imagine that but in 3 dimensions encased in an acrylic sphere and, ta-da, you have Perplexus.

I thought about including a photo, but, frankly, a photo just won’t do justice to this piece of play sculpture, er, toy. So, instead, I give you glorious video…

Perplexus 3-dimensional labyrinth [video]

Please do yourself a favor and watch the quickie video. It will delight you. I promise. Cross my heart.

Case Study in Excellent Playful Design

What’s so beautiful about Perplexus is how instantly engaging it is. It just sucks you in. I’ve never touched one, and yet I’ve watched that video at least 5 times while writing this post. Reportedly people can’t help but pick it up out of curiosity only to then instantly recognize that it’s a puzzle and spend hour upon joyful hour working to solve it. Which brings me to today’s lesson, boys and girls. I think good playful design engenders these same responses in that order:

1. Curiosity — “Ooooh. What’s this??” Good playful design must be inviting and approachable and spark interest.
2. Comprehension — The Ah-Ha moment. No matter how complex the user interface or rules of engagement, the essential moment of understanding the big picture should come quickly and clearly.
3. Abandon — “Wheeeeee!” The technology itself should fade away in service to the fun experience.

Too often any sort of “advanced” technology is off-putting to only the geekiest among us. Technology can only truly be called “advanced” when it essentially disappears from the user’s frame of experience. Is that too bold a statement? Regardless, I think it especially applies in the context of play technologies. Just adding bright colors or adding beeps, boops, and flashing lights doesn’t help anything.

More Goodies: The Story Behind Perplexus

Perplexus is the creation of artist Michael McGinnis; it took decades to come to fruition. Visualizing and designing it was a tremendous and mind-bending challenge. Bringing it to market had more twists and turns than Perplexus itself. McGinnis is today building commissioned, large-scale versions called Giant Superplexuses for museums and other similar venues.

History & backstory including many sketches and photos:

• How the creator of Superplexus turned a childhood idea into a lifelong passion

  Superplexus evolved from a project given to me 31 years ago by my 11th-grade art instructor, Ed Hairston. His project: design a boardgame.

  Since I was bad at board games, and felt especially terrible about losing or even beating others at them, I decided I’d rather design a maze.

• History of Perplexus / Superplexus

  There is an “ah hah” moment when someone for the first time picks up the game, says, “what the heck is this thing? What do I do?”, and then understands the entire concept.

  Deep at its core, Perplexus feels to me topologically similar to a Möbius strip. I am an artist, not mathematician…