Cameron Browne, an Australian mathematician and author of two books on game theory, created the tile design and the two player version (originally called Mambo) in 2007.

[1] The hexagonal tiles of Mambo are double-sided, with each side having three colors: red, white, and blue.

This is the same side-linking arrangement as a serpentile (Van Ness notation 102), one of the hexagonal edge-matching puzzle tiles used in games such as Psyche-paths, Kaliko, and Tantrix.

[3] Browne proposed the concept of "Palagonia"[4] to describe the many possible creature-like shapes that can be made with the tiles, several of which have been rendered as "Palagonian Puzzle Creatures" by Franco Giuliani, an Argentinian artist.

Like Trax, Mambo has a forced-move rule: a space bordered by three tiles prescribes the colors of each corner precisely.

The territory enclosed by a loop is scored according to the number of junctions within it, where three corners meet and have the same color.

Palagonia uses a single custom six-sided die;[7] the 2, 3, 4, and 5 are standard and action symbols take the place of the 1 and the 6.

Palago was officially launched at the 2010 Nuremberg International Toy and Game Fair and is currently available in these countries: New Zealand, Australia, Germany, Taiwan, Poland, Hungary, Croatia, Russia and Greece.