Genius Connection

The product development of Genius Connection (for SmartGames)

Raf Peeters, January 2025

A few years ago, SmartGames acquired The Happy Puzzle Company, a UK-based toy company known for its hero product, Genius Square. It’s a two-player puzzle game where the objective is to be the first to place all the puzzle pieces on the game board. Like all successful games, it didn’t take long for multiple variations to emerge, such as Genius Star, Bee Genius and Genius Gems. In these games, the element of speed plays a much bigger role than the puzzle-solving aspect, as the challenges are often relatively simple compared to a typical SmartGames puzzle.

 

When I looked at this sub-brand, I quickly realized there was untapped potential for more varied puzzle games. All Genius games are essentially packing problems, but for our single-player games, we often use different game mechanics. So, I thought: What would happen if I started with a connection game instead? I experimented with several ideas, such as connecting two opposite sides of the game board, but ultimately settled on a version where the goal is to connect two yellow pieces. From my past experience with connection puzzles (Anaconda, IQ-Circuit), I knew that creating a set of puzzle pieces with paths that have enough variation to support multiple challenges, would be challenging. On top of that, I wanted to combine simple puzzle pieces with basic paths alongside more complex pieces. The idea was that if a player used the simpler pieces to make the connection, they would be left with the more complex pieces to fill the remaining grid. But if they started by making the connection with the more complex pieces, they would have simpler pieces to complete the rest. A game that offers this kind of dilemma is, I think, more interesting.

 

Eventually, finding a good set of puzzle pieces wasn’t as hard as I had anticipated, thanks to my past experience in designing these kinds of games. However, like all Genius games, this one also needed dice to start each challenge. Coming up with the right combination of numbers for the two 12-sided dice proved to be much trickier. Thankfully, with the help of my colleague Cameron’s programming skills, we eventually found a combination where every dice roll resulted in a challenge with at least one possible solution (often more). One key difference between the original Genius games from The Happy Puzzle Company and the versions produced by SmartGames is that in the original games, every challenge is completely random—some are easy, some are hard. In the SmartGames versions, we wanted to introduce levels of difficulty similar to our single player games. Creating this feature for Genius Connection wasn’t simple. We experimented with adding more dice with different numbers, but it proved impossible to develop dice where all combinations would be either easy or difficult. In the end, we decided to use level cards. To play at a specific difficulty level, players can use the dice to find a start and end position on their chosen level card. If you prefer a more random experience, you can still just use the dice directly without the cards. I’m really pleased with the outcome. Originally, we planned to make the puzzle pieces out of MDF wood, similar to Genius Square, but because the pieces in Genius Connection are much larger, this would have made the game too expensive. By using ABS plastic, we were able to create 3D paths, which also made the game look much nicer than if we’d just printed the paths on wood. So, if you enjoyed Genius Square and are looking for something similar but with a twist, Genius Connection might be a great choice. Just be warned—the harder levels are significantly more challenging than Genius Square or Genius Star. And I can say that from experience, having play-tested all 720 possible start positions! Harder challenges have fewer possible solutions AND often need more puzzle pieces to making the connection, resulting in a longer path.

Game rules for Genius Connection when you play random challenges (only using the dice)

GAME RULES GENIUS CONNECTION


Genius Connection features different playing modes: 

• Random playing mode and Levels playing mode 

• Multi-player or Single player mode. 


Random Playing Mode (using only the dice) 


1) One of the players rolls both dice. Each player places his two yellow pieces on his game board, so that the numbers still visible through the cutouts in the yellow pieces correspond with the numbers on the dice. It doesn't matter which yellow piece you use for which number. Although one piece shows the arrow head and the other the arrow tail, they both have the same function (end points for your path). 


2) Each player tries to make a connection between the yellow pieces, using the path sides of the other puzzle pieces. ALL puzzle pieces, not needed for this connection, should be flipped over to their empty side and used to fill up the remaining space on the game board. 


3) The first player who can make a connection AND fills up his game board wins. Play as many rounds as you want. Please note that because of the randomness of the dice you have no control over the difficulty of your challenge. It can be very simple or very hard. If you don't like that, please play the Leveled Playing Mode below. This is especially recommended for novices and young children. 


Leveled Playing Mode 


1) One of the players rolls both dice. Take the STARTER level card. Find the white and black number of your dice on the left and top end of this card and find the corresponding starting position in the same row and column. Use these numbers to place the yellow pieces on the right place. In this mode, the numbers on the dice don't correspond with the numbers on your game board, but point to a specific setup on a level card! 


2) Play a normal game. 


3) The first player who can create a connection and fill up the grid wins this round. Roll the dice for the next round. The loser looks up the right setup combination on the STARTER level card again. The winner of the first round needs to look his new setup combination on the JUNIOR level card. After each round the winner goes to a higher level, while the loser won't. The first player who finishes the 4 levels wins the game. The right order of the levels is STARTER-JUNIOR-EXPERT-MASTER. 


Please note that during a game, players will often need to solve a different challenge. Although both players use the same dice combination, they will have a different setup depending on which level card they need to use. 


Single Player Mode

You can also play this game as a normal single player SmartGame. You don't need the dice. Just start by solving the first challenge on your STARTER challenge card on the top left and work your way down to the bottom right, before moving on to the JUNIOR, EXPERT and MASTER challenge cards. Note that most challenges have multiple correct solutions. It doesn't matter if the path is short or long. Either way is correct. In case you couldn't find a solution yourself but are curious to find out, a solution can be found on the official SmartGames website, although other solutions might be right too. 

Website ©2025 Raf Peeters

Products and images: © Smart