Locked Three Times Over!

The Vertigo Puzzlebox from Quizbrix

First up, I should let you know that this was sent to me for free for review.

In December 2022 I reviewed the aMAZEing Puzzlebox (also available from PuzzleMaster) and absolutely loved it. A few months later they released a follow up challenge called the Vertigo Puzzlebox and I had intended to buy one this time. Time went by and I got sidetracked by life, work and many many many other puzzles and it sort of fell by the wayside. The new one was reviewed by Steve (Boxes and Booze) reminding me that this was a great designer. Then, out of the blue, I was contacted again by Peleg to ask if I would be happy to review it. I cannot say no to a good designer and it duly arrived from Israel last weekend.

As with the previous puzzle, the challenge is to find and release the gold bar hidden inside the box, using only what is provided as you work through the sequence. The top of the box appears to have the letters QB on it superimposed on each other (I confess that I had to squint at it for a while to see it and thought it might be a D&G logo). The puzzle is made almost entirely using the ⅓ height lego bricks in various sizes and there are a number of voids visible and outlines of larger constructions that look like they should move as a single piece. In one place there is a clear brick and the ability to see right through.

Time to start - the only option available is to push and prod at various bits of the puzzle until you find something that moves and then you are off to the races. The first 4 moves are a nice unlocking sequence which leaves you with the lid removed and a tantalising view of the gold brick inside:

No spoilers here! I cannot reach that gold brick

Having seen the target, it is time to try and work out how to remove it. This is easier said than done. A single tool is found on the way and there appears to be a number of places that it can be used but none of those places seem to actually do anything. There are 8 possible places to use that tool and it requires careful attention to realise when one of them actually does something. after this there are more opportunities to use the tool in other places.

There is slow progress of finding things that move inside but it is not apparent what those movements actually achieve. It is an odd sensation of making progress without truly understanding that you are and only realising it when something else suddenly is possible. after the first few moves inside I hit a brick wall. I could see my target, I could move all sorts of things inside and tantalisingly the brick got closer but then it stopped. I was stuck at this point for several days. I was determined not to use the solution video they link to on their site and kept trying for the best part of a week.

After days of doing the same thing over and over again and then back tracking, I had one of my rare thoughts. What if I...Aha! I had moved a new part of the interior which I had not done before. Did this help? Well sort of except the brick still wasn't reachable. Having got to a new position, I was able to redo some of my previous steps and, of a sudden, I had my gold bar:

That was a real odyssey!

I had a sort of muscle memory of what I thought that I had done to release the gold and attempted to reset the puzzle. Everything went back inside and it looked perfect... or so I thought!

Of course, I usually do these puzzles several times before writing about them and on my second time through, I underwent the initial unlock process and then the second step using the tool. After this the gold bar was removable - something was not right! I looked inside the box and realised that the critical move that had taken me so long to find had not been undone when resetting. I duly went through that move a second time and it still saved too easily. What was I missing?

Continuing to stare deeply into the box, I noticed that the critical move that I had found wasn't a locking or unlocking move. In fact, I could not understand what it did. That is odd because I definitely remembered being absolutely held up before I found that move. I needed to understand what that move had enabled - time to look at one of the removed pieces from the puzzle.

Aha!

Oooh! That is very clever! After an extra day of fiddling with the puzzle in pieces I realised that this puzzlebox has at least 3 locking mechanisms (it might even have 4!). It is possible to open it without fully realising the extent of these mechanisms but only when working out the full reset do you realise just how much has been put into it. This is a tremendous puzzle made better by working to open and then reset without resorting to the solution videos. Take the time to explore and think© and you will be left with a huge grin on your face.

I might even go as far as to say that the vertigo puzzle is cleverer and more enjoyable than the original aMAZEing puzzlebox. You should definitely check it out. Those are the only puzzles on their site just now but I really hope that they continue to produce more - they both are absolutely fabulous.

New Kid on the Brick

The aMAZEing PuzzleBox

Out of the blue a few weeks ago I was contacted Peleg from Quizbrix. He had just completed design and manufacture of the aMAZEing PuzzleBox and wanted me to have a look at it and offer him feedback (as well as a review on here with a view to sending him some customers). I don't often do this and suggested that it would be more appropriate to send the box to Steve at Boxes and Booze as he was much more competent at puzzleboxes. To my surprise, Peleg accepted that but wanted to send us both a copy. In the face of such a keen producer and my inability to turn down a free puzzle, I accepted, chose the black version over the whilte and a package was duly posted from Israel. Despite the best efforts of a striking Royal Mail workforce, it arrived pretty quickly and I unpacked it to find a very solid feeling puzzle.

It has been made mostly the thin (⅓ height) lego bricks with a few full height ones in there too. Most are black in my version but there are a few white and a few clear ones and some holes allowing a limited view inside. It is 104x80x48mm in size and came with a credit card sized instruction leaflet. I had to take a photo of the instructions and blow the photo up to see them as the font was absolutely tiny. If you have raging eyesight like me then reading the card is impossible. The card said:

• This is a PUZLLEBOX made of original LEGO® bricks
• Your goal is to find the GOLDEN BAR
• To do that you have to solve all the steps in the puzzle
• All the steps are sequential (you can not bypass them)
• Pay close attention to what you do (things move)
• You can push, pull. turn and do what ever you want to solve the puzzle - BUT:
• DON'T use too much force (if it doesn't move - maybe its not the time)
• DON'T use your fingernails or any object that is not part of the puzzle
• DON'T pull apart the puzzle (it will break)
• If you are disconnecting a piece of from another piece - you are doing something wrong
• ENJOYI

It is described as a level 7/10 puzzle (I am not sure how that number has been decided) with 30+ steps.

There are lots of places to explore initially and all you can do is push at things with your finger and I was reassured that if it was not necessary to use a finger nail to poke tiny parts in or out. Only the tools provided should be used. Before my puzzle arrived I had been given an additional instruction to prevent a potential bypass. It is apparently possible to insert one of the tools into a hole and use it to pull something out. I was told not to do that and, to be honest, it would never have occurred to me to actually do such a thing. It just seems like the wrong thing to try and do.

After a few minutes, I found the first move and retrieved a tool which obviously could be used in quite a lot of different places on the puzzle...except in the vast majority of these places it did nothing. After another five minutes or so I had found that the tool would do something very specific and then several more specific things. I liked how the same tool could and should be used in multiple places but only in the correct order. These moves led to another very small tool dropping out onto the usual sleeping cat. At this point I decided to set it back to the beginning (also quite fun) and put it away so that I could play without the aid of a pussy boy who seemed to find tiny pieces of Lego very interesting. The second tool could quite easily be swallowed by the cat and it was definitely best to play without him around.

A few days later, I restarted and retrieved everything I had previously found and then discovered the reason for the name of the puzzle. There is a very small maze inside which needs to be navigated and then something else triggered. I got stuck here for a day. I learned the maze (it's not that challenging) but nothing happened at the end. I was missing something. As usual, I got focussed on one aspect for a while and could not get past it. Time for another reset and a think©. A day later, I started again and found what I was looking for - I had missed a whole sequence of moves which gave me another tool and then I could combine the use of all the tools into a fancy manoeuvre which moved me into yet another phase of the puzzle. It was reassuring to realise that if I could fit a small tool inside somewhere then I could always manipulate it either forward towards the solution or undo what I had done and retrieve it. At no point was there anything that I could do that was irreversible or would do harm.

I had out it down last night due to being unable to either get time without a cat or due to feeling under the weather (I have my first cold in over 2 years!) and then continued play this morning. With a very nice final Aha! moment, I retrieved the gold bar:

Gold bar found

The bar was attached to a tray with a QR code on it which took me to a congratulations page and links to videos which showed me how to reset the puzzle and also a video walkthrough of the solution. This is a very nice touch and greatly appreciated as I was not sure that I would have been able to reset it fully after one solve.

So what do I think? This is my first ever Lego puzzlebox and almost certainly not my last. There are now a couple of Lego based puzzle makers and if this is an example of what is possible then I am hooked. Could I design my own? No, I don't think so - Mrs S will NOT allow me to start buying Lego sets and I really don't know how to go about the design process. This is absolutely terrific and well worth the current $99 price point. The "full price" should be double that which I think is a bit steep but at sub 100 it is perfect. 

If boxes are your thing then you will like it. If, like me, you don't collect boxes then the box description is very loose. It does have a very small cavity but in reality this is a Sequential Discovery puzzle. You should buy it - I got mine for free but this has not influenced my review in any way. Buy it here whilst stocks last.