Extremely Puzzling - Goetz Schwandtner's Puzzles

On this page some extremely puzzling objects are displayed: My private puzzle collection consisting of a wide range of three-dimensional puzzles, from industrial produced Rubik's Cube like puzzles to my custom builds, from production range Pihilos wood puzzles to rare and special puzzles from various excellent craftsmen, and not to forget the Japanese Himitsu Bakos, including some equisite works of the Karakuri Creation Group. Please note that you won't find any (standard) jigsaw puzzles on these pages, may they be two or three dimensional.

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 2024-10-03

Today I went to the Essen "Spiel" games fair, which was fun and really crowded (actually, they had sold out all tickets for Thursday, Friday, and Saturday, which was a first, and maybe because of the German national holiday today)! A lot to see there, and also some puzzle friends to meet. Counting them, I actually bought more board games and card games than puzzles, but still a nice haul of puzzles. As usual, the Constantin booth was my first to visit, and Jules had a lot of nice puzzles on display and offer. I went for some puzzle boxes, one of which I had already solved partially and then decided I needed to have for my collection and full solve, and also an Exchange puzzle from IPP41 (see below). As usual, I don't know the names for all of the boxes, so the ones with * are my own name, and one of them even has no name at all yet. The Coin Box seems to have something rattling inside, and I guess that is ... coins? Available in two variants, and I went for the beautiful dark one. The Heart Box is nicely decorated and the heart may be part of the solution — sometime, but not now? The Round ornament box* was the one I started solving, and it seems to have a nice progression of steps so far. No luck with the Geneva box, but there is a maze, a ball bearing, and those gears beneath that seem to have some effect on the maze in some way. At Puzzle-Shop's booth there were many nice and colourful puzzles to see, and if you want to find it on the fair, just look out for a very large Rubik's style cube somewhere just above the fair booths — in hall 6 at least that is how I located it. I have never played with any Yuu Asaka puzzle before (still not preferring packing puzzles), but I succeeded solving the demo copy of the one with the black pieces and red discs, just to be messed up again by the shop owner to avoid spoilers for the next customer. I was lucky to buy one I had seen before, and which seems to have some interlocking component to it: Creep 2. That looks really interesting! Just for fun I bought a copy of 3x3x3 smallest mass produced cube. It has an edge length of 1cm, yet it is fully functional, just made a checkerboard pattern and returned it back to solved, and it turns surprisingly well. I have just added it into the display container of the tiny 18 pieces burr I have, which is maybe 2mm larger in side length, and not as easy to handle at this size, and those two look cute inside the box. From IPP41, some Exchange puzzles found their way into my collection: Gears is a packing puzzle with two gears with a static axle, and that causes all kinds of issues when trying to pack or unpack the gears through the opening on the side " more than a packing puzzle! The next one makes it easy to guess where IPP41 was held (or more precisely: no guessing required, just reading — and the answer is not somewhere outer space!): Houston, we halve a problem. Having played with the maze a bit it is fascinating to see the pieces interact, and maybe now I am in the position to issue that famous call for help. But still trying to solve and revert it back to actually reduce that problem into two halves. A fun design! Then two variations of known puzzles: Fractal Puck is a bit like the series Scott Elliot created a few years back, but the cuts for this one are much more complicated. Flippe Egg looks like it is a variant of the Flippe Ball, and from my past experience you have to be really careful with the little ball bearing inside, it tends to be very quick and likes escaping! While there vere around a handful of the manufacturers of kits and puzzle boxes / escape room boxes made from laser cut plywood (and more), I found that one manufacturer of two kits I bought earlier (to build puzzle boxes as DIY) now also has an escape room box for offer: Maya Pyramid Puzzle Box. It looks great and resembles one of those Mesoamerican pyramids having a differnt look that the Egyptian ones (which was theme for an earlier escape room box a few years ago). Lots of puzzling fun, and many games, that is going to take a while or much longer!

Added on 2024-09-25

Last year, I bought a Bandit puzzle to solve and had some fun playing with this slot machine and winning the jackpot in the end. And today the next one has arrived, in same beautiful red colour: Pinball Wizard. It looks like this is a working tiny pinball table, and there is a little ball bearing coming with it. There is an instruction card telling you what to do (and what not to do), and it seems the first stage is really to have some fun playing pinball. It is nicely heavy, sitting on its 4 rubber feet and just waiting to be played with, and hopefully soon I will find out what number the wizard will tell me. More puzzling fun!

Added on 2024-09-24

A parcel from Knobelbox arrived today with some puzzle boxes (sic!). The first one is a new Constantin box and according to the description it has several steps: Swan Box. In German, it also could be related to my last name, but it probably isn't. Still a box I wanted to buy. It looks nice and feels heavy and there seems to be something inside making some noises. The next one also has some rattling inside and this seems to be due to some metal ball in a maze: Maze1 Truck Secret Escape Box, as you can also guess from the name. Also a maze component seems to be built into this Grandfather Clock Secret Escape Box. Not the exqusite Stickman box with the same theme, and a good deal smaller, but still nicely decorated. After solving the excellent Tesla box (with a lot of electronics inside!) recently, I now have something new for my solving backlog — not that this was ever in danger of being used up! Still a lot of puzzling fun ahead!

Added on 2024-09-22

Yesterday we had a nice puzzle meeting with a handful of puzzlers, both local as well as an international guest. I met Volker there as well, and he had some fun analyzing and solving some puzzles from other designers, and he had some very nice puzzles for me — many thanks! A puzzle I had seen before and was planning to get is a 2D packing puzzle with a very restricted opening: Collatz. The arrangement in the picture is only for shipping, and the task is to remove the lid and the red pieces, then put the lid back in and then perform some sort of keyhole surgery to put all the pieces into the frame again, only using that small opening on the side. Eleventh Hour came disassembled and without further information, and it seems that one piece had disintegrated a bit, which is now fixed again. Looking forward to solve this one. The next three are from the well known Minima series, and the first I have: Minima Bauhaus, Minima Ludique, and Minima Nest. I wonder whether I will be able to solve these and how they work. There has been a lot of praise about them recently. I could also buy some puzzles at the puzzle meeting, and one is a nicely crafted one by Goh and Lensch again, and similar in the style to one I already have and that was recently released: Dancing Shoes, a nice one from a series from a few years ago. Then there are several interlocking puzzles, the first one a simple 3 piece burr in some complicated cage consisting of two partial cubes: Sticks in Bicube. Teaser is from a designer that was active many years ago for some time, and I have not heard from him again. Drehwürfel* is a special TIC, which I have not seen like that before. This one is a difficult to take apart TIC, where there are some surprises waiting in the inner mechanisms and shapes, I guess from what I have seen so far. The next one is a true vintage puzzle that came in a package with the yellowing of plastic retro things: Einsiedler-Box. I already have a puzzle from this manufacturer, but did not know what it was or who made it until just a few years ago someone pointed me to it. Then I also found a little cow (calf?) to go with the larger one I already have: Petite Vache Rouge. The number of pieces is considerably different amongst those and so is the solution. Both are serially interlocking puzzles, of course. The Secret Code puzzle I saw several years ago show up in online shops, but never got around to buy it. It is an easy puzzle, and you can see I have already solved the first challenge. The 33E is a puzzle with 3 pieces only, assembling into a 3D cross shape, and I have no idea yet how difficult this will be and how many moves it will take. Bloom is puzzling me a bit. Don't know who made it, and apparently the goal is to arrange the pieces into a circle as shown, and then use this circle (maybe transferring it to some paper) to fill it with the petals on the inside. A lot of puzzles to play with, and this will keep me busy for some more time. At the same time, I have made some progress with some others of the late arrivals, while others just keep me wondering how to progress.
Update: Meanwhile, I had two friends contacting me to help with the details of the Bloom puzzle, one of them the designer. Thanks for the clarification of this vintage design competition entry!

Added on 2024-09-17

This year has seen several Kickstarter campaigns for wooden escape room in a box puzzles so far, and another one started earlier today. After the previous one recently with a fascinating Space Rover, today a package from another German company arrived, from Bavaria. It is themed around Nikola Tesla and the main object is: Puzzle Box Nikola Tesla, and it came with a small mini version for self assembly with a lid (not a puzzle, but nice to assemble). With this theme, it does not only come with laser cut plywood and acrylic, but also electronic components causing light effects. Wondering how this will work without batteries, I have fiddled with the box a bit and have found out some surprising effects, but I won't spoil it here. As some side orders to this campaign arrived: Tesla's Boat Puzzle Box, which is based on a design of an electric radio controlled boat by Tesla, and in this case a nice wooden puzzle box on a stand. The two others are from the existing production range of this manufacturer, and smaller round puzzles: Topsy-Turvy is meant to be a puzzle lock for a wine bottle. The Screw Up is a frame with a screw going through the center and a brass ring in the middle. The goal is obviously to remove this ring from the puzzle, but while everything seems to be visible, that does not mean it is trivial. Four more nice puzzles to solve, and while I have made some progress with other puzzles (for example solving the very fun Threads puzzle), there are quite some causing some severe head scratching.

Added on 2024-09-09

Earlier this year, I added a new piano to my collection. It was 3D printed and a really nice take apart puzzle, had a lot of fun disassembling and reassembling that puzzle. Now stepping up a bit, is another 3D printed musical instrument: The Organ. It feels much heavier than the piano and shaking it carefully there are also some sounds to be heard. It has two manuals, many stops, and also some pipes printed in a shiny copper colour. It looks beautiful, with all those golden ornaments. I have the feeling not all are there just for decoration. Careful examination showed that some of them seem to have a function for the puzzle, but which one is yet to be determined. While the designer was well known for boxes created from laser cut ply wood, he now shows us something that would be hard (if not impossible) to create in wood at this scale. I am looking forward to having a lot of fun playing (with) the organ!

Added on 2024-09-04

An early update today for a puzzle I bought a while ago for playtesting and providing feedback: Keebox orange. This is the latest of the Keebox family, nice looking white 3D printed boxes with sequential discovery elements in them. Like for the yellow one, you need to crack some code here and use it to progress, and there are also tools involved. I had a lot of fun solving this one and playing through the different aspects of the solution. Like the others, it is very well made and works well. This one is an improved version of the former Keebox 1, adding some elements and improving mechanisms, and there will also be a even more improved production version based on the feedback from us testers. This one is going to be released later today, in the evening (CEST) on the Keebox web site. This is definitely a fun puzzle for people who like 3D printed sequential discovery puzzles/boxes!

Added on 2024-09-03

Today I solved a puzzle hunt carefully crafted by DHL, because regular delivery is too boring. They have definitely increased the difficulty on this latest hunt a bit by adding extra steps required, but with my experience from such past puzzle hunts I was well prepared and not too surprised. And the prize I could pick up (with the help of several tools, one related to my bank account) was definitely worth it! From the Two Brass Monkeys and Shane Hales the brand new Who Dares Wins / Haleslock 6. So this is both the 6^th in the series of numbered Haleslocks — and I have enjoyed the others a lot, especially the previous one — and a high quality brass puzzle from the Two Brassmonkeys, the creators of BMSD earlier this year, a puzzle I still pick up every now and then to enjoy the solution and dismantle it into a huge pile of tiny parts. So the expectations for this one are high, but at first glance this puzzle coming in a cloth bag with golden colour (how fitting!) looks great, has a nice heavy touch, and the key does not work!! Well, it would have been too easy had the key worked. The features Shane's signature like for all Haleslocks, and the key fob is a nice printed instructions card at the same time. This is actually not only a lock, but also some form of puzzle box/container housing a small golden pad lock to be discovered. Looking forward to solve this one, even though I have not made any progress so far. The key does not work, and some other minor observations have been made already, this is going to be fun!

Added on 2024-08-29

On Sunday there was a surprise release of a new puzzle: Threads, and it has arrived today. It is a quite heavy 3D printed box with a red knob on it, with an interesting behaviour. Maybe this is where the mechanism sits? Or maybe it is red as in "red herring"? I have made some small discoveries, but none of them seems to be useful so far. So back to that knob again? I am curious to see what I will find! It may have something to do with threads. That is the name of the box!

Added on 2024-08-28

Two parcels today: The first one is IPP41 related again, and contained the other of the Vertigo puzzles in the Design Competition, which I did not have before: Vertigo won an award at IPP and it is not only made beautifully from wood, but also has a nice heavy feel to it and smells fine. The only issue with it seems to be to find the first move that does something. Not spoiling anything if I mention that the round center disk spins freely? Well finding the first move and subsequent steps is part of the puzzling fun with this one, and I am expecting a lot of it. The other two puzzles are from the latest Escapewelt Kickstarter campaign: Space Rover has a nice heavy feel to it as well and is covered with all kinds of elements on the surface, and some of them surprised me a bit. With the large drill at the front and the tracks it looks like some form of mining equipment, probably for extraterresrial resource development. However, some parts of this remind me of that wild machine in Atlantis in the old LucasArts adventure game. The Secret Maze Box was an add-on and originally themed "Worm hole". It has a maze in the lid and I have already spotted a small steel ball bearing runing inside, probably that is what is used for the maze. Looking forward to solve these new puzzles, and of course some of the other ones still waiting. I have made some progress on my solving backlog, but some puzzles just resist any attempts so far. But that is the idea, isn't it?

Added on 2024-08-23

The postman brought a small parcel from the US today, and this time it is IPP41 related again, a Design Competition Entry: Scion of the Tesseract. With the noticable difference of materials, this looks like Juno's SDCB, and the first move seems to be similar. Only that here it can be found more easily and is reversible without problems. I have already found what seems to be the next few steps, (hiding the rest behind some mouse cursor activated spoiler bar in case you don't want to be spoiled only slightly) and this has removed a part of the puzzle. And then I may have managed to extract a tool. It looks very much like a tool! Next question: Where to use it, and how? Found something answering that question, and it was a bit unexpected, but what does it do, exactly? Like in Juno's puzzle, magnets seems to play an important role in this one here and cause various actions and reactions. Unlike yesterday's puzzle this one looks 3D printed and uses the patterns created by multi color filament printing to give the puzzle a mysterious look. And mysterious is also what the workings of these puzzles are to me, to be discovered sequentially very soon.

Added on 2024-08-22

A parcel from Texas arrived, but not IPP related this time. Contents: a key chain puzzle, Chained Key. It has been 3D printed with additional metal parts, but the looks of the puzzle are excellent and only on close inspection this appears to be 3D printed, and it has a nice color. It seems that this will also be available made from metal in the very near future, but also this version has a very high quality and heavy feel to it. The puzzle arrived quickly and thanks to Luke for making sure everything went well! Of course, I could not resist and started playing with this sequential discovery puzzle, and quickly I discovered some tool, and then more tools. And wow, one of the steps has a previously unknown creative use of tools! I did not expect it to work at first, but it worked immediately. Making some progress I have not solved it yet, and something I was expecting has not worked yet. Would have been too easy otherwise, and less puzzling fun! I am looking forward to completely solving this keychain and maybe one day extracting the key. There seems to be a lot going on inside!

Added on 2024-08-08

Not one, but two parcels arrived from Czech Republic today. The first one was a bit of a surprise, as I was expecting it later this month only. The Demonticons family has a new member, this time in dark green: Shelly. Like for most others, the eyes look fascinating and like they should be part of a mechanism. I have already started fiddling with this one a bit, have found some elements and also a surprise. Fascinating!
The other parcel has beautiful wooden puzzles inside, and more from IPP41. The Burrglar is a burr with the pieces shown in the picture, and I have managed to solve this one, but only after some discovery to be made on the way. The other exchange puzzle is Currly Burr N8, and at IPP it came in an disassembled configuration as well. It reminds me of another of Frans' exchange puzzles, also a 6 pieces burr in this configuration. Playing with it a bit, I have found some unexpected and nice move, which surely must be part of the solution. Probably the main reason for my recent shopping tour in the Pelikan shop were two packing puzzles with some extra elements: Cabrio reminds me of an IPP prize winner from the past, and I remember that Volker wanted to take a look at this puzzle some while ago. Of course, this new one seems more complicated with all the different shapes to be packed into the box with the sliding cover. Cubi 8 Plus Alpha is by another well known designer of such packing puzzles, and not only looks interesting, but also offers some fun interactions. Only 8 cubes are to be put into this box, but they have rails on them, and the rails of some span over the full height of two adjacent cubes. Tying to pull out the one in the opening as shown on the picture will nicely demonstrate how this interaction works. The last one is from a designer I remember from older puzzles from some years ago, and this looks to be an interesting and beautifully made 8 pieces burr: Hitch. At the beginning of the disassembly it starts with a few different moves to select, and it could be a little challenge even at the not very high level it features. After I managed to get that reduced a bit, my solving backlog of puzzling fun is growing again!

Added on 2024-08-02

With the two parcels from Ivan and Zack yesterday arrived some surprise puzzles requiring a closer look first. The first one is the latest one from the chess puzzle series and available in the PuzzleGuy store now: Rook Puzzle. It is like a smaller chess board with 13 chess figures in this case nicely 3D printed and sitting on a board with clean laser engravings. The goal is to arrange them as shown in the picture and then guide the black rook to the black square on the right only using valid chess moves for all pieces (and the pawns cannot move backwards, and are not allowed to capture the rook to move diagonally). This does not seem to be an easy one. I have played with it a bit and have explored several dead ends in the sequences. It is fun to play with in this high quality build and a nice challenge yet to be solved. The other one seems to have been some treat coming with Louie, and is a very unusual six piece burr: Triple Helix. The orange pieces are helix shaped and have some cut outs to interact, and they perfectly slide into the white pieces in a rotating motion (a bit like Screwy-Louie) and lock them into place. Constructing the shape from the pieces is not overly difficult, but fun. Imagine this build being attempted without 3D printing! Thank you both for the nice puzzles!
Today another IPP related parcel arrived, from MINE. Looking at what I had ordered it seems that the 5 puzzles are all from the same designer, and all some form of packing puzzles, but all completely different. Perfect Entrance is a prize winner of this year's competition, and a flat puzzle with a frame and two pairs of pieces that have to be packed flat into the box. Not a new task, but there always seem to be more new fascinating implementations of this challenge. The next one is challenging the puzzler to pack two pairs of pieces into the flat box completely. Again?? Well, this one looks quite different: Coin Wallet. Here, the pieces themselves are linked pairs of coin stacks of different heights, and creating two different shapes. I fiddled with it before at some puzzle parties, but could not solve it back then. A prize winner from IPP40, and so is the next one: Chained Lumber. A packer with just 6 square stick blocks to be put into a box, but then there are additional elements for more challenge: A chain running through all of them, and then also some additional voxel that needs to be put into the box as well. The chain looks like the ones I use for mounting trick locks to the wall, but let's better keep this one with this puzzle and solve it! Then two more to pack: SOLO (in Basket) is one of these basket shaped packers, which have a restricted opening and usually require at least some fancy rotations to pack the pieces inside. The last one looks like a squashed version of that, much flatter and with some form of basket handle on top as well: 3Lx2. Here the pieces are much flatter, but still 3D, and the fascinating extra gadget here is the plate beneath the transparent handle, which can slide back and forth to some extent. Looking at Pelikan's latest release from yesterday, sliding restrictions seem to be popular with restricted packing puzzles at the moment.

Added on 2024-08-01

Two parcels arrived today, with two IPP41 Exchange puzzles inside. In one of them, a puzzle closely related to yesterday's update: Screwy-Louie. In this form, it is a cute looking puzzle, and I like the longer and shorter versions of Louie you can make, even though in general I would advise against stretching or twisting the original dachshund. He will not like it and will let you know for sure! Yesterday's Ziggustretch/Screwy-Louie Compendium entry was updated accordingly. The other puzzzle is also one for the n-ary puzzle group. A close relative of the Ziggurat puzzle from the same designer is the Rainbow Drawers and of course there is a similar Rainbow Drawers Compendium entry for it. Two fun n-ary puzzles I have play with a bit already, as can be seen from the pictures in the Compendium.

Added on 2024-07-31

Today a puzzle related to recent IPP, where it was the base of an Exhange puzzle: Ziggustretch. While this has the shape of a bolt, it is actually related to a certain Dachshund famous on the MPD (Discord). As the other Ziggu puzzles, this one is n-ary and part of the n-ary puzzle group now. There is also a Compendium entry. The compendium entry took me some time, working to figure out a recursion formula and convert it to an explicit formula. There are some moves which can be skipped, but we are keeping them here for a move count based on the actual design. This is a massive version and can also be ordered in Puzzleguy's store, but there is also a smaller version in a different shape, hopefully arriving soon.

Added on 2024-07-27

Yesterday I solved the Hat Trick Lockup LEGO box, and it was great fun to unlock all those doors and find all the various objects inside. Today a box made from LEGO in bright candy colours arrived, and this is also the theme of the box: La Candy Box. This is maybe a good use for pieces from sets of the LEGO Friends series? The box is not completely box shaped, but features some gaps and protrusions in various places leading to an interesting appearance. This one comes with a little key fob in the same colours and the goal is to find the candies inside. There are some transparent bricks acting as windows, and I may already have seen one of the prizes. So far, I managed to find some first moves and found what looks like two tools, and I have already utilized one of them. It looks like at this point it may become a bit more difficult, some puzzling fun to look forward to!

Added on 2024-07-25

Today no new puzzle, but a new Compendium entry. The Tower puzzle took me a little less than 2 hours for the first disassembly, which is quite OK for this number of moves. Once you have understood the maze in that irregular board and how the other, regular boards move, it is just a matter of staying focused. A fun puzzle to play with, and I have already re-assembled it again, so that is over 13000 moves in total!

Added on 2024-07-24

Yesterday evening I solved the Moonage M5 puzzle, and it does not only look beautiful, but it is also a fun solve. While exploring the solution you can experience several aspects of the moon missions in smaller scale, and the various materials used work well to form this excellent and fun puzzle. Not much luck with those smaller rockets yet, and I have tried! After new IPP related wooden puzzles, today some plastic IPP related puzzles from NothingYet Designs. Shipped in the US on Monday and arrived today, impressive! I guess that is why it is called "express" and was only a handful of EUR more than the UPS option. Dovetail Cube was originally an Exchange puzzle from IPP40 I somehow missed and have now bought, and solved. A clever puzzle with some interesting locking mechanisms inside. This truly shows the potential of 3D printing, and I cannot imagine this being produced without this technique. The next one is also 3D printed and a hidden maze for a steel ball bearing: Duo Elevator. This is a type of puzzle I have not seen from Lucie before, and let's see how this one will work, or rather "let's hear", as this is a hidden maze. The next one is a first from this designer for me, and a LEGO built sequential discovery puzzle box: Hat Trick Lockup. I have some more LEGO puzzle boxes, and while you have to be careful not to accidentally disassemble them, they generally work well. For this one, I can see a couple of objects (including a hat) in cells behind bars, and have already found some moves and released a hidden object. However, the rest of the elements does not make sense to me yet, more to discover. With these puzzles came three nice "make a symmetic shape" puzzles, all IPP41 themed: Texas Termites, Texas Trout, and Texas Buzzards. Many thanks! I wonder how these will solve, as these symmetric shape builders can be horribly difficult, even with only two pieces, and each of these has one more. In these puzzles, the three shapes are actually three copies of the same shape each, and the solution would be trivial if they already had some form of symmetry for these shapes. But of course that is not the case, and then some thinking and tinkering is advised for solving! I have already managed to create a nice symmetric shape for one of them, but that is the negative space in the middle and I don't think this is actually a solution, so I will have to continue puzzling here.

Added on 2024-07-23

Some space travel equipment and skyrocketing puzzles arrived today from Austria, and they are somehow related to the location of the latest IPP, and that is not near Cape Canaveral, but the "other related location". Guess where! The solution can be found somewhere in this update. The first one is a beautiful and massive moon rocket in a slightly rounder shape, and made from wood instead of metal: Moonage M5. On the grey ring, the name of the puzzle is engraved, and the font resembles the appearance of letters used in the NASA logo. Goal is to remove several pieces of the moon expedition equipment from the rocket, and that will likely not happen the usual way (moon lander in top of the rocket), but probably the rocket will have to be dismanteled in some way. I could not resist and have started playing with it, and have already found some first mechanisms, removed some parts. Looks like there is also some science theme embedded in some of them, fascinating. No wonder this won Stephan a prize at IPP41 in the Design Competition! The next one is Stephan's exchange puzzle, and is from the same theme: Rocket Man. Here, there is suddenly more than rocket and all the parts, including a UFO have to be packed into the frame. Thank you, Stephan! The last one is not space themed, but more of the sky-rocketing kind! 6746 sliding moves to remove the 5 boards from Tower. I have not solved this one, but looking at some pictures I have identified this to be part of the n-ary puzzle group. Compendium entry to follow at a later time with more details — and many moves later. Three excellently crafted and beautiful wooden puzzles to play with, the fun can start!

Added on 2024-07-17

A few weeks ago, I managed to solve the disassembly part of the Rippl puzzle, and then managed to mess it up a bit. Only today I tried again and quickly managed to get the puzzle into a nice starting configuration. This is an interesting puzzle and I am not sure of the level 9, it seems to be more complex than the level 10 puzzle Python before. What I learned from my solve is now in a Compendium entry, and an entry on the n-ary puzzle group page has been added as well. It is somewhat binary, but then it also is not at the same time. And reading Kevin's blog from this weekend, I do not seem to be the only one with this whole experience on the puzzle.

Added on 2024-07-05

After pre-ordering Rex' latest pocket sized sequential discovery puzzles earlier, it has arrived from Nothing Yet Designs, and looks great! Nice yellow and black color scheme, and some honeycomb pattern on top, perfectly fitting the bee hive theme. And there is a Rogue Queen in the hive. According to the instructions, one needs to find the treasure within and then reveal the queen's true colors, and hope that the impostor queen does not cause any trouble. The instructions also talk about the complexity of the solve, and the previous puzzles Rex had created are not exactly easy, so this is going to be a tough challenge, looking forward to it!

Added on 2024-06-26

A parcel with beautiful wooden puzzles arrived from Pelikan today, and it contained 3 puzzles. The first two are from the same designer, and there may be some resemblance with a well known puzzle, Bon Bon by Frederic Boucher which the designer was studying. The Kamelle looks like this at first glance, but seems to have an additional opening, and maybe other changes? Not having played with the other puzzle before, I can only find out how this puzzle will work. It is made in nice woods with an excellent fit, and while the first move is quite obvious, the other pieces already seem to require some thought and observation, and also some manipulation inside the box. Some free training lession for the moves required for putting them into the proper solution packing? I like that idea! Similar situation for the smaller Petit Sucrier. Disassembly already provides some exercise and head scratching, and for one simple looking piece (and the smallest!) I am not sure how that will ever be able to leave the box from that position. Looking forward to see how the pieces are packed into the box for the proper solution in these two puzzles, as there must be some magic involved. The last one is a two-dimensional puzzle, and a mixture of sliding block and packing puzzle: Commotion. Obviously the idea is not to just remove the pieces from the frame and pack them back in, as that is trivial. The challenge is to keep everything 2D and only slide the pieces around, so that the red Padouk piece will be sliding out from the front corner gap. Even that seems to be an impossible task with 4 much larger blocks in the way. I wonder what kinds of moves we will see in the solution, and the name of the puzzle is surprisingly close to "coordinated motion" — could that be a hint?

Added on 2024-06-09

The Python puzzle was as easy as expected from the first few moves (even though it is listed with a level 10 difficulty on the instructions) and could be solved quickly. The results are now in a Compendium entry, and an entry on the n-ary puzzle group page has been added as well.

Added on 2024-06-08

This weekend we had a small puzzle party at my place and had a truly great time when some puzzle friends (Oskar, José, Rox, and George) came for a visit. During that, also the mailman appeared and brought some new puzzles, from Aaron's latest release: Python, Pipe, and Rippl. They are larger than I expected and handmade in a nice fashion. I expect some or all of them to become part of the Compendium, but for that I will have to solve them first to understand how they really work. I have started with the first one already, and it looks like it may not be too difficult after all, easier than the level 10 from the description. Famous last words!

Added on 2024-05-31

Sometimes there are some cash back offers for advertising, and today I received such an offer, but in a completely different manner: Cash Back is actually the name of the puzzle, and being a non-US customer I am probably only going to get some 3D printed token back, no cash. But getting this coin out is the fun of it, isn't it? This is the fourth in the excellent series of small cubic puzzles by Alan, and I really enjoyed all the previous ones. Let's see how long it will take to get the coin out of this one. Meanwhile I have already managed to remove the first two coins from Free Me 9, a great puzzle so far, but still not solved either.

Added on 2024-05-30

The latest puzzle by Juno is a classic puzzle box, or is it? It is cute and shaped like a hippo, and that is also the theme of this puzzle box: Hugo the Hippo. Solving wise it is on the easier side, but features a complex central mechanism involving some classic Japanese puzzle box elements as well. This mechanism is very well designed and crafted, and it will take around 20 steps for reaching the compartment, and it will involve steps you would never do to a real hippo unless you are really tired of life. Operating this mechanism involves some fun little surprises, and I had a lot of fun playing with it again and again. A fun puzzle!

Added on 2024-05-28

Having solved the excellent Twinkle by hand (for the first piece removal and reset), only using some hints for the last 10 moves, which was only possible that quickly because the move sequence is a very nice variation of the Phoenix Family / Supernova sequences I know so well, now it is time for a different type of challenge. Joe Turner advertised that his latest Free Me creation was available, and today a parcel with this puzzle arrived: Free Me 9. It looks a bit like the puzzles 7 and before from the series, just that it is around double the size and triple the number of coins. 3 coins to be released for solving this puzzle, two of them the typical Kennedy half dollars, the third one featuring the statue of liberty. It feels very well made as usual, and I have already found what may be the first few steps. Looking forward to solve this beauty and retrieve the money!

Added on 2024-05-12

Coming back from a short vacation, a parcel from Alfons waited for me for pick-up. And it is world record time! Jack has done it again and designed a standard 18 pieces burr with the highest level known so far, congratulations to Jack! After Supernova at level 166, there is now a standard 18 pieces burr with a whopping level 188, a total of 22 moves more for the first piece, and 11 years after Supernova. Not sure why all these numbers contain double digits, but maybe that is a hint for how a future record may look like, if one will ever be found? The record puzzle is named Twinkle, and another astronomy themed puzzle. After solving the mysteries of the Supernova years ago, we can now watch the sky of 18 pieces burrs again, and maybe hum: "Twinkle twinkle little star, how I wonder what you are!"
On this group page you can now locate this "star": 18 pieces burrs group. There are two more additions to this page, and the first one seems to be related to the record puzzle, even though the level is much lower: Troulle and Helicon.

The good news don't end here yet, as this update also brings a jubilee and anniversary update of the Burr Zoo. 10 years ago, I started this page, and recently at GCD I gave a talk about this part of my collection to celebrate, and had 49 entries to show. Today, we are adding another one for a nice round number of puzzles, and puzzle 50 is a 12 pieces burr, in a frame, and with a wooden spider trapped inside: Black Widdow, and if you take a look at the page, you will see that the zoo contains a whole family of spiders now.
The last one of the beautiful wooden puzzles also adds to a part of my collection which started with the school bus puzzle many years ago, then saw some shape variants, a Grey Hound themed bus puzzle, and now finally an old Double Decker, like it used to be on the streets of Berlin nearly a century ago. And it even features some advertisements on the side to make it more realistic, but aside from that it is just a framed burr.
I have not added the overall level of the puzzles arriving today, but it would surely be a large sum, hinting the huge endeavour to solve them all. Looking forward to this, and to see how it goes, and of course adding a little "Wink" to this solving experience.

Added on 2024-04-30

Last weekend we discussed the wonders of 3D printing and how this positively influenced the puzzle community (and the pioneer in this topic was involved in this discussion), and today I received a parcel that fits into this category. The parcel was lightweight and felt empty, but had a cute puzzle inside: BOLT the Bot. The name of the puzzle seems to have an obvious relation to the looks, and it looks gorgeous. The puzzle itself has a nice size (not too large) and when shaking it a bit, a lot of rattling can be heard from the inside. There cannot only be 3D printed parts inside, but there must be others — and I have already found some of the other parts. Looking forward to solve this little guy, and I am curious when I will find more than the first step.

Added on 2024-04-29

Yesterday we had a great King's Day Puzzle party at Wil's place, and it seems that there were not only new puzzle people present this time, but Wil must have accumulated more fascinating puzzles. With all these puzzles and the puzzle friends we had a great time, and as a special guest Wil's cat joined us and did not mind all of us visitors being in the house and garden. Oskar had some of his latest puzzle creations on display, and also brought more of the Ziggu-* puzzles we were chatting about in recent months and which had I immediately ordered for me. They of course go into Compendium and n-ary puzzle group page, but it will take a bit until all the complete details have been added. Basically, they are all the same puzzle, and all like the Ziggurat puzzle. However, they differ in implementation and looks. Ziggutwist Too looks like the Ziggutwist (hence the same name), but this one here does not have the pieces screwed onto a board. Instead, they are within a tray and can be extracted one by one, once the sequence has been completed. The Zigguhooked is a 2D puzzle again -- if you ignore the tray and slider, that is. Quite a different in the movement between this one and the Ziggutwists, but the overall sequence is the same. Ziggutrees looks quite different from the others, and while the basic idea is the same, this one uses a different arrangement of the "trees" and each tree has direct interactions with 4 trees, 2 on each side. This will be a bit more challenging to fully analyze. The last one is an older design that was made possible by today's 3D printing and looks like two cubes intersected: Kubusmix. Thanks Allard for this nice little challenge.

Added on 2024-04-25

After yesterday's parcel from Pelikanpuzzles and after heving solved one of these puzzles already, there is another surprise package from this manufacturer. It contains a pre-ordered puzzle which sold out quickly in the previous release and was then offered in a second edition as pre-order. MRI looks like a small MRI indeed, and the goal is to remove the patient from the instrument. A magnetic ball is provided, and this will be the tool to support the solution. Yesterday also saw some new world record among the 18 pieces burrs, an amazing achievement with level 188, related to the Wink puzzle added recently, but not yet available as a puzzle to collect or solve.

Added on 2024-04-24

After solving the excellent Piano puzzle (both disassembly and assembly enjoyed a couple of times) until the final little extra reward, today puzzles from a differnt genre arrived, all in beautiful woods. They are all about packing pieces into a box/frame, but they all come in an arrangement that one first has to take apart as an initial warm-up challenge. They are all from experts on this subject, and the first two enhance a whole series of puzzles — each! I heard of the first one when Volker and Bernhard were having a quick discussion, and now here is another "Euklid for" puzzle: Euklid for Bernhard. Will it be easier or more difficult than the others? In any case they are all quite different one from another. This one has six similar blocks, but lining them up in a row, there is something odd about them, and something else! The next one follows a regular grid again, and is from the high jumper's Flop series: Stefka-Flop. And, yes, that additional 1x3 block also belongs into the box which looks already completely packed, nothing rattling inside. Those shipping configurations seem to have reached a new level! The smallest one from this parcel may by a bit off in terms of the season, but looks nice also today: Xmas Stocking. How hard can it be to put five identical tetrominos into the box? Have I mentioned the lid with the restricted opening? That is going to lead to the main challenge, I am sure. The last one looks beautiful in a mix of various woods, and some acrylic: Airlock. That acrylic cover has holes to allow easier manipulation of the pieces, and it is good that all pieces are already inside, as the challenge requires. However, the holes do not allow any piece to enter or exit, and there is a small entrance in the side of the frame that needs to be used instead — and has to be completely free in the solved configuration. So that is asking for a different arrangement of the pieces inside the box, and also for the development of a method to get the larger pieces out via that tiny opening. A lot of puzzling fun adding to my backlog, and I am sure it is going to take a while. Let's take it easy and solve the challenge of only extracting the pieces first, two puzzles already solved! Now for the more difficult part ...

Added on 2024-04-22

More puzzles! After the large haul yesterday, and after having solved a handful of them already, I picked up a parcel with the next puzzle. I have bought myself a piano! Not a full sized one, and not one you can play on to make music (that is what the large one is good for!), but a small one with just short of a whole octave of keys. It is 3D printed, came in a nicely decorated custom packaging, and looks beautiful: Piano. It is a puzzle box that can be disassembled into many pieces and requires similarly many steps to achieve this goal. I have not tried this (only found a couple of steps and they work nicely and made me smile), and I am looking forward to the fun of solving this puzzle. I bought this from the recently created Mowens995 shop web site, and as of writing these lines, there is actually one copy left for sale. This is the first puzzle I have bought from the designer himself, but already have a few of his designs in my collection and they are fun to play with. Now I get to play the piano!

Added on 2024-04-21

Yesterday the next iteration of our largest German puzzle meeting took place, with some international participants as well. I met many puzzle friends there and we had a lot of fun, and of course there were loads of fascinating puzzles to be seen. Each participant would receive one of Frank's own designs, a packing puzzle with some extra twist: A-Void (the) Center. I have seen some people trying to assemble it on site, but don't remember seeing the completed result anywhere. In the afternoon, I gave a short talk about one special page of this web site, taking everyone onto a visit to the Burr Zoo. The presentation slides are available here for download: Visit to the Zoo of Burrs.
Returning home, I arrived with more puzzles than I had expected before the event, many of them bought, others nice presents from friends. The first one had quite a journey with some unexpected and sad turns behind it, and arrived to be added to my collection: Six Blocks Away. Has the typical looks of one designer, but is actually from another well known designer! The Wink burr is a new and unexpected discovery and addition to the 18 pieces burrs group, and I had a chat with the designer where I heard something interesting about the background, stay tuned! Looking forward to try and solve this one. I just managed to solve for the first piece out on a level 101 burr from that group, but needed two hints. An older design, and only 4 pieces in a frame is Twister 3x2, yet a very high level for that few pieces! The Brick Block Puzzle Box V2 looks a bit like a Twisty Puzzle, but is really a box with more than a handful of steps to open. The next few puzzles are all nicely printed by one Designer and several of them were seen an IPP recently. Dinilock No. 2 and Dinilock No. 3 extend the series and have completely different solutions, and also completely different from the first one! The next few look a bit like oversized Hanayama Cast puzzles, and that is also the idea behind them, but they are new designs, of course: A ring's secret and FreeMySphere. The remaining puzzles of this update are mass produced puzzles I have seen before and found on offer yesterday: A bead sliding puzzle with 8 circles of beads, hence the name: Eight-Sided UFO. And then the complete The Legend of Zelda puzzle series by Hanayama/Nintendo: Cast Master Sword, Cast Triforce, and Hyrule Crest. Can you find some really old puzzle manufactured by Nintendo in my collection?
Thank you to Frank for organizing GCD again, and a big thanks to Volker, Jack, and Diniar for the fascinating puzzles!

Added on 2024-04-02

Today the mail man brought two parcels from Switzerland, and all with 3D printed puzzles. However, the first one originated from the US and etsy global shipping took this interesting route. In it, the latest and brand new release from the Pocket Change series: Pocket Change blue. It is cylindrical and looks quite different from the others, but on the bottom there is a square hole with a coin visible behind the opening, quite a teaser of the goal. With it, I ordered a second puzzle which may very well be from the series, but apparently is a bit easier: Wedding Puzzle. A heart shaped puzzle with a coin behind a square window, and then some rattling sounds when you pick it up. I am guessing gravity will be part of the solution. The other parcel is an original Swiss package from the capital Bern, containing two sequential discovery puzzles. Keebox blue is an easy entry level one (but I still need to solve it!), and Keebox yellow is the more difficult one. I see they imprinted some digits onto the box, and this seems to hint in which order to solve the puzzles of this box. Quite a lot of 3D printed puzzles (with additional materials) have found their way into my collection recently, and while I have not yet solved them all, I was generally impressed by the high quality and liked the experience playing with them. I am sure this will continue with the new ones.

Added on 2024-03-23

Last weekend, I managed to solve the Mailcall! puzzle box and had a lot of fun with it. Many nice steps and mechanisms and some of them keep you wondering until the end. The instructions say that this should be solved over a tray, and I can strongly recommend this as well. Overall it is a great tribute to Cubicdissection, not only with the look of the cardboard box with orange tape, but more! Today two much easier puzzles are being added here: Funny Gear Labyrinth Disk is a new Chinese puzzle that can now be bought via puzzle shops or large retailers and has several names, and is for the age of 3 and up, but that would be a very puzzle enthousiastic and patient 3 year old! There is a tiny steel ball inside and this has to be entered into the maze and then run through the numbers 1 to 24. It has some holes in the bottom like some other ball mazes, that make the ball disappear to start over again, and then there are obviously some gears. These gears and also some gravity operated switch change the maze while playing, a nice new concept. Not really difficult, have already solved it the correct way (not the shortcut from entry to 24). The other one is a very old one and a true vintage attic find! I remember playing with it when I was much younger, must have been in the 1980s, so this would have been one of the first puzzles in my collection — but I just found it again. It is a typical 15 puzzle variant: Flower 15 puzzle*. Or is it? Well, there is actually a set of numbers from 1 to 15 on it, but they cannot be solved in the regular way. 14 and 15 will appear swapped, like in that original hoax from over a century ago. So this one here has to be solved differently, e.g. with a gap in the top right corner, which also gives the picture on the other side.

Added on 2024-03-15

Many moves this week! Some of them occurred in the solution of a nice level 97 standard 18 pieces burr with excellent move sequences. It is on the 18 pieces burr page if you would like to know which one that is, and maybe to get one for yourself as a challenge, just reach out to Alfons for ordering this and many others! That puzzle gave me quite a Kick (sic!) and it was fun to figure out the sequences and see how they interact. As usual, I stopped when the first piece was out, the second and third piece were removed later. But the main puzzle amounting in a huge number of moves required a lot more concentration and playing every day to progress through a whopping 16365 move sequence (have not actually counted these), and in reality there were many more due to lack of concentration. That is the monster arriving last week in pieces to be assembled: Zigguchain 12 links. It is a Zigguchain, but you actually have to order two sets to get the full 12 ring experience. I don't recommend trying to assemble more than those, unless you have a very good understanding how to determine the next move once you put the puzzle down for a break. In fact, maybe even 12 rings is only a challenge for people who are really up to the task. While it was sometimes difficult to find out the exact current configuration with all these angles, it was a joy to see one piece after another click into the goal position in the last phase of the solution. And if you wondered how good the durability of 3D printed pieces for long term use is, there you have it! Works fine, even though there are some only slightly visible marks on the right red piece (the one moving the most). An experiment? A fidget toy? A puzzle? In any case, it has been concluded today! And was fun to run through. Of course has been added to the Compendium entry, and an entry on the n-ary puzzle group page.

Added on 2024-03-08

The mailman brought a little parcel from PuzzleGuy today, with some of his latest offerings. The first one is a remake of the classic Key puzzle by Oskar which has not been available for a long time. This one is 3D printed in nice (Dutch) colors and comes with 3 keys, not 2: Oskar Key. There is an additional frame so you can build the original challenge with only the red and blue key. However, for that, you have to solve the 3 key challenge first. A nicely made puzzle and I like the zig-zag motion with the keys going into different directions simultaneously at times. The other one is a bit deceiving: Stuck in the Middle. A frame with a maze structure and 5 sticks with plates through it. However, only one of them can be removed, and indeed it is the goal to remove the pink piece only (and then get everything back together again). That one looks like a nice challenge and with the maze uncovering more and more when moving the purple blocks. There is actually another puzzle which arrived today, but that one came in pieces (by design) and I am only somewhere in the middle of assembling it and would only like to present it here after that task has been completed. Care for a guess?

Added on 2024-03-05

Today a well packaged and pocket sized puzzle arrived, and not only the name convinced me to buy it: Pick me. It is beautifully 3D printed and has some special texture structure around the borders making it nice to touch, and when you don't want to handle it, it sits on a stand provided, all the time seemingly teasing you: "Pick me!" I just wanted to fiddle a bit with it to get some idea how how well it works, and it seems it works well, but I may already have found some first moves and a few tools.. This is going to be fun to solve! On the puzzle it reads "20min" and I wonder if that should be the solving time, and the instruction card says that a 5-year-old can solve it (with some assistance). So let's see if I can solve it! Meanwhile I have made some progress on the Mailcall! and this seems to be more complicated. Have found some nice tools and mechanisms there, and I wonder how this will continue and whether I will ever be able to reset that one (which is the last part of the objective). So much puzzling fun with all these puzzles!

Added on 2024-03-01

Mailcall!
I could have left the update as this one word, as this is somewhat self-explanatory. It is a beautifully 3D printed puzzle box that looks like one of those cardboard boxes with the orange tape used by Cubicdissection. However, the tape, the stamps, and even the post icon all seem to be movable components, hinting that there are quite some elements to be played with to solve the puzzle. The puzzle came with a nice packing slip listing ... all the instructions for solving, not the components as usual. Picking it up and shaking it slightly, it makes some sounds like it could be filled with a pound of rice or similar. Maybe the packing material used inside a shipping box, modelled in this puzzle? I surely need to be careful when finally opening the lid, but I am looking forward to that!

Added on 2024-02-23

More from recent escape room in a box Kickstarter campaigns arriving today: The Maya's Myths is the third of the Inscape puzzle boxes, looks nice and seems to have a lot of loose pieces inside. I am assuming this may be some kind of jigsaw puzzle generating a hint? Looking at the box, there is an interesting maze right at the beginning (where it says "start") and then some sides that may lead to clues for a door with 3 number dials. On this box, I have also found some symbols I have seen on pictures of Mayan architecture before, quite fitting. I wonder how long this one will take to solve, and I am looking forward to this.

Added on 2024-02-17

In the Escapewelt campaign, there was also a small puzzle box kit included which I have finally assembled: Pirate's Chest. Assembly works well without issues within 20 minutes, and the result looks like a nice little chest. There is a combination lock on the front, and the bottom shows a map with clues. I have been able to solve several much more complex puzzles in the past days, including the Blackbeard's Compass (which included some nice new elements as well) and compared to these, this one looks rather simple. Still some challenge to work out the combination to open the lock.

Added on 2024-02-13

The latest lock from the Feldmans arrived today: Loco. This is a bit larger than the Picolock, and there are no immediate visible marks that this lock could have been modified. The key fits and turns, and then nothing happens. This one seems to be one of the more difficult locks recently, with a hidden solution, so it remains to be seen whether I will be able to solve it. So far, I like the decoration with the smileyface making fun of the solver — that's quite something!

Added on 2024-02-12

Pirates seem to be a popular theme, sometimes also for puzzles, and today the latest Escapewelt puzzle box / escape room in a box arrived with this theme and beautifully decorated: Blackbeard's Compass. This features a new component for such boxes, a disentanglement puzzle, very visible at the front side (but not the first puzzlebox with such a puzzle, though). On the nicely decorated box, I can see many markings, there seem to be several places with sliders to set a combination, and the bottom may be a map. On the side, there is some curled up paper locked into place — another secret map? Some clues? This will become visible during the solve (I hope!). The box is a bit smaller than expected and comes in a very nice size. With it, a Pirate's Chest box kit arrived, which is yet to be assembled. Looking forward to both!

Added on 2024-02-07

Today the next one in the Demonticons series arrived, the brand new Scarlett puzzle. The look is a bit fierce, but it may only be an interpretatoin of "stylish", as the theme is "fashion designer". Unlike the last one, this one has some large knob as one of the eyes, and a nose that looks like it could be screwed out. So far, these puzzles had quite different solutions one from another, and I am looking forward to find out what makes Scarlett special.

Added on 2024-02-05

Some puzzles pre-ordered from Rex arrived today, one available exclusively via Team JB Hobbies: Mean & Extreme is a double six piece burr in a frame, a very unusual configuration. I have already found some moves, and I like them a lot. I wonder whether it will be possible to remove the burr from the frame without removing any of the sticks first. The other three are nice pocket sized sequential discovery puzzles, and they all look beautiful and yellow: Spade is the smallest of the 3 and I have already found the first move. Of course, that does not mean I know the subsequent ones! The largest and most massive one is Prada. It comes with a little bone with a magnet I have already inserted into the obvious space. However, I don't see the dog in this one, where might it be? There could be a lot of space inside! And sometimes there are extra challenges for Rex' puzzles, a nice touch, when you think you are done, but there is more. The third one features some stylized branches and a monkey crying for help: Monkey Maze. Does not look too sad, this monkey, but let's free him anyway. Attached to the back, there is a banana piece I have put next to the puzzle for the picture (Spoiler alert?) and it looks like this may be an interesting part of the puzzle. Looking forward to solve these, while I am still trying to solve several (much) heavier puzzles.

Added on 2024-02-04

Today Zigguchain, the latest puzzle in the Ziggu-* series received it's Compendium entry including an explanation, and an entry on the n-ary puzzle group page. Of course, the general solution is quite similar to the others from the series, but they are basically shape variations. This one is a chain that can be quite wobbly at first, but becomes more stable when assembling the chain and locking the link rings in place. This puzzle works without a frame any may very well be the most minimalistic such puzzle, all rings are identical and you could link as many as you have, but be aware of the wobblyness and the number of moves then! The formula on the compendium page will give you an idea. The solve is fun and if you like one, they are available via Puzzleguy's shop online already. This is the last of this series I have right now, but there will be more in the future, something to look forward to!

Added on 2024-02-02

Recently I received a some new puzzles that extended the Ziggu-* series, that started off with the "Ziggurat" puzzle. While most of them are interlocking puzzles without a frame or synchronizing piece, the Ziggutwist is a twisty puzzle with a board and rotating disks. Finally, today there is a Compendium entry including an explanation, and an entry on the n-ary puzzle group page. There is also another compendium entry that was updated with a picture, can you spot it?

Added on 2024-01-30

Today a new entry for the MiBinity puzzle in the respective groups. It is a cute little puzzle and fun to play with, and nicely designed and crafted. However, the exact parameter set for the Compendium caused some head scratching, but is now documented in the Compendium including an explanation, and n-ary puzzle group page. I hope this will not require a spoiler warning, because there is also a picture of the partially disassembled puzzle shown. It is great to see these maze structures still being used for new designs. The previous one was in Jack's puzzle box and offered a nice playing experience as can be seen on YouTube (on the "What did I get myself into?" channel).

Added on 2024-01-28

Even on a Sunday there is a new puzzle added today: Zigguchain. This is Oskar's latest puzzle design, and a chain variant of the Ziggurat puzzle. It arrived in my mailbox yesterday, as 6 identical ring pieces of rainbow colours, and today I managed to assemble the chain. Like for some of the other new recent puzzles, this is an n-ary puzzle to be included in the Compendium, but with the correct parameter set, pictures and comments yet to be determined and created, look for an update here soon.

Added on 2024-01-27

After the first puzzle yesterday, I have managed to solve the second one today, after playing with it a bit in the last days. Jellyfish is a more confusing one than O.M.G and while the move count is well below 1000, the solution will take longer, as there are irregular parts of the mazes/grooves to be explored. A lot of fun sliding these panels of a very well made puzzle, working out the correct sequence, and then experiencing some change in the sequence every now and then. While this may not be a pure n-ary puzzle, it is even more interesting because of these changes in the sequence occuring. More details to be viewed here, but will definitely contain spoilers: Compendium and n-ary puzzle group page.

Added on 2024-01-26

No new puzzles today, but the first results. I have started with the puzzle with the longest solution sequence, the O.M.G, which is a larger version of the Devil puzzle by the same designer with more moves, and also some other similarities in the solution. This one even works a bit better and it is fun to use gravity to run through some solution sequence parts with some quick clacky sounds. Of course, that only works one way, the way up needs to be assisted — or the puzzle turned around which could confuse the solver. More details to be viewed here, but may contain spoilers: Compendium and n-ary puzzle group page. A nice puzzle and fun to run through such a long sequence quickly.

Added on 2024-01-25

Today two parcels arrived from different continents, but some puzzles in both parcels from the same designer! The first from Michel from the Netherlands, in it a beautifully made interlocking puzzle of his own design and made by Jack in a small series: MiBinity I. Not very difficult, but very nice and non-trivial to play with, and excellent build quality. Inside are some shapes that will definitely lead to a certain puzzle group, but more later. With it, came another brand new puzzle acquired from Oskar, the Ziggutwist. Looks a bit like a Spin-Out or Crazy Elephant dance, and it is, but ... where is the sliding frame? This one does not have any and yet is an n-ary puzzle where you have to bring the arrows from the linear arrangement into a quarter turned arrangement, or even further as the additional last moves. Like most of yesterday's additions, these two puzzles are clearly in the n-ary puzzle category and new entries for the Compendium, but I will have to play with all a bit more to determine the correct parameter set und provide interesting (I hope!) insights from solving, more to follow soon on this page! With the others came a little metal disentanglement puzzle in a sturdy build: 4 Ring Metal Disentanglement Puzzle* — would anyone know more details? Do let me know if you should! Two of the rings look like the ones of Chinese Soft Rings, and one of them should be removed from the puzzle and re-assembled to the configuration shown in the picture. Thanks for this extra challenge, Michel! The other parcel arrived from Puzzlemaster and one of their recent Kickstarter campaigns: Honeycomb is a beautifully made metal version of the Screw Pack by Oskar I already have as 3D print, but this one comes assembled and one does not need to go through the assembly task first. However, I am sure I will assemble this puzzle later on, after taking it apart. It came with two more metal puzzles, one an older shiny cast puzzle I did not have: Cast Dolce. This looks like a maze puzzle in disguise. The last one has a very organic look, or one like the makers used molten metal and just let it spread and cool down in the way it preferred, or like a drop of lava frozen instantly: Cast Ripple. Quite an unusual shape, and the initial arrangement is more stable than I expected. A lot more puzzling going on with all these new ones now. Of course this adds to the backlog, but I managed to solve some puzzles already and had a lot of fun.

Added on 2024-01-24

Just a quick update today, with more details to be added later, and when you look at the new addition entries you will know why! Three beautiful puzzles from Stephan arrived from Austria today: O.M.G is basically a higher level version of his Devil puzzle, and has taken the level up a lot, nearly triple as many moves. Look at the level for the 2^nd and 3^rd piece to come out! Many other interlocking puzzles don't even have that as a total level. The next one has level below 1000, but still extremely high: Jellyfish. This one has maze plates in a more irregular layout than O.M.G, but the great thing is their arrangement. The mazes can actually be seen during the solve. I have played with both puzzles a bit, but will need to progress further until I will put them into the group of n-ary puzzles and the Compendium. Considering the number of moves, this may take a while, so look out for future updates on them! The third one is a small interlocking puzzles with just a few pieces in a cubic frame: IT. In the lighter wood, the letters I and T are visible in the solved configuration, and the level should be a nice and yet still not trivial solve. Looking forward to play with all 3 of them, and they are very well crafted and have nice engravings on them.

Added on 2024-01-22

While I don't have any of the previous 5 Brass Monkeys (the brass burrs with this name), today the latest release arrived, number 6 in the series: Brass Monkey Sixential Discovery. It is a beautiful and heavy puzzle and it seems that it is not a standard brass burr, but a sequential discovery puzzle instead. I am curious to see what I will find, probably something small inside. With the puzzle came a nice leather mat which can be folded up at the edges to form some form of bowl. My guess is that this is to prevent you from losing some small parts when solving this puzzle. Let's see if that is correct and if there are really small parts. I am looking forward to solve this brass beauty.

Added on 2024-01-03

End of last year, a day before Christmas, Juno released two new puzzles, and my order with one of them arrived quickly today: Gravitational Burr. It looks like a regular six piece burr, and is only level 2. However, Juno added a 7^th piece in the form of a small steel ball, and now it is level 56 and gravity is required to help solving this puzzle. It is beautifully crafted, and I have already started playing with it a bit. I found some of the mazes for the steel ball, the steel ball itself, and after a few moves now I seem unable to reset the puzzle to the initial configuration. Two of the sticks are in a slightly shifted position, and this can only mean that the ball is now in a different place than initially. Looks like this is at least a half-blind maze solve, no ordinary six pieces burr. After solving yesterday's lock already this is now a nice new puzzling challenge added to my backlog.

Added on 2024-01-02

The first puzzle parcel of the year arrived from California with two nice 3D printed puzzles inside. The Combo Breaker is the second in the series of padlock style puzzles and has a ring with numbers up to 39 on it, and initially turned to the 0 position. Trying to turn it a bit and observing something else happening, I am under the impression that I may have to navigate a maze to solve this puzzle. I wonder if the numbers will help to create a map (like people do for Revomazes), or if that maze is simple enogh to solve it without a map. The instructions don't say anything about tools, but I am guessing I should not use a map (i.e. tool) here, for more fun. The other does not have any markings on the surface at all: Screwball. A beautiful 3D printed and shiny ball puzzle consisting of two hemispheres. Following the name, one may be tempted to just try and unscrew the halves, but of course that does not work. Instead some other steps seem to be required, and maybe a little help of gravity? This would be a typical feature for such ball puzzles consisting of two halves. Let's see how this one will work and come apart (and then be reassembled again)! While the old year ended, the puzzle solving backlog did not vanish, and there are still many puzzles of varying types and sizes to be solved. Probably enough to fill the rest of this year, but then there are also interesting new puzzles showing up every now and then, and hard to resist. Maybe something for solving in 2025 then? I am sure that the two puzzles of today will be solved well within 2024. Happy puzzling 2024 to you all!
Note:Please don't worry that this page is so short now. All the entries from last year have already been moved to the history page linked below, they are not lost!

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.