The Keys To The First Two Boxes?

Keeboxes - all of them!

Oh dear! Yes, yet again it's Allard's fault! I had seen the Keebox puzzles at the MPP in May (Allard is the organiser so it MUST be his fault) and even spent a happy 10 minutes playing with the Blue one before quickly deciding they were so good that I needed to stop solving and buy the bloody things. I was sitting next to Ali who was playing with one of the others and we both simultaneously decided the same thing and put them down. I opened the webpage on my phone and left it there in my Safari tabs as a reminder that I HAD to buy them soon. I went home at the end of the puzzle party and promptly forgot about them as the tab containing the webpage got buried amongst others about Sci-Fi and fantasy as well as work stuff. I think I currently have about 60 open tabs! The Keebox ones got buried and forgotten (I think it is still there on the phone now). I wasn't reminded at the last MPP in July due to having to spend the day with the present wife instead of puzzlers and only a few weeks ago was I reminded when Allard posted his review. Much to the disgust of Mrs S, I immediately fired off an order via the Swiss boys' Etsy store and, of course, I had to have the whole set - there are four currently but I am certain there will be more eventually. For those of you who are unfortunate enough to be subject to the whims and stupidity of the orange buffoon and are now either being charged huge tariff charges or even unable to purchase from abroad then PuzzleMaster may be helpful to you (I am not sure how Canada post has been affected) - some of the Keeboxes are available from PuzzleMaster here.

Unfortunately I got hit by a big customs bill plus the Royal Mail hostage fee. I paid this and a few days later a nicely packed box of boxes of keeboxes was unpacked. Mrs S was "delighted to see more plastic in the house but I pointedly ignored her.

They seem to have updated their packaging since Allard got his (something I didn't notice until the last MPP when I saw Allard's boxes and noticed that mine were much more colourful. I also received the purple one which may not have been available until recently.

Blue box - easy peasy?

It is really quite attractive for a plastic puzzle

Being rather rubbish at puzzles I started on the blue/"easy" one. The box is perfectly designed to contain and show off the new toy. There is a leaflet inside that tells you (in multiple languages) to find the hidden token. There is a QR code to get you to a webpage that can provide hints and solutions but I am hoping not to use it. You all know me by now that I tend to keep trying at these toys for months or even years until I eventually get there. Reassuringly, the leaflet says that the blue one is level 1 out of 5 which should take me 10 minutes. The puzzle is 6.2 x 6 x 6cm in size and made from PLA - it's a perfect tactile size and weight.

Always keep playing

Whilst I agree with the difficulty level - it is a nice fun introduction to the series but it certainly took me more than 10 minutes. Watching Tamsin play with it and get stuck in the same places that I did was fun and I would hope that you would also be challenged the same way. There is a whole sequence of moves which have to be done in the correct order. Various protuberances on the puzzle interact with each other and release tools to be used elsewhere. At some point in all the puzzles in the series the front plate is released and reveals the message to "always keep playing". There are threaded parts, reverse threaded parts, sprung parts and a short maze. The progression is very enjoyable with getting stuck at various stages for 5 minutes or so providing just enough challenge to not make one give up. It is plastic and care is needed not to use too much force when trying certain moves but it's pretty clear when what you are attempting to do is not the right thing. I think I found the token after about 20 minutes - lovely to do and actually lovely to do repeatedly. I think I will take this to work to torture my ODP with on Wednesday during my usual orthopaedic bloodbath! I think he will have some time between intubation and running the cell saver to play with my torture device!

Blue token found

Having reversed the process to reset the puzzle it was time to move on to the next and bamboozle myself again. The next in the series for me (I don't think Allard got to try it because it is the latest one).

Purple box - tricky

Even more attractive than the last one

The purple one is level 2 out of 5 and should take expected to take 30 minutes by the creators. They put a plus sign after the 30 minutes on the webpage and it certainly took me that plus amount of time above the 30 minutes! There are a couple of steps in this one that are really quite hard to find.

Having solved the blue, I was aware of the types of things I could/should try and the first couple of steps proceeded very nicely with little Aha! moments and a grin indicating that I had this. And then I was stuck for a while - probably about 10 minutes before I found my next step and received another tool which I didn't know how to use. From here I was stumped for yet more 30 minutes "plus". I actually did one aspect of the puzzling to find the tool by brute force of trial and error. It didn't seem right and I put it back to have a rather long think©. There were a few puzzle pieces and some arrows on the puzzle which indicate what is needed to do. The Aha! moment for this is delightful - they really have thought every step through.

I now had more tools and no idea what to do with them. Stuck again! Eventually, I did what I should and LOOKED at the puzzle properly. There is a feature that stares you in the eyes and dares you to try something without you realising that it was making fun of your inability to see it. 

If you are bright then you will see it straight away (I didn't feel too dopey when Tamsin also couldn't see it straight away). I think the "plus" on the timescale here took me to a total of an hour of puzzling. It's perfect and also very clever:

Purple token found

This one is even more fun than the last one to reset. 

I have started on the next most difficult in the series - orange is apparently "a real challenge" - it says so on the box. I'm about an hour in to that one and completely stuck after just a few moves. I can see what needs to happen but I don't have the tools yet to do it and am not sure where to look. For the moment, I am going to hold off on getting clues.

If you haven't considered getting these yet then stop considering and buy them - they are perfect little challenges and suitable for all levels of puzzler. I am sure that PuzzleMaster will restock soon for those of you in the USA and Canada. Otherwise the rest of the world can go to the Etsy store and buy direct. Do it now!