Lucie Pauwels is a Belgian puzzle designer who has emerged as one of the most prolific voices in modern packing puzzle design over the past few years. Her catalog has grown rapidly, and her work consistently appears in IPP design competitions and across the global puzzle review community. Pelikan Puzzles in the Czech Republic produces wooden editions of many of her designs.
Why I love Lucie's work
Lucie explores. Every few months she releases a new direction, a new mechanism, a new geometric idea - and the depth of her recent output is genuinely impressive. She's earned her place at the table of modern packing puzzle designers very quickly.
What I personally love most are her gravity-style puzzles, where the challenge isn't only to pack the pieces but also to lock them in place using clever corner geometry. It's a great idea - the puzzle isn't solved until the pieces stay where you put them, and the only way to lock them is through a specific orientation that takes real work to find.
Some of her puzzles are on the easier side, which I genuinely love. They're fun to work on without committing your whole week to a single solve, and they make perfect entry points into her style.
What the puzzle community says
PuzzleMad has reviewed many of her designs and noted that she has "the unique ability to design these puzzles with something about them that makes them more than trial and error." Her work has appeared multiple times in the IPP Nob Yoshigahara Puzzle Design Competition, including Diasafe at IPP43. Pelikan Puzzles in the Czech Republic produces wooden editions of her designs for collectors.
Where to start in her catalog
Start with Trimini Frame. It's one of her gravity-lock designs - the puzzle where you don't just pack the pieces into the frame, you also have to find the orientation that locks them in place using the corners. It's a perfect introduction to the design idea I love most in her catalog.
From there, try Grip 4L, where the challenge centers on a single "different" piece that has to play a specific role to allow the rest to fit. A great example of how Lucie takes a simple setup and hides real depth inside it.
I'm working on bringing more Lucie puzzles to the store. I'm sure we'll add more of her designs in the future.
FAQ
Who is Lucie Pauwels?
Lucie Pauwels is a Belgian puzzle designer best known for packing puzzles with clever, original mechanisms. She has emerged as one of the most prolific modern packing puzzle designers, with her work regularly produced by makers like Pelikan Puzzles and recognized at the IPP design competition.
What makes a Pauwels puzzle different?
Lucie has a gift for finding new ideas. Her catalog isn't built on variations of a single concept - it's built on exploring different mechanisms across many puzzles, with gravity-lock designs and tray packing puzzles among her recurring favorites.
Which Pauwels puzzle should I buy first?
Trimini Frame. It's a gravity-lock design - one of the puzzle ideas I love most in her catalog - and a great introduction to her style.
Do you sell the wooden versions?
No, we produce them in 3D printing, since we aim to make great designs as available as possible. Wooden editions of Lucie's puzzles are produced by Pelikan Puzzles in the Czech Republic for collectors. Lucie has given us her blessing to make the plastic versions you see here.
Will more Pauwels puzzles be added?
Yes - I'm sure we'll add more of her designs in the future. Lucie's catalog is full of original ideas I'd love to share with my customers.
If you enjoy Lucie's work, also explore puzzles by Osanori Yamamoto, Frederic Boucher, and Yasuhiro Hashimoto - some of the other modern designers whose puzzles I'm honored to carry.
