One...Three...Two...Solved!

Galaxy III

Galaxy III by DDK

Yes, from the title of the post you can tell that I am neither a mathematician nor could I ever be a scrub nurse (who needs to count to 5 preferably in the right order). This puzzle, Galaxy III designed by the amazing DDK and made by Mr Gao which I got from Aaron's recent release has this very strange progression to solution.

I have had another bad week and failed to solve everything in sight. I have been moving from wire puzzle to wire puzzle in the hope that I will have another Aha! moment but everything has failed on me. I was then mortified when my facebook friend, Yang Qingliang, showed off that they had solved the Galaxy III and had revealed to the world that they felt it was pretty easy needing only 4 moves. OMG! I am so rubbish at puzzles.

Aaron had rated the Galaxy III as only a level 7 and I had picked it up first in the hope that I would have something solved easily to boost my confidence. I had completely failed over the next few hours and eventually put it down to try others. It does look relatively simple with a shuttle straddling one of the wires on the outer layer of the spiral. The shuttle can be threaded right through from that outer wire to the centre with no obstructions but at first glance there isn't an obvious exit point and what you might think is a possible exit is blocked by the pair of oval rings across several layers. Winding round and around in circles is satisfying for a minute or so but when you get nowhere it loses its entertainment value quickly. 

Having been shamed I went back to it last night and this morning and had one of my very rare thoughts. I remembered back to almost the very beginning of my puzzling journey when I spent what was then a rather large sum of money on the entire Livewire puzzle collection. One of my absolute favourites from them was the Pyramid scheme which had a nice clever trick to it to find a rather counter-intuitive but very clever solution.

Pyramid scheme from Livewire puzzles

You can see the similarities of the spiral and the blockage ring with the shuttle on one wire. Once I had recalled the interesting idea that solved this one, I tried that move on the Galaxy III and suddenly went from one wire in the shuttle to three. That is fun and hopefully a progression. Next I moved it around a bit and before I knew it, did the same sort of move again from a different position and had 2 wires trapped. WTF?

1...3...2 was an odd sort of progression but I could now see an exit in exactly the same way I found the exit for the Pyramid scheme. Suddenly I had my shout of success and I didn't feel like quite such an eejit and more - I am not thinking about the fact that it is only a simple level 7! I will take the win.

Hooray

Having taken the photo, it was time to reassemble. I knew the type of moves that were required. It wasn't plain sailing but after a bit of fiddling about I managed it. It is quite fun to watch the non-obvious moves achieve results that don't seem like they should be possible - it's lovely in the same way that the original Livewire puzzle caused so much delight. I will be torturing colleagues with this one this week. At level 7 it might be solvable by someone.

Thank you Aaron for the torture!

String Or Wire? Or Both?

Should They Go On Display?

 

Concertina Wire by DDK made by Mr Gao - bought from Aaron Wang

A wonderful gift from Dale

Due to having a horrendously busy week with operations that went on and on (and on) beyond the normal working day, I haven't had much time to play. It was Mrs S' birthday on Friday and I felt that puzzling probably ought to take a second place that day. As a result. this article is a real short one and more philosophical than many of my posts.

At the MPP last weekend, I had a really nice chat with Dale (who gave me a copy of one of his old exchange puzzles from IPP 25 in 2005). Dale is one of the few puzzlers I personally know (apart from Dick Hess) who really appreciates disentanglement puzzles. Over the years od attending the MPPs I have worked many times on these fabulous challenges with him as we both seem to get stuck on the same types of thing. 

Lots of puzzlers seem to be attracted to the simple (and occasionally not so simple) interlocked nail puzzles but very few seem to really collect or solve the more complex wire puzzles and even fewer of the group love the puzzles that include string in them. Dale and I discussed why that might be as well as whether they should be displayed or even look good on display.

Whilst we worked together on a puzzle that he had been stuck on (it was a wood and string version of the classic ball and chain puzzle made with extremely tight tolerances), I had to admit that I did not display any of my disentanglement puzzles at all. It is difficult to be sure but I think I must have about 400-500 disentanglement puzzles and almost all of them are stored in Ikea storage baskets. The ones that I have solved are kept in the garage (I have a catalogue reminding me which ones are in which box) and a whole bunch of unsolved ones are in a wardrobe in the house. Only the one at the top of the post is currently on display and that is not because of the look... even though it is quite attractive, it is only on display because I am still working on it. I have been trying to solve this masterpiece by DDK and made by Mr Gao which was sold to me as part of the 2025 releases by Aaron Wang.

I don't find the diagrams help me much!

Dale and I were interested in finding out why so few puzzlers are really into disentanglement puzzles and those that are tend to be less appreciative of the ones involving string. I don't think we were able to come to any real conclusions. I personally have been moving away from the puzzles that involve string (unless they are Chinese ring variants) because I find many of them impossibly difficult to solve and in many of them the solving process can end in a dead puzzle with an irrevocably knotted string. I have been very grateful that Aaron's string puzzles for the last 3 or 4 years have included a quick reset mechanism. This is particularly useful when a knot occurs but also with the Chinese ring type puzzles, the sequence of moves is often so very complex that it is a frequent occurrence for a puzzler to lose concentration and either end up right back at the beginning without realising it or caught in a dead end and due to the huge number of moves to get there, it is often better to use the quick release and return to a known correct earlier position than to backtrack and get lost.

Circuit board I (also by DDK and made by Mr Gao)

Many of the non-Chinese ring type puzzles that have been produced over the last 5 or 10 years look fantastic (which is why I couldn't resist buying them) but require some incredible brain power to work out a solution. The Circuit board I above has a really short loop of string which would make you think it shouldn't be that difficult to wind it off the wire grid. However, I have been playing with this for a year as well and can honestly say that I am no closer to the solution now than when I first started. Indeed, Aaron did rate its difficulty as 10+ but I think only the very best of disentanglement enthusiasts will be able to work this one out. I consider myself to be above average on this wire puzzles but the sheer complexity of these is making me more and more hesitant to buy more string based challenges. 

I haven't completely given up on the Concertina wire puzzle yet because it is still attractive enough to leave on my puzzle tray and I do periodically feel I am making enough progress to come back to it periodically. I think that most puzzlers would hesitate to attempt the Circuit board and only a few more would be attracted to the Concertina wire because of the knowledge that it is a Chinese ring puzzle.

Grenade V by Shuai Chi made by Mr Gao

Having complained about string, I have to sheepishly admit that the new breed of designers are producing wire puzzles that are also immensely more difficult than the wire puzzles that I bought many years ago from Livewire. Many of those were incredibly tough but the wire from the likes of Aaron and Shuai Chi are several orders of magnitude more difficult. The Grenade series (there are currently 6 of them) look complex but not horrific but believe me when I say say that they are the very pinnacle of pure wire challenges. I have managed to get absolutely nowhere with them in a year of trying. At least I am not caught in an un fixable position but nothing I try seems to advance. 

Despite all of this apparent complaining, I adore these puzzles and have ordered a whole bunch of the 2026 releases (although only one which has string in it). I fully expect that most will be beyond my abilities and they will not end up on display but I will still have a lot of fun playing with them.

Now, Having spent a good while with the Concertina Wire and Dale's Elusive Chain Puzzle sitting on the table in front of of me whilst I type this, I have had an idea or two on how to progress so I had better get back to them now. Excuse me...

I Thought That I was On a Roll

But then...

Xmas Tree gift from Aaron

Every time I order a little batch of puzzles from Aaron, he includes a little (or even not so small in this case) extra puzzle in the package. This time it was this adorable little Xmas tree with a couple of baubles on it (attached in different ways to interfere with the slider movement and, of course, the obligatory piece to be removed. This puzzle has been absolutely beautifully made and almost reminds me of something that would have been produced by the wonderful and sadly missed LiveWire puzzles guys.

Having been successful last week with the Ball and chain puzzle that isn't, I couldn't resist playing with this one for a little light relief. Any of you who are better than an absolute beginner at disentanglement puzzles can look at this and immediately see where the exit point is but will also see how it is blocked by the baubles. The challenge here is to get past that part of the blocked path. I am absolutely delighted that with my huge experience of wire puzzles and (BLUSH!) embarassingly enormous collection (I have 6 plastic cases of them in my garage), I managed to solve this clever little challenge in about 10 minutes:

Delightful and not too tough

The sequence is absolutely delightful and fun to do repeatedly. It does show that a puzzle doesn't need to be impossibly difficult to still be fun. This is a nice one that I will be taking in to work with me as we approach the holiday season to bamboozle and hopefully delight my colleagues. I am due to work on Xmas day this year and it will be taken in with me.

Pipe

Pipe by the incredibly talented DDK was next on my list to try mostly because it looks quite a lot less fearsome than most of the others I received. This was partially true.

It is obvious where the name comes from and the aim is also obviously to remove the long shuttle. 

I always take a photo of the instruction sheet giving the setup position to aid my memory and also because it has the "idealised" position of the various components (the picture I took does look slightly different to the printed sheet). 

Having been encouraged with my early success with Pocket watch and Xmas tree, I immediately thought that this would actually be a nice (maybe arduous) N-ary puzzle and would be fun but easy. I genuinely thought I was being very clever doing this puzzle next and that there would be an easy blog post for me. I was wrong about the easy bit - maybe I should have paid attention to the Level 10+?

Initially, I thought that the left side of the puzzle (bowl of the pipe) must be the exit and started moving the shuttle through the centre of the puzzle towards it. I quickly found that this led to a dead end - I could work my way out that end but immediately any further moves are blocked by the rings. Like an eejit, I tried this same thing multiple times before coming to the correct conclusion and abandoning that approach. I went back to the picture and with the idealised positioning, I think that most of you should be able to see what looks like an obvious exit point for the shuttle. This should lead to you being able to formulate an initial plan to begin manoeuvring towards that exit. Unfortunately, within a few minutes I made the horrible realisation that the shuttle is actually inside the centre of this new exit point and it was definitely not going to be an easy task to get there. I was stuck for a while. As the week went by, I got a bit desperate and even brought it into the living room during our evening TV watching. Mrs S gave me a telling off again but she must be mellowing a bit because she did it with a smile. Not even a mention of a Whack! Ouch!

I was stuck at this point for a couple of days as I struggled to see how I could aim for that exit point without the shuttle being caught in the middle of it. It is important to notice that several of the rings are large and several are too small to pass the shuttle through. his is an important feature which helps but also confuses. I tried something completely new and suddenly I had made progress - I was not sure whether it was correct but I carried on. At one point I performed multiple moves and.... I was back at the beginning! How the?? I had no idea how I managed to undo things without realising it and took a deep breath before starting again and this time I got a bit further (I thought so, but it is quite difficult to remember every position that you have been in). I continued along what seemed like a promising path and occasionally reached a blockage which needed a little thought©. After a few days, the shuttle came out with me having only a slight idea of how I had achieved it:

That was fun and much tougher than expected

I left it like this for a day or so and then bit the bullet and started the reassembly. Oh boy! This really made it clear that I had not fully understood my sequence. I was able to get the process started but, as I progressed, my hopes kept getting dashed when suddenly and unexpectedly, the shuttle came back out again. This happened several times! Time to think© properly!

Here I realised that I needed to look at the diagram and work out a specific approach to traveling a particularly problematic ring which kept turning me around back to the exit. Having thunk© and arranged my puzzle like the picture, I tried again and finally after a whole week of play on this one I had my success.

The Pipe is a genius design which looks much easier than it actually is. It has some N-ary portions to the sequence but is not truly an N-ary puzzle. I would liken it more to the tree puzzle that I reviewed at the early on in this PuzzleMad odyssey but a lot more confusing.

Thank you DDK, for the challenge and thank you Aaron, for the opportunity.

It's Not What It Seems To Be...

But It's Still Really Good

Pocket Watch
Designed by Shaui Chi and made by Mr Gao

Having had a really good time with one of Aaron's gift puzzles whilst on my holibobs, but still hadn't managed to solve a puzzle, I was determined to do better with the new batch that arrived whilst I was away.

Telescope (level 7)

The Pocket watch puzzle is "only" a level 8 on Aaron's scale. I really don't know what to make of his scale because I have never seen anything less than a 7 on it and almost all of the puzzles he releases are 10 or 10+. The odd thing is that the single level 7 puzzle that I bought from him remains unsolved and I have not come even close to working it out.

I had high hopes for the Pocket watch puzzle because it immediately screams out to most experienced puzzlers as very similar to the classic Ball and ring puzzle described in van Delft & Botermans' Creative puzzles of the world and, from it,  a whole bunch of variants which add degrees of difficulty and which I have struggled with multiple times over the years. My late mentor Tsy Hung Chein (aka Felix) got me entangled in their delights and made me a large number of them. There have been reviews of them here, here and here.

Classic Ball and chain (Livewire version)

The Pocket watch looks so like a variant of the Ball and ring puzzles except...the ring is not on the string in this one. This should start the alarm bells ringing...why not? My initial thought was that I had to move the ring onto that string and then solve it the usual way. The only problem with that is that I could not find any way to achieve that aim. Luckily the puzzle comes with a nice lobster-claw release mechanism for if you have made a knot and I deliberately reorganised it to have the ring where I desired and started trying to do the classic move (you have to be careful with that classic move because if you get it even slightly misaligned then you end up with a loop around the wire and can then get it more and more looped as you try to backtrack. Being very careful (and practicing with one of my old standard versions) I attempted the solve in the "new" start position. Here again I should have listened to the alarm bells in my head (especially as my head is usually pretty empty most of the time). The classic challenge requires that the ring get passed around the circumference of the puzzle and this is completely impossible with the Pocket watch due to the invagination that is closed off by another ring the same size as the movable one. 

It would appear that my whole rationale for starting the new batch of Aaron's torture devices with this one was based on a false premise. This puzzle is NOT a Ball and Ring puzzle even if it looks like one. It was time to put it back to the start and look for the correct way to solve it. The odd thing is that the moves of the ring are so constrained that it is initially quite hard to get tangled up doing what you feel is the right thing. Now one bonus with these is that it is possible to dismantle it and start with a solved puzzle and work your way back i.e. an entanglement challenge. I took the ring off and started here and tried to get to the beginning with minimal success until I had a huge (yes, HUGE) realisation. The movement of the ring to solve this one is really REALLY easy.

I set the start position the way I wanted it and within a couple of seconds had the ring where it needed to be. My new target was to see how to arrange the string into that require position without using the lobster-claw. It took me a few fairly tangled knots which needed undoing before I had a truly delicious Aha! moment as I worked out a sequence to move my string back and forth from the puzzle start to the solvable position. Once this was easily possible, it is just a matter of repeating that simple 2 second move with the ring and the puzzle is solved.

Solved (without the quick release)

Yes, it is "just" a level 8 puzzle but don't let that put you off. It is absolutely terrific and has a couple of delightful Aha! moments in it.

Hopefully I will have similar success with the rest of the puzzles in the recent delivery. Some look very tough with enormous lengths of string in them!

Some great challenges here!

Counting to 4 in the Correct Order

Number Blocks

Mrs S has been away for over a week visiting the Outlaws. She returned home yesterday whilst I was at work and this meant a  flurry of cleaning up my mess (with dozens of puzzles lying all over the house) and then making the place look vaguely presentable and doing a bit of my assigned DIY over the last few days. This has left me knackered but at least I have managed to solve a few puzzles to blog about. Today I have a lovely puzzle that was great fun and is absolutely perfect to take to work for "normal people" to play with. It's a little bit of a shock to have to finally admit after all these years that I am "not normal"! 😱😱

Recently, I had a little chat with Tom Lensch via email when I was seeking a copy of his award winning 4 Pac puzzle designed by Hajime Katsumoto. This had been very highly rated by Allard as well as appearing a few times in the EPP book. Of course, Tom always has a bunch of creations on the go at any one time and sometimes has a few toys lying around from previous batches. He talked me into purchasing a new version of the Melting Block puzzle (it has a bunch of gloriously coloured woods which I couldn't resist) as well as the Number blocks by Goh Pit Khiam.

New Melting Block

4 Pac

I immediately fiddled with the 4 Pac and realised that this was going to take some serious working out time which I didn't have straight away and suspected that the New Melting Block might be totally beyond me, so I started on the Number blocks. 

This gorgeous puzzle was created and entered into the IPP design competition way back in 2015 where it won a Jury honourable mention award. It has been reviewed by Jerry Loo who really enjoyed the solving. I am not entirely certain how I missed out on this one (I suspect that I ran out of budgeted funds or had been treated with terrible bodily harm by "she who frightens the bejeezus out of me"). I already have the Arrow blocks and the Road blocks already and very much enjoyed them. 

The aim of the puzzle is to convert one to orientation to another:

            1    2                1    2

                           →

            4    3                3    4

There are also several other orders that you can attempt but they are quite a lot simpler (although still a fun challenge). Obviously this cannot be like the traditional 15 puzzle - there is no gap to use to slide the pieces around with. Obviously something has to come out first and I discovered that by turning it over to look at the reverse of the tray: The 4 has no protrusions and then the other pieces can slide. Simple I thunk©, now I slide them into the correct position and reinsert the 4 piece. Of course, our good friend Pit would not have made it that easy - the sliding does move things about but you always get blocked no matter what direction you try. I guess that I had better take all the pieces out?

Now you can see why the puzzle isn't that simple

Maybe the tray needs to be rotated before trying my simple reinsertion? Nope, too easy - the tray just has a slot under the frame all the way around with no obstructions. Time to Think© again - ooh that's painful!

The challenge is not terribly difficult - I think it must have taken me about two hours over a couple of sittings. The lovely thing about this puzzle is that there are 2 very distinct Aha! moments before you can solve it. The first of them I came to quite quickly because whilst I'm not terribly bright, I am not entirely stupid! The second Aha! moment took much longer. I seemed to get fixated on trying one particular thing which was not going to work but I tried anyway...multiple times. Doh! Eventually I had my breakthrough and could count to 4:

I can finally reach 4!

I then brought this wonderful challenge to work where I tortured a few ODPs, nurses and medical students who needed a break from my barrage of information. It was really quite fun to watch them all go through the same process as me. The got fixated on the same problems and eventually had the same Aha! moments (occasionally with a little nudging) and were all delighted with the challenge.

This fabulous puzzle is well worth obtaining and sharing with friends if you can find a copy.

---

Dale Shows Passion Before Wedding Vows are Allowed

Passion Puzzle by Dale Overy

I have enjoyed Dale's company at many MPPs over the years. He sits quietly solving stuff with ease and enjoys showing off new finds and new creations. He has a particular penchant for disentanglement puzzles which is a delight for me because so few puzzlers seem to really love them. I had purchased a few little toys from him at the last MPP and promptly hidden them when I got home so that Mrs S did not see me moving a bunch of extra toys into the house after a day away. With so much work on my plate, I promptly forgot them and only found them again whilst "she who makes murder hornets fly away in fear" was away.

The Passion puzzle may look very familiar - it looks rather like the classic Wedding Vows puzzle which I reviewed in 2015. The aim is to move 1 bead across to the other side alongside its' lover. Of course, the bead will not fit through any of the holes in the puzzle. There are a number of similar looking puzzles that I have reviewed in the past but they have had very different solution paths. It is definitely not a hugely tough puzzle compared to the monstrosities that I have acquired from Aaron Wang or some of the worst of the sadly missed Livewire company puzzles. But the challenge is really quite fun and, dare I say it, probably suitable for beginners or non puzzlers.

The fun thing for me is the realisation that this lovely challenge is one step before the Wedding vows. You definitely need to go through the Passion puzzle stage before reaching the Wedding vows:

Very clever.

I still have a couple of others to play with from Dale that will keep me jingling and annoying "she who can freeze a lake with just a look". Whack! Ouch!

Type 4 Zig-zag design by Dick Hess

I have no idea what it is called - it's in Czech

Something Old, Something New, Something Borrowed...

And now I'm Blue!

My table of toys - some have been here months or even years!

Much to the chagrin of Mrs S, my puzzle arrivals keep on coming and I haven't had time to put any away in ages - they are EVERYWHERE! I have quite a lot that I haven't managed to solve or haven't managed to even play with yet. Some of my most longstanding puzzles that are suitable to be left somewhere warm and which are suitable to dip into periodically are left on a side table in our conservatory. I find that at weekends, after the obligatory exercise on the rower (if I get fat, she will chuck me out! 😱), I tend to sit on the sofa next to these puzzles and pick up something to idly fiddle with. Sometimes I don't get a chance to sit down because its not always my seat...

It's warm in here! Zzzzzz
Sometimes I wish I was a cat!

A correspondent of mine (that's you, Steve) also seems to have a penchant for Aaron Wang's disentanglement puzzles and recently asked me how I had gotten on with the Boxing Gloves puzzle and if I could provide a clue to help him. I shamefully had to admit that I had singularly failed to solve it in over 4 years - shame on me! That puzzle has been sitting on that glass table for longer than any other - I keep thinking that I should be able to solve it and keep failing at it. 

Boxing Gloves - looks familiar?

Does it look familiar? It should do...it is "just" a Ball and Chain puzzle - I have written about them before in their various guises, from the original classic that I bought from the sadly missed Livewire puzzles to the fabulous complex versions from Aaron I bought in 2015 and again last year which I had so much fun with. The thing about ball and chain puzzles is that they have a base move that they all share but after (or even before) that they need careful setting up and obviously careful movements after that. The Boxing Gloves is doesn't even look that complicated unlike the Maze B&C that I failed at so spectacularly last July. One thing that frightens me about these puzzles is the tendency to get into a terrible knot. Recently, Aaron has been using wonderful quick release mechanisms so that it is easily possible to reset a tangled puzzle but this one has nothing to help you if you get into a mess - I was rather frightened of it but could not stop myself from trying it every few weeks or months.

After my recent correspondence, I had to try again. I sat down (having moved the cat) on Good Friday and started playing again. I kept getting into the usual trap and having to carefully backtrack to avoid the inevitable mess and ended up sitting staring at it thinking© to myself that it is just two interlocked Ball and chain puzzles! It should not need anything fancy to solve it. Why wasn't my standard B&C approach working? The second one always could not be set up properly. 

At that point the cat insisted on more food and I put it down to feed him. During that process my thoughts went along the lines of..."if the second one is always set up wrong then what if I don't have a second one?" That sounds fairly cryptic but if you are reading this, Steve, then you have a fairly big clue right there! I tried something that I had not thought of before in 4 years and it didn't work - something wasn't quite right. Looking at it, though, it was clear why and I needed a very specific setup move before trying the same thing again. It frightened me quite a bit because the whole thing seemed on the verge of a knot and it required every single bit of the length of that chain but suddenly...

Aha! At last!

I cannot believe it - I have finally solved an old puzzle after years of attempts. It is a fabulous idea and one I should have managed earlier but needed me to have a particular train of thought©! Returning it to the beginning requires the same setup move (which took me a little while to find again) and then the usual sequence for this style of puzzle. Thank you Aaron, it is wonderful!

Anti-Gravity Box+

Next I tried something new - I had received a few beauties from Eric recently including the Anti-gravity box+. The plus here is because Eric worked with Frederic Boucher to add an extra challenge to his original puzzle giving us 2 sets of 6 sticks to be inserted into the box, one has 2 solutions and the other solution. Eric has beautifully made this from Iroko and Paulownia with magnets glued in flush either on the side or end of the pieces. The two puzzle sets can be told from each other by the presence of a decorative dowel in the end of the set with the unique solution. 

The top of the box has a nicely fitted acrylic lid to allow the failed puzzler to quickly remove the pieces either to try the next puzzle or, more usually, to start again having failed miserably. My initial thought was to find a stacking method that would not allow the magnets to repel each other and then simply slide the pieces inside whilst using gravity and tilting to get the pieces to where I wanted them. Doh! I should have read the instructions properly - the box has to be placed on a work surface/table and cannot be manipulated after that. The challenge is to insert the pieces through the two windows and any manipulation of those pieces can ONLY be carried out using the sticks themselves - you are not even allowed to poke your fingers inside. Now that really ups the ante. Yesterday, having finally convinced myself that I had definitely understood the Boxing gloves, I decided to try this. Luckily this time the cat was on my lap and I could use him as a table. The snoring was a little off-putting though. The set with two solutions has an extra magnetic piece and this makes manipulation quite a bit simpler (although not easy by any stretch of the imagination). After about an hour of trying various ideas, I finally worked it out and had my box packed - the lazy boy had not even woken up to admire my efforts. The next challenge was a variant of the first needing quite a bit more thought© and planning. I had that challenge beaten in another half hour and was feeling quite chuffed. At last I can place my prowess on the same level as those of Brent (Five Sinatras) and Jerry Loo. Except...I have a nagging feeling when reading their reviews that I might have done something I was not allowed to do. I think I will have to ask Fred whether I have been silly or not. If you get a chance to buy this puzzle then I think it is a perfect challenge for an idle hour of puzzling which should leave you full of admiration for Fred's warped brain and Eric's craftsmanship.

Something borrowed??? Over 9 months ago, I was very kindly lent a copy of the ResQ puzzle (again designed by Frederic Boucher and made by Eric) and I have been playing with it off and on every few weeks when I get time. To my eternal shame, I have found only one move and discovered a tool. Having found my tool, I have no idea what to do with it - there seem to be absolutely no "tool-holes" for me to place it and all I can do is admire the wonderful workmanship. I am very grateful to Andrew for lending it to me and his enormous patience as I have kept it for so so long! This is how puzzle friends are - such a wonderful bunch!

This leaves me feeling a little blue - but not as much as a partial solve...

Sax 2

Another fabulous challenge that I had bought from Aaron was a set of pure wire puzzles designed by Shuai Chi and beautifully made by Heping Gao. I loved the look of these for the theming but also the fact that they are pure wire meaning no knots. It does not, however, mean that they are easy. Aaron has given them all a level of 10+ which means that he found them pretty hard to solve himself and that means that a simpleton like me will really struggle and, oh boy, did I struggle!

Over the last 6 months since they arrived I have played with all three of them and can vouch that they are very very tough. Whilst they look very similar, they are all distinctly different and moves that are possible on one are not possible on the others. Seeing as I was so flush with success from the Boxing gloves and then I chose to have yet another try at this set that had beaten me so far (it has been in my conservatory stash the whole time). I chose to try the Sax 2 puzzle because I thought that one less obstructing ball might make for an easier puzzle. To be honest, this probably isn't the case because the loop on the end of the shuttle effectively causes a major obstruction because it cannot pass through the lowest of the hoops on the main body. I wasn't to know that at the time. 

There are some very interesting movements possible in this puzzle and it blocks up quite easily but during all my experimentation had never gotten to a point where I got lost and couldn't backtrack to the beginning. I was on a bit of a roll - I made a discovery that wasn't going to work but looked like it should so it was time yet again to Think© (damn you, Allard and your thinking - it's not good for me). The discovery really looked like I was on track but the next step was blocked. This forced me to do something I had not done before - I tried to picture the moves in my head if the blockage wasn't there and this should definitely solve the puzzle. So how do I circumvent the blockage? Oooh! What if I? Yessss! I am not used to solving disentanglement puzzles like that - I was able to plan out the appropriate moves in my mind and before long I had this:

Finally!

So why am I so blue? Having had something old, new and borrowed must be the reason. At this moment, I still have the puzzle in two pieces - I have spent a whole day trying to return it to the beginning and seem to be missing a trick. My head now hurts quite a lot and I think I might need to put it down for a while! Once I have it fully solved i.e. returned to the beginning and then moved both ways a second time then it will be time to try the others in the series - wish me luck!

Aaron Extends Some Classic Puzzles

And Gives a Huge Challenge (which I even solve for once)

Axes and Hammer

At the beginning of the year my friend, Aaron Wang, showed off his latest creation on Facebook (it had quietly been shown off in the IPP design competition in 2020 for the IPP which had not happened due to this blasted pandemic). It was a very exciting announcement because he had clearly gotten very big ideas - not only was he making new disentanglement puzzles but he had branched out from simple hand made wire puzzles (which you will have seen a lot on this blog) into making beautiful versions out of stainless steel. Of course, I am addicted to his puzzles (I think I have bought almost everything he has produced) but how could I resist when he moves into a new medium? An order was placed and then it all went rather badly wrong! The Pandemic has really hammered the international postal service from China to the rest of the world.

Several of us in the UK had ordered these at the same time in March 2021 and  the tracking reached the airport and stopped... they stayed at the airport for weeks and weeks. Of course, I trust Aaron and he was just as exasperated as I was but we decided to just keep on waiting and after 3 months (just when Aaron was contemplating absorbing the cost and sending another package out with a different courier) the packages suddenly started to travel around the world. Phew! Once they had left China they arrived here pretty quickly and I was delighted to receive my fabulous puzzle - in fact there were 2 in there (he had made me a gift of another great design).

The star of the show (pictured at the top) is the Axes and Hammer puzzle. As soon as I saw it I recognised the type of design - I have featured this at least twice before much earlier in my adventure. The very basic versions are the Scorpion (available frome Puzzlemaster here) or the Smuggler's revenge which seems to be no longer available.

Scorpion

Smuggler's Revenge

These are functionally identical with a classic solving method but are not quite the same as Axes and Hammer in that the string/chain loop only feeds through once. For this more complex version then you should look at Scorpion's Sting from Puzzlemaster or the Wedge from the sadly no longer with us, Livewire Puzzles - you will notice that these have a double loop through the puzzle:

Scorpion's Sting

The Wedge

It won't fit

The solution for all these puzzles involve moving the ring to various positions and then feeding one end of the string/chain through the puzzle before continuing to manipulate the ring further. It is actually not a particularly difficult one (Scorpion is level only 8 (Demanding) out of Puzzlemaster's scale of 5 to 10 whilst Scorpion's sting is level 10 - I would put it down at level 9 at most). The key feature is the ability to move the ends through the puzzle. I quickly set to playing with Aaron's version and quickly discovered that Houston has a problem! As you can see in the picture to the left, the axe heads will not go through. It can only pass through at the very end and this is impossible with the ring in the way as pictured which is an essential position for the solution of the more basic versions. Oh yesssss! This is why I buy puzzles from Aaron - he does make his own designs but he also takes other designs and makes them MUCH more fun.

I worked on this for a couple of days and really had to Think© and make some more interesting discoveries before I had it solved. The tolerances on this are absolutely perfect...if you don't get the plan and the positioning just right then this will not solve. Aaron could have made this one easier by only having a single loop like this:

The equivalent of the Scorpion rather than the Scorpion's Sting
Too easy for Aaron 

The weight of the Axe heads also adds to the challenge as they pull down and make the accurate positioning more awkward - I would suggest that it is almost vital that you have the help of a cat to solve this - if you are not working at a table then you need something to lean on:

He is essential - couldn't have done it without him

Wonderful challenge - a great variant on a classic

The next puzzle was a delightful surprise which took me down the puzzler's path of frustration - elation - frustration and tears! Aaron was very kind and included a gift to me of a new puzzle called the The Bodies:

Three bodies

I instantly recognised this puzzle on two levels! This had been made by cannibalising the All Cuffed Up puzzle (from the same range as the Smuggler's revenge). It is a version of the Classic ball and chain puzzle which I have written about at length before (especially here). It is interesting for me that the All cuffed up version was the one that Aaron used. The Ball and Chain puzzle has a very specific sequence of moves with the puzzle held in exact orientation to solve or else produce an ever more complex loop or knot. EXCEPT the All cuffed up had a fatal flaw - the "ball part" which was a triangle on the end of the chain was able to fit through the hole in the end of the circle and this would allow the ring to slip off easily, avoiding the main solution method. Aaron had taken the flawed puzzle and removed the reason for the flaw by chaining three of the circles together ensuring that nothing could fit through where it shouldn't. This meant that the Three bodies was a Ball and chain on steroids - the same idea but much MORE!

Aaron has done similar dreadful things to these puzzles before and kept me occupied for days, weeks and months before:

Classic Ball and Chain puzzle

2 layer variant

3 layer variant

Yet again it was time to Think© and again utilise the help of a cat to hold the pieces in place. There is no chance of a cheat here and I definitely needed to be careful - many of Aaron's more complex constructions have a quick release mechanism to help after creating a horrendous knot. The Three bodies had no quick release and if I made a mess then that was the end of the puzzle. Luckily my trusty Burmese boy made short work of the puzzle and after a couple of evenings of play the ring was removed:

Now put it back!

The reverse process was not a huge challenge because I had properly mastered the sequence having had to do it several times.

As usual, this success lulls me into a false sense of security and I then move on to puzzles which are well above my skill level. Aaron has made a whole bunch of Ball and chain variants over the last year  or so and I have dutifully bought them all and singularly failed with almost all of them (apart from the 2 and 3 level variants above). I was flushed with success and confidence and quickly moved back through my collection to puzzles that have been lying in my work bag for nearly a year:

Maze B&C

Wholly B&C

I really thought that I might have managed to develop some real skillz with these classic puzzles and all I can say is "thank heaven for the quick release mechanisms"! I managed to get quite close with one - but as you all know - close is not solved so no cigar for me:

So near and yet still not there!

I never managed much better than that with this puzzle despite hours and hours of trying. Interestingly, if I start with the solved puzzle and work in reverse then I can usually reassemble to the unsolved state but at no point can I go the other way!

The Wholly B&C looks simpler but has proved to be a complete nightmare for me - I cannot assemble or disassemble it and in either direction end up with a complete mess. I repeat...thank heavens for the quick release:

Not even close! An horrific knot

Aaron has created other B&C based puzzles and yep, you guessed it, I can't solve them either! I will keep trying but suspect it might take me years. Great value for money of course. You should all keep an eye out for even more puzzles being released later this year - he has been teasing us on Facebook for a few weeks now.

Thank you for reading my drivel guys! I seem to have somehow passed the 2 million pageview mark! Amazing

My goodness you are suckers for punishment!