Extremely Puzzling - Goetz Schwandtner's Puzzles

Interlocking Puzzles

Burrs and other interlocking puzzles

Disentanglement Puzzles

Puzzles made of wire and/or threads

Puzzle Boxes

Karakuri, Himitsu Bako and other puzzle boxes

Sequential Discovery, Take Apart

Take aparts requiring several steps (sometimes involving builtin tools), usually to free a coin or other award

Puzzle Locks

Traditional and modern puzzle locks

Other Puzzles

Everything else, including puzzle games

Interlocking Explorer

Compendium of Chinese-Rings-Like Puzzles

News/Updates:

Added on 2026-01-08: Recently, I managed to solve Window Lock 3, after having solved Window Lock 2 earlier on. At around the same time, a new design in this series showed up, and Peter advertised this one in his EPP event, and emphasized a key part of the mechanism that seems to be impossible to operate correctly to open the lock. I reached out to Dick Hensel to try and order one, and here it is: Window Lock 4. Looking at the window, there is a small ball bearing like for the others from the series, and the mechanism is clearly visible through the window. It becomes apparent which part needs to be retracted to unlock the shackle, however, there does not seem to be a sensible way implementing this, and one central part appears to be stuck in an unsuitable position — by design, I remember seeing this at EPP. A non-spoilery progress report: I managed to operate some mechanism and while there was some reaction of the lock, it was not enough to unlock the shackle. Fascinating!
Added on 2026-01-07: The first puzzle delivery for this year started with a delivery puzzle for me to solve: Coming home, I only knew that the delivery guy had handed over my package to one of the neighbors in the house, not which one. Having solved this using a brute force approach (not against the neighbor's door, just iterating through all neighbors!), I soon had a large cardboard box in my hand, and this contained a box in a box in a box: A nicely decorated wooden shipping box inside the cardboard one, and with metal latches. Inside the actual puzzle box itself, and it looks truly beautiful: Time Traveler's Artifact. The box itself, the packaging, and also some additional paperwork show a high level of attention to detail, which is great. I have met both the designer and a prototype of this puzzle at DCD last year, so I knew what kind and size of box I was going to receive, and also had a bit of a chat with the designer about some manufacturing details that led to this result. Would you believe that simple plywood laser cut boards with some 3D printed ornaments can look beautiful like this? I am looking forward to solving this box from a new designer from The Netherlands. It was playtested by some seasoned puzzlers before and they told me it was great and I should give it a try. Not sure whether I actually needed this kind of encouragement to order this puzzle for my collection. More puzzle fun for this year, adding to the still large solving backlog.
Added on 2026-01-04: Happy New Year 2026 to all puzzle friends! No new puzzles today with the first update of the year, but also some typical Sunday evening activity: Another visit to the Burr Zoo — Kakkerlak, read more details there!
As usual, starting this page rather short and empty, but all the older entries are in the update history page linked below.
Other/Older updates:: Can be found on the update history page

Hints:

Hints: If you need solution hints to any puzzle in my gallery, feel free to e-mail me. My e-mail address can be found on my homepage.