Pyraminx
The success of the Rubik’s Cube led to other geometric twist-and-match games bursting onto the market. Pyraminx was a tetrahedron rather than a square, and the matchable pieces were triangular, not square. It was invented in 1971 by puzzle designer Uwe Meffert. Meffert tabled the project, thinking the game lacked public appeal. In the early 1980s, he saw the Rubik’s Cube light up the toy industry. Meffert filed the patent for Pyraminx in 1981, where it gave Rubik’s Cube fans another gameplay challenge. Like the Rubik’s Cube, the Pyraminx mixed the colors on each side. The goal was to have all the colors match on each side of the puzzle. It sold ninety million little tetrahedrons in its first three years, second only to the Rubik’s Cube phenomenon in the three-dimensional geometric puzzle industry.