"Figures" puzzle: a game where you cannot undo a move by lifting a piece

A wooden sliding-block puzzle for children aged 3 and up. The task sounds simple: reproduce the picture from a card on the board. The difficulty lies in a single constraint: blocks may only be slid, never lifted.

Why that constraint is the whole point

In an ordinary jigsaw or mosaic, a mistake costs nothing — pick the piece up, move it, forget it. Not here. To shift one block you must free a space, and to free a space you must shift another. The child is obliged to plan several moves ahead and hold that plan in mind while carrying it out.

This requirement is what makes the puzzle a working tool rather than merely an entertaining toy. It exercises the same skills that later underpin maths and reading: planning a sequence of actions, holding a goal across several steps, inhibiting the first impulse, and tolerating a first attempt that fails.