A strange little side quest
The fun part of looking behind Thermomosaic is seeing how many older ideas are still alive in modern play. Alexey Pajitnov created Tetris in 1984 after drawing inspiration from pentomino puzzles, then simplified the idea around shapes made from four squares. A second detail makes the picture even better: Pac-Man went on sale in 1980, and its creator Toru Iwatani famously linked the character's shape to a pizza with a slice missing. So a round of Thermomosaic is not just a quick distraction; it is a tiny stop on a much longer puzzles timeline.
