First there was the cube - and then.....

Surely this cannot be real!!!

This is the 3x5x7 cuboid - it was designed by the truly amazing Gregoire Pfennig and is available (not cheap) from Puzzle Maestro’s Shapeways store. At present I think it is probably the toughest cuboid available in the world although I’m sure not for how long - it is my absolute favourite twisty puzzle just now and has stimulated me to write a more general post about cuboids.

As you have probably realised over the last year, I have become progressively more addicted to twisty puzzles. I embarked on this odyssey with some trepidation - I emailed a few of the more vocal twisty puzzlers and asked them “what was their secret?” and “how do you go about a approaching a new puzzle?”. Now Rox was her usual mad self and told me that the puzzzles "talk to her" and she just listened to them and they would tell her how to solve them! Well, if I waited for that to happen, I’d never manage to solve anything - I may (or may not) hear voices but couldn’t possibly say in public for fear of being carried off by the men in white coats. Crazy Bad Cuber and SuperAnonioVivaldi were very helpful but couldn’t really tell me what they do. But they basically said that they had learned basic algorithms and added some more complex algorithms and over time and after experimentation they had learned what other effects they had on the puzzle. After that, solving came fairly naturally with trial and experimentation. All of these “Gods” of the twisty puzzle world were very encouraging, trying to entice me into their world. I was still very skeptical about it but decided to give it a go and buy a “few” twisty puzzles!

Well 85 puzzles later I can categorically say that they were right! I have actually reached a point where I can pick up a new puzzle and after some investigation, I can often (although not always) work out an approach to solving it using just existing algorithms (sometimes used in unusual ways) and am now even starting to understand the process of making commutators (techniques for cycling pieces by combining short sequences). I am far away from the genius of at least a dozen of the guys on the Twisty Puzzle forum but I feel I have reached a point at which I can even consider myself able to teach - at the moment I’m sort of assisting a young man in Australia via Facebook messenger - who'd have believed it?

Enough rambling!!! What are you going to review?

The main focus of this topic is one that a few correspondents have requested that I write about - when you have learned the basic cubes (3x3 & 4x4) then the options I’ve discussed before open up to you. In that article I chose an eclectic mixture of shape mods, crazy cubes and alternative shapes but ultimately my real favourites have been the cuboids of which I now have about 15. A little while ago I was amazed to see that SuperAntonioVivaldi had produced a summary of the different families of cuboid based on approach to solving. I think that this wonderful treatise needs to be shared so I asked his permission (and received it) to publish a summary of it on my blog for all general puzzlers to read. Thanks so much! If you want to watch his original video then visit his YouTube classification video here.

The Sidewinder and the Teddy!

Sidewinder

I seem to be coming to the end of my last batch of puzzles from Puzzle Master - this means that it is definitely time to order some more! You know I can't resist it - they have such a huge selection to choose from! The Sidewinder is one of Puzzle Master's own range of wire and string puzzles - as you know by now, the puzzles with string in them frighten me a lot due to the horrendous knots you can get into. Although I have to say that only one of the Puzzle Master puzzles has ever ended up so badly knotted that I have had to physically dismantle it to solve it.

This one looked fairly uncomplicated in it's construction so I figured that it would be unlikely to end up in too much of a mess. We'll come back to that later! It is really good value at $10 and whilst it doesn't look like much, remember that it is rated at level 10 out of 10 (Mind Boggling) so be prepared for a real challenge. It arrives in the usual nice clamshell packaging with the only instructions being to remove the string and balls from the metal structure. It is nicely compact at 13.3 x 4.1 cm and the string is 35cm long. This means it will fit in your pocket whilst you are out and about and annoy the hell out of your wife at all sorts of inopportune moments (OUCH! - sorry dear!). No solution is provided and if you need one then you can down load it from here.

Puzzle-breaker? I don't think so!

The Lotus puzzle from Wil Strijbos

It may not seem like it from the title, but this is a review of the latest creation to come out of the brilliant twisted mind of Wil Strijbos (aka the Puzzle pusher). This one, which I'm sure you all are aware of, is The Lotus puzzle. It has already been reviewed by 2 of my fellow bloggers so far (Allard and Jerry) but there does seem to be a general clamour for more about it, so here you go.

"Why the silly title of the blog post?" I can hear you scream at your computer. There is a reason for it which I'll come to later!

At the last MPP held in the UK I got to have a very brief look at the prototype of this puzzle. At that time, it was non-anodised but still beautiful. It was handed out to see what we could do with it. I only had a few minutes and got nowhere at all but was intrigued enough to say to Wil that I would definitely want one when they were ready for production. So just before Christmas when Wil's email newsletter came out offering it and a few other goodies for sale I jumped at the chance. It was not cheap - it was €90! But I have to say, for me, I think it was worth it! This puzzle habit is ruining my finances! If you are not yet on Wil's email list and you have fragile finances then stay away!!

More Than Just a Blogger!!

Ball In Cylinder Puzzle

A young man whom I now consider a good friend despite us never having met has shown that the impossible can occur. Yes! A puzzle blogger and collector can turn into a puzzle designer and producer! He managed all this whilst being a happily married man with a toddler to care for and also learning to play flute!

Who is this paragon of virtue? None other than Mr Jerry Loo! My first contact with him was over a year and a half ago when he contacted me for some advice about adding to his collection which initially was limited to metal puzzles. I encouraged him to add certain pieces, also enticed him into the delights of wooden interlocking puzzles and Burrtools and together we have helped each other solve quite a number of difficult puzzles by emailing back and forth with clues and suggestions. He is a far better solver than me but I think I am a far better collector than him (apart from his having the entire set of Popplocks)!

He informed me some time ago that he had designed a metal puzzle and I was encouraging and hopeful that he would sell me one when it was ready. I was not surprised that he would make a metal puzzle as that is his first love but I was staggered that he would have the wherewithall to produce something as beautiful and well made as he did in metal (after all, working in metal requires some rather special tools and skills) I was also flattered that he would send me one for free to try out (I did offer to pay!!)

A Cube With No Angles?

Golden egg - except it's green!

No! I'm not going to start a discourse on Non-Euclidean geometry! Not unless you ask really nicely! This post is about twisty puzzles that don't have corners! Such things do exist - they don't have to have corners. I have shown a few puzzles that aren't cubic, some have been cuboid and others have been rhombus shaped or dodecahedra. All of these have had some kind of corners to them and the presence of corners at least provides you with something to orient yourself when solving the twisty puzzle.

My last Puzzle Master delivery included something that I really wasn't sure about - a twisty puzzle that had no corners - it's egg shaped. This one is the Golden egg. Yes I can see that it's green! It actually comes in quite a variety of different colours and I think the original version was golden (hence the name) and it was based on the mechanism of the Golden cube designed by Tony Fisher. I would very much have liked to have bought a Golden version but they are only available occasionally when they come up on eBay or someone is selling one on the Twisty Puzzles forum. BUT they usually sell for several $100 and I personally don't want to buy something that is so special and collectible that I'm too frightened to use it - puzzles are for playing with not storage and display! So I got the green one.

Happy New Year - 2012 A Puzzling Review

Yep! An embarassment of puzzles!

Happy New Year Everyone - I hope 2013 brings health, happiness and friendship to you all! and some more puzzles!!!

The State of the Union Collection

Last New Years Day I posted a quick review to show how much my collection had improved and said that it had gone from a bit of a hobby to a rather bad habit! Well, I'm afraid that according to the first wife it has gone from a bad habit to an all encompassing obsession! Unfortunately, I have to agree with her - I decided to create a proper database to keep track of it and stupidly included prices (complete with currency conversions) and got a bit of a shock. Actually it was a LOT of a shock!! This is now a definite obsession! Not to be left out, the present Mrs S decided that if I can have a collection, then so should she and she was delighted to tell me that Santa lived in a Mulberry store as yet another handbag entered the house for Christmas - apparently that was my Christmas present to her! I justify my puzzling as a way to keep the mind busy - Alzheimer's dementia does run in my family and so I always claim to her that I am just fending it off - that way, the date at which she will be having to feed me and wipe my bum will be delayed (hopefully forever); I knew there was a reason I married a professional nurse!!

And there's more!

I also use my puzzles to keep some of my patients occupied during operations carried out under nerve block or spinal/epidural. They all seem very grateful and some have even requested to be anaesthetised by me again so they can try some more puzzles! I wonder if I can claim them as a business expense?

Christmas wishes and thanks

Limited edition burr puzzles from Mr Puzzle

My good friend Roxanne posted some time ago her Christmas wish list for her puzzling year. Primarily she was hoping to chase down some bargains from the amazing puzzle sculptor Miguel Berrocal. At the end of her post, in the comment section, I added my own wishes for the next puzzling year:

"My wish? Just for the designers to keep on designing, the fabulous craftsmen to keep making me beautiful toys and for those wonderful men in China to keep manufacturing more and more amazing twisties!

I too would like to meet a few more people - hopefully next year I will get to the German and Dutch cube days to meet some people I only know by email. Japan's IPP is probably going to be out of my reach but the year after in Europe? Here's hoping I get nominated/invited."

I have now been blogging for about 2 years now and have met (in real life and virtually) some fantastic people. They are generous with their skills, their knowledge and their time and I have tried to live up to their expectations. I have tried to do this by introducing as many others to the wonderful world of puzzles as I can and to let them play with my own collection to get a taste of what can be done, a few of them have become as hooked as me and I continue to help and encourage them in their solving and collection.

Via this blog, I have been contacted by and made good friends with, puzzlers (both novices and experienced) from all over the globe who speak many different languages. Some have asked for advice on what to buy and I have aimed to help them on their journey (my post on Twisties for beginners was the result of one such series of emails). Equally, some of my friends have encouraged me to start making my own puzzles and have even sent me various pieces with which to start (I will especially be eternally grateful to Felix for all his help). Some have offered advice on tools and craftsmanship. Other friends have offered their time and experience to teach me techniques I can use to solve new puzzles.

I am now in contact with many many craftsmen from all over the world, all of whom are very generous with their time and I have acquired a lot of fabulously beautiful pieces of art as a result of these communications. Yes! The workmanship in many of my puzzles is such that they should be considered works of art - many of my non-puzzling friends who I bore to death with pictures on my phone or on Facebook also tell me that they are really beautiful.

So, as you can see, it's not just about the puzzle, it's the people in this community who make the whole process much more exciting for me and I hope to meet a few more in the flesh next year.

What avaricious wishes do I have? Well I would like to have the complete set of limited edition burr puzzles from Brian Young aka Mr Puzzle. Those are the ones pictured at the top of this post. Brian's work is spectacular and having bought his Opening bat puzzle, I know I cannot resist any of the other limited editions! I do plan on writing a review of it soon!

I would also like some "man tools" as Rox puts it, to help me make something for myself. I am considering the Proxxon modelling range including planer thicknesser, table saw, disk sander and table router as well as some nice hand tools. If any of you have any more suggestions or criticisms of this equipment then do let me know.

Proxxon "Man" tools

Finally my Christmas wish is really to say a big thank you to my lovely wife (of 18 years) for putting up with me and my new obsession whilst I have spent every waking moment thinking about puzzles, solving puzzles or buying puzzles! As many of my colleagues say, she is an absolute saint for putting up with it! I sort of agree with them BUT she has decided that if I can "collect" puzzles, then she can "collect" Mulberry handbags - and over the last few years she has worked really hard on increasing that collection (so you see - she is making me pay for my habit very dearly!)

A Searious Burr!

A Searious Burr

The Searious burr is a seriously good puzzle. I bought it from Brian Young (aka MrPuzzle) several months ago and, when it arrived, immediately had to have a play. As the name suggests it's a burr puzzle and, whilst I'm pretty rubbish at them, I absolutely adore them. Like all burrs the aim is to disassemble it and then put it back together again. It is made from just 13 pieces so should be simple? Is it? Not really! You see, it has a hidden lock in it and that makes it really quite difficult - at least for me!

I managed to obtain the very last one they had in stock for $72AUD and at present there are no more available, but according to the product page they will be coming soon. Here's what Brian has to say:

"Modelled on Chicago's tallest building, the Sears Tower, Brian created this 13 piece interlocking burr.  But it's so much more than just an interlocking burr; incorporating the use of tools supplied as part of the puzzle it's biggest challenge is to open the secret lock.  It will take 13 moves to unlock the secret internal mechanism.   (The elegant solution does not involve force, or banging, or hitting against another surface).
Considering it has no gravity pins or magnets Brian considers it to be the hardest progressive move discovery puzzle he's designed so far. 

Is 13 your lucky number?"

It is part of Brian's Craftsman range which means they tend to be made out of some rather nice hardwoods rather than the usual dyed wood in the cheaper range. This puzzle is manufactured from Queensland Black Wattle - aka Australian Blackwood. It is 60mm x 60mm x 137mm tall to the top of it's communications towers and has brass antennae on top (these metal parts are one of the features that marks Brian as different from other Wood craftsmen - he can work just as well in metal). Allard is the only blogger who has reviewed it so far.

A landmark!

Yesterday my total page views passed 100,000!

I am absolutely stunned that any of you would want to read any of my drivel! I started this blog in March 2011 just to chat about some of my new toys! It was also an exercise for me to learn about web domains, hosting, HTML as well as to possibly inform people about puzzles that they might be interested in. I never dreamed that people would actually read it! In fact, according to Google Analytics, I seem to get 200-400 page views every day and if I post something good then considerably more! To date I have posted 163 posts and it has not felt like a chore ever. I have never had a hobby which I have kept going for so long.

Through the comments system, I get great feedback from you about puzzles to try and your own thoughts on those that I've reviewed - all your feedback is greatly appreciated I read and try to respond to every single one. My contact page has allowed some very interesting people from all over the world to strike up some fascinating conversations and I have made some really precious friendships that way - even though I have never met most of them. I correspond with designers, craftsmen and shop owners and am always delighted at how kind all puzzle folk seem to be!

I know I have been a little slower recently with my reviews - I apologise for this and will try to produce more but I'm afraid I do have to work quite hard to support what has now become a very expensive habit (as well as a very expensive first wife). If any of you have suggestions for the future pathway that I should take with this blog then all suggestions will be gratefully received. I have changed track a little over the last few months as I have begun to spread my expertise into the twisty arena.

I am looking forward to the next 100,000 page views! Thank you all for motivating me to keep going.

Hanayama Cast H&H

Hanayama Cast H&H

It has been quite some time since I last posted on a Hanayama puzzle and now I will review this one the Cast H&H. I received it some time ago in my last Puzzle Master delivery (which reminds me that it may be time to get some more - they have such a great variety of puzzles of every type!!)

As with all these puzzles they come in a black Hanayama box beautifully packaged with the puzzle tied to a card holder inside. It is a lovely chromed metal and is a good size at 4.8 x 2.9 x 2.9 cm in size. It has a good heft to it and feels great in the hands - most Hanayama puzzles are nicely tactile but this one is particularly so. The H&H is named because it is made of 2 pieces of cast metal each of which is an H shape. It is absolutely beautiful to look at - I'm afraid my photography setup is just not good enough to make it look as good as it does in real life. The website describes it well - the 2 Hs look identical but they are subtly different from each other and you need to use the differences to work your way through the maze of possible movements to separate it into it's 2 halves. Designed by Oskar van Deventer, this is an absolute bargain of a puzzle at $13!

It is rated as level 9 (Gruelling) on the 5-10 point Puzzle Master scale and by Hanayama themselves as 5 out of 6 and I think that is about right. On the Puzzle Master listing for this page it has been reviewed by many puzzlers and uniformly been given 4 or 5 stars (one person found it too easy!). It has been reviewed by quite a few bloggers before me and they all really enjoyed it - you can find the reviews by the various bloggers by clicking on their names; Will (found a novel solution), Neil, Brian, Gabriel and Gunnar (German) . The solution is not provided in the box. I doubt you will need it but it is available from Puzzle Master here.