New puzzle types are often an variation on an existing theme or situation.
Take for example the Towers of Hanoi. Citing wikipedia: It consists of three rods and a number of disks of different sizes, which can slide onto any rod. The puzzle starts with the disks in a neat stack in ascending order of size on one rod, the smallest at the top, thus making a conical shape.
The objective of the puzzle is to move the entire stack to another rod, obeying the following simple rules:
* Only one disk can be moved at a time.
* Each move consists of taking the upper disk from one of the stacks and placing it on top of another stack or on an empty rod.
* No larger disk may be placed on top of a smaller disk.
A new variation on this puzzle is Lyfoes. The stacks have been replaced with tubes, and the disks have been replaced with coloured balls. Initially there are one or two empty tubes, and the coloured balls are all mixed up. The object is to sort the balls according to colour.
The app has 5 difficulty levels, from very easy to insane.
Well worth a look.
