The Pyraminx: 90 Million Sold in Three Years

Quick answer: the Pyraminx is a tetrahedral twisty puzzle with four triangular faces, each divided into nine small triangles. Its four corner tips rotate independently and are called trivial tips because they affect nothing else. Uwe Mèffert designed it in 1971 and it sold over 10 million by Christmas 1981 and 90 million within three years.

Best for: the first twisty puzzle anyone should own, including people who have given up on a cube.

It looks like a cube problem with a corner cut off. The mathematics is far smaller, and the design is honest about that rather than hiding it.

What Is a Pyraminx?

A tetrahedron in two layers. Four faces, each a triangle split into nine smaller ones, turning about the four corner axes.

Its pieces come in three kinds, and the distinction is the whole puzzle. There are the four tips, the four axial pieces behind them, and the six edges between.

Unlike the Cube, those three groups barely interact, which is why it is the easiest well-known twisty puzzle and why it sold in the numbers it did.

Why Are the Tips Called Trivial?

Because they are, and the design does not pretend otherwise.

Each corner tip rotates on its own axis without moving anything else. You can turn all four to match their neighbours at any point in the solve, before or after everything else, and nothing is disturbed.

So four of the puzzle's visible pieces contribute no difficulty at all. They exist to make the shape a tetrahedron rather than a truncated one, which is a presentational decision rather than a mechanical one. Mèffert made that explicit in 1982 by releasing the Tetraminx, the same puzzle with the tips simply removed, and the permutation count is identical.

How Many Positions Does It Have?

Few, by twisty puzzle standards, and this is the clearest explanation of why people succeed with it.

Ignoring the trivial tips, the Pyraminx has 933,120 positions. The Cube has 43 quintillion.

It gets smaller still. The four axial pieces can be turned so their colours line up with each other without much thought, and doing that reduces the remaining problem to the six edge pieces, with 11,520 positions.

Eleven thousand is a number a person can actually make headway against by reasoning. That is the difference between a puzzle you solve and a puzzle you look up.

Why Did It Wait Ten Years?

Because a good puzzle is not enough on its own, which is the most useful commercial lesson in this field.

Mèffert designed the Pyraminx in 1971. The Rubik's Cube reached the wider world at the end of the 1970s, and he began producing under his own brand in late 1981. The design sat for roughly a decade, finished and unsold.

What changed was not the puzzle. It was that the Cube had taught millions of people what a twisty puzzle was, created the shelf space in toy shops and made the category legible to buyers. The Pyraminx then sold ten million copies before that first Christmas was out.

Read one way that is bad luck: ten years early. Read another, the Pyraminx was perfectly placed, because a public that had just been defeated by a Cube was exactly the audience for a tetrahedron they could finish. Being second into a category you did not create is frequently the better position.

Who Was Uwe Mèffert?

One of the most prolific designers the field has had, and the reason several puzzles on this site exist.

Uwe Mèffert, a German inventor, lived from 1939 to 2022. He designed the Pyraminx in 1971, almost a decade before the Rubik boom, and it sat unreleased until that boom created an audience for it. He began producing puzzles under his own brand in late 1981.

The timing is the striking part. The Pyraminx was not a response to the Cube; it predated it and waited. When the market arrived it sold ten million before that first Christmas was out.

His range runs well beyond it, including the Megaminx and the Skewb, and his firm produced the Gear Cube and the Gear Ball for Oskar van Deventer.

How Do You Solve a Pyraminx?

Do the tips whenever you like. They cost nothing and cannot be disturbed. Many solvers do them first simply to reduce the visual noise.

Line up the axial pieces next. Turning the four axials so their colours agree is quick and takes the puzzle down to the six edges, which is the real problem.

Then solve six edges. With roughly eleven thousand positions left, this is small enough to work out rather than memorise, which is the Pyraminx's great virtue as a first twisty puzzle.

Do not import cube habits. There are no fixed centres to orient around and no layers in the cube sense. Thinking in corners and edges, not layers, is faster.

Is It Worth Owning if You Already Solve a Cube?

Yes, but for a different reason than people expect, and not because it will challenge you.

If you can solve a 3x3 you will solve a Pyraminx within an hour or two unaided, and that is the point rather than a disappointment. It is one of very few twisty puzzles where working out your own method is realistic instead of looking one up, because eleven thousand positions is a space a person can actually reason about.

Most cubers have never derived a method; they learned someone else's. The Pyraminx offers the experience of doing the real thing, deducing why a sequence works and what it preserves, at a scale where that is achievable in an afternoon.

It is also the right puzzle to hand to someone who has been defeated by a Cube. They will finish it, and finishing one is what makes a person try another. For the same reason it sits beside the Gear Cube as the pair we would recommend first.

What Do We Make That Is Like This?

No twisty puzzles. The shape, though, is one we do make, and the comparison is a fair one.

2 Piece Pyramid is a tetrahedron built from two identical pieces, and the Three-Piece Block is a tetrahedral stack of ten cubes. Both ask what the Pyraminx does not: how the solid is constructed, rather than how to restore its surface.

If you want the twisty puzzle we rate as most approachable after this one, that is the Gear Cube, also from Mèffert's workshop. The range is mechanical puzzles.

Frequently Asked Questions

What is a Pyraminx?

A tetrahedral twisty puzzle with four triangular faces, each divided into nine smaller triangles, turning about its four corner axes. Its pieces are four tips, four axial pieces and six edges.

What are trivial tips on a Pyraminx?

The four corner pieces, which rotate on their own axes without affecting anything else. They can be matched at any point in the solve and contribute no difficulty, which is why Mèffert's Tetraminx, the same puzzle without tips, has identical permutations.

How many combinations does a Pyraminx have?

933,120, disregarding the trivial tips. Once the four axial pieces are lined up the remaining problem is just the six edges, with 11,520 positions.

Who invented the Pyraminx?

Uwe Mèffert, a German designer who lived from 1939 to 2022. He created it in 1971, well before the Rubik's Cube boom, and began producing it under his own brand in late 1981.

Is the Pyraminx easier than a Rubik's Cube?

Considerably. Four of its pieces are trivial, the axial pieces line up with little thought, and the real problem is six edges with about eleven thousand positions, against 43 quintillion for the Cube. It is the best first twisty puzzle for that reason.