Pentominoes was described by Solomon W. Golomb in a talk to the Harvard Mathematics Club in 1953, which was later published in American Mathematical Monthly and in Scientific American. Pentomino puzzles had been described before, but it was Golomb who coined the name and described a game for one to three players. Others have published their own variations, but the game described by Golomb consisted of an 8 x 8 grid of squares and a set of twelve pentominoes. Players take turns placing the pentominoes on the board, taking care not to overlap the pieces or to use a tile more than once. The last player to place a pentomino on the board wins the game.
Note: A separate database page exists for the 10 x 10 grid version of Pentominoes, as published by Taskmaster Ltd.