Acrobat

Goetz Schwandtner's IPP32 Exchange puzzle: Acrobat by Diniar Namdarian

One main event of each IPP (International Puzzle Party) is the Edward Hordern Puzzle Exchange. where puzzle collectors may exchange new puzzles following a certain (quite chaotic) procedure. At IPP32 in Washington DC I participated in the Exchange and my Exchange puzzle was "Acrobat", and this is a page with some additional challenges to this puzzle. More information about this year's Exchange and the other Exchange puzzles can be found on my IPP32 Exchange gallery page.

Important note before puzzling: The puzzle comes with two (white or green) stands that should be mounted into the bottom holes of opposite sides of the board -- please see picture for example. You can even leave these stands in there when storing the puzzle; the only reason why they do not come pre-mounted is to save space during travel from IPP home.

With the stands it is much easier for the acrobats to do their artistic tricks. Without it is more like a drunken-acrobats-trying-not-to-fall-over-in-sliding-piece puzzle. I do not know if I would like this dexterity aspect or like to receive some complaints from the acrobat union.

I felt that this note would be worth mentioning, as I have seen people trying to play with the puzzle without adding the stands to the board -- despite the paragraph "Before playing: Setup of the Puzzle".

Now to the additional challenges that have been announced on the leaflet that comes with the puzzle. I will start with some easy challenges at first, that are very easy and use only a small part of the board and add some more complicated ones from time to time.

For a bigger version of the image, please click on the small images in the table below.

	Acrobat micro 1: Using valid moves, move the orange acrobat onto the orange piece.
	Acrobat micro 2: Variation of Acrobat micro 1. Using valid moves, move the orange acrobat onto the orange piece.
	Acrobat mini 1: A little bigger than the micros, but now two acrobats on the board. Using valid moves, move the orange acrobat on the orange piece and the yellow acrobat on the yellow piece. Be careful that the acrobats are not in each other's way, i.e. on adjacent fields in the orientations described in the rules.
	Acrobat mini 2: Same puzzle size as the mini above, now the orientation of the acrobats is important: Please set up the two acrobats with the head to the right for blue and head down for red. The challenge is to get both acrobats heads up, with a valid move sequence, of course. This is an easy one!
	Acrobat anniversary: About one year ago, IPP32 was held in Washington DC and this puzzle was published and exchanged in the Edward Hordern Puzzle Exchange. Now during IPP33, time for an anniversary challenge: Like in the initial challenge from the presentation of this puzzle, we have the yellow and orange acrobat on the board, and they now have to move to their goal position of the same color. Again, the yellow accrobat may not move onto the orange piece, and the orange acrobat not on the yellow piece, and remember that they may not come too close to each other. Not a difficult challenge. Enjoy!

Solutions: As for the challenges provided in the leaflet coming with the puzzle, I will provide solutions for the challenges above. They come in the same notation as introduced in the leaflet. They might not be optimal. You can see the solutions clicking this link.

New ideas? Custom challenges? If you have created your own challenges for acrobat and would like to have them published on this page, please e-mail me a picture of the challenge and preferably also a solution. My address is: