Play Tangram — Free

What is Tangram?

Tangram is the classic Chinese dissection puzzle: a single square cut into seven flat pieces — called tans — that you rearrange to recreate an endless variety of shapes. The set is always the same: two large right triangles, one medium triangle, two small triangles, one square and one parallelogram. Because those seven pieces always add up to the same total area, the challenge is never about having enough material; it is about orientation. Every silhouette can be built from the exact same tans, so solving a puzzle means discovering how each piece must be turned, flipped and nestled against its neighbours to fill the outline with no gaps and no overlaps.

First recorded in China and hugely popular across Europe and America by the 1800s, tangram has endured because it is elegant and instantly understandable yet quietly deep. A young child can push pieces around and stumble into a cat or a boat; an adult can stare at a deceptively simple outline for minutes before the last triangle clicks into place. On vygam you play it the modern way — drag the coloured tans across the board, rotate them in neat 45° steps, flip the parallelogram when a mirror image is needed, and watch each piece snap home when it lines up with the target. It is a calm, tactile brain-teaser that rewards spatial imagination over speed.

How to Play

Tangram has only a few firm rules, and a placement fails — or the shape stays unsolved — when:

• you try to finish using fewer than all seven pieces — every tan must be used;
• a piece is left overlapping another instead of sitting flush beside it;
• the parallelogram is not flipped when the outline needs its mirror image.

Tangram Tips & Strategy

Tangram looks like trial and error, but experienced solvers work in a clear order. These four habits turn a baffling outline into a steady, satisfying solve.

1. Place the two large triangles first

   The pair of large triangles covers half of the entire figure, so they decide the overall skeleton of almost every silhouette. Find the biggest, longest stretches of the outline and fit the large triangles there before anything else. Once those two anchors are down, the remaining space is far smaller and the medium and small pieces have obvious homes. Starting with the big pieces stops you from filling the middle with little tans and then discovering the large ones no longer fit.

2. Read the corners and edges

   Every sharp corner in a silhouette is a clue. A crisp right-angle corner is usually the point of a triangle or a corner of the square; a slanted, leaning edge is often the signature of the parallelogram. Match the angles of the outline to the angles of your pieces before you drag anything. Letting the shape's corners tell you which tan belongs there is faster than pushing pieces around at random.

3. Do not forget to flip

   The parallelogram is the only piece with no line of symmetry, which means its mirror image is a genuinely different shape. If a solution feels one flip away — the slant leans the wrong way — select the parallelogram and press Flip. Many puzzles that seem impossible are solved the instant the parallelogram is mirrored, so treat flipping it as a standard move rather than a last resort.

4. Work from the outside in

   Lock down the border of the shape first, then fill the interior. Pieces on the edge only have to match the outline on one or two sides, so they are easier to position confidently. Once the perimeter is framed, the leftover hole in the centre usually has a single obvious shape — often the square or a small triangle — and the puzzle finishes itself. Building the frame before the filling keeps you from trapping a piece with nowhere to go.

The Seven Tangram Pieces

A tangram set never changes, and knowing the pieces by heart makes every puzzle easier. There are five triangles in three sizes — two large, one medium and two small — plus one square and one parallelogram. All the triangles are right-angled and isosceles, which is why they combine so neatly: two small triangles make the square or the medium triangle, and two large triangles can form a bigger square of their own. That shared geometry is the secret behind tangram's flexibility; the same seven shapes recombine into people, animals, boats, letters and abstract figures without ever needing a new piece.

Understanding the relationships also speeds up your solving. If a gap looks like the medium triangle but you have already used it, remember that two small triangles cover the same area and can stand in for it. If the outline needs a square but yours is placed elsewhere, the same space might be filled another way. Because the total area of the seven tans is fixed, a tangram puzzle is really a jigsaw where the pieces can pretend to be one another — and spotting those swaps is what separates a quick solve from a long stare.

FAQ

Games like Tangram