Don't Stop Believin'

Climburr
Designed by Christoph Lohe and made by Matthew Nedeljko

At the end of last weeks blog I showed off a new puzzle that I had acquired from a Facebook friend who had started making puzzles commercially a couple of years ago. I had admired his work from a distance but never actually gotten around to making a purchase. I was finally motivated/forced to buy when Christoph informed me that his last in the series of TICs produced with the design assistance of the TIC-Meister himself, Andrew Crowell were only going to be manufactured in a couple of small batches by Nedeljko woodworks. This series began with Cyburr and Chamburr produced by Pelikan and they were a stunning pair of challenges which I absolutely adored and which sold out very quickly.

Most of my previous TICs that I have in my collection have been sent out to me in pieces with the challenge being assembly. I have to say that I am very pleased that these puzzles in this series were sent out as a finished puzzle as I really don't think that I could possibly assemble them form scratch. I know a few people who could manage it but I have no shame in telling you that I am not one of them.

The disassembly of this masterpiece took me over a week to achieve. There are a few moves possible from the beginning but one pathway quickly appears to be more promising than the others and off you go. After a few moves and changes of direction the pieces can be properly inspected and an odd diagonal cutout in a piece appears. This is a clue - use it! It told me that a rotation was going to be needed in such a way that the cutout was the only way that the piece could turn. So make enough room with the other pieces and turn away! This was quite fun to find. Having done so and fiddled with what might come next, I decided to backtrack to the beginning. Except, I could not seem to get to the position to make the space for the rotation to occur. Panic set in! I really don't like getting lost in the disassembly of these puzzles because Burrtools is not going to help me.

It took me a full 2 evenings to get back to the beginning. At this point I made sure that I would absolutely know what position the pieces were in - I took some photos! I am getting to be bloody ancient and my memory is not what it used to be so photos were essential. Then I went back to that rotation and had one of my rare thoughts... is this the correct rotation? I moved it back and forth very carefully and I actually think that the diagonal cut is not really needed for the move that I had made. Because of this I wasted another evening desperately hunting for an alternative. Having failed to find one, I continued on the original path. From here there are a lot of very interesting moves possible including some very enticing rotations of another piece. I was really enjoying myself! 

Despite all this enjoyment, I actually did not seem to be making any progress. Quite frustrating that after several days I was stuck. At least I was able to go back and forth to the beginning (in fact my muscle memory for the sequence was getting to be really good). I took it to work and during a spare moment I tried again. Much to the amusement of a bunch of nurses who were watching me play, I finally yelled my Aha! aloud when looking down from above I noticed something that I had been missing for several days. I had been so busily focussing on the rotational opportunities that I had not even looked at linear moves. I could clearly see an alternative path to try. Whilst being watched, I made another few moves and my first piece was removed. Probably the first time I have ever received a round of applause! Unfortunatelyit was time to do some work so reluctantly I put it back together again. At home that evening I started again and quickly removed the first and then the second piece. The final piece removal was not terribly tough but required some really wonderful rotational moves. 

Simply delightful!

This was a truly brilliant completion of Christoph's TIC trilogy. I enjoyed them all immensely and really do hope that he works with Andrew again and designs some more. I seldom mix the display of puzzles up but I think that the 3 TICs will have to be put together.

So, despite losing faith, I continued to push, continued believin' and solved a puzzle. I still had to do another...

Gobstopper v2 (Gamexy version) pieces

Another puzzle left hanging at the end of last week's blog post was the second assembly of Steve and Ali's Gobstopper v2. I had managed to disassemble the easy assembly that it had been sent out in and having gone back and forth several dozen times, I was really quite certain that I would not be left with a pile o' pieces. BUT... the real challenge was to find the other more difficult assembly.

I really don't know how to go about this sort of thing apart from brute forcing them by attempting every possible assembly I could find. This is not really a great way to go about it when there are 12 pieces and you don't have the compute power of a modern computer. I actually struggle to assemble the six piece burrs unless they are level 1. I was chatting the genius again and he let slip that the second assembly was actually very easy to find. Sigh! He confirmed his genius by finding the second assembly in just a few minutes whilst also chatting to me. His excuse was that he had plenty of practice with the Joy of Hex set (if you don't have it but you love Hex then buy a copy of the set here asap).

I was forced, having tried for a few days and not really knowing how to go about it, to ask for a clue. Derek was very generous and said that one of the vertical pieces in the easy assembly needed to be inverted. Huh??? I asked and like a true friend he said "well other pieces will need to be moved to make that possible". Truly, I am not terribly bright and especially so in the shadow of his genius. I have spent the last couple of evenings trying and failing to make it work and annoyed the cat a lot by dropping brass pieces on his back. This morning having done my weekend exercise and had some breakfast with Mrs S, I risked playing with a heavy brass puzzle on my glass table. The swearing started to get on Mrs S' nerves but I was determined. 

Finally! After several hours of work, the loss of most of the remainder of my hair, and a huge number of swearwords, I finally found the Gamexy assembly.

I am sure that you can tell looking at that photo that is the other assembly - 😈

I have finally managed to assemble something complex and despite needing a clue, absolutely loved the process! This is an essential puzzle for everyone's collection.

I Lurve a Multi-Tasker

I also love a uni-tasker!

Six out of seven

This will be a really short article! I have been home alone all week as Mrs S went "oop north" to visit the outlaws and amuse herself with friends and not me. I had to stay home and look after the cat and the house, go to work, do some DIY (I'm a dab hand with silicone seal!) and try not to burn everything down. The pressure weighed heavily upon me and hence, I had very little chance to play with my toys. We also had a rather nasty heat-wave last weekend and the first few days of the week (my garden thermometer in the sun read 42ºC) which meant that sleep was hard to come by. The lack of sleep was not improved by the furry boy finding the movement of my feet under the sheet absolutely irresistible! I woke up several times a night for 4 nights with a blinding pain in my tootsies as hunting mode was engaged and he pounced, bit and killed. I just had no time or energy for puzzling.

Heaven in a cardboard box (or Hell?)

One thing I did manage occurred just as the heatwave began. I had been forced to sit and do nothing one afternoon and evening and just watch some crap on Netflix (stuff that Mrs S wouldn't normally tolerate) and I picked up something that my heat addled brain could just fiddle with. At the end of last year the Amazingly talented Alexander Magyarics had sent me a lovely (not so little) gift. he has bought himself a 3D printer (sigh! I wish I was allowed one) and had made copies of a bunch of his tray packing puzzles. Over the months I have even managed to solve a few of the easier ones but, unsurprisingly for me, I had failed to solve most of them. In my defence, a few of them are 2 layered packing puzzles with the layers interacting with each other and, with my skillz, I would have almost no chance. The Six out of seven puzzle should not have beaten me but what can I say? I am rubbish!

Being immobilised by heat and cat, who, for some reason, still insisted on lying along my legs despite the heat, I had no option other than to play for several hours with this puzzle which had been within reach since December. As the name implies, there are 7 challenges each of which uses six of the pieces. I have never used tetra-hexominoes before but they are rather tactile interesting shapes and really add to the complexity. This is much more difficult than had we just had ordinary square tetrominoes. The instructions said to place one of the pieces inside the tortoise shape and then fill the larger area completely with the other pieces. Man! The green and the red pieces have shapes that really work against you. I found the challenges that had one or other out of the equation only took me about 10 minutes each but the remaining puzzling that involved both of them was a huge challenge. 

It took me two whole trashy movies to solve all the challenges! I was so pleased with myself! Luckily, the end of the puzzling and the movies meant that I could disturb the furry hot-water bottle, get off the chair, and get myself something cold to drink before I expired from heat-stroke!

There are also symmetry and shape making challenges to go with these pieces which Alexander has sent me as pdf to print out:

As I say in the title of the post...I lurve a multi-tasker! I have been trying these in what limited time I have had this week and had almost no success at all but I am really enjoying having so many challenges in one puzzle. What an amazing gift - thank you my friend!

Later that evening:

Gobstopper v2

Gobstopper v2 pieces (I think)

I have had Gobbstoper v1 on display for ages and been too frightened to take it apart - I cannot model these hex structures in Burrtools and figure that if I get something apart there is no way that I will be able to put it back together again. For some reason the Gobstopper v2 had been left lying on my armchair next to me since it had arrived rather than being put straight on display with the rest of the Two Brass Monkeys stuff. My excuse was that it's very tactile and nice to roll around your hand. I never expected to actually take it apart. Apparently the v2 is the same shape and solution as the original Gamex puzzle by Bill Cutler. I do have a Hectix but I am really not certain whether that is the same. If it was then I might be able to try a simultaneous solve.

So what happened here? I picked it up in the evening and too my utter horror, I had oriented it in such a way that several pieces fell out all at the same time. OMG! This might get bad. I quickly wrapped my fist around it to prevent any more pieces falling out and worked out how they went back in. This wasn't too bad. I got bold and then sequentially took more pieces off whilst hoping that it would not collapse on my cat who seems to have razor-sharp claws again despite me clipping them a week ago. To my surprise, the disassembly is pleasant and stable (I should have realised that from the product description - but I had reflexly purchased without actually thinking about it). I had my pieces and took my photos. I can now assemble and disassemble this one at will.

This puzzle is a "duo-tasker" - there is an alternative assembly (apparently much more difficult to find). Can I find the other, more complex assembly? Hell no! I am terrible at assembly puzzles even when they are rectilinear. Hexagonal geometry upsets my feeble brain. I have singularly failed so far. If the Hectix (of which I do own 3 different copies) is the same as the Gamex and the same as the Gobstopper v2 then I might be able to try a simultaneous assembly. If anyone knows then please let me know and I will give it a try! I think that my pictures of the wooden Hectix that I own, the pieces look different. Maybe it is the Hectix revisited which I also own?

This weekend, in between cleaning the house before "she who scares the who world to death" gets home, doing more DIY and emptying the dishwasher, I received and have been playing with a Uni-tasker. This is Climburr, designed by Christoph Lohe and beautifully made by Matthew Nedeljko. This is the final one of the series that was designed alongside Andrew Crowell. Apparently, this was a difficult one to make and only Matthew would take it on. I had adored the previous two and basically HAD to buy the final one! So far it has been interesting and after making a small amount of progress, I am stuck!

My first puzzle from Matthew Nedeljko

It does appear that I had a better week than I thought! Maybe Mrs S needs to go away again? 😈😈😈