| My gallery is grouped into categories, with graphical overview pages: | Some special groups: | |||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Twisty Puzzles
Rubik's Cube and alike |
Sliding Pieces Puzzles
Flat and other sliding piece puzzles |
Packing Puzzles
Puzzles with pieces to arrange into box or to match a shape |
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| 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 |
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| Sequential Discovery
Puzzles that require one ore more different visible or hidden steps |
Puzzle Locks
Traditional and modern puzzle locks |
Other Puzzles
Everything else, including puzzle games |
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| List of all puzzles (may be ordered by name, class, manufacturer and designer) | ||||||
News/Updates:
- Added on 2013-05-17
- After some waiting I received a package from Eric today: Four Cross Twelve and some nice mini burrs: 4 Stick 8, Aramis, Quads & Rings 1, Quads & Rings 2, and Captain. As usual, they came disassembled. They will take some time to be assembled.
- Added on 2013-05-05
- Today from Wil's Queens Day Puzzle Party I brought some nice puzzles: Wil's First Box, a brand new Cast Delta, a Billards Puzzle, a Transport Puzzle, and a Ton's terrible towers.
- Added on 2013-04-20
- Today from a GCD fallback event I brought two nice puzzles: a vintage Rotos and a present from Michel: Stressful, nicely presented.
- Added on 2013-04-14
- From a nice puzzle meeting at Bernhard's place, I brought home some nice additions for my collection: Dreieck-Parallelogramm-Quadrat as a present from the host, some vintage twisty puzzles: Ufo and Zauberkreuz, some new puzzles from Bernhard Schweitzer and the New Pelikan Workshop: Saturno #1 and Castle Hole, and then some nice older puzzles and prototypes: Double Lock, Matador, Voodoo Cube, Mississippi Mud, and 2 Temps 3 Mouvements.
- Added on 2013-04-06
- The current Philos novelties include two intereesting nontrivial burrs with quite some level: Mixed Up and Sarcophagos.
- Added on 2013-03-28
- Today a surprise package from Bernhard which I expected next week: Cockpit, Pylon 2P2C -- two nice burrs by Yamamoto and Demirhan.
- Added on 2013-03-25
- Today I received a small package which would have arrived last week already, but the delivery company tried to solve a puzzle by ignoring my last name and trying to deliver it to someone at my address with my first name as last name. Unfortunately, my first name can also be a last name in Germany. Oh man! But now it's there and after all the wood and plastics puzzles, it is all metal: a nice Lotus Puzzle by Wil Strijbos.
- Added on 2013-03-20
- Another day, another update ... let's wait for the postman's special tomorrow! When Bernhard's latest annoucement came out, I was the first to place an order and this already 12 minutes after the initial announcement. Hard times! Three nice burr puzzles arrived today, two are my first ones from Yavuz Demirhan, who has not been known as a designer for very long, but has been very creative lately (just see Puzzlewillbeplayed): Columnata 2P3C and Estergon. I probably do not have to introduce the name Osanori Yamamoto to you; he designed a puzzle whose name matches current weather conditions in Germany, the Ice Pillar.
- Added on 2013-03-19
- Today a tiny package arrived from Austria with a nice little puzzle in it: 4 in Frame. Thank you, Stephan!
- Added on 2013-03-08
- Today a package with nice puzzles arrived from Alfons Eyckmans: Anlon (the first creation of burr collector and solver Aaron Davila), Lange Wapper 54 (the second addition to the 18 piece burr group), Highway, 12 Bastards (only 12 pieces on first sight), and Schoolbus (to drive on the Highway).
- Added on 2013-02-21
- Today two packages from Nowstore inlcuding more or less bandaged and more or less camouflage twisties: All-in-One Bandaged Cube to research all kinds of bandaged cubes, Belt-Road Bandaged 3x3x3, 3x3x2 Camouflage, 2x2x3 Camouflage, SQ224, mf8 2x3x4, and one addition for the Octahedra Group: the Gear Octahedron.
- Added on 2013-02-16
- Today a small package from France: the Congestion is the biggest caged six-piece burr in my collection, definitely the heaviest and most probably the most difficult one. Instead of different woods Maurice used aluminium inlays to implement the color scheme -- high quality craftsmanship.
- Added on 2013-02-03
- Believe it or not: Today there is another new world record in the category of traditional 18 piece burrs. The Supernova has just been published on Ishino's page and has an impressive level 166! I am lucky and happy to have this record puzzle in my collection.
- Added on 2013-01-30
- Today a special world record celebration update: Some nice high level burrs created by Alfons Eyckmans. For starters a Toaster, an unusual 9 piece burr. Then some exquisit servings of the 18 piece burr menu: a puzzle creating a Nightmare already while consuming (with a lot of odd shaped ingredients), followed by a difficult to digest The Barones, and then followed by the Excelsior course leaving some taste of highest complexity. All joking aside, this last one is the reason why this is a celebration update. This puzzle is a cooperation by Jack Krijnen and Alfons Eyckmans leading to the current world record for traditional 18 pieces burrs: 156 moves for the first piece!
- Added on 2013-01-29
- Today a basic puzzle for the n-ary Puzzle Group: a Towers of Hanoi.
- Added on 2013-01-25
- A package from Nowstore: Some speedcubing puzzles are ZhanChi, a GuHong, Megaminx. Not that I would like to start into speed cubing, I am just interested how these puzzles work. If I am too tired, those two will be easy to solve: 1x1x3 and 1x1x4. Then something unusual: a twisty puzzle (believe me!) that is also sequential discovery: Q-Borg.
- Added on 2013-01-17
- A package with nice Doug Engel originals arrived: a multi function Compass puzzle, a Time Warrp, a Star Dock Puzzle, Slide Rule Duel, a Barrel Shuttle, a Blocked Barrel, a Barrel Slide, and as a bonus an Atomihedra.
- Added on 2013-01-14
- Earlier than expected a huge package from Shapeways with some very well packaged puzzles: a Tubular Burr - many rotations, what else! A Moby Maze - it only has one surface, but you have to keep two sides in focus for solving. A Rotary Cub - a puzzle with many rotations by Greg and more moves for disassembly than assembly! Quickstep - high level "void cube". Although I have solved all but the Quickstep in the 15 minutes between unboxing and the pictures, they are very nice and definitely not too easy puzzles from four different categories.
- Added on 2013-01-09
- Today a nice little package from India, containing an old Indian Puzzle Lock.
- Added on 2013-01-07
- The first update for this year are two packages from the east ordered in December: The first one looks like a magic treasure chest from ancient India and it contains three nice Indian trick/puzzle locks: Combination and Key lock, Lock with 5 keys to open, and a traditional Gurjani lock with two keys.
The second package comes even farther from the east, from Hong Kong and contains some of the latest Twisty Puzzles: Dinomorphix (the reason for my order, the others are "just" side orders), a Nautilus (have to find out how to scramble this Square-1 variant), a Master Pyraminx (now I also have a pillowed one), a 2x3x4 Camouflage (I just like 2x3x4, see my TP forum avatar), 3-layer Cheese, and a Bauhina Dodecahedron (not finished stickering yet, but you can't tell from the picture ... ). - Added on 2012-12-21
- Today an update which may lead to discussions whether I have really added some puzzles today. Well, that depends.
After receiving an interesting padlock, I decided to add some padlocks to my gallery that may not be puzzle locks, but have at least some relationship with puzzles. The first one is the reason for today's update: a Master Lock One. This lock uses a slider with movements up/down/left/right to enter a combination, and this combination is not only user-configurable, but may also be arbitrary long! Of course this is only a finite mechanical device, so after some time combinations opening the lock repeat, but it will take a very long while, as some mathematical considerations will show easily. To understand this and to see how this lock works, please have a look at the PDF and the nice interactive demonstration of the mechanism SWF demonstration hosted on toool.nl. If you have a look at these demonstrations, you will notice that there is a puzzle hidden inside this lock, in which four discs have to be turned into the right positions and with each move three discs turn. If the lock did not hide them, it would not be a lock, but a puzzle and might have shown up at Jaap's page. :)
The other two locks are less spectacular: The first one I bought in Italy maybe some 25 years ago, and it is an unsual design, at least here in Europe. It is quite simple, so that you can make it a puzzle to open it: Pushbutton padlock. The second is also unusual for Europe, but I guess every US high scool or college student has something like this Dial combination padlock I bought in Florida over 20 years ago. - Added on 2012-12-20
- Today a package from far, far away waited for me at the customs office, with one of MrPuzzle's latest limited edition. I was lucky to receive it this year already, and so it does not have the usual number 17, but number 6: a very nice L-Burr. Level 4 does not sound complicated, but there are some very nasty rotations involved -- tricky!
- Added on 2012-12-14
- I am not sure: Could Christmas be today already? Two packages arrived the same day, one from far west, from Cubicdissection, with three of the latest burr puzzles: Two Halves Cage 4A (not a boxed 6 pieces burr), Moonflight (not a moon rocket), and Uranus (not a 6 pieces burr, but with magnets!).
The second from the far east contained nice X-mas presents: they are two of this year's Karakuri X-mas presents. - Added on 2012-11-29
- The Cage for 4 Sticks arriving is the reason I did not order this puzzle from Eric today, and I just like the fine grain of the Difou wood. The 18-in-Blocks is a nice addition to both my 18pcs Burrs collection and to the Alfons Eyckmans puzzles.
- Added on 2012-11-06
- According to my calender, it's November, but "NovemBURR" might be more appropriate: After I got the three nice high level burrs from Jack Krijnen, I received a package from Alfons Eyckmans today, full of beautiful, very nice, and high or very high level burrs. They are all crafted in a new way than the others I have and are a bit smaller -- good for my storage capacity!
The first ones are boxed burrs and more complicated versions of puzzles with similar names: Lolly Box 2 and Big Havanna's. Then there are two puzzles that have a simple symmetric cage and three simple burr pieces without extensions (like the Devil in Cage). The Rat Trap additionally houses a little "rat", while the Vectes is a recent design with three identical and simple pieces, but high level for such a burr. The Zig Zag and Zig Zag 2 combine plates and burr pieces into very high level puzzles.
The 18 pieces burrs group has received two additions that are located more at the top end levelwise: The Muff has a movement scheme that looks completely different from the Phoenix family and it has a nice level that has many moves also for the second and third pieces, and quite some moves up to the nineth piece! The Baron is a new personal record for Alfons. Recently we have seen the Echo-1 at Puzzle-Place. Like the Echo-1 satellite was launched after the Tiros in the same year, the Echo-1 burr has the same number of moves for the first piece like the Tiros, 150 moves. Now "The Baron" follows these two Burrs and adds one move more to the level, to a total of 151 moves. The current world record holder for traditional 18 pieces burrs with 152, the BSfEP can still claim its title, but is only one more move away. Let's see what we are going to see next!
These were some long notes about my new puzzles. To follow Oskar van Deventer's tradition, here are some quiz questions for you: This will keep me busy for quite some time .... - Added on 2012-11-04
- Today I met many old and new but all very nice puzzle friends at Dutch Cube Day (DCD) in Voorburg, close to Den Haag (The Hague). Many intersting conversations and puzzle discussions, solving attempts and also research took place - keep your eyes open for posts on popular puzzle blogs! Beside all that I also picked up some puzzle to bring home to my collection: After receiving a Souvenir gift, my first way was to Bernhard's table, who had his own products for sale and also some from the collection of the late puzzle collector Martin Brockmann, and I picked up: Changing Partners (several puzzles in one, all non-trivial and with rotations), a Caged Burr, and then also three puzzle locks. Then I went to Michel's table whom I have brought some nice puzzles from Essen, and he had some nice puzzles and puzzling objects for me: Three Piece Tetrahedron, a nice sized Falling Rings, a vintage Dutch WWF Masterball, and an Eureka String puzzle. Very close to this table I met one of the high level burr specialists and after some nice conversation I got some pieces of the impressive "tower of burrs" he built recently: Jack's Dozen, Tipperary, and Jiminy Jack - some nice additions to my collection of 18 pieces burrs. Wil had some binary puzzles for me: Left Right Chinese Rings and Matryoshka. Finally, I picked up a solvable version of the 15/14 puzzle from Ton, and TomZ' latest mass produced puzzle. The last puzzle is a real Belgian Maze, but without the quotes, and a really hard maze protecting a precious Euro coin. I played with this puzzle at IPP and today I picked it up from Robrecht.
There have been some additions to the n-ary puzzles group today. Can you find out which ones? - Added on 2012-10-27
(Comparison of the two generations of Fidgety Rabbits puzzles. Click for large picture)What happens if you keep rabbits for some time? Right -- they start multiplying! I received some very fidgety rabbits for my collection (post below), and also these rabbits started multiplying and today a stable box with the next generation of fidgety rabbits arrived. These ternary Fidgety Rabbits are bigger than the "old" generation to accomodate more states. There are only six rabbits, but each has now three different states (instead of two), which makes them a perfect addition to the n-ary puzzles family. This new puzzle has been created for the first time, by its designer Namick Salakhovand based on his (copyrighted) design. It is a very clever design I must say -- I see that it scales not only to ternary, but also to higher order, like Namick has told me before. Please see some detail pictures of this puzzle to the right. Thank you, Namick, for this exceptional puzzle! .JPG)
 detail.JPG)
- Added on 2012-10-20
- Today something special: My first puzzle from Azerbaijan, and also my first package from Azerbaijan. I received a new member of the n-ary puzzles family, a Fidgety Rabbits. This white beauty was part of this year's IPP Design Competition and is a very nice new concept to implement a binary movement scheme. The puzzle came in a beautiful and very stable box, please see the picture. I have never seen a puzzle so well packaged before! Thank you, Namick!
- Added on 2012-10-20
- Back from "Essener Spieletage 2012" I came home with some more puzzles: From Jean-Claude Constantin I brought some n-ary Puzzles: a Kugellager 2 I did not have yet and a disentanglement puzzle (which looks binary at first sight, but has yet to be confirmed); the 4 Stones Labyinth is a new puzzle which I first had to solve for the picture; a Combination Lock, a small Zodiac Box, a bigger LabyBox, a 20 Cent and an improved Oval Office; concluded with a rare Hysteresis Key. From Hendrik I got a Snow Mystery (for the winter approaching?) and some nice Siebenstein puzzles: Up and Down (solved for the picture and not as hard as expected, but still challenging) and a Schiebung. At the Philos booth I not only met a nice puzzle friend, but also got some interesting puzzles for a bargain: Cup Puzzle and Arrow Puzzle.
- Added on 2012-10-17
- A box from Eric could be picked up at the Customs office today, containing: An Accordion/Disjointed Cube -- an independent design by two designers. I met Ken Irvine (designer of "Accordion") this year at IPP and he had a big collection of his custom designs with him. Unfortunately they were not for sale, but luckily there was more than one woodworker at IPP who picked up some of these designs to produce them. Eric's version is the first one, stay tuned for more Ken Irvine puzzles to come in 2013! The other puzzles are: The Rattle (a packing puzzle, not my main puzzle type interest, but a nice puzzle) and an interlocking puzzle by Greg: 2 Cage 3BB.
- Added on 2012-10-11
- Now back to regular updates: From Arteludes three nice puzzles, Cannich (for my Alfons Eyckmanns Burr Collection), Simple UC Trapped (a nice puzzle by Stephane) and as a bonus a Les 2 Boules Desunies.
- Added on 2012-10-08
- Today something special again: I managed to create some first additional challenges for my Exchange puzzle Acrobat. More to follow from time to time.
- Structural update on 2012-09-21
- As you may have noticed, something happened to the puzzle category/classes on this page. After more or less dynamic growth of this gallery page with more and more puzzles, and after the introduction of sub pages in the grid views to manage the growing number of puzzles by the end of last year, I decided to give the web site a major overhaul. The main differences happened "under the hood", but there are two things that are visible:
- New and different categories -- there were too many puzzles that did not fit the "Assembly" category -- the major part, to be precise.
- Designer field -- the puzzle designer is now in a separate field and the list can be sorted for desigers as well. So far, only existing information has been transferred.
- Added on 2012-09-12
- Today some very nice burrs from Greg Benedetti arrived which he presented at IPP32: Blind Burr and Odd Repartition. The Blind Burr is a very unusual burr and was one of the top ten vote getters at IPP32 Design Competition.
- Added on 2012-09-08
- Currently, I am doing some research on those n-ary puzzles together with some other puzzlers. In the process, I have created a ternary puzzle prototype of a Bob Hearn design that has never been built before, it only existed in a paper on Bob's homepage. Using Lego bricks (and a bit of glue), and some stickers, I created a prototype version of Sliding-block "Chinese Rings" style puzzle. Now I can do pracitical research on this puzzle and since there a many small pieces involed, there are a lot of moves for a 3-ring ternary puzzle!
- Added on 2012-08-21
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Now that I have been back from IPP for some time, I have found the time to get all the Exchange puzzles into my gallery. As there are about 80 of them, I will not mention them here one by one, but have put them ona separate page of IPP32 Exchange puzzles
This is also to avoid putting them on this web page in an unstructured pile, similar to the one created from these puzzles on my living room table (see picture to the right).
- Added on 2012-08-19
- Last week I have been to a fabulous IPP32 and coming back, here are the first puzzles I brought with me. They are the puzzles I bought at the Puzzle Party, the puzzles from the Exchange are expected to come on-line in an additional update coming week -- there are just so many of them to be photographed, catalogued and eventually also solved.
From the Puzzle Party I brought a Design Competiton entry somewhat similar to the Quadlocks, but more complicated, as after removing the key pieces, the frame needs some more lock-picking moves to be taken apart: Burrblock. From Richard some nice tiny microcubology items: Coherence and Bolero; from Greg some of his designs with twists and turns, not from wood, but printed: Tronc Commun 4 and Doube Noeud. From Brian an IPP27 puzzle, a maze looking one-dimensional only at first sight: Straight Forward. From Abraham Jacob some nice binary puzzles (see n-ary puzzles) I have only heard of recently: Trio, Quartet, Quintet, and Sextet F&L puzzles. The last one was given as table puzzle at the Awards Banquet. - Added on 2012-07-17
- A package with nice puzzles from Arteludes: Nickel Box and Les Cerises
- Added on 2012-07-16
- Today the third part of my order of nice Iwahiro coordinate motion puzzles arrived: Triangular Jam. These 5 two-dimensional coordinate motion puzzles (1,2,3,4,5). may lack the third dimension, but they are nevertheless fascinating puzzles. For somebody like me who is used to axis-parallel burr-like movements, they are a nice training for out-of-the-box-thinking. Thank you, Dirk, for pointing me to them!
- Added on 2012-07-15
- I found some more of these fascinating coordinate motion puzzles by Iwahiro: Pentagonal Jam and Hexagonal Jam
- Added on 2012-07-09
- Today a little box, a Tea Box -- Granny's Hammer. In it's first life, it was a real tea box containing tea. Now it is a nice little puzzle box. Why the "hammer" in the name? Well, it comes indeed with a little hammer!
- Added on 2012-07-06
- The computer loops is a Chinese Rings variant by Mag-Nif from 1975, a binary puzzle
- Added on 2012-07-03
- When I opened my mailbox today, a true nightmare awaited me .... The Nightmare is a bigger and more complicated variant of the Diavolo. Not to be mixed up with Alfons Eyckmans' recent 18 pieces burr of the same name.
- Added on 2012-06-25
- A nice package from Eric: Slow Waltz is a nice new 4x4x4 cube, N-One is a tiny level 15.3 keychain puzzle, and Chen's 6 BB is a high level board burr (=BB).
- Added on 2012-06-22
- Some of Wil's latest inventions arrived today: New Dovetail. It is a very nice addition to the well known Dovetail series of convex and concave dovetails, and collectors who already have both of these will like the new one. For Dovetail-professionals it features some new concept and classic solutions might not work, for all amateurs and beginners, there are some tricks to overcome. And then there is the majority of people who do not believe that such shapes can be disassembled at all, but believe me: it is possible! Maybe this is the nicest aspect of these puzzles: Let people guess how these objects were assembled and how they can be disassembled again.
- Added on 2012-06-13
- Today a small package arrived from Problemboden, Finland -- small, but containing some big puzzle business. The first puzzle in it seems to have something to do with ???, but it's not a detective story, but an n-ary puzzle: Mysterians, a 5-ary puzzle. Then there are two puzzles that look easy, but certainly are not (they are by Iwahiro, need I add more?): Rectangular Jam and Rightangular Jam. Then, there are some two Finnish puzzle boxes: Tricky Gift Box and Trick Box "Finland".
- Added on 2012-06-07
- An interesting package containing some of Alfons Eckman's latest works arrived. They are all of high craftmanship and very nice to play with. The property that none of these puzzles can satisfy is being easy -- luckily!
There are three new 18 pieces burrs in three different shapes: The Garuda is a traditional shape 18piece burr with a level close to a 100, and it seems to be part of the Phoenix familiy (first impression after trying about 80 moves), then the Waddon, which has wider pieces like the Phelan, and then a new type with entirely flat pieces: the level 29 Cephio.
Also in the package were: Triton (a hybrid burr), Cocoon (in some way similar to Padaung Rings), and Devil in Cage (only three pieces in a cage, but level 54). - Added on 2012-06-05
- Today two packages were waiting for me at the customs office:
The first is from India and contains two beautiful and tricky vintage padlocks for my collection: Trick Lock with four keys and Trick Lock with three steps.
The second package also came from the east, but a little farer away from Hong Kong with state of the art twisty puzzles: Plum Flower Snake, Mixup Plus Cube (not at all standard 3x3x3), and some pillowed pentahedrons: 3 Layers Pentahedron, Crazy 3 Layers Pentahedron, and 5 Layers Pentahedron. - Added on 2012-05-25
- At IPP31 a special custom made puzzle was presented to the organizing committee, were I first saw it. Now Wil has managed to get a small batch created and sent me one, a puzzle remotely similar to the "Kugellagers", but not n-ary: IPP31 Berlin Puzzle.
- Added on 2012-05-20
- A local shop find during a holiday trip in Germany: Crazy 2x3x3 (white).
- Added on 2012-05-09
- Today a nice package from Wil arrived: he packed a puzzle (Secret Box) and a huge and extinct animal (dino) into a small cage. Magic? See here: Secret Box + Dino in a Cage. Also in the package were some nice aluminum puzzles: Concave dovetail and Convex dovetail
- Update on 2012-04-23
- Reworked yesterday's update on puzzle 1000. It turned out to be double-ternary instead of 6-ary, which is a completely new type of puzzle.
- Added on 2012-04-22
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Only a few hours before the German Cube Day (GCD) it arrived: The last puzzle to get a three digit number. It is a Bin Laden and it is as close to being number 1000 as it is as close to being a true binary puzzle. It was designed by Rik van Grol to seem like a binary puzzle at first, but to get you stuck in a dead end then. Only when you figure out that in fact it is a hybrid of binary and ternary puzzle, you can solve it. This is also the motivation for the "devilish" name. .JPG "Bin Laden")
From the GCD I brought the following puzzles:.JPG "Auf dem Holzweg")
-=- 1000 -=- This is the moment that readers of this web page (and myself) have been waiting for: My collection has crossed the 1000 boundary and puzzle numbers are four digits from now on.
I have been wondering which puzzle would get the honour to be the celebration puzzle, but when I found this puzzle on GCD yesterday, I had no doubt: I picked up an Auf dem Holzweg which seemed to be the first level-6-Kugellager to exist (or actually equivalent, but very, very close to a Kugellager). However, it turned out to be something new: A combination of two ternary puzzles (see yellow and green sections in the picture to the right), which I will now call "double-ternary". More details on this discovery are presented in my updated article.
After my research on n-ary puzzles (see Kugellager.pdf and the n-ary Puzzles Group page) it seems that his puzzle has deserved to be number 1000. If you do not believe me, have a look at the updates for puzzles 900 and 500 in the update history.
A vintage binary puzzle SPIN-OUT by Binary Arts. This and the other n-ary puzzles are on the now updated n-ary Puzzles Group page.
Closely related to the Towers of Hanoi is the Rudenko Disk. I met Theo Geerinck and got his Chainstitch. From Siebenstein are the Holzweg Puzzle above and: Diavolo, Safe, and Nur Mut, a tiny Burr. I met Willem van der Poel an got the first of one of his IPP exchange puzzles, a Combination Lock. Michel van Ipenburg brought me some of Oskar's interesting designs: a Planar Burr (as described in one of the Gathering for Gardner books) and a Domino Tower, accompanied by a Jeliku. For my cuboid collection, I also got a Twisty Puzzle: a 4x4x6. - Added on 2012-04-18
- Just before GCD and a few days after finishing all those Burrs some new puzzles from Arteludes: A Pyramid, a nice Chateau d'If, and an Identity Matrix. Usually, in Mathematics, an identity matrix is something simple with a clear and simple structure. Here, we have a nice puzzle called Identity Matrix that is far from trivial: 24 identical notchable pieces that lead to an astonishing level of 13.8.
- Added on 2012-03-24
- The high number of high level Burrs I reveiced lately, enabled me to add the group page that has been planned for some time: 18 Pieces Burrs -- a true high level page
- Added on 2012-03-21
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Today is Burr's day (no, not birthday, but with a similar feeling), and to let you know why, let's have a look at the latest update. Today I picked up three packets at three different locations (hooray, German post offices!) and got a whole load of nice Burrs:
- From Maurice Vigouroux and Guillaume Largounez: an Abad's level 9 burr
- From Alfons Eyckmans: A Condor, a Phoenix, a Phoenix-Cabracan, a Misery, and an Al Capone
- From Jack Krijnen: A Century
Since this a lot of puzzles and Jack knows that I already have some, he included a nice house for me to build and store all the puzzles in it. :)
Today I won't provide links from the puzzle name to the puzzle pages, but instead run a little quiz:
- Find out which puzzle is which in the picture to the right! To verify, just point with the mouse or click on the puzzles in the picture.
- Estimate: What is the sum of the moves to get all first pieces out of these burrs? Answer, click here (Needs Javascript).
- Added on 2012-03-20
- Today: History lesson. Puzzle friend Michel van Ipenburg found a historic member of the Kugellager family and for this I have updated Kugellager.pdf (see new Chapter 17).
- Added on 2012-03-12
- Another Monday, another trip to the customs office. This time for a nice Tom's Square Dance
- Added on 2012-03-05
- Picked up a late x-mas present and lottery win -- at the customs office: a Secret Base 2. Like Secret Base it has fascinating movements!
- Added on 2012-02-29
- Today a puzzle entry update, not a new puzzle: after disassembling, the "Balder" in fact seems to be a different design by Alfons, a Sleipnir. It has some very interesting moves.
- Added on 2012-02-26
- Today no puzzle update, but puzzle related: I have added a new chapter (16) about some old and new puzzles to my article Kugellager.pdf. Enjoy reading!
- Added on 2012-02-25
- My win from recent Cubicdissection auction: Clamp -- one more interesting and very well crafted Miyamoto puzzle for me!
- Added on 2012-02-18
- From Hongkong a new puzzle which starts to confuse me once it is turned, as so many pieces are rotating simultaneously and with different rotational speeds: Gear Pyraminx
- Added on 2012-02-15
- A very nice surprise package from Alfons Eyckmans containing two very well crafted high level 18 pieces burrs, many thanks! The first is the well known Tiros, playing in the world's top league of burrs. The second one I have identified as Balder, a very interesting hybrid of regular 18 piece burr pieces and the ones with 2x3 base, known from the Phelan or Dirty Dozen. This definitely brings back some memories from recent solves of these two 16 and 18 piece burrs.
- Added on 2012-02-07
- Sometimes I also order puzzles from Amazon. Not very complicated, but interesting: Oblo Puzzle Spheres -- a spherical, multi-layered packing puzzle
- Added on 2012-02-05
- Second group page, about a group of twisty puzzles: Twisty Octahedra
Second update today: This page has received a new layout -- as seen already above. - Added on 2012-02-01
- First February update is a nice puzzle from TomZ, in cooperation with mf8: 3x4x5
- Added on 2012-01-28
- A nice Oskar design from Meffert's: Gift Cube
- Added on 2012-01-21
- A very interesting puzzle just released recently: Washer Cylinder by Wil Strijbos. From the outside it is just an aluminum cylinder, but inside lies the real fun (which I will see once solved). It's a bit shorter than it's older brother, the Aluminum Cylinder.
- Added on 2012-01-14
- A fascinating puzzle from Alfons Eyckmans: Dirty Dozen -- A 12 piece burr? A 16 piece burr? -- Well, both of it! One from the outside and one from the inside.
Added later the day: Meanwhile I have received mail from the Karakuri group and know the name of the X-Mas present I got: Pump. After a look at the overview sheet I am very comfortable with my choice of present.
Added even later the same day: Today I finally started a feature on this site that was on my wishlist for long: Group pages. Starting with the most famous group for this page (I believe), I will add more groups occasionally, providing an overview of puzzles that may have something in common -- may it be obvious or not. - Added on 2012-01-13
- A package with nice puzzles from Cubicdissection: Rattle Box and Ribbons Puzzle by Tom Jolly and a Havanna's Box #1 -- guess what's in it!
A very interesting puzzle came from Australia, a Hexadecimal Puzzle (reproduction by Bill Wylie). - Added on 2012-01-06
- The first package this year came from Hong Kong: Star Minx II and DaYan Gem IV
- Added on 2011-12-30
- Probably the last update for this year, but one covering several areas:
From my puzzle friend Michel van Ipenburg I got a nice Constantin puzzle: Bonbon
The gallery is growing bigger and bigger, and it might take a long time to load and the many images may slow down some browsers (e.g. mobile devices), I decided to overhaul my gallery creation script after it was running fine for more than three years now.- The picture galleries are now split into several pages and you can navigate between them using the navigation bar on top. For those of you who would still like to view all puzzles of a type, just click on [All] in the navigation bar.
- The list view now offers the possibility to jump to the first puzzle starting with a selected character, same for manufacturer, and jump to first puzzle of a category
- I have tested the new script and web site, but there may be bugs. If you find some or have suggestions, please do let me know. Thanks
- Added on 2011-12-26
- Just before Christmas I received my nice present from the Karakuri Club. Spoiler warning: If you are still waiting for yours and if it would be by Miyamoto, don't read on! I don't know the name of it and will update the gallery once I have received it. The puzzle looks a bit like one of these old fashioned Scales whose base has then been put in a box, but see for yourself: X-mas Present. It is not trivial, but I have managed to open it already. Now I have to figure out in detail how the mechanism and solution works.
- Added on 2011-12-17
- From the new Online Shop "Arteludes" featuring puzzles crafted by Maurice Vigouroux, a package with some very high quality puzzles, both in craftmanship and design: Burr in Cage (in nice yellow Difou wood), Phelan, Xenon, and for X-mas Six pieces Star
- Special update on 2011-10-22
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With my last update, my gallery crossed the line of 900 items and so I decided to decide to pick out a special one from this update: A 7-ary Kugellager which (to my knowledge) is the first 7-ary puzzle and has level 4802.
Of course, I have added the puzzle to my paper about n-ary puzzles and I am proud to present a new version today: Kugellager.pdf. Enjoy reading!
- Other/Older updates:
- Can be found on the update history page
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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.
| Last change: 2013-05-17 | [TO MY HOMEPAGE] | © Goetz Schwandtner 2008 |