These new puzzles also enhance some of the group pages on my web site, but I won't get into details here. Just to mention that all of these have been updated: n-ary puzzle group and Compendium, 18 pieces burrs group, and Burr Zoo. For Compendium and Zoo Burrs the details will be added a bit later. A great event and now I have even more puzzles in my solving backlog, and have just solved very few of the puzzles above already.
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!
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!
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.
.JPG "Twinkle")
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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. |
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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. | |
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!
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!
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!
However, the mailman had more for me than the small parcel: A copy of the latest issue of the CFF (Cubism For Fun) magazine, CFF 122. A nice issue, with a picture of the Binary Disk puzzle on the title page, and an article about the Binary Disk puzzle I was working on earlier this year. The article is not available on-line, but there is a Companion Web Site I created with some fancy graphs on it. I have not read all articles in CFF 122, but there is a nice article by Jack Krijnen in it about his Sidestep and Sidestep 2 puzzles, and also mentions some details of how I solved it. An excellent set of puzzle for a high level burr aficionado!
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Yesterday DCD42 happened (Dutch Cube Day 42, in the Netherlands), and this leads to a somewhat special update today. As in the past, many old and new puzzle friends were there with many nice converations, and also interesting and beautiful puzzles. From Oskar, I bought a non-puzzle item that is shown in the picture in the left. It is a dual counter with a crank that allows you to count through some binary numbers by rotating the crank on top. The upper number is simply the usual binary representation that is used in computers as well, in this case for a 5-bit number. The lower one is more interesting which makes it actually a Gray Code Counter: It will count through the reflected binary Gray Code, and this is of course linked with binary puzzles. If you roll it forward to 11111, it will show you a step by step solution of a 5 ring Chinese Rings puzzle. Each digit stands for a certain ring, and a 1 means that the ring sits on the long bar, and a 0 denotes a ring off the bar. Cranking backwards, it will show you all the steps until 00000 where the handlebar of the rings puzzle is freed from all rings. I have tried it, and it actually works! Of course you can crank the other way from 00000 to 11111 for the sequence to re-assemble the Chinese Rings puzzle again. All this using some gear mechanics, that is fascinating!
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The other reason why this update is a bit special is the high number of group pages which are updated in this update: Compendium and n-ary puzzle group, Burr Zoo, and 18 pieces burrs group. Right at the entrance of the DCD venue, it started with a brand new and flat n-ary puzzle that does not even have any sort of frame: Zigguflat, a flat variation of the Ziggurat puzzle with a lot of zick-zack action going on during the solve, and multiple challenges. From Steve I received another giveaway for a puzzle party I have never been to, the Northern Puzzle Party in the UK: NPP Puzzle. This consists of 3 flat pieces held together with a special clamp that then need to be assembled into a 3D burr shape, similar to a coordinate axis quadrant. Amongst many other puzzles, also two new helical burr variants were available, and they come in a cute size while still moving perfectly: Tweedle 11 and Tweedle 14. Oskar had one of his recent difficult co-operations with Volker for me, which go quite beyond the usual Soma cube or packing puzzles: Soma Ultimate. Of course, all the pieces should go inside, not like the configuration shown in the picture. This was Oskar's IPP exchange, while Frans went for the more traditional beautiful wooden interlocking puzzles as his Exchange (the 25th in a row): Rivieara. Jack had prepared a smaller version of Christoph's favorite puzzle in the intended and really beautiful colour scheme: Bouquet (small). Seems this is the designer's favorite puzzle so far, and I remember that it had a nice solution as well. Hypno Balls was an entry into last year's IPP Design Competition, and I had played with it at last year's DCD already, and it does not only consist of 3D printed parts, but also heavy steel balls. Maybe that should not be solved in a quiet room, and it will require some careful manipulation of the balls to get it apart. Another IPP40 Exchange was picked up, a co-operation of Andreas and Andrew: SwapTIC. It comes in 4 separate pieces that need to be assembled using sliding and rotating moves, and after having achieved that, it seems that this may even have been easier than taking it apart again! The next puzzle was one of those rare vintage puzzles one sometimes finds at DCD, a Closterman Cube, smaller than the one I already have: Cage #1-125-10. Being already 23 years old, it still works flawlessly and the pieces slide nicely without locking up tightly. Of course, I also paid Alfons an extensive visit to acquire some of this beautiful high level interlocking puzzles, to be solved until the next DCD (while I still have some unsolved from the last DCD and before!). The first one is not only an n-ary puzzle, but also contains another puzzle: Sensi Box with this a Sensi Puzzle. This is basically based on the B-Box and Reactor puzzle from years ago, but with more moves. Then some brand new puzzles going right into the Zoo with some insects in them, in particular: Blue Beetle and Blue Beetle 2. While the names are nearly identical, one has an 18 pieces burr as a shell and the other has 12 pieces only, with more room inside. Looks like there is more to the Blue Beetle theme than just an insect, according to what some WWW search brought up. This also brought us into the range of 18 pieces burrs, and there are more of them: Buzzard is an older design with a very interesting level. A level over 100 is complicated enough already, but look at the details for the other pieces! 2-digit numbers for four more pieces. Wobbe seems to be on the easier side again, and comes with some wider sticks as well. A lower number of wider sticks is found in The Kick, but at a high level of slightly below 100, and with 3 more non-trivial pieces in the solution. The Spy Hole makes use of wider sticks again, and the name is very fitting: You can actually look through the centre of this puzzle in one orientation, and see what is happening on the other side! The next one reminds me a bit of the School Bus puzzles, but with an open top (convertible school bus), but the name seems to hint something else: Courage. Will this be a difficult one that you need a lot of courage to attack and solve? Today's update ends with a small puzzle named after small people, the Hobbit. That should be some easier entertainment when all those difficult puzzles resist solving! Many thanks to my friends for the puzzle presents I received, and also the great time! We all had a great weekend yesterday, and I am looking forward to future ones. | |
The others are some of this year's of Aaron's offerings of highly complicated and beautiful disentanglement puzzles, created by him and his friends. After solving them (which may take a long time considering my backlog, especially in this category), some or even all of them will end up in Compendium and n-ary puzzle group, I am confident about that! The first few have the nice base plate, and some remotely resemble the Chinese Rings: Shuttle Run and Shoulder To Shoulder. However, they look more complicated and seem to have several layers or rings running over several vertical rods. While these had a lot of rings beside the frame and the string loop, the next one only has one ring in the center: Ankle Boots. More rings and three levels are found in the next puzzle: Scaffold. The last one has the most different elements of these puzzles, but no stand: Chandelier. Beside the frame and the loop (without quick release), there is a large ring attached to a small one, and oval loops of different sizes.
All these puzzles arriving today will surely provide hours and hours of puzzling fun, and will take a long time to solve, and I am looking forward to all those discoveries I am surely going to make.
More likely, it is because it is a puzzle and the card says: The Bandit is broken and in need of repair. Looks like you are asked to find some tools to repair the machine, and so far I have already found one of them. It is nice to have an easy start of a puzzle that then becomes difficult with surprises (just my uneducated guess about this puzzle). Looking forward to win the Jackpot eventually, and according to the card no gambling is allowed! That is going to be fun!
However, maybe a bit more of a description is in order. The puzzle consists of a sturdy and well made cage crafted from brass and steel, and inside there is indeed a washer. The washer has a little gap, but that is too narrow to move it around one of the thinner bolts. I have made some interesting discovery that will definitely be part of the solution, but have not progressed any further. Now it is time to start theorizing and then try to implement some of these theories to solve the puzzle. I wonder if that discovery is really part of the solution, but I will see. A great looking puzzle, and I am looking forward to solve it!
The second one was a present from Tanner and Geneva from their "What Did I Get Myself Into?" YouTube channel: W.D.I.G.M.I. PUZZLE. The pieces come in what seems to be Tanner's favorite color (look at the background shelves in his videos!), and the box to pack the pieces in mimicks the question mark which is the logo of this channel. I am sure it will not be easy (that is what it also says on the note!), but fun to play with, as it is also made in high quality. Tanner and I had some nice converations about The Tippenary Mystery tour some time ago, when he was solving the puzzle and then consequently making a video about it, and I think it is a great and fun video! Many thanks for the special gift!
Happy holidays and all the best in 2023 (with a lot of puzzling fun!) to all who like reading this page!
The other parcel is from Rex, and they are 3D printed puzzles, or the typical puzzles made from cut acrylic sheets we like so much, or combining both, like the first one: The Tvnary is a puzzle designed by Tamas, and my guess (from the name, the description, and what I have seen so far) is that it is n-ary. Once I know the parameters after solving, I will add a compendium and group page entry, but there are many moves to be carried out before! The other 3 are cute pocket sized sequential discovery puzzles: Cross my Heart is the latest one and 3D printed. It features a dovetail joint in the middle layers, and I am sure that will need to be unlocked at some point. Nothing moves so far, and there is a lot of rattling inside from small parts. The Fring's Stone seems to fall under the theme "hexagonal". The overall shape is a hexagonal prism and there are hexagonal decorations to be found in serveral places. I have already found a first tool, and I am curious to see the whole puzzle and solution of this puzzle with many acrylic layers. The next one is a bit newer even, and beautifully decorated: Gumball Money. I have found some pieces/tools in more or less obvious places and was in for a little surprise, and this before starting solving seriously. After solving and enjoying the two previous multi layered acrylic puzzles recently, I am now looking forward to more puzzling fun with the 5 puzzles which arrived today, and all those still in my solving backlog!
Another update in the evenning: After solving the Dracula puzzle this morning, I also managed to solve Dracula 2 and have already created some text about this on my Burr Zoo page. Two nice, well crafted, and fun but not too difficult puzzles today.
The new puzzle which arrived today is a succesor in a series of puzzles: Dayan Gem 10. It seems this combines shape and moves from both Dayan Gem 1 and 2, and it seems that #9 was not released to mass production yet. Not sure if I will attempt to solve this one today, as I more feel like playing with some Cubicdissection puzzles again. No chance of solving all of them I have, as they include many complex solutions, and the sheer number of them: 138, collected since my first order in 2009. Seems like Eric had quite an impact on my puzzle collecting, and I am not the only one out there!
Update:There is a second update hidden somewhere on this page (or sub pages) about a puzzle I have just solved. A great puzzle and a lot of fun with some nice aha-moments!
Alfons Eyckmans was also there with a table flooded with beautiful wooden puzzles he had built and brought along. The first one may only have six pieces, but the level is quite impressive for a board burr (with some pins/slots added): Goot 1. The next couple of puzzles are six pieces burrs with a secret inside and the same theme. Not really about animals, but in my view a nice addition to the Burr Zoo: Dracula and Dracula 2. While completely different, the looks of these puzzles fit the common theme in some way. One of my all time favorites are the 18 pieces burrs group and while I am still busy trying to solve that recent addition with level 126, and for which I may have already found the first 88 moves (based on some discussion and feedback), there are some lower level ones added today. Maybe for the first one the definition needs to be stretched a bit again, as it has additional pieces together with the typical main shape: Aurora. The next one is getting closer to the classic shape, and shares the same level (for the first piece) with the following one: Aldie and Lippelo. Now I also have level 60 on my page, and twice! For starters, there is also a nice one with lower level: Crocs. The next two ones were a cooperation with a different designer, from India, and adding to the fascinating pad lock shaped burr group (not sure if they require a separate page!): Sher-Lock Extreme and A Notched Trifecta beta. The shapes have been used for these locks before, and I will see how they compare to these earlier designs. Meanwhile, I also received some additional details from the designer on one of them, and that makes it even more interesting to solve. Magestic 3 is obviously based on Num-Lock, but the innards are a bit different from that. Having operated the first dozens of moves, the sequence seems to be different than the original Num-Lock. Still an n-ary puzzle, hence added to n-ary puzzle group and compendium.
After picking up some of Hans' puzzles earlier, I was able to get some more of them while they are still available. They are some variations, and all sliding picece puzzles with a twist — or should I say: "turn"? The Slidy 8.a.1 looks very similar to the Slidy 8, but look at the angle of the digits! The Change of Heart is also based on a 3x3 board with a rotation possibility in one corner, but it works differently. Actually, the center piece is extracted for more space, and only then rotations in the corner are possible. The main goal is the same like for the next one: change between different pictures (two heart pictures in two shades). The next one offers 4 different pictures (i.e. squares), but no rotations. However, there are arrows on some of the pieces, and it is easy to guess what those sliding blocks do — or rather don't do: Square Dancing.
Earlier this year I worked with Oskar for a solution on the Panex Galaxy, and that put some wear on my copy and I just had to buy the beautiful mass produced version of it, which is Chess and Egypt themed: Egyptian Coin Trade. Of course, I have updated the n-ary puzzle group and compendium entry. As I found out a day later, the colours of the channels have been changed, so that this puzzle has now a slightly different solution.
Then there were also some nice looking 3D printed puzzles after all this wood before: Butterfly Romance is Spring themed and obviously you need to free the butterflies to progress with the box. A very organic looking maze! The next two are more about geometry instead: Square Vibe is a box with a geometry theme and after looking at it a bit, it will not all be squares to open the box. The Crazy Donut needs to be taken apart, and this may not only involve geometry, but also a bit of physics. The last one is a piece of art: Trinity will display nicely as a sculpture, but there are also three face pieces that should be packed into the frame.
Overall, a puzzle haul with puzzles from many different groups and topics. Looking forward to solve them (also to do something about the constantly growing solving backlog).
The rest of the puzzles I picked up myself at the "Spiel" games fair in Essen today (beside some games of course). Puzzle-Shop had some from the latest Cast puzzles and I also picked up an older one I did not have yet: Cast Cross and Cast Spiral. My first visit was to a manufacturer's own fair booth, to see what new Constantin puzzles had shown up. Again, I picked up some recently released puzzles I had seen before: Irrsins-Box and Bier-Box. Additionally to that some brand new puzzles that looked very interesting. The Telefon Box is not like the SMS box, even though both feature a phone dial and a receiver that can be picked up. My first guess is that this new box is of the n-ary kind, and I am going to add it to the Compendium and group pages after solving and upon confirming. Another box that could also be in this group of puzzles is the beautifully decorated Stern Box. Depending on whether you like stars or the sun more, you can choose the name and also the goal of the puzzle, to find that sun or star. The last one is called Anchor Box and from the decoration it should be clear why. This is a design from Jules, and playing with the box a bit, the mechanism exhibits some unusual and unexpected behaviour. This will be a fun and complicated box to solve, I am sure! Beside getting all these puzzles I also met some old friends there, some of which I haven't seen for years.
The other puzzles are all from the Burr Zoo, and new species not yet in my zoo: Fly Trap and Fly Trap 2 not only have some fly engraved on the outside, but additional fly pieces trapped inside. And a lot of them: 3 or 4 respectively! The other two puzzles have much larger animals, which no human has met in real life before: Dino and Dino 2. Both of them have some dino shapes engraved on the outside, and a hand carved dinosaur piece of art inside! While the Fly Traps are more conventional, these two also offer some unusual arrangement of pices, with 16 and 14 burr sticks making the base shape. All these are made from beautiful woods (much nicer than on my poor pictures), and I am looking forward to play with some (more) nice wooden burr puzzles again. The solving backlog is still growing with excellent puzzles, and more puzzles are scheduled to arrive soon. Today's puzzle parcel also added a new puzzle to a group that was last extended in 2020, nearly 2 years ago: 18 pieces burrs group page. Can you find which one it is?
.JPG "Coherent Convoys")
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Today's update features two puzzles, and they are both related to the 2021 Nob Yoshigahara Design Competition. The first one is Coherent Convoys is a puzzle from the n-ary puzzle group and compendium, and I am happy that an n-ary puzzle won a prize at this competition (again after 2017, 2005, 2004 and 2003). The second puzzle for today is the trophy of this competition, beautifully made from wood and with a nice stand: Cryptos. I had to wait a while for the Coherent Convoys to arrive to be added to my collection, and it was worth all the waiting. It is the third copy and a lot of work to create, and the first two copies went to the design competition to remain with the jury. This puzzle is made in Namick's typical style and in very high quality, beautiful to look at and fun to play with, and there are some small details that actually have a meaning for the puzzle solution. |
.JPG "Cryptos")
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| Sliding the ships around is a lot of fun, and it has been quite a while since I last supported Namick on this design, so I could enjoy the puzzle from the beginning again: It is an n-ary puzzle with a regular sequence and after a while you work out how the ships move from chanel to the lock chamber, back to the blue channel, or further to the red channel. The sequence continues nice and regularly and after a while you will find yourself going in circles and the whole lock demonstrating some form of rush hour deadlock. This is where the fun starts: Pick the right moment in the sequence to move a ship in the other direction than usual, and not run into a dead end again. An n-ary puzzle with a modified sequence, even better than an n-ary only puzzle! Some more details in the compendium entry. | ||
There are still some puzzles from last weekend to solve, and following my talk, my Twins Cube has once again become an accidental assembly puzzle. Need to fix that, to solve it the regular way!
After a couple years without larger puzzle meetings for me, yesterday it was time for a GCD (German Cube Day) in Düsseldorf again, to meet many old and new friends, and also try and buy some puzzles. The first one I received there was the giveaway puzzle, and I had nearly forgotton that I was involved into arranging this for the giveaway: Senemmetry. I have seen some examples that some participants have found the correct solution, which is good. Beside the activities already mentioned, I was giving a talk which I had prepared for GCD 2020 two years ago, about my journey and extensive report solving a certain puzzle, including some historical overview. You can download the slides of a talk about a complicated twisty puzzle, but that will not give you the full solution, but maybe an idea why it was so very interesting to me.
After my talk while listening to two nice talks including some explosions and puzzle family discussions, I spotted a two puzzle mugs sitting in front of me on Joop's table. One was a tire company (including Michelin) themed mug, and Joop could quickly help Roman to close a gap in his Michelin themed puzzle family he told us about in the talk just minutes earlier. The other was quickly bought, for the theme and because I do not have any mug puzzles yet: Sliders Mug Star Trek TNG Romulan. Earlier that day, I found some fascinating new puzzles for sale on some overflowing tables (a view I have missed for more than 2 years!). First some variations of the classic Rubik's clock puzzles I had seen on pictures earlier this year: Magic Clock 3 Levels and Magic Clock 5 Levels. I wonder if they are more difficult or easier to solve than the original, and how the solving method transfers to these. In any case, they seem to be high quality with smooth mechanisms inside. From twisting puzzles to turning puzzzles, on the same table I was able to find some original TICs (3D printed by the designer himself) which I did not yet have (yes, I had to use this web site to check!): GalacTIC a puzzle with many rotations and many moves for the last piece to come out, and GeneTIC which seems to spread the rotations over different pieces in the solution. The next table(s) was/were stacked with those typical crates (so many of you know whose that was) and there I picked up puzzles from different categories and timeframes: Ton's Ring Puzzel from 1983 and improved in 2006, and there seems to be a lot of material considering you only need to remove that ring. Aus dem EFFEFF? was advertised to be interesting, contains two puzzles (one each side) and employs some new production techniques: The magnets are not part of the solution, but for easier production, to keep the two layers together. Earlier this year, I received a calendar packing puzzle with month and day of month to be arranged, and I have since been solving this as a daily challenge. This one offers 365 challenges (valid challenges this year) at a nice and moderate difficulty level. Now there is another new one that has some additional tricks: Happy Birthday!. The pieces are also including some larger ones, now you have month, day, and weekday to arrange, where each month name takes two adjacent spaces. A bonus question for this one: Couting the total square fields in this is easy, but how does this match what we have to denote the various days/months/weekdays, and how was this done? I also received an interesting "Oskar goodie" Crescents Coaster, which was the DCD giveaway I had missed, and had played with a bit before. From a puzzle friend, I recieved some more of Oskar's screw related puzzles: Nut Stack has already been assembled. 9 to 5 needs to be set up first to solve this challenge, moving the inner part through a maze so that the clock hand will end up at the 5 pm mark. The Screw Fit is obviously in a disassembled state and there are left and right hand threads involved, making it more of a challenge, and like for the last one, these versions don't contain the colours Oskar used in his, so no hints from there: Screw Pack is a "Screw Mess" right now, but hopefully a screw pack soon. While I was away, a package with a monster puzzle assembly kit challenge arrived from a Kickstarter campaign, and even with all my previous experieces on those plywood kits earlier on, this will take a while. The manual looks like a book for this time, and has some aspects I have not seen before in it. Time will tell when (/if?) that project is finished, but I am looking forward to it.
What a day yesterday! And an excellent one, thanks to all!
Now back to puzzles arriving in my collection: There was a kickstarter campaign last year featuring a new designer for Escape Rooms in a Box. This time with a designer from Miami in the US and a manufacturer in the UA (Ukraine): Professor's Cache. It seems to contain several types of puzzles and locks on the sides, and a cryptex locked inside. I am curious to see what I will find and if I can stay within the time limit of 60 minutes. This puzzle is adding to my puzzle solving backlog, and also growing escape room in a box collection.
... and then this as well: Hog Wild, with some completely different solving experience.
This puzzle is the third one in a trilogy of 3D printed sequential discovery puzzles in cubic shape: Mighty Pin. While also this starts by unscrewing a bolt, like the other two, this one has some fundamental difference in the workings. I have just started solving it and found some very interesting steps and I am curious to see what I will find. Like the other two, it is again nicely made as a high quality 3D print, this time even in two colours, and at a quite affordable price. I have heard some praises about this puzzle and that it should be even better than the other two, which I enjoyed a lot. Today also something else arrived very well packaged in a flat parcel from Czech republic and created by a puzzle friend from the UK. Not a puzzle, but puzzle related and still for offer on the Pelikanpuzzles shop and soon on Cubicdissection. Having had a first look, I am sure that this will take me more time than the puzzle, but will be easier to progress. Both objects arriving today will contain some Aha! moments, I am sure.
The next one was the main reason for my order, after I had discovered it in a recent VMPP (virtual puzzle party): 4L Bin. It is a packing puzzle, and it is n-ary! So it certainly receives its place in compendium and n-ary puzzle group. This is the first n-ary packing puzzle I know of, and while entering the 4L shaped blocks (hence the "4L" in the name) into the box (hence "bin"), entering the last pieces after putting the first three in will require a binary sequence (hence "bin" in the name, again!). A well designed puzzle and interesting concept and also well chosen name. More detail pictures can be seen in the compendium entry. Of course, with these puzzles, the border between packing and interlocking burr puzzles is not a strong one. What may be a difference here is that while other puzzles have hundereds (or thousands) of moves for complete disassembly, this one came as a box with 4 pieces to put in, and no internal guiding system like for many of those disassembly puzzles. Even though also puzzles like the Merry-go-Round set came with the pieces outside the box/frame, this one seems to be more like a packing puzzles than the other ones, with a clear objective: Pack the pieces into the box, so that they are completely inside.
The last one is a smaller packing puzzle and has three beautiful canarywood pieces to be packed: EdgeHog. The box has a 3x3x3 inside volume consisting of 27 cubies and an opening of 2x3, and the pieces all have a slightly different shape of 7 voxels each. Should not be that difficult? Well, only packing this assembly within a 3x3x3 bounding box outside of that box proved difficult to me, and of course that assembly did not allow for any obvious way how to get it into the box. So this puzzle will keep me busy packing for some time, I guess. Three beautiful and interesting puzzles for today, something to be happy about!
Update 2021-04-22: Only a day later and I have to say the puzzle is indeed solvable. The considerations that led to my doubts yesterday can indeed be used to determine an assembly that can be packed into the box, making use of the rotating lid multiple times as well. Burr-Tools cannot be of help here, or can it? A fascinating puzzle!
Schluessel (Key) is a Roger Puzzle by the mysterious German puzzle designer Roger D. While it is only a key by name, the main part is that (b)lock with the key hole. As usual, key and keyhole are delivered separeted, so you can put the key into the key hole, then turn clockwise, just to find out that the key would stop just short of the full rotation. Well, then maybe it was wrong to put the key in and turn that way? Let's turn it back and take it out! Of course, this is a mean puzzle and the key will not turn at all any more, and is perfectly stuck in that nearly fully rotated position. Getting it out is actually the main objective of the puzzle. Not wanting to spoil anything here, I am just mentioning that the puzzle is even meaner than described so far. After playing with it a bit, I managed to get the key out, and without force, but with what seems to be the intended solution. I managed to do this several times already and still have no good idea how the innards of this cute puzzle look like. So probably this is the real challenge: Make up a consistent theory on how that mechanism actually looks like and works. A fascinating puzzle, and quite different from the other Roger puzzle I already have, and it was definitely worth the "puzzle hunt".
Merry Christmas to all puzzle friends all over the world and have some great holidays! While the current situation is quite strange, hopefully next year there will be puzzle meetings again, let's look forward to that.
| A special update today for people who like numbers. The puzzle I received today is Ternary Pin Burr from Aleksandr Leontev, and it is an n-ary puzzle, and those puzzles are mainly popular because of their number of moves. However, this puzzle is also related to another number, it is number 3000 in my collection. The puzzle looks a bit like a frosted little cake, so maybe put some candles on top to celebrate the numbers? It is nicely 3D printed in two colours and has some metal pins leading to the name of the puzzle, and additionally to an n-ary puzzle it is also a burr, with 35 pieces and level 162. Such a burr would be very difficult to disassemble, let alone assemble, but the ternary sequence makes disassembly a feasible task and within minutes, the first pieces come out. It is nice to play with and fun to solve, and I have now taken it apart completely, planning to get it back together without help. Let's see how that works out! Of course, this puzzle has received a spot in the two pages related to n-ary puzzles: n-ary puzzle group and compendium |
.JPG "Ternary Pin Burr")
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The second puzzle is a design by a late puzzle designer, and a new and 3D printed version of one of his puzzles: Crazy Elephant Dance. It is smaller than the MDF version I already have, and has two more elephants. However, they are easy to operate and it does not seem to take much longer to run through this longer solution sequence than for the original one. Actually, when Markus still had his home page, there was a Java version of this puzzle on it, and it allowed for an adjustable number of elephants, and 7 elephants was one of the challenges. Adjustable number of elephants, this sounds like an n-ary puzzle, and of course it is: Please also see the updated pages for compendium and n-ary puzzle group.
The next one I have already played with a little more than 3 years ago in the Design Competition, when I was attending IPP37 in Paris, where this design also won an award. This also explains that the name of the puzzle is in French: Galette. "Just" pack the set of tetrominoes into the box, not even a 3D challenge, like for the previous puzzle! But rest assured that not only the 3rd dimension will be required for this puzzle, but also some other tricks. Look at the shapes and positions of the openings of the box! For the last puzzle, I had some doubts whether to buy it, because I really do not like mushrooms. However, this is a nice framed 5 piece burr in reality, and the mushroom is made beautifully from wood and is attached to one of the burr pieces: Talisman. This puzzle has nice precise fit and even after only trying some moves, I already like this puzzle and look forward to solving it. And maybe that toadstool will also bring me a bit of luck? There is also an additional puzzle involved with this Talisman puzzle, when it comes in its original box. And those new cardboard boxes by Pelikanpuzzles are nice, too.
These puzzles will be showing up for offer on Pelikanpuzzles' shop very soon, and there is more: One of the nice zoo burrs I already have, and which was built for me by the designer, will also be available: Alligator. This is a great puzzle and fun to play with, and also a 2-in-1: Once you have taken the alligator out, you can also solve it as an easier puzzle without it. I only did not order it because I already have it, and what I have seen from pictures it will come in a similar beautiful version.
The second parcel came from China, from Aaron, with some more of his new 2020 releases, designed by him and his friends. The first 4 are continuations of known series I already have. Scissors 3 and Scissors 4 — can you spot the difference between the two? Most likely the second one was a modification of the first design to make it easier/more difficult/more interesting/more complicated, and I have yet to find out. The other two ere two of the Grenade series and here the difference is more obvious (hint: count the number of decorations!): Grenade 3 and Grenade 4. The name of the next one clearly relates to the shape: Headset. This is a quite common utility these days and maybe after some solving attempts the puzzle will be as entangled as some real head sets? The No Return has an interesting challenge: You have to enter that handle piece into the maze in the lower opening and then traverse the whole maze and exit through the upper opening — no return, please!. The last one is Jack's Ladder and mabye the most interesting to me. It looks like it should be n-ary, but I will yet have to solve that puzzle to find out. At least, it does not seem trivial, as a first unsuccessful solving attempt showed. All these puzzles will be take some time to solve, and they are adding up to the backlog I already have, and there are other puzzles I have also been trying to solve recently, like the Spider Web.
The other package did not come from far away, but from what would have been about an hour's drive under normal circumstances. Berhard spotted some interesting TIC designs and offered a few copies of them to me. The first one is by a new designer and came in pieces. Not because of careless handling, but because Bernhard thought it a clever idea to make this an assembly challenge. Oh well, I will see where that leads: Roots and Branches. My guess is that the big pieces first are joined in a complicated way (with strange rotational moves) and then the filler pieces added later. From the count of cubies, I can deduce that the level (move for the first piece to come out) must be 1! The other puzzles are by well-known designers: Geneva by William Hu with both rotations and coordinate motion and then there are some record breakers for their designer Andrew Crowell: TriumviraTIC is the highest number of moves for 3 pieces he designed, and look there are no visible gaps (also none on the backside) for this cube! LocomoTIC is the highest number of total moves for a 4x4x4 cube by this designer, and of course it involves rotations! With all these TICs I can see my head spinning around when trying to solve these puzzles!
Another parcel arrived today with some auction win from a recent puzzle auction: Cricket Cage Violin. This is one of the small cricket boxes, and maybe that deserves some more explanation. This name has nothing to do with the game popular in Great Britain, Australia, and India, but relates to something that some people in China like: Keeping an insect as a pet. To give it a portable home, these cricket boxes were created, and most of them have openings that are not obvious, and that is why they became popular among the puzzle community as well. This particular one in violin shape features the following: A breathing opening so that enough air can reach the inside of the box, then a small feeding hole that allows to enter small portions of food without the insect being able to escape, then a main lid that opens a window so you can see the inside of the box and the inhabitant, and then an opening to fully access the inside of the box. Of course, mine did not come with any insect and I have no intention of keeping one inside! So this box may fall into two puzzle related categories: Puzzle box, and the so-called whatsits (objects with purpose to be determined).
Update: Solved! It was a nice and interesting solving experience and a trick seems to be required for the solution.
The second one arrived in the afternoon, and for that one, I had the chance to play with one before at DCD, and immediately knew I wanted to have one: Phoenix Family. This is a burr set for experts, or should I say "extreme puzzlers"? Unlike other burr sets to build 6 piece burrs, this is one for building many of the highest level standard 18 pieces burr currently in existence, and it contains the world record holder Supernova, and some other named ones like Burrly Sane for Extreme Puzzlers, Tiros. Jack has beautifully crafted this set and a nice storage/presentation box, which also contains overview cards for six named burrs and six unnamed burrs, all of these of level 134 and above. Again, the name of this puzzle is a bit misleading, as the original Phoenix burr is not included, but a note telling how this puzzle started it all. The lid of the box contains a beautiful phoenix inlay, so there is a phoenix involved indeed! Of course, only the selection of pieces is listed on the cards, and not the long solution sequences. For me, building these burrs from this information only and without help would prove an impossible task, but using Burr-Tools for the assembly and then trying to disassemble them is difficult enough. Just yesterday, I revisited the BSfEP and even those 152 moves to remove the first piece of this known puzzle are a good challenge and offer some training for what is to come with this set. Jack has built this beautiful set in a nice size, and it is only roughly double the size of the Premiere (and that includes the box), so this is also a very space efficient way to play with high level 18 pieces burrs. This will take me busy for quite some time, I am sure about that! This burr set has 45 pieces, not only 18, but certainly deserves a space (if not several of them) in the 18 pieces burrs group.
Just noticing that the names of the Karakuri x-mas presents have been published, these have now been added to this site and one of them also went into compendium and n-ary puzzle group.
Update: Having solved this puzzle (complete disassembly and reassembly), I like this design even more. The moves enforced by the various pins and groves are unusual and fascinating. Similar to earlier puzzles in the series, one piece has to be parked in a position where it would just fall off it it was a regular 6 piece board burr. The grooves come in linear form without exits and some in angled or even cross shaped form, and while some of them pose the challenge to get the pin out, others actually help to understand where a piece will move within the solution while newly entering a pin into a groove. 28 moves with all kinds of restictions do not make the puzzle easy, so that during my first solve, I was suddenly surpised: How did that piece come out of the puzzle? A quick analysis showed that it must have been the intended way, with a sequence to leave a groove just a few moves earlier. Getting the piece back in and the puzzle into starting configuration was another challenge, and then I noticed something that would make this easier: Like for the previous one, there is a complex rotational shortcut, so that the same first piece comes out after 8 moves already, including two rotations, and one angled move. I consider this an alternate solution, which is also fun to find, and determining both solutions make it a nice challenge. After complete solve taking apart the puzzle into all six pieces, and back again, I disassembled the puzzle once more to confirm my soltion with Burr-Tools, and it seems I was spot on with my approach. A fascinating puzzle, and maybe my favourite of the series so far.
Update: The BioTIC is now solved, which took a little more than an hour. A nice puzzle with some easy pieces and some very difficult pieces requiring some rotations. It can be solved by analysis and experimenting with the pieces and is a fun challenge to solve.
15 Interlocking Quads, the giveaway and joining in with the craze of unusual jigswaw puzzles (Yes, there are now some jigsaw puzzles on this page, but only very special ones! And this one has only 15 pieces and multiple challenges, so it should be OK). The first visit was to Alfon's tables to collect some pre orders and some others that are particularly interesting: Friend with a shield, Polidoor, Spidernest, Waltzing Whales, Lion King 2, Six Pack 2, Try Me, Try Me 2, The Box. Some of those are even calling out to solve them, so I had get them to try them. While all these are made from beautiful woods and now have their names engraved with a laser, there is one exception (Try to find out, it is documented on this web presence somewhere!) of a 3D printed piece, printed by Alfon's new 3D printer. He also had some purely 3D printed puzzles, like the Kruispunt. Puzzles of such 8 parallel boards are usually quite difficult even at low level, and look at what level this one has! Thanks for offering me these nice puzzles, they look beautiful!
The next two are from Jean-Claude Constantin's latest works and Wil had some of them, which are unmistakenly the new style, but unfortunately, I had to guess some names. The Rainbow Colour Box* is a small puzzle box, and then the Rainbow Colour Lock* is a hefty wooden lock that is no good for your credit cards and alike — very strong magnets! One of the magnets escaped when I dropped it, and I had to collect it from some metal part of my sofa at the other end of the room! Then there are some Siebenstein Puzzles Hendrik had for offer, and two of them are more puzzle boxes, in the series I already have: Puzzle-Box 05 and Puzzle-Box 06. When seeing the Tresor on a picture, I was immediately intrigued after having solved the traditional design "Combination Lock" a lot earlier this year. There seem to be some similarities, but also notable differences. The second puzzle looks a bit like a Panex or The Bell puzzle, but there is no completely empty column at the start: Samurai, and possibly multiple solutions. Makoto had some Benno's Magic boxes for offer, which I hesitated to order earlier on and now got a second chance: Companion Box, Dice Box, and Answer Box. In such a big haul with many burrs and puzzle boxes, I also managed to sneak in a twisty puzzle (for the Cube Day Theme) at last: 2x2x3 Minions, one of the easy puzzles made for a promotional campaign. A great weekend and a great puzzle haul!
As a side note, I have quietly updated my compendium with an additional feature for easier navigation. You can find it on the upper part of the compendium puzzle list page.
The next puzzle is one of a very big and prominent special group on this page: compendium and n-ary puzzle group. The Ternary / Quinary Cube is a design by Aleksandr Leontev, and while we were discussing such puzzles earlier, he asked who might be able to actually build a series of one of his puzzles. It turned out Johan did! The puzzle comes in a standard configuration of all ternary, and can be reconfigured to use quinary mazes (and also mixed base setups as Jack found out, details in the compendium entry). The look and feel of the puzzle is overall very nice, but Johan gives two warnings, and both of them seem to be appropriate: Never disassemble completely, and some pins are very close to the edge of the blocks, so one has to be careful. A very interesting puzzle and made from nice and unusual woods.
The third group does not have a dedicated page here, but it is more a puzzle for the reader to find out all members: The IPP39 Design Competition entries. After IPP39 was over, Brian offered the IPP39 IDC entries he had built, and there is even one top 10 vote getter amonst them: Hat Trick makes you wonder how these pieces should all fit into this box, with the strange T-shaped slot. The pieces of Rules of Attraction come in a nice pouch, and this is for a good reason! They are made of "magnetic wood" and as soon as they land on the table, they will come alive and will move around like by magic. This makes the task of building a stable cube not exactly easier. The Cover Up explains the objective in its name: Just cover that one light piece with the others. Looking at Somaa, not only the name seems to be slightly off, but also the dimensions. Knowing Brian's skills, it is quite obvious that this is no mistake, but part of the design and a feature making it more difficult to form the cube (now cuboid!). I am sure that all these puzzles will keep me busy for a good while. Actually, I have another update on an existing post, but this post today is long enough already. Let's get back to puzzling!
Additional update: After taking months for the previous one, I completed the solution of the Corn on the Cob V within a day, and it seems much easier to me, and a great puzzle. Some details of the solution are now found in the new compendium entry.
Additional update: Just today I managed to solve Aaron's Corn on the Cob IV puzzle completely, after struggling for many months. With the solution determined, it seems quite easy actually, but that is the case for many of those. Some details of the solution are now found in the new compendium entry.
Chinese Soft Ring is a puzzle from simple components, but very well designed: 7 rope loops, and two steel rings with an opening to narrow for the rope. I received fully functional prototype version early this year, and can only reveal it now because it took place in both IPP Exchange and Design Competition. It is fascinating how complicated such a simple looking puzzle can be, and how entertaining. Once you have worked out the basic structure — equivalent to the classic binary Chinese Rings — you only need to stay focused to solve this puzzle. In Competition/Exchange, it was set up as a simpler version with only 3 rope loops, and additional challenges were added for additional puzzling and entertainment. Some more details can be read in the entry in the compendium and n-ary puzzle group. The other Design Competition entry I received for an early look was the Dunant. From the initial setup, the theme is obvious, with the two pieces showing a red cross (Look up the name of the founder of the Red Cross to see the link!). However, these pieces are not packed into the box completely, and the goal is to pack all 5 pieces into the box. How this works is not obvious and can be worked out by careful analysis and experiment with the puzzle. Needless to say that just packing the pieces is not enough, and some special moves including rotations are required for this very entertaining puzzle. To my knowledge this puzzle will be available in the near future, in a very high quality build. The last of the three is not part of the Design Competition, but of the IPP Edward Hordern Puzzle Exchange: Rainbow Colour Tree. This is Wil's Exchange puzzle and nicely made and fun to play with. This is a brand new variation on the "Nur 8" puzzle, and here there are two rows of colour coded fields, and a set of pegs with the same colours. Goal is to move pegs from the matching colour alignment in the inner ring to the outer ring with matching colour alignment, and back. If you feel brave, you can also try more challenges, like using the outer ring's colour scheme in the inner one and vice versa. What makes this a puzzle is that there is one obvious gap in the frame allowing the transition between inner and outer circle, and then on the middle acrylic layer, there is a maze, which can be rotated around the central pin, and which limits the transitions between different positions. A fascinating sliding piece puzzle!
Now for today's update some nice twisties arrived from Nowstore this morning, and one of them is a puzzle that was waiting for mass production for a long time: Rua. This is probably the most difficult of the lot, and it seems to be related to the FTO. The other two look quite easy, and could be nice and easy puzzles even solvable at the very high temperatures we currently have: The Seed and Evil Seed
The other package was a package from Knobelbox catching up on some older Hanayama puzzles, most of them just being two entangled pieces each, but that does not say anything about the difficulty rating: Cast S and S, Cast Hook, Cast Baroq, Cast Medal, and Cast H and H. The order also contained a trick lock: Push Trick Lock 5. This is a variation of a well known trick lock design.
Today, the Karakuri Christmas presents showed up at the local customs office for import. As usual, I don't know the names for most of them, to be added later on. The first one is Silent Cat and a nice little cat figurine in the typical style for this designer. Not too difficult, but some funny steps. The X-mas present 1 is a drawer, like last year, but this time it does not open immediately, as the last one did (with the secret still hidden). The next one is X-mas present 2 and has some trees on it. These trees were used by the designer in several puzzles in the past, and they always gave a very specific hint for the solution. Based on this, I have a vague idea, what may happen here, too! The X-mas present 3 looks like a caged 6 piece burr, but it is actually a box, and behaves like one. I have only found some steps so far, but they are typically for the designer, and I am looking forward to finding many more steps before the box opens!
And now for something completely different: Non-IPP puzzles. The GELO 1234 is one of those numbered designs, and with just three pieces in a frame it is not overly difficult, but reassembly from scratch may be a bit more challenging. The Printable Interlocking Puzzle 4 made out of wood is a curiosity, as Richard has specifically designed it to be easily printable on a standard 3D printer without the need of support structures. Still it is a nice puzzle in wood and has some nice move sequences. Why, why, why, oh why does the next puzzle have the name "YyYy", you might ask? Having a look at the pieces, this will become clear, as they are clearly Y shaped. It is the second puzzle of this designer in this update, and one may have expected more like just level 13.3 with linear moves, like some fancy rotations. Starting to play with it, this puzzle will demonstrate some nice and usual move sequences, and level 13.3 for such simple pieces is actually quite high. The last puzzle is from a designer I have not heard of before, but searching for his name, I came accross an ACM paper about "Recursive Interlocking Puzzles" which I had read some years ago. The puzzle is a cube related to this article: Singapore 5x5x5. Not one of those fancy animal shapes, yet an interesting demonstration of the concept.
While creating this update, one of the latest works from the Karakuri creation group arrived: Visible 5-Ary Drawer (Quinary). As one may guess from the title, this is clearly part of compendium and n-ary puzzle group and fun to solve, with a smooth mechanism. Unlike many other Karakuri boxes, the n-ary mechanism of this box is in plain sight beneath an acrylic cover, allowing to follow what happens easily. This is actually the 200th entry in the compendium, and there are even more puzzles in it if you count all the variants!
For the other new entries, we have to focus our attention on non-lock puzzles again. The first one may not be the best example: Dinilock No. 1 was published at IPP38, where the world's foremost and best known collector of Trick Locks from India chose it as his Exchange puzzle. This 3D printed lock does not only look like a lock, but it can also serve as a true padlock. As it has a reasonable difficulty and is fun to solve (as I can tell from my own experience), we were able to start the possible puzzle collecting career of some participants of the lock collector meeting with this nice puzzle. What is a bonus is that unlike most trick locks, this is an open puzzle allowing to see everything and solving by deduction rather than blind guessing. Currently, there is some available at Puzzle Paradise at a very good price, so it is easy to give it a go! The other puzzles were some brought by Wil to be dinner table entertainment and kept puzzlers and lock collectors busy for quite some time: The Coin Puzzles - Selected by Iwahiro is a variation on a classic scheme, transforming figures obeying certain rules. The puzzle is nicely implemented allowing it to be easily carried around in the pocket for the next occasion to try. While the first challenge seems easy at first, it is not, and the others are indeed challenges that can be solved, but require some thoughts and creativity. The Make a Square - Cover the Centre consists of a set of nice wooden pieces on a nice board, where you have to place them creating a full square, without a hole in the middle, At the beginning some pieces seem to provide hints as to where they may or may not be placed, pending the evaluation of these hints after I will have solved the puzzle. Thanks for the nice puzzles!
Both from a puzzle collecting perspective, and the event, with all the people involved, the experiment of joining a lock collector's meeting proved to be a great idea and it was a fun weekend and well organized! Cheers to the organizers!
A second parcel brought some old and new puzzle designs from the US, all very nice and well made. After his successful "Free Me 5" showing up in the Design Competition last year, I have now received some older models and a newer model from the series. The Free Me 2 is the oldest one and there is a lot of sliding going on. Yet alone 5 different dovetail connections keep the various parts together, and you can slide some a bit, and also move the rod in the bottom block. After having briefly played with that one last year at DCD, I will now try to solve it and work out how to get the half dollar out. The Free Me 4 also has the characteristic dovetails, but looks a bit different than the others. While the others are flat, this has more like a box shape, but in the end also a half dollar coin is secured and has to be released. The latest one is Free Me 6, which I first spotted on the Design Competition Website. It is a tiny bit bigger than the Free Me 5, and some initial moves seem to work similar like in that model. Some others don't, however! There is a lot going on in those pocket puzzles, I can tell even without having solved them.
The other package contained some plastic puzzle. The first one I remember from IPP34: Six Cube. It looks like it is a six piece burr in bright plastic. So why did I put it into the Twisty Puzzles class? Well, it is actually a heavily truncated 3x3x3 design lacking all the corners and some parts of the edge piececs. A very clever idea! If you perform the standard checkerboard pattern, you will be disappointed, because the colour scheme does not lead to anything really new. However, if you take a look at some of the internal pieces visible through the gaps, you will notice some part of a checkerboard pattern after all. Truely a puzzle not behaving like a standard 3x3x3. With it came an old vintage puzzle, having an imprint stating that it was sold for 3 rubl some decades ago. It is a Pyraminx From Tula, a Pyraminx version I have never seen before. Thank you, Evgeniy/Grigorusha!
With the Design Competition results announced, I can finally write something about those puzzles. During the competition, I had the possibility to play with 13 of the entries — can you spot them in the List of all puzzles? Aside from the ones I mentioned above, there are some prize winners I already had in my collection for some time:
Quartet Box was a top 10 votes prize and I was sure it would win something, as it is just a fascinating puzzle box. A very unusual mechanism, some sequential discovery elements that nicely interact with each other and which require multiple senses to solve, followed by a final step that was so well hidden that it eluded many puzzlers. The Cast Trinity won a 1st Prize and this is a puzzle I still need to solve, and it does not seem too easy. Just three pieces to take apart! Then there is the Casino puzzle. You may know my review from my entry below, or from the Pelikan Puzzles web shop, where it has sold out quickly. When we first discussed that puzzle and how well it would fit into the Design Competition, we did not imagine what happened yesterday: The puzzle won both the two big prizes of the Design Competition and therefore became "Puzzle of the Year", something that had last happened in 2008. A well deserved prize!
Update on 2018-07-08: Having now solved the box, I understand the various parts of the short description Jack added to the box: "It's sequential discovery, it's riddle solving, it's ternary, and in the end it is challenging." The challenge in the end is a real surprise and a real challenge, I must admit. If you ever get stuck on the box, reread this hint, it may help. Some parts of this puzzle are easier, some are more difficult, and alltogether it is a very good challenge to solve that may keep you busy for some time. Now seeing all the parts and pieces, I know where those rattling noises come from that sounded like maybe close to 20 pieces of the mechanism rattling in the box. That does not mean that this box has any loose tolerances. On the contrary, it has precise fit for all parts and I especially like the ternary part and how it works. Jack implemented a clever solution here to avoid blind guessing and allow you to appreciate the ternary disc mechanism. I can only repeat myself: A great box and a lot of fun for me!
Update: Having now solved the box, I must say it is not only beautiful, but also has a clever mechanism inside, and I now know why the name is Pi Puzzle Box (and not Pie Puzzle Box). I won't tell more to avoid spoilers, just that it is a great puzzle box and very well crafted. The mechanism can be opened carefully and reveals that all parts of the box are made from wood. More pictures and information can also be found on Jesse's web page.
Today I also received some brand new puzzles from the Twisty Puzzle section: Chromium Cube and Chromium Cube Super Stickers. This is a new implementation based on a design idea that had been around for many years. I have seen a version based on pieces with magnets attached to a central ball core, but this seems to be the first implementation without such tricks and going to be mass produced. What is so special about this puzzle? The design is also known as the "24 cube", relating to the 24 triangular face pieces on the outside. It is a deep cut puzzle, and the only rotational axes go right through the center, with a cut also right through the center. So unlike the similar looking Dino Cube, the two triangles next to each edge are actually separate pieces. While the puzzle looks simple from the outside, the deep cuts require a complicated mechanism based on multiple stacked spherical shells inside. Of course, these shells may become misaligned and then rotations around the intended axes would no longer be possible. To keep the shells aligned, the designer has implemented gravity pins, and consequently this is a twisty puzzle where care has to be taken on the orientation of the puzzle before performing turns. Tilting the puzzle, those pins make rattling noises, which is a bit unusual and for other puzzles you would think that something must be broken loose inside. Alltogether, the puzzle has a high number of 360 pieces. With all this, the puzzle is of course not a speedcubing puzzle, but the ones I have turn nicely, had no lockups or popping pieces so far, like I heard from other puzzlers. Beside the regular version, I also ordered one with Super Stickers, and the regular version quickly showed me why: Just a few moves done, and the colour scheme is mirror imaged. The puzzle can be ordered from the designer's shop website and comes assembled and stickered at a very good price, which does not only include shipping, but also replacement sticker set, a bag with replacement gravity pins and with replacement springs, and a nicely made pouch for each puzzle. I am happy that I ordered this interesting puzzle, even after initially hearing about some problems others had.
The next two puzzles are some puzzles I have already played with: Mini Lock and Spiral Lock. Both were available at a puzzle meeting last year as 3D printed prototypes and Christoph was looking for feedback and unintended rotational shortcuts. I did not find shortcuts, and liked both puzzles. The Mini Lock is a nice and easy puzzle with a good level for only three pieces in a frame, while the Spiral Lock is more challenging. In my soluition the shackle comes out as first piece — like it should be for a padlock! Those pieces have an interesting move sequences dancing around a central void. Both puzzles are beautiful in the woods chosen by the guys from Pelikanpuzzles, and the Mini Lock is really cute, a perfect match for the name.
The other two are by a well known designer for complicated interlocking puzzles with rotations Osanori Yamamoto: Neo Saturn and Aqua Toto. After solving Lucida recently, and taking a lot of time for that, I am not expecting those two to be easy. The Neo Saturn puzzle has a nice layout with the red dot embedded in the top, and it has some interesting moves right from the beginning. Trying a few moves, I was close to removing the first piece, but my plan was a few milimeters off and did not work. The Aqua Toto reminds me of the Top puzzle by the same designer released recently (still resisting to be solved!) at first sight. However, here the rings have extra cubies attached to make them interlock and restrict the movements, and after a few moves I found out that the two boards don't even have openings big enough to release the two inner pieces. Expecting some interesing rotations!
The second package is from a recent auction win ("win" as in are "you are allowed/obliged to buy the items", not getting them for free): Patchwork Box and Pink Ivory Ring are two beautiful interlocking puzzles in exotic woods by a renowed craftsman and two well known designers. The Flange 99A is a nice little puzzle in a 3D cross shape and non-trivial to assemble. The third package was a win at another auction and is a classic by a well known puzzle designer Sonneveld 9 Piece Board Burr who does not like to give his designs names, and so it has a more technical designation. A beautiful piece coming with its own stand for display.
You will also notice new fields in the puzzle detail pages for the interlocking puzzle class, providing information about the number of pieces, the solution level, and also rotations / coordinate motion moves. Fell free to click on those links, they will take you to the corresponding view of the Interlocking Explorer. Please note: everything works only for the interlocking puzzle class, no others.
The implementation of these new features was not the only task, collecting the data for the entries was also a big task, and is still ongoing. Of course, this only works for puzzle entries with the corresponding data amended, and so far, I have managed to collect this data for a good deal of the around 1000 entries in the interlocking category. Hopefully, the interlocking class of puzzles on this site will now be easier to navigate and it will be easier to find a certain puzzle. This was also my main motivation, after I spend some time flicking through all the pictures of the whole class when searching for the name and other details of a particular puzzle. I wish you happy holidays and all the best for the new year!
The second package arrived from the US, where recently Brian Menold was working on some fascinating new puzzles, all in beautiful woods, too. I knew that the Liliput would soon be available, as Chris told me at Dutch Cube Day. A small puzzle, with two pieces in a frame, but a high level. I wonder what the maximum may be for two pieces in a 4x4x5 frame. The Castle has an unusual look with a central frame and is from Klaas Jan, too. It seems that he is currently experimenting with strange frames, like the one that was published on Puzzlewillbeplayed today. The last two don't need a frame. They are 6BB, meaning 6 Board Burr, consisting of boards. To make it more interesting, they are from the subgroup of Bent Board Burrs, where each piece has a solid block at the end, spanning over two pieces in the assembled state. There have been others before, and I already have some from Frans, who is the expert for this kind of puzzles, but those are new in my collection: Bent Board Burr #4 is a non-trivial example in this group and has a quite high number of moves for the first two pieces. The other one is a variation, the Bent Board Burr #4 Too. It has two assemblies, and the first one has even more moves for both first pieces than the original one. With the uniform choice of woods, it can also be assembled in a lower level assembly.
With those puzzles to solve, there is no need to worry that I might be bored in the near future, in particular as there are other puzzles to solve, like that massive new lock which arrived last week.
The next package was actually an envelope from Jerry Loo's newly opened web shop with some light puzzles inside: Planex and L(8)tice-2. For the lattice puzzle, the target shape is obvious (not shown in the picture), while the Planex has a name resembling the one of a well known puzzle. It is actually a small version of the big Panex puzzle and therefore goes directly to n-ary puzzle group and compendium. It may be much lighter than the Popplock, and may have considerably less parts, but the mathematics behind it is more complicated. This is a nice pocketable version of the Panex which can be solved in reasonable time, too, and has enough pieces to demonstrate the basic ideas and algorithms.
Also around the globe, from Hong Kong, Nowstore had sent a package with some of the latest Twisties: The Curvy Ccopter+3x3 says everything by its name. It is a hybrid of Curvy Copter and 3x3x3 Rubik's cube. It has the regular face turns of the one, and the half turns on the edges of the other, but then there are also the shape shifting moves, now combined with the 3x3x3 moves. The Pentacle Cube is also a modification of a 3x3x3 cube, this time with circles, but unlike a circle cube, they come in a pentagram shape, limiting the available moves considerably. The 4-Leaf-Clover Cube is edge turning, and similar to the Curvy Copter+3x3, those can be half turns, or shorter turns leading to shapeshifting and blocking more and more moves. The Grasse and the perfume was a side order in another package and is a nice easy interlocking puzzle.
The second package had a longer way coming from Taiwan and contained brand new puzzles for n-ary puzzle group and compendium. These puzzles are all variations of the classic "The Brain" puzzle, just with 6 instead of 8 sliders. David took that design and modified it to be a ternary and quaternary version, too: xBrain binary, xBrain ternary, and xBrain quaternary. These three puzzles nicely demonstrate two asspects of n-ary puzzles: They can be transformed to other arities and different number of special pieces. They are 3D printed and high quality, and fun to play with, and the size is even better to handle than the old puzzle. Of course for the pictures (more in the compendium!), I had to solve them all, and they operate well. They have a shortcut, but that wasn't used here. David has improved the original concept in several ways and made some really nice new puzzles here. Thank you for building them for me!
At DCD, I also met the host of this year's IPP and he had one of the missing exchange puzzles with him for me, after it had been caught in German customs earlier this year on the way to IPP. Now I also have Euro Star on my Edward Hordern Puzzle Exchange page.
There were several n-ary puzzles for offer, similar to existing ones in n-ary puzzle group and compendium. The one I chose to add is: The Bell, which is like a Panex puzzle with only 6 levels. There were also some IPP Exchange puzzles for offer, like the The Moose Ball. Leaving the DCD without a twisty puzzle feels strange, and those two are simple and basically a 2x2x2, but look very nice: Hex-X 2x2x2 and 2x2x2 Mini Fisher Cube. The Saturn is a vintage puzzle with not so obvious goal and solution. A novelty is also the Floppy Ghost Cube, which may have better been named "Floppy Ghost Megaminx" or "Ghost Floppy Pentagonal Prism" in a more technical fashion, considering that it is based on a pentagon, not a square.
After wood and plastic, there is also another material category, the heavy one: Cast Dot is the latest Cast puzzle, flat, but folding into interesting shapes before coming apart. Cast Beta Capsule is a remake of some hedgehog puzzle in a different setting. The 3 Circles and Cross the Ball come from one of Wil's business partner in China.
Finally, there is also one trick box in this update, an IPP 36 Exchange puzzle: Bolt. It is a box from Japan, and from this country are also the following not quite so standard sliding piece puzzles: Tricky?, neo SLIDE-9, Easy?, and SOLO are well known designs by one expert of such puzzles: Minoru Abe. The "Easy?" has also made it in several puzzle games I have seen on mobile platforms, where it was used as a mini game, but in an easier version without the red square piece. Making the "Easy?" puzzle easier? Probably that was a good idea for those games, where not everybody is a puzzle solving expert.
This DCD was a great event and I will have some fun working myself through all the new puzzles. No chance to get bored anytime soon!
From the east, from Australia, a package arrived with Juno's latest works. The A Mazing Burr was offered as a prerelease in a charity auction and I was lucky to win one. It was labelled "second grade", but looks like a high quality puzzle and is certainly not a normal six piece burr. There are mazes inside which lead to coordinate motion moves appearing in sequences and regular moves, raising the level to 17 for the first piece. A well deserved name for this puzzle! The Diamond Case was thought to be a small box after the big Framed Burr Box (see below on this page), and not so difficult. That does not mean it is trivial, and it is definitely a cute little box. The Skewed Six Piece Burr* will support Juno's reputation for unusual six piece burrs. This one has a crazy look and hints that something has gone horribly wrong with the angles of Juno's saw and jigs. At a closer look, you will see the nice symmetry. It is only level 1, but the odd shapes make it difficult to re-assemble. Still being a prototype you might want to keep a look on the Pluredro shop for this one to be released in the future. Thanks for the nice puzzle!
After latest count, this is number 16 of this year's IPP Design Competition entries I have in my collection, and one more will be on its way soon. If you haven't noticed yet, the Puzzler's Award winner is also in my collection, just created by a different craftsman and added last October and I had some good fun with it since.
| Usually once every year since 1978 the biggest puzzle related event takes place: the IPP (International Puzzle Party). I have just come back from this amazing event where I met many old and new puzzle friends and brought back some nice puzzles. About 100 puzzles are from the Edward Hordern Puzzle Exchange, where you bring about 100 copies of a new puzzle and exchange with 100 other puzzlers. Please see the special page for these puzzles. My puzzle in the Exchange was the Bastille EscapeRing, combining the two concepts sliding piece puzzle and ring maze into a new one. |
.JPG "IPP34 Exchange")
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Beside the great haul of Exchange puzzles, I also took some more with me, some of them being presented to me, others bought directly from the designers, and then some more. From the IPP team, I received The Paris IPP Cube, which consists of several pieces of pre-cut and pre-folded paper and which can be folded into three dimensional pieces for an assembly puzzle.
The Framed Burr Box was the biggest puzzle I got at IPP. After seeing it on-line in Juno's Pluredro shop website, I thought about getting it some time. Meeting the designer and seeing one standing on his table at IPP made it clear to me that I really wanted this box. Meanwhile, I have solved it and it is an excellent puzzle for both puzzle box enthousiasts as well as puzzlers interested in high level framed burrs. The inventor of the original framed 6 piece burr has combined these two puzzle concepts, leading to a very interesting experience when solving the burr part. It is the first framed burr I know that will open up the frame more and more during solving. From the IPP Design Competition, I received the Jury Honorary Mention prized Burrnova, a beautiful puzzle with a surprise in it, which seems to have developed from Jerry's earlier concepts with pins and magnets. The new semi-automatic move sequence of 11 moves will hit you by surprise and you have to be careful not to drop this nice puzzle then. The No Full Pirouette! is unmistakenly Namick's usual style, but this time the n-ary elements appear in a somewhat randomized and decorated fashion. For each of the modules you have to determine the arity, and then also the sequence to solve the whole puzzle. Not the everyday n-ary puzzle, but a very interesting one, which probably also lead to the well deserved Jury award of a first prize! The second n-ary entry is the MiSenary Puzzlebox, a puzzle box that works differently than initially expected. Only if you find out that n-ary nature and the right sequence, you will be able to open this box. I am happy that I could play with a prototype earlier this year and provide the designer some advice for improvement which has found its way into the final version. Those two puzzles can of course be found in n-ary puzzle group and compendium. The Unlawful Assembly is another competition entry, nicely made and easily explained. Just put the four identical pieces and the cross into the tray. Shortly before IPP, I received word about a new puzzle from Australia and after the initial surprise, I had to reserve myself a The Louvre of course. Makes up for a trip to the real museum, I think!? After the Exchange had shown an unusually high number of trick locks, there were also more to be found in the puzzle party: Tibetian Puzzle Lock and Popplock T3 by specialists in this area. From Iwahiro, I could catch up with some of his unusual works still missing in my collection: 5 Yen in a Jam is another Jam puzzle, while the Zipper demonstrates another unusual application of everyday objects. Scott had some of his 3D printed puzzles for offer, Halve a Heart completing the series, the Peppermint from a previous exchange, and the Deux Nuts being an improvement of an earlier screw puzzle, and being an impossible object in several ways. This IPP I had the pleasure to meet Stephan Baumegger and he had many of his puzzles for offer, including the Maahes made by him and designed by Terry. This one has a really nice look! Some other items to pick up were: Varikon, Helix+ (TIC or not TIC? both!), Honey Copter, and Magic Wire. Thank you for all these nice puzzles and entertaining conversations! With so many puzzles to solve, I am just starting to solve and will replace the pictures with solved versions once I have solved the corresponding puzzles. This may well take some year or more. I noticed that I already have 14 puzzles of this year's Nob Yoshigahara Puzzle Design Competition in my collection, among them 4 prize winners. Can you spot them and name them all? |
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The second package came from Hong Kong and contained some brand new twisty puzzles: Deformed 3x3x3 Centrosphere looks like a sphere in a cube, and it needs two looks to see why it is called "Deformed". The Clover Octahedron Fragmentation is a massive puzzle, the biggest so far in the twisty octahedra. The whole group of mini octahedra can easily sit on top of it. The COF is wildly shape-shifing, and this is surprising, as the groups of pieces around the tips of the octahedron only have tiny overlaps in the center of each edge. So far, I have only found moves also possible on the non-fragmented version, but I will keep trying.
Why all the fuzz? Maybe just a look at the rest of today's update will convince you of the sheer complexity of those puzzles, which are from Aaron's "Chinese 99-ring" limited series: Bald Eagle may be the easiest one, my fist guess is binary, but it is already a challenge to pass the first couple of rings. A very unusual puzzle with the big ring being foldable in the middle, becoming a crescent moon like shape. Reflection looks ternary at first sight. It has pairs of rings, of which the top row look like the usual chinese rings chain, but there is the middle row of rings carrying the bar. This gives the puzzle a reflected look with rings above and the small rings below, not a far-fetched explanation for the name. Mountain Trail seems to be a distant relative of Astray, with a binary chain, and some pairs of rings raising it to a higher order puzzle. There are three chains of two rings each attached to the basic chain, so that makes it ternary? Quaternary? I have to find out.
The next three bear the same name and have 18 rings each, arranged in a zig-zag pattern on the main bar. These rings are connected with little metal pieces with two loops at the ends. So they are basically the same puzzle? Not from what I have seen so far: Corn on the Cob I looks and plays like a typical ternary puzzle. Each pair of rings shares one connector, and each pair of rings is surrounding the adjacent connector. Corn on the Cob II seems to have a more complicated pattern. The top ends of the connectors have two rings connected each, one going forward and one going backwards. The bottom connector holes have only one ring, connected not to the next lower one, but skipping one and then connecting to the one-but-next top connector loop. The other rings in the top connector holes "only" reach over the central bar and have only one connector attached. Corn on the Cob III features also connectors with two and with one rings in their loops, but in an alternating pattern. Instead of just going top-down and skipping, those rings form a continueing zig-zag-chain to the next top or bottom connector loop, respectively. The other rings are just linking the main bar with one connector hole. So far, I have figured out how those rings are arranged, but that is only the very first step in the solution. Playing with those puzzles and unlinking the first couple of rings from the main bar each, provided me an idea how different those puzzles really are.
What they all have in common: They are very well made and at first sight you see that they are complex puzzles requiring a systematic approach, not trial and error. Will keep me busy for some time to analyze and solve them all! Very nice puzzles and those great puzzles show that there is potential for new ideas based on chinese rings.
From the German Knobelbox shop a smaller, but much heavier parcel arrived, which is no wonder considering all the nice heavy metal in it: Swing Trick Lock 8 and Side Trick Lock 4 are two Constantin trick locks with JCC written on them. I have seen a similar traditional lock from India like the Side Trick Lock now. They both are not overly difficult, but have nice and new tricks (new to me!), which is hard to find in this category of trick locks. One of them has even multiple mechanisms you have to solve and operate before opening! They came together with some nice small metal disentanglement puzzles, hopefully easier to solve the ones I got recently: Remove the U-Stick and Carousel on Stand*.
Jack sent me a picture of a puzzle he made based on Pit Khiam's design, for the compendium: Double Helix
The 5 next puzzles all go into the 18 pieces burrs group: Rombak is a traditional 18 pieces burr in a frame. Eiger has a detachable frame of 4 boards added to the 18 pieces burr, and the first part of that frame can be moved as the first move, so it is all but static. Phoebe comes with four additional pieces, too. In this case, they are four additional smaller sticks in some corners, leading to an interesting symmetric shape. Smeagol is an 18 pieces burr guarding his preciousss — a wooden ring, and of course the solution is heavily influenced by that ring. A fitting name for such a puzzle! While the puzzles so far were traditional 18 pieces burrs with some extra pieces, the next one has only 17 pieces, and that is including the stand: Gateway has a base plate with a gateway of two adjactent burr sticks attached to it.
The remaining two puzzles are 12 piece burrs with / without a frame and additional pieces inside, perfect to add them to: Burr Zoo group page. 12 piece burrs can have a lot of storage space in them. Maybe the biggest additional animal piece put in such a burr is the Rhinoceros. The Dog Catcher contains three dog pieces, like the "Beware of the Dogs" from last year. However, this time, there is an additional frame involved mounted to the base plate. This puzzle also comes with a small metal tool reminding me of a dog lead, so it seems that these dogs will need some convincing to be freed!
This and the other puzzles from the current daily series were offered to me by Markus Goetz. He is now offering some more of the fascinating and rare puzzles from his collection on eBay and there are some very rare pieces to be found there, among them many IPP Exchange puzzles from many past IPPs. The link to the eBay auctions can be found on Markus' home page. Make sure to have a look, and stay tuned for his future auctions! He has added several lots of puzzles recently.
Maybe you are wondering where I got those nice puzzles for my daily puzzle series from? Time to disclose the secret: I acquired them from my puzzle friend Markus Goetz (same name like mine, just first name vs. surname), and there are more where those came from. He is now offering them in lots on eBay and there are some very nice and rare pieces to be found there. The link to the eBay auction can be found on Markus' home page. Thank you, Marcus, for offering all those puzzles!
_1.JPG "Merry Christmas")
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Today a small package with a big puzzle set arrived. A wooden Christmas tree model? Merry Christmas? No! Merry-go-round! This is the latest development in variable stage mixed base n-ary puzzles. The puzzle is based on the Power Tower and while my copy of the Power Tower has 5-ary pieces, this one includes two 6-ary pieces! After successfully solving the maximal configuration of that Power Tower earlier this week, with a total of more than 15600 moves, I now felt ready for this new challenge. First surprise: There was only one type of pieces of each arity, unlike the mirror-symmetric pairs in the Power Tower. For the puzzle to work, the pieces have to be put into the slim tower in a helical pattern, and there is the first puzzle: Which way round? Both are initially possible, but only one orientation will work. Luckily, you have a good visibility of the pieces during solving, and many spare pieces to look at the details and determine how the pieces interact. That sounds like a systematic and easy approach, but in reality (late Friday evening), this puzzle lead to some confusion and I was sometimes going back and forth not completely understanding all moves. Compared to other n-ary puzzles, there are also many small dead ends in the move sequences and you have to take care not to end up in them. They will lock the puzzle with various pieces locking each other until you get back out of them again. First, they look like shortcuts, but they are far from that. After a while, I got used to the usual sequences in this implementation, a very nice n-ary puzzle! More pictures and some technical details can be found on the puzzle's compendium entry. |
| Of course the puzzle can be found here, too: n-ary puzzle group and compendium | |
Update: Meanwhile, I have solved all of them and as expected Iwahara's newest work has taken me longest. Amazing, how many different concepts they put in those boxes this time. My views of the boxes range from little "look, that is cute!" details to mechanisms I find fascinating. This time, you can also see part of the mechanism in the most complicated box, which is quite unusual.
In this update, there have been updates to several group pages, feel free to browse through them to find the updates: Burr Zoo, 18 pieces burrs group, n-ary puzzle group, and the compendium.
With it came two more Karakuri boxes, which look a bit different, but that is because I have built them myself! Treasure Box and Newton Box are nice and easy to build and unlike traditional Karakuris they allow you to see more of the mechanism.
The others are nice new trick boxes: Triangle Trick Box 2 is a variation on the Triangle Trick box theme, Z-Box and Push Drawer Box are new designs and shapes. The Locked Puzzle Chest is a design by Constantin and built in a cooperation with a second manufacturer. For all of them, you cannot see what is going on and how to open them, and I don't know the correct names, so I may update the entries later.
On his tour through various game fairs and puzzle meetings, Hendrik also came to Essen with his Puzzle-Shop and had the following nice and interesting puzzles for me: Cast Cake, Eurofalle 5, Puzzle-Box 001, and Puzzle-Box 002. While the first of these Siebenstein puzzle is a continuation of a series, the other two have the theme "puzzle" nicely incorporated in the design of their lids. Two of these three share a similar mechanism and all three of them are nice little boxes I have already solved. For some reason, the storage space in the Eurofalle is so small, that it does not contain the usual Euro coin, but only a 20 cents coin.
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In the picture to the right you see G.I. Joe and King Tut. Sounds familiar? Maybe you don't remember any sliding pieces puzzles with that name, but more something wooden, with big locks and wooden chains?
You remember right! Below I announced Gi Joe locked King Tut in a Tomb!, and now I have managed to solve it (after asking for a hint on a trick in the box!), and I finally had a look at G.I. Joe and King Tut. I expected King Tut to be in the tomb in some wooden form, but instead I found both those guys. They must have had a fight in there, both icons completely scrambled, not in their original state, and in need to get all their pieces rearranged.... After solving those two nice vintage sliding piece puzzles I now know how the American super hero and the Egypt pharao look like! Before that, I had to solve those four locks, unlock them, and then find and perform several steps of the puzzle box. First, it seemed to me, that one lock was not working as reliably as the first time I opened it, but then Tracy told me that there is actually a trap in it, on purpose! Hidden locking mechanism, a dial to turn, a trap — does that sound familiar? It does, and that concept is also part of another puzzle I have just solved (with a few peeks into the first part of the solution): SMS Box — an excellent puzzle! Now back to topic: Having solved that complicated box, I have managed the four locks and box, and indeed, there are some nice tricks built in. Different locks for different difficulty challenges. A nice feature is that resetting the open locks for the next puzzler does not require all the way back (only if you like to), but there is also an intended shortcut. Overall, I have to reclass this puzzle now as: Puzzle lock(s), Puzzle box, Sequential Discovery, Hidden maze, Sliding Pieces. I will keep this big and fascinating puzzle in its main category in my gallery. It is obviously a box after all, and a very nice and fun one, too! Still love those wooden chains giving the puzzle a unique look! |
_2.JPG "Wooden Locks")
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The other package contained some vintage wooden puzzles from a recent auction. The Berserk BurrCirc was on my list for some time, and it is an unusual puzzle. With only level 4 for removing the first piece, you have to move those two circle pieces early in the solution, unlocking several pieces in some of the 4 burrs around the circle. The Mechanic Cubi is mechanically equivalent to the Small Cubi puzzle I already have, with some differences to be noted immediately and some hidden. The mechanic cubi is the inner part of the Cubi / Small Cubi showing the mechanism and letting you explore the binary sequence and showing you how the trick works that successive moves are on opposite sides of this box. It is good that you can see what is going on, because extra care has taken not to damage the puzzle, as the whole mechanism is made of wood, no metal inside! For those wanting to be extra careful not to break anything, Kamei also included a second solution, a shortcut of only a couple of moves. Both solutions are working nicely, and the puzzle is definitely one for n-ary puzzle group and compendium.
.JPG "Gi Joe locked King Tut in a Tomb!")
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Today a big puzzle from the US arrived, which had its first appearance at the Rochester Puzzle Picknick this year. There are massive wooden locks, four of them, and each a bit bigger than the SMS box (in case you would like to get an idea about the size). These four locks are part of the puzzle Gi Joe locked King Tut in a Tomb!, which is a combination of several puzzle types: Sequential Discovery, Puzzle Locks, Puzzle Box. Before you can try to open the lid of the tomb, you have to solve the locks (or at least most of them if you really are in a hurry!). They lock the lid in place using nicely crafted wooden chains. A beautiful and lovely puzzle! However, I have some concerns about the name: Tracy always like to put something into the box to discover. From the title, it might as well be an egyptian mummy. Let's see what surprise I will find in there! Of course the locks are non-trivial and all different, as you can already see from the different configurations of buttons and dials on them. So far I do not own a solution of the puzzle, but that makes it all more interesting, doesn't it? I am looking forward to attacking this beast — alone or with a group of puzzlers. This is a big advantage: you can actually puzzle with several people on it at the same time. Time for a puzzle party! |
_1.JPG "Wooden Locks")
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The second came from Australia with some of the latest IPP36 Exchange puzzles: Ovolo, Murbiters Devilish Burr for IPP36, Dwarf Planet D, Holey 6 Board Burr II, and Double Image. With them, two of the IPP35 puzzles came: 2 and 2 Burr and Glitter. All of them interesting interlocking puzzles from wood and acrylic. Secret Box No 3 is the last one I missed from the series. Cannonball and Magic Wands are reproductions of well known puzzles. Chained Up looks like it is unsolvable, but it should be! From the last three disentanglement puzzles Dingo Trap, Airplane, and Caterpillar, two are to be found in n-ary puzzle group and compendium. Can you guess which?
.JPG "Digits' Compressor")
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Today I received a puzzle directly from the IPP36 Design Competition. It is Digits' Compressor, the latest creation of Namick Salakhov. It is a very unusual looking puzzle and it also takes some moments to understand what to do with it. The goal is to compress the stack of discs (AKA digits) as much as possibe (and not by force, but the right sequential move sequence!) and that at the end each of the red lines on the discs aligns with one of the four red marks in the top/bottom parts. Actually, this will give a nice spiral pattern from bottom via the red marks to the top, too — when solved. The construction is nice to play with and well made, and the design is excellent! As with most of Namick's works the sequences you have to find relate to reflected Gray codes, which puts the puzzle straight into the n-ary puzzle group and compendium. However, it is not as easy as that: While the gray discs form a binary reflected Gray code (which is why I called them "gray" and not "silver"), there are also those black doing some other moves. There are several compressed / minimal height configurations, but in those the red markers do not line up and you have to go on compressing and uncompressing. There are also some dead ends of different length and when exploring the puzzle for the first time, I am sure, I also found these dead ends. After some time playing you will most certainly see some recursive structure in the move sequences and sooner or later you will recognize the binary Gray code in it. I like this unusual design and how Namick managed to create this implementation of the reflected binary Gray code. |
Seems I have subscription number #44, but not sure if you can ring me via this number. Right now, there seem to be some SMS boxes available for sale after the first batch sold out quickly.
When picking up the package at my neighbor's, it turned out there was another package from the Puzzlemuseum waiting for me. One main reason was a puzzle missing in n-ary puzzle group and compendium for a long time: Panex Gold. This puzzle has considerably more moves than the Binary Burrs and even the Delirium 13 I recently received. In the package were some other nice puzzles: The Orbik is another addition to the Twisty section after some time. The Tower of Torment I have solved at a friend's place before, but now I have my own, in my favourite colour. The Opal Puzzle Chess Set is not another chess set, it is a piece of art, the smaller version of the metal one, and an interlocking puzzle (actually two). The Miniature Keyless Brass Padlock is definitely the smallest padlock in my collection, it's cute! James added an interesting puzzle with six pieces for four puzzles: The Pythagorean Puzzle. One of the challenges involves demonstrating Pythagoras' Theorem, maybe there my Mathematics diploma will be useful. This puzzle is also interesting from a historical standpoint, as the design dates back to a puzzle sold in London in the 1840s. Thank you James!
The next one has many fathers and is more than a high level 18 pieces burr (see group page 18 pieces burrs group): Double Tiros. The name tells you what this puzzle is: two copies of high level burr Tiros joined and combined into one puzzle. While the Tiros design was a once world record puzzle by Alfons Eyckmans (a few years back), Stephan Baumegger first had the idea of joining two 18 pieces burrs (see Puzzle "Burrdos" below, which has two different, specially designed burrs combined), Guillaume Largounez arranged the two burrs in a double burr, and Maurice Vigouroux built it. This is a true beast and will be hard to solve, considering the effort which Stephan's Burrdos took me (but have solved it, with only one hint for the second burr for the fouth piece, after completely disassembling the first one and removing another three from the second one). However, I have been practising with the Tiros puzzle lately as preparation.
The next one is a whole series of puzzle from the n-ary puzzle group. That I put them into only one entry in the compendium hides the fact that I have never seen such a big set of different Binary Burrs in any one place: Binary Burr 3 small, Binary Burr 4 small, Binary Burr 5 small, Binary Burr 6 small, Binary Burr 7 small, Binary Burr 8 small, Binary Burr 9 small, and Binary Burr 10 small.
Now I only need some more time to solve all those recent acquisitions from the last weeks. At least, I have got one coin out of new Wil's box already and have solved one of yesterday's boxes.
The second package brought Wil's latest creation: Pachinko Box. A heavy and nicely polished box which shows some of its inner workings, but does not want to reveal its secrets yet. I have seen some unusual mechanisms already and I am very curious how they interact to get that second coin out. Well, before the second coin, there will be a first coin, I am sure! Wil also included a little plastic container with something in it. This container is carefully sealed and although it is transparent, you cannot see the thing in it. The container looks like a small can, but it will not open like one, I am afraid. A lot of open questions to keep you busy for a while!
This puzzle looks massive and does not hide its many moves. Will take some time to disassemble. What I like most about the look of this puzzle is that the pieces are glued from separate sticks and that you cannot see the pieces immediately, but have to find them while solving.
The second package came from the Czech Republic with some more nice wooden puzzles in it. The Mimicry has a name that tells you about the deception: It looks like it is a burr made of six wide pieces. In reality, it is a caged six piece burr with an interesting frame and beautiful woods. The Little Portico and Portico J are a smaller and a larger variant of the same basic design. One a bit more difficult than the other and both with a piece shape I have not seen before.
.JPG "A man's got to go")
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The first puzzle arriving this year was built also by Tracy Clemons. After finishing the Game Craze, she started producing a small series of identical puzzle boxes, and I was lucky enough to be able to acquire one: A man's got to go. The box looks like a trunk with handles on each side and some beautiful decorations applied, and it has a lock in the front. The lock looks unlike anything I have ever seen. I have some clear ideas how to open the lock, which is good for a start! I am assuming that there is more to it after opening the lid. I already had a little peek into the box (as much the lock would allow) and it is not empty. In fact, it seems packed with more puzzling mechanisms. I like what I have seen so far and I am curious to explore this fascinating puzzle box. Thanks Tracy, for building and offering this nice little box. *)little only compared to the other one :) |
Of course, I am continueing with my "big puzzle project" and have made considerable progress on GAME CRAZE. Wait for an update soon!
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Today a huge package arrived after a fast journey from the USA. In it was one puzzle consisting of five boxes created by the creative Tracy Clemons. Very well crafted, beautiful and much more. A fantastic puzzle to be explored. Of course, there is the usual puzzle page (Game Craze), but I also set up a special feature page with an initial description, where I will add more and more after I have played with the puzzle and discovered everyting. Please click on the following link to the Game Craze Feature Page. |
Alfons had a huge selection of his nice wooden puzzles for sale, so I could not resist, of course! First, in the 18 pieces burrs group there is Hell (with 12 frame pieces, similar to Stephan's Fortuna or his Burrison), Mountain (designed by Dan, and with an 18 piece and 6 piece burr combined in one puzzle), and Knudde (which uses the unusual shape to hide some more pieces inside). Belopo is something similar for a six piece burr: with additional clamp pieces (similar to Stephan's Plankton). Tarpan is similar to Skunk I had so much fun with recently, and maybe that is why Alfons presented me this 12 piece burr with 3 frame pieces. Vera is quite new, but not as unconventional as the following ones: Box of 12, Rampart 2, and Jail Bars 2 are all some burr sticks within a cage so trapped that it is hard to guess how to get them out. Doender has similar piece configuration like the Rampart 2, but between two stacks of boards.
To continue with some more IPP35 exchange puzzles, I got myself some: Quadrant 1, Forgotten Piece, Smiley Burr, TrickLock 2015, and Pole Dancer. In a recent auction, Steve offered also the Twiddle Dum Helical Burr and Twiddle Dee Helical Burr. Now I have all 6 of Derek's twisted burrs and have to be careful not to get my brain twisted during solving. Ella Propella is also about twisting (or rather turning): You have to unlock the propeller so that it turns freely. The next three puzzles were some I wanted to add to my collection for some time: Secret Box No 2, Dino Star, and Leesho. It seems that Hungary (represented by Olivér) is still a good source for vintage Twisty puzzles. One of the interesting talks was by George Miller about his Cubigami puzzle and the countless nets forming shapes created from cubes, kindly handing out a Cubigami Net 4x1x1 for demonstration.
The last puzzle arrived this morning and is the latest from the Naked Secret Box series, the Naked Secret Box Purple. Beautiful and an interesting mechanism!
A big thank you to all of you who offered me these nice puzzles, ensuring that I will have some puzzle fun in the next time and will be extremely puzzled by some of them!
Note:In this post, I have just named the reference puzzles I already have, not linked to them, to avoid confusion which are new and which are old.
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Maybe you remember the DITWIBIN by Namick Salakhov? A nice puzzle in the n-ary puzzle group and therefore also in the compendium. That puzzle has a clever mechanism and is fun to play with, and is a simpler relative of what arrived today: The MixTer-MaxTer. It was an entry in this years IPP Design Competition, and I think it is a brilliant design! You "just" have to guide the little red sliders from the outer disk with two slots and collect them in the other outer disc with many slots. My discovery of that puzzle went through three main stages:
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Today I received a special puzzle, which was designed for me by Christoph Lohe. In the correct German spelling, my name is spelled: Götz. Now take a look at the pictures of the puzzle to the left, you will recognize the scheme! The GÖTZ puzzle is built around my name, and luckily there are only 4 letters in it. Thanks to Chris and also to Claus who supported me with 3D-printing this nice puzzle! And beside bearing my name, it is also a nice and nontrivial interlocking puzzle! |
The second package contained a whole series of old puzzle designs, re-released as a brand new series, and only available in Japan at the moment. The puzzles are looking beautiful and they are new version of a complete Marcel Gillen Chess set, in particular: King, Queen, Bishop, Knight, Rook, and Pawn.
The second package is from the U.S. and it is fitting that it contains item 1776 in my collection, but then it should have arrived yesterday already! Some of the latest works by Eric Fuller, designed by two U.S. designers well known for years (or even decades): Helix the Burr, Think outside the box, and Inner Cube. After struggling with the half notches in the Visible Burr the Helix the Burr now offers third notches!
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Today I picked up a late christmas present at customs, which had travelled for the last 1.5 months — maybe carrier and customs did try to figure out what it was and to solve it? It was well worth waiting for and is the latest design in compendium and n-ary puzzle group page by profilic designer Namick Salakhov, and revealed to the public here for the first time. The puzzle is the DITWIBIN, a beautiful puzzle excellently crafted and with beautiful looks — I especially like the two color acrylic frame! The name might seem to have some system behind it and it fact there is: It denotes this puzzle as one with two twisting discs with a binary gray code implemented. Can you guess which part of the name stands for what? This also hints that this is a typical representative of n-ary puzzle: While this puzzle has been created in September 2014, various higher order versions were designed already in August. This makes it a typical family of n-ary puzzles: different number of sliders, different arities of these sliders, and then additionally also different number of discs. Quite fascinating concept! Coming back to this one, it is fun to play with and the moves are nice and easy. You can see a vital part of the mechanics for the interaction between the pieces on the top demonstrating how this puzzle might work. However, there is more to it hidden from view. A clever design! Thank you, Namick! |
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I found a limited edition token in one of my puzzles! This puzzle took me 2 months including some weeks of experimenting with a computer program and some non-standard techniques. Interesting! If you have not yet guessed which puzzle I am talking about, please have a look at the post exactly 2 months back. It is an epic puzzle and Allard commented on it: "It goes on and on and on", and who was I to contradict! It is a fantastic puzzle and I not only like all the mechanisms in it, but also love the the little stories hidden in it. Thanks for the great puzzle, Brian! Sorry I cannot be more specific here, not to spoil the fun for other solvers. |
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Look! I received a friend for my koala to play with! Today the long awaited Katie Koala and her joey Verne limited edition puzzle arrived. It is the 20th anniversary limited edition by Brian Young and a really beautiful and heavy wooden Koala. A lot of stuff must be inside considering the weight. Will take some time before I will be able to solve it, I guess — lots of puzzling fun! The other koala is sitting on another special puzzle which arrived today: a 3D printed reproduction of the Stickman Box number 5, sometimes called "Borg Box". Another Brian made this possible: Brian Pletcher modelled, prepared, and assembled it. Two truely interesting puzzles! |
From Jack I arrived a special version of his and Pit Khiam's Power Tower participating in this year's IPP Design Competition: Power Tower (mixed base, variable stage). This version comes with a lot of extra pieces and a stopper that allows to select between 3 and 6 stages, and also allows to select an arbitrary combination of binary, ternary, and quaternary pieces. This will intermingle sequences of different arity and may be quite confusing to solve. Not only the craftsmanship is amazing in this puzzle, but also the sheer number of pieces that come with it. The standard configuration is three binary pieces and plays nicely and easily.
The Barcode Burr (printed) is a 3D printed reproduction of the famous wooden version by Lee. Steve engineered and created these printed version in a limited quantity and is a great opportunity to study this fascinating mechanism. In a partial sale of a whole collection, I managed to get some classic puzzles: Computer Puzzler No 2, Computer Puzzler No 5, Double Loop, Trapeze variant, and Unknown Disentanglement 2. All seven puzzles mentioned so far are part of the compendium and n-ary puzzle group page.
From Michel I received a (customized!) Puzzle Wristband and an Expand A Ball. He was cooperating with Robrecht who created the Ladybird and Larva. The first one was part of the IPP Design Competition, the latter one is a simpler version including the same maze. That makes the names of father (Ladybird) and son (Larva) seem most appropriate, and they are both nicely designed and crafted puzzles.
Straight from Hungary Oliver brought a nice Smart Egg - Skull Egg, which is the most difficult of the whole recently released series.
Beside the Power Tower already mentioned, Jack also made a nice theme puzzle, the DCD-burr. Please look at the picture to see why it is a DCD theme puzzle. He was not the only high level burr designer and craftsman present, but also Alfons, from whom I received some nice beauties: Gobi is one of the latest Burr Zoo members. Jadimex is a nice easy puzzle of three boards and three sticks. Maltese looks a bit like a cross of 18 piece burr and a Maltese cross (sic!). Then Jalpa is one from the 18 pieces burr group.
The Letterbox is a nice design by Christoph (one of the guys I once helped with Burr-Tools). So now I also own "my first Lohe", and Chris also this of this design as his best.
The Rammelkast is a trick box by Theo and you hear something going on inside when tilting it. Fascinating and also nice woodwork.
From Bernhard I received as recent re-release Wunder-Puzzle, and then some new complicated interlocking cubes/cuboidsby William Hu: Coo-inter-pack seems to incorporate coordinate motion with interlocking and packing. I am curious to see how this works! Writhing Snake Cube has some snake pieces performing strange rotational moves. Zmije is one of Vinco's puzzles where you do not know how to open it and where the pieces end.
As a present, each participant of DCD received a 6^3 Board Burr, which is a variation of his IPP Exchange puzzle Cubic Board Burr — as Peter demonstrated in his interesting talk.
The other puzzles by Constantin are a bit more normal again: Schmuckkiste, Einstein-Box, Spinnennetz, and Picture Ball Maze.
The Romanian Puzzle Box Small looks like a reproduction of a typical Sorrento Trick Box, but the key is hidden in a different place. The rest of the puzzles I bought at Rombol, including some new interlocking puzzles: Assembly Cube, Rondo Turco, Open Crochet Cube, Poco Loco, Framework, and Fan Puzzle.
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A long time ago, in a galaxy far, far away ... These puzzles remind me of something I have seen in cinema before. You may have recognized that the new Typhyter standing next to the Droid is not just another 18 pieces burr, but also a beautiful piece of art. This puzzle arrived today in a package from Stephan Baumegger with two other gorgeous novelties: Troika has only three pieces, but looking at the level you see it is pretty hard. From "pretty hard" to "pretty heart": Caught Heart is a beautiful interlocking puzzle touching the borders of the puzzle box category: the heart piece is the only piece that can be removed, and for the others several tilting moves are required. I am sure it will be officially published on the Puzzleisure page soon, and sorry for the bad pun! |
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Usually once every year since 1978 the biggest puzzle related event takes place: the IPP (International Puzzle Party). I have just come back from this amazing event where I met many old and new puzzle friends and brought back some nice puzzles. You can see my "haul" in the picture on the left. About 100 puzzles are from the Edward Hordern Puzzle Exchange, where you bring about 100 copies of a new puzzle and exchange with 100 other puzzlers. Please see the special page for these puzzles. My puzzle in the Exchange was the Cross + Crown 2013, which is based on a design patented in 1913, 100 years ago. It is an n-ary puzzle. To my big surprise, I received a bigger version of it from my Exchange assistant Kevin Sadler: Cross + Crown 7 This is also n-ary and has an amazing 4802 moves to solve! Thank you! |
.JPG "IPP34 Exchange")
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At IPP, I received a London Lines Puzz-eLLe as a gift from the organizers, and a little IPP34 Necklace Burr from Brian Young. Thank you! The IPP also features the Nob Yoshigahara Puzzle Design Competition. Beside some puzzles which are also in the Exchange, I managed to get some rare n-ary puzzles from the Design Competition: Complementary P-arity and Num Lock. I also bought a smaller version of the Naked Secret Box Red. At the Puzzleparty, I bought various nice puzzles: Frame+Loop Septet is a n-ary puzzle I was missing in the set, and probably no others will be produced of this kind. From Kirill, I got a Valentine's puzzle as a swap. Tom Lensch and Frans de Vreugd sold me some old but nice of Frans' designs: Quantum Entanglement Exchange and Extreme Boxed Burr. Just a day before IPP, the new Doors and Drawers was ready, and I just had to buy this puzzle. It is a puzzle box/sequential discovery/interlocking/packing puzzle — very nice! I got a Sandfield's Banded Dovetails, which is the predecessor of the version I already have and then I found a Rhombic Maze Burr " many puzzles in one, with up to a several hundereds of moves. This one comes with a whole book of challenges! From Otis I received a Secret Box as a swap for one of my nice Acrobat puzzles. The haul is concluded with a new Indian Trick Lock. With so many puzzles to solve, I am just starting to solve and will replace the pictures with solved versions once I have solved the corresponding puzzles. This may well take some year or more. Update: The compendium has been updated and in total 10 new n-ary puzzles from IPP found their way in. |
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The first one is a big burr. And when I mean big, I am talking about a configuration of 12x15x16. That is 43 pieces in total! However, it is not a puzzle that eats up all your remaining shelf space, as it has been created in nice 8mm sticks, an excellent choice also for playing. You may have guessed already, it's the C2-1. It was designed by C K Leung and built by Stephan Baumegger. Only 5 of them were built (and licensed) and Yvon from Canada was also involved in this project. My first impression is "Wow!" and I am curious if I will be able to disassemble (and reassemble) it without help.
The second one is not another easter egg, but Wil Strijbos' newest project, the: EGG. The puzzle looks fantastic and like the high quality work we know from Wil's puzzles. It also feels nicely solid and heavy, as usual for these puzzles. This is all I can tell about the puzzle at the moment. No idea what is going on inside and how to open it. But that is the idea behind it, isn't it? Looking forward to see how this puzzle works and opens, but that may take quite some time.
Then some vintage additions to compendium and n-ary puzzle group page: New Puzzle Rings 3 and New Puzzle Rings 5.
From Bernhard I picked up some nice pre-ordered items (some of them were sold out already): Petit Puzzle, Rotator, Keyhole, Turnkey, Irene Alternate, and Two Wheeled Cube.
- With the recent update I continued my visit to the Burr Zoo and solved The Devil and his Pet. Read my updated report here: Burr Zoo.
- The other update is a brand new puzzle from another special category:
.JPG "Bicomplementary formation b/b:1/2")
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This puzzle update is something special because it is presented to the public for the first time. Is this beautiful red and shiny box a burr, is it an n-ary puzzle? Well, it seems it is both. It clearly has some Gray code moves in it and then also some burr-like moves that are not following Gray codes at all. The name Bicomplementary formation b/b:1/2 tries to summarize that there are two groups of pieces (bars and sticks), which both follow a binary GC move pattern at first and are interlocked. Then some nice half notches based moves appear that are usually only found in burrs by Bill Cutler and Jerry McFarland. Some solving experiences: After finding out about the binary GC first, the first group of moves becomes pretty evident. However, at a later point this sequence ends abruptly. Now you are on your own, like with high level burrs: searching for possible moves without being able to look into the box. After a while a pattern becomes clear and then the first piece comes out. Fascinating puzzle! It is a worthy new addition to the compendium and n-ary puzzle group page. Clever design, Namick! |
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I wish you all a Merry Christmas and a happy and puzzling New Year!
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This puzzle update is something special because it is presented to the public for the first time. It is a nice sliding pieces puzzle, which is ternary, but needs less pieces than other puzzles of that type. While the Tern Key puzzle employs two switches between each two sliders, this puzzle only has one switch between each two sliders. Let's see if you can figure out where the name Railing with Draining ternary comes from. I find it quite obvious if you have a look at how the puzzle looks like and how it works. Please click on the thumbnails to get a better view of the detail pictures. |
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The other package was from Alfons Eyckmans. It contains a zoo of some more animals trapped in an 18 pieces burr. Can you find out which the others are? I have two such puzzles already. When I asked Alfons for a new one he created, it turned out that there were 4 different variations already. The new pets are all diabolical animals crafted in nice woods: Devil's Pet 1, Devil's Pet 2, Devil's Pet 3, and Devil's Pet 4. Once freed, they all look a bit different, but all like some sort of hellhound. In case I needed it against such fierce creatures, Alfons included a sword in my package: Damocles, whose name tells me it might not be easy to get out and to use. It employs the same general idea like the recently published Excalibur, but the sword itself is completely different.
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The second puzzle is something special because it is presented to the public for the first time on this web page (and also in the compendium). It is also special because of the nice technical look, that underlines the name GC machine ternary and also special because of the nice new mechanism. There are five sliders and four wheels in this mechanism, and a control knob. The control knob ensures that exactly one slider may move at a time (indicated by the numbers on it), while the weels link the sliders together to a ternary mechanism. The sliders of course have three positions and the last picture shows the goal configuration with all five sliders pulled out as far as possible. A unique and very nice concept, and also fun to play with, believe me! It is contained in the compendium, as it is a ternary puzzle — hence the name, while the "GC" in the name stands for "Gray Code", of course.Please click on the thumbnails to get a better view of the detail pictures. |
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Of course I also got some other puzzles from Jean-Claude, like one of his Light Bulbs and a Trick Lock. This lock is something I have been searching for some time. It has 3 independent locking mechanisms and they require 12 steps — a true beast!
At the Rombol booth I found some interesting new designs I did not have: T-one, Rotpack 1, Sliced Bread, and Gear.
At the DCD I also gave a lecture about my compendium. You can download the slides here, but I did a lot of talking, which is not included in the slides.
Today I have also created another update for my IPP32 Exchange puzzle Acrobat.
With this puzzle came some other nice puzzles of various kinds: Boxed Burr, Odd Man Out Cube, Safecracker, and Double Trouble
_2.JPG "Generation Lock and Lock 250+") |
My puzzle friend Wil sent me a very nice surprise package which arrived this weekend. Only when I opened it, I knew what it was -- and I recognized the mechanism and was completey perplexed. The brand new Generation Lock is a much bigger version of the Lock 250+. The latter one has 4 sliding rivets, with arity 6, i.e. each (but the lowest) has 6 positions, and requires 310 moves to open. The new one has 8 sliding rivets, with arity 15, setting a new overall record in the n-ary Puzzle Group. Question is how many moves to open? After my first approximation, the name of the lock made sense to me, but I will not tell you right now, as I am making it a little quiz. How many moves to open? Can you guess or even better calculate? |
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 ... ).
The second from the far east contained nice X-mas presents: they are two of this year's Karakuri X-mas presents.
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 ....
There have been some additions to the n-ary puzzles group today. Can you find out which ones?
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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) |
- 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.
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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). |
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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.
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).
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.
| 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")
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.JPG "Auf dem Holzweg") |
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. |
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| 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.
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:
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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:
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Second update today: This page has received a new layout -- as seen already above.
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.
A very interesting puzzle came from Australia, a Hexadecimal Puzzle (reproduction by Bill Wylie).
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
Wait, that was the doorbell ...
If one nice package was not enough for today, my neighbor just brought a package from Bill Cutler for me, containing a real beauty: S/M 24 in three different woods
It started with my puzzle friend Bernhard who had some items I could not resist: By George Burr (a burr-like puzzle with several moves and a rotation), Triangle Cube Burr (quite simple, but nice cuts and woodworking), Dutch Cross (a Burr with a solution having an akward turn -- of 180 degrees), a Kei Cube Jr and a Puzzle 7.
TomZ had some interesting and complicated new designs -- and of course the one I had pre-ordered: Super-X
At Wil's table some pre-orders were waiting for me. Now I have the winner of this year's IPP design competition, a 4 Steps Visible Lock, which I already liked and solved during IPP -- of course I left the Euro coin inside for the next one :). At Wil's I also picked up: one of his Aluminum Cylinders, an unknown Framed 6 piece burr (looking like printed by George Miller), and the new Cast Donuts.
I also found some IPP exchange puzzles I did not have: Marcel Gillen had a Burrliner Kruse for sale and Rob Hegge a Five Burr-ito.
There were also some new production range puzzles from 2011 with a nice look and very high quality: Moeraki 4 and 3.
The others are a mixture of cheap vintage puzzles and some new puzzles: Plastic Chinese Rings, Metal Chinese Rings (yes, two additions to my n-ary department), Triple Cross, A Turnstile-Variant (for some insight on the "Triplex" puzzle), Frustr8tor, Calendar Barrel, Keyboard Cube, Dororinth orange and white, from Russia a traditional Screwed Shackle, an 8 Pice Burr, and a Rudenko Clips.
| 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! |
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From HKNowStore: The Bermuda Cube series, all variants: Mercury, Venus, Earth, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, Neptune, and House I, House II, Column, Star, and additionally some others: Circular Bean Tower, Bandaged Pyraminx, 3x3x3 3 slices, 2x2x2 Bandaged, and 1x2x2
In the package from Eric: Twist the Night Away -- it has many twists in the solution and I am tempted to put it into the Twisty category, but it is definitely a (Dis-) Assembly puzzle, and a very nice one!
From the "Spiel" fair: From Jean-Claude Constantin, some of his and some rare other puzzles: Kugellager 7 (as mentioned above), a Eivon (another kind of smartphone puzzle), and some IPP31 exchange puzzles: Crazy Bottles and Modern Times; and an original Roger Tap and Kamei Money Bank and a level 9 Six Piece Burr. New Twisty puzzles from Hendrik's shop: Spinner and Double Disk. From Rombol and Philos I got: Interlock 3 Pieces, Kaneko Cube, Money, and Polo Shirt Puzzle
I also added a Chinese Finger Trap to the gallery I got at IPP31.
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This nice puzzle was created in different wood versions and looks like a straight and simple rectilinear interlocking puzzle. But beware, it isn't. In the inside not only interlocking pieces can be found, but also grooves and wooden pins forming an internal only partly visible maze, a maze that evolves and changes with every move you make. Moves that were blocked just a moment ago, or only halfway possible, might be there now and you have to keep your track carefully -- or get lost in the maze. If that wasn't enough already, rotations are not only possible but also allowed and part of the solution. Usually, rotations tend to lead to shortcuts in the intended solution. For this puzzle, the only solution is full of rotations and even then an astonishing 23 moves to remove the first piece are the result. Alltogether, 49 moves are required in the unique disassembly solution, with 9 moves for the second and 8 moves for the third piece. Burr-Tools will hate you when you try to solve this puzzle with the help of a computer. Luckily, for the faint hearted, there is a solution booklet included, which is of the nice high quality and craftmanship like the puzzle. To my personal knowledge, this is the first puzzle design with this combination of elements, and a very interesting one. Anyone interested in high level burrs, but getting bored of more traditional ones, try this one (if you can get hold of one, of course)! Happy Puzzling! |
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| Maybe this always empty box could solve some space problems I might run into: IPP31 was great and I met many interesting and nice people there, played with very interesting puzzles and had numerous interesting conversations and lectures. Now I have to solve a packing puzzle consisting of over 30 more new puzzles and my already full shelves, after unpacking them, solving them and putting them into the gallery. It will take some time, so please stay tuned. Meanwhile, in the picture on the right you can see what I am facing at the moment. :) Update: I have eventually managed to put them up in the gallery, but as some of them are still unsolved, I will probably replace some pictures by the solved version some time in the future. |
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From Bill Cutler: He had his very First Design remade as his exchange puzzle. He also carried some puzzles from Jerry McFarland for me: a Quadlock 1 and a Quadlock 4.
During the Puzzle Exchange, I had the honour and pleasure to be exchange assistant to Iwahiro. His exchange puzzle "is a box packing puzzle. Just four identical octahedrons, just put them in the box completely. Simple!". That's what he said.... Of course, "this is not a solution": Gem Box, but it is a very nice and well crafted puzzle.
Some of this IPPs exchange puzzles I got were: 6 piece burr variation II (Andreas Roever), Laby Box (Hendrik Haak), Houdinis Torture Cell (Brian Young), Reunification (Twins, Rob W. Jones), Brandenburg Gate (Marti Reis), Eighteen Eights (Peter Knoppers), and Boxed Mixed Piece Burr (Frans de Vreugd).
Some other puzzles I got: 3-piece Magic, Choreographed Motion, Arch Burr Puzzle, Dino Cylinder Cube, Buttonhole Puzzle, Four Sticks Dexterity, 3 Lives to Live, Five Sticks 28, 4 in 2, Little Tree Box, EQ 12 pieces burr, and an old design remade: William Strijbos' Aluminum Cross.
From the French puzzle Collector Jean Carle I got: Manda 1 Burr, Love's Dozen together with a cubic variation of the same puzzle, and a Pause.
From Gregory Benedetti I received three prototypes, all high level puzzles: Eccentricity, La Foudre, and Troacroas.
From Frans de Freugd I got some nice burr puzzles: Boxed L-burr #2, All Mixed Up, and a variation of this puzzle.
From Hong Kong: Grimace (2 Layers), Grimace (3 Layers), Helicopter Dodecahedron, DaYan Gem III, and Knock-Off Domino with Spindle-Domino number scheme.
A big one from Problemboden, Finland: Outlet (nice Kamei Puzzle Box), The Piston, Stubborn Turtles (more like an interesting Physics experiment!), Timonen Burr, Heart Lock, Double Squared, Bolte 13 (a 13 piece burr set for 6pc burrs) , 9 Chinese Rings (an addition to my n-ary puzzle collection), Elephant Trick Box, Brain String, Coil, Loop, and Rattle.
As this is a typical member of the family, I extended my paper of course: Kugellager.pdf. Enjoy reading!
The paper is hosted on my homepage: Kugellager.pdf. Enjoy reading!
A small, but very nice surprise package from Jack Krijnen, containing the Burrly Sane for Professionals, the last member of the Burrly Sane family to be made and in my collection. Thank you, Jack!
A package from Bill Cutler, containing some true classics: Wausau 81 and Wausau 84 (completing the series), and the Lovely 18 piece burr
A package from XMATRIX, containing two puzzle novelties: Xmatrix Cubus and Xmatrix Quadrus
From Lagoon Group: Trilogy, Caged Knot, Alcatraz, and Squarrel
From auctions: Burrly Sane Woodworkers Edition, Minimal Twist, and Fortress
From some shops at Spieletage 2010 in Essen some vintage puzzles: Two Drawers, COC, Orb-It, Hungarian Rings, Color Puzzler, Findis Teufelsknoten, Very many mini plastic puzzles by German company "Pussy" from the early 1980s, and Westentaschen Puzzle
From Jean-Claude Constantin, whom I met in Essen: 2 Keys, Sliding Lock Puzzle, Sliding Puzzle, Big Sliding Lock Puzzle, Sliding Puzzle, and Schiebelehre
In a Twistypuzzles-Forum post I got an idea what to do with my spare Eastsheen 4x4x4: a 1x4x4 Cube
And some inexpensive puzzles from China: Magic Octahedron, Trajber's Octahedron, Windmill Cube, Dodecahedron, Mozhi Diamon, and Crystal Diamond.
Cast: Marble, Laby, Helix, and Square; MiToys Bamboo Burrs 1, 2, 3, and 4; and additionally: Eureka Key Maze and Trick Lock
Die Welle, Kiste mini, Labyring, Zahnradlabyrinth, and Ahorn Kiste
As a small add-on I got an F-Puzzle
The paper is hosted on my homepage: Kugellager.pdf. Enjoy reading!
Big -- very expensive -- very, very good: From MrPuzzles's Current limited edition: Ternary Burr (closely related to Tern Key and Crazy Elephant Dance) and The Minotaur's Burr
Of course, I have less money on my bank account now and some more very nice puzzles: Chinese Lock, Headstanding Cube, 2D Packing Problem, Assorted Snakes, Diagonal Loop #2, Coffin's Dilemma II, Ozone, Awoi Cube II, Finnish Cross, and 6 pieces framed knot
and a present at work: Soma Cube
From Jean-Claude: Black Jack and Big Sliding Lock,
From Bernhard: 4 Pieces in Frame and More MazeNCubes,
Also, I got a T2 popplock and a Mercury Cube Puzzle
Puzzle number 500: Kugellager
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New from Bernhard Schweitzer's shop: Gonsalve's Dilemma and Quintupels and Keiichiro's Nested Burr Simple (not so simple!)
This nice Kumiki-Puzzle actually consists of three puzzles: A small kumiki in the middle, a kumiki frame, and a packing problem.
With 6 pieces: White Mischief Puzzle and Deadlock Puzzle
With 18 pieces: Labyrinth, The Old Man Of Hoy, and Knossos
The Hammerhead Burr (an unsual relative of this puzzle in the burr family), the tricky Sly Burr, and the fascinating The Karst Phenomenon by Mr. Puzzle,
the Da Vinci's Mona Lisa Codebreaker, and the D-Ball in six colors, accompanied by an unknown metal disentanglement puzzle as a nontrivial present.
Also added: Red Square-1, a custom built white 211x211x4 and Mathmaker, a magnetic contruction game