History of Glide Lanes
Pieces that may slide only one way are relatives of the sliding puzzles that became a craze in 1880; the version with arrows is a young puzzle.
Sliding pieces
Puzzles in which pieces slide inside a frame are old. The best known is the 15 puzzle: fifteen numbered blocks in a box with room for sixteen. It was invented by Noyes Palmer Chapman, a postmaster in Canastota, New York. From December 1879 the Boston woodworker Matthias Rice made it as the "Gem Puzzle", and in 1880 it became a craze in America and soon in Europe. Sam Loyd later claimed to have invented it, but he had nothing to do with it.
Arrows that leave
In the arrow puzzle each piece may move in one direction only, and it leaves the field instead of sliding back and forth. Such puzzles have become popular in recent years in games for touch screens; no single inventor is known. The puzzles here are made for PaperGames: built backwards, so that every field can be cleared.