It's Good to Play With Some More Basic Puzzles

Und plus Kugel

Recently I have been playing with, and failing to solve, some incredibly complex puzzles including Brian Young's SMS Phone, Johan's Moluscub and Jakub's Superhero burrs. So I was really delighted when I received an emailed newsletter from my favourite puzzle pusher, Wil Strijbos, with details of a whole bunch of disentanglement puzzles that had been produced by Jean Claude Constantin just in time for people attending this years' IPP in Japan. This set of beautifully made wire (and string) puzzles looked like a trip back to some very basic disentanglements with very simple shapes intertwined. Looking at these I felt that I was going back to some nice "BASIC" (Blush) puzzles for a little bit of light relief. I knew they wouldn't be really easy because Wil had said this about them:

Most of them are very challenging and hard to solve. But you can "Try when you fly" on your way back home ;)

There were 10 new designs available and I had already obtained 2 of them. One was the U-Twins which had been inside Allard's Loopy box exchange last year. I wrote about that one at the beginning of this month when I called it Allard's Evil Puzzle. From my experience with this puzzle alone, I knew that I just HAD to have the rest in the series! The U-Twins/Evil puzzle had taken me months and months to solve and even then I had needed a clue from Joe at the last MPP. If that was anything to go by then the other new ones were essential buys!

I placed my order last Sunday for all the ones I didn't have already and was hoping that they'd arrive whilst I was home on a Thursday afternoon and "she" was out. They did arrive on Thursday but unfortunately whilst I was out at work.

U-Loop - Derek's current nemesis

Mrs S was not impressed when she answered the door to our postie and a nice box arrived with Wil's absolutely unmistakeable packing tape covering every edge and corner. She was even less impressed when she saw the potential jingliness that I unpacked. She gave me a laser burning stare and threatened me with a Whack! Ouch! if I so much as thought about making a noise during our TV time that evening. Gulp! I promised to be quiet and she covered up the laser. Even with my previous experience I was reminded how difficult these could be by my good friend Derek who had been given a copy of the U-Loop which he had managed to take apart some weeks before but to date had singularly failed to reassemble - he was relying on me to tell him how to put it back together! If a genius of that calibre had struggled then I was going to be in trouble (after all, I'm just a newbie at these puzzles!) We then proceeded to have a discussion about genius and newbieness and I went to bed later that evening chuckling - it is really good to have puzzle friends around the world who can challenge each other and generally take the piss! Derek and I do that a lot!

A Cheat! I'm Sorry!

Axis from Rademic Puzzles

This will be an attempt at a quickie - I know I don't really do short reviews due to my verbal diarrhoea but I seldom get complaints. I'm on call today and hoping not to be called in (sleep deprivation is hard at my age!!) so whilst I have a few moments I'm going to attempt a blog post.

700,000!!!

After my triumphant announcement yesterday, I have to admit to something awful.... I have been a cheat and hope you can forgive me. A few months ago I acquired a couple of absolutely beautifully made Hedgehog in cage puzzles from Rademic Puzzles in the Czech Republic and absolutely loved the look and quality of them. Oli had raved about them on Facebook and Allard reviewed a few here. I solved the Gen version quite quickly and enjoyed the process very much and wrote my thoughts here.

The puzzle is 50 x 75 mm in size and weighs 340g. The cage is beautiful having been made from brushed stainless steel and it certainly feels a solid puzzle - drop it on a kitchen tile and you're in trouble with the wife. The hedgehog itself is 6 spined and stunningly made from a vibrant red anodised aluminium with the spines being varying lengths but each is at 90º to the others. It is really beautiful and a great price at 599 Czech Koruna (approx £18.50 or $24.50)

Thank you all so much!

687753 +12530 = 700283

It hardly seems any time at all since I passed my last hurdle and here I am having passed 700,000 pageviews just yesterday! Thank you everyone for reading my drivel - I hope I entertained you and I will try to keep it up. Tomorrow might be a bit hit and miss due to being on-call (which has been rather busy over the last year) but if I don't get called in during the day then I should have a short review for you.

Going Spirally Mad!

Twiddle twins

Last week I mentioned how I had asked Big Steve for some assistance and his memory had failed him (along with mine). Quite a few months ago Derek (yes, the genius) had designed a new pair of helical burr type puzzles and Steve had made a bunch of copies and sold them on Paradise - they were called Twiddle Dee and Twiddle Dum. Quite a few of us had snapped up a copy of each and expected to be bamboozled a bit but eventually to come through with a shout and a solve (plus or minus a Whack! Ouch!). However, this time the shout was very much subdued all around the globe. These puzzles had proven to be very much harder than everything that had gone before.

Nice collection!

This pair was the fifth and sixth of this series that I had acquired for my collection and I fully expected to have a fab time solving them and quickly produce a blog post about them. But it was not to be. I am aware that my friend Ali is the tester of these puzzles for Steve - he has been handed the pieces of quite a lot of them to see whether he can assemble them from scratch and, as far as I know, has always succeeded. This is abso-bloody-lutely amazing!

When they arrived, I dutifully put them on the overloaded tray next to my chair and had a quick fiddle. I quickly discovered that there was a lot more possible moves to them than the other ones and with the spiral nature of the shape it was nearly impossible for me to keep track of what moves I had done and so even back tracking was hard. I got one of them to the point where there was just a tiny overlap between the 2 outer spirals but they weren't going any further than that and I returned to the start. After that, I couldn't even repeat that feat! Which one was it? I think it was Twiddle Dee.

A Gift Extravaganza!

I didn't know what it was!

I do hope that the blog post today isn't too incomprehensible! Having come back from annual leave, I've had a huge mound of paperwork to do on top of my normal clinical work. I stupidly put myself down to do the trauma list on Saturday and so at this moment it time I am absolutely shattered! My ramblings are meandering and full of rubbish at the best of times but today may well be worse than ever! If you think you can write something good like my friends Mike and Otis then write something and contact me to see if you can publish something better. My theme today is to show people my gratitude for some recent gifts.

At the top of this post is a twisty puzzle - one that I did not know what it was. At the last Midlands puzzle party in honour of the great Dick Hess a number of gifts were given out. I mentioned in my last post (focussing on memory) that a few puzzles had been given away. Dick gave everyone a small copy of his 5 keys disentanglement puzzle which I actually did recall how to solve and Big Steve gave me a pile of pieces which he couldn't remember how to assemble into Stewart Coffin's 12 piece separation puzzle.

Half way through the day Dick sidled up to me with another bag of puzzle pieces and asked me (as the only significant twisty solver present) whether I could make this pile of pieces into a working puzzle. He didn't remember what it was. I sat on Allard's sofa and proceded to work on the assembly which is something I find oddly soothing. I managed to produce an almost working puzzle before finding a piece that was broken with the tiny screw having ripped out of the connecting core piece. I handed the partially completed puzzle back to Dick and informed him of the issue that he might be able to fix with glue and some wadding and also said that I could not identify the puzzle. Dick was very generous and gave away his broken puzzle with instructions that if I could fix it then I could keep it! Gee! Thanks!

Does Memory Serve Me?

Allard's Evil Puzzle

At last weeks' special Midland Puzzle Party in honour of the great Dick Hess who was over in the UK for his annual Wimbledon pilgrimage, the topic of memory came up in the conversation with Big Steve (and others). So I thought I might expand a little bit on that subject as it relates to my puzzling.

As a teenager and into my 20s I had pretty close to an eidetic memory which was very useful for O-levels, A-levels and medical school plus the first few years of postgraduate exams. It wasn't without effort but my memory for the written word or visual object was almost perfect. As I have aged, and aged, and aged, and..... you get the drift, my memory capabilities have fallen off. I suspect that it is lack of practice as I can improve it if I have to for work. But, by and large, I now tell everyone that my memory is appalling! All my chores and tasks are on an app on my phone as are birthdays and anniversaries. I tell everyone who will listen that I wake up every morning with a strange woman lying next to me! I always say that I have no idea who she is but that she tells me we are married. It cannot be! Can it? I wouldn't have been that stupid! Whack! Ouch! Sorry dear!

Twiddle Dum and Dee

One of the puzzles that I took with me to the MPP was the Twiddle Dum puzzle made by Big Steve and designed by Derek. I had managed to take it apart many months ago but have not got it back together since - it has been sitting on my desk next to me for months and months and I just cannot reassemble it! I was really hopeful that Steve (who has assembled dozens of them)would be able to remember how it was done and just pop it back together for me. In a chat with Goetz, it transpires that he is in a similar position to me but he has reassembled it once. Having sheepishly asked Steve for help, he even more sheepishly admitted to me that he had no idea how to put it back together. He did have the good grace to fiddle for a while before handing it back to me again in pieces. Damn!!! If anyone does know how to reassemble it and can show it off then please Contact me.

12 Piece separation by Stewart Coffin

Whilst I was sitting with Steve he showed off a plastic version of the classic Stewart Coffin 12 Piece Separation puzzle and told me to pick up a plastic bag next to me. In that bag were some rather lovely plastic pieces that he had printed off and he duly told me that it assembled into a solid piece with 10 identical pieces and 2 extras. He looked at me expectantly and I duly had a play but did not really have any idea what the fully assembled puzzle was supposed to look like so got absolutely nowhere. After 5 or 10 minutes I handed it across and Steve surprised and delighted me by being completely unable to remember how to put it together! Steve is a man I can truly bond with - he has as bad a memory as me - Yay!!! Having failed to assemble it he was good enough to let me have that copy as a gift (thanks mate!) and it sat on my chair for a few days after I returned.

I had no idea how to put it together and had to resort to using Jim Storer's very handy pages to give instructions. After about an hour of fiddling and a lot of effing and blinding I had this:

12 Piece separation in all it's glory

The assembly seems to require 3 hands and a lot of sliding pieces about which is quite tough when it is not really stable until the very last moment. Having assembled it once with instructions and taken the photo, I straight away disassembled it and scrambled the pieces (easy when 10 are identical) and then left it for a day before trying to assemble it again. So another quick memory test! Could I remember the order and the moves used? Hell no! Even though it had only been 24 hours, I had absolutely no recollection of Jim's instructions BUT I did have an understanding of the shape and the way they interacted now. It took me 2 days of work but I did eventually manage to work it out and I have to say this is absolutely FANTASTIC! I really REALLY want one in wood - if anyone knows where I can get a wooden copy then please let me know asap!

I'm sure you're all wondering what is up with the puzzle at the top of the post and why I haven't mentioned it yet? That puzzle is a beautiful disentanglement that Allard exchanged at the last IPP. It was contained in the Loopy box and Allard also gave it away to new IPPers as a "Greenhorn gift". I have been fiddling with it on and off for months and months now and regularly achieving a Whack! Ouch! from "she who hates me playing with metal stuff". I have carried it with me to work for many months too and gotten absolutely nowhere at all. Allard's main description of it is simply:

"It's evil!!!"

Cast Devil

The puzzle is effectively a modification of the Hanayama Cast Devil which I mentioned here. The Cast Devil is a classic puzzle and I seem to recall that I did not find it particularly tough when I first bought it from Professor Puzzle. Now yet again I have to sheepishly admit that my recall is not as good as it should be.... a colleague of mine bought a few puzzles for himself and his kids last Xmas and worked through all of them during a nice winter break but could not solve the Cast Devil. He was convinced that it was impossible and brought it to me to establish whether it had been assembled incorrectly by the manufacturer. I picked it up quickly expecting to just solve it in front of him and Nooooo! I couldn't remember how it worked! After 5 minutes of going red in front of him I gave it back and had to admit that I could not recall the solution but that it was definitely possible. I'm not sure whether he believed me and he must be convinced that I am absolutely rubbish at puzzles!

I took the opportunity to take the puzzle to Allard at the MPP and ask for a clue. Continuing my theme of poor memory, he told me that he couldn't remember how to do it either! Aaaargh! Luckily my friend Joe did have some memory and was able to give me a really good verbal clue for a preliminary shape that I needed to make before getting towards the exit point. I swear that I must have made that shape many many times before because as soon as he told me what to aim for I was immediately able to achieve that conformation but this time I was able to go that next step forward and take it apart:

He's right! It IS evil!

It is really clever and I have now done it several dozen times to try and get it to imprint on my feeble memory cells. I did put it together as the Cast Devil again and the first few times really struggled to take it apart. It is great having 2 puzzles in one even if I cannot really remember much about them!


Finally I do have to mention a gift that Dick gave out at the MPP. He had a beautifully boxed copy of his 5 keys puzzle. There are 5 keys on a trapeze and each is removed using a different technique. I had bought an original copy from him a few years ago and had really struggled with it - it requires simply perfect positioning to get the keys off. Could I recall the techniques I used?

A small and a large copy of the 5 keys! Both work the same.

I sat down on the evening I got home from the MPP and braved the laser burning stare and had a fiddle. Did my memory serve me? The theme of this post is that I have no memory to speak of at all but here I remembered the 5 solutions perfectly and had the keys off before she who must be flinched from could burn my flesh! This is a fabulous puzzle and I am really pleased to have 2 beautiful copies. Thanks Dick!

Luckily the present Mrs S doesn't bother to read my blog! If she did and realised that I can barely remember a puzzle a week after I have solved it then she would insist that I stop buying new puzzles and go back to the beginning and play with the old ones all over again. Don't any of you dare tell her that!

A Prickly Subject?

Just beautifully made hedgehogs and obviously different from standard designs

A short one today after a Midlands puzzle party yesterday and having to spend some time today with Mrs S. After the last few days with great upheaval in the UK, I have to bring up a prickly subject.....NO! Not Brexit! For better or worse the British people have made a decision and we will have to live with that but my subject matter here is not spiky politics. I want to discuss hedgehogs....the caged variety.

A very long time ago I wrote about the Canary in cage, Owl in cage and various other caged shapes and critters. Wil Strijbos at one time also had for sale a number of other cartoon-like Japanese characters in cages but I passed on these.

Canary

Owl

Cylinder

Dragon AND a japanese box

Recently some pictures posted by Radek Micopulos of Rademic Puzzles showed up on Facebook - they were beautifully crafted in metal and definitely of interest. After Oli got a couple to play with and raved about them I also had to have a try. A quick email and a bit of back and forth ending in PayPal, led to me receiving a package on Wednesday.

There were 2 that looked fun - neither were the classic hedgehog in which the trapped animal needs to be manipulated between the bars of the cage so I chose them. The first one that I tried is the Gen:

Gen

Gen is made of anodised aluminium and weighs 90g. It is 49mm diameter and 75mm tall. The Hedgehog has 6 different length spines and is rated with a difficulty level of 3 out of 5. On the product page Radek describes it like this:

Hedgehog in a cage GEN: Puzzle, which could be also called puzzle of a new generation, because it uses a totally new and a unique way of solution. It's got incorporated a new principle, which involves about 10 correct moves. The task is to remove the hedgehog with the hole in a shape of keyhole! you don't believe it? Try it! It's surprisingly easier to get a hedgehog out of the cage than inside. Hedgehog has a medium difficulty, but even after you solve it, you will come back and try it again its playful principle. The puzzle is inspired by the design of the human gene!

The description is quite correct - the solution is very new compared to what I have seen before. It is actually not terribly difficult but is definitely a fun one. It clanks about and I received my first laser stare shortly after opening the packet. It takes a few minutes of exploration to realise the mechanism and even then the removal is not an automatic find. There are quite a few possible variations for entry into the sequence and many of them end in blockage. Finding the correct sequence is just a matter of exploration and stumbling across the answer. After about 15 minutes I had the puzzle in pieces:

Didn't take long but good fun

Putting it back is possibly just a matter of reversing the process....except I could not visualise which part was popped out first or last and couldn't work out how to put it back. I just fiddled for a while and suddenly it went back - I did need to try a few entry positions but even now cannot tell whether there is just a single solution or not.

It has taken me about 7 or 8 solves to now work out exactly which spike to begin with and how to move it towards the solution and I still cannot tell whether there is a single solution! It is great fun and a really nice worry bead to play with - I cannot wait to play with the other one. A word of warning about the Axis puzzle. The movement of the top and bottom of the puzzle is very well lubricated and the puzzle does feel quite oily. Once I have wiped it down I intend to have a good play. Oli was really VERY enthusiastic about this one!

These are high quality puzzles for a very reasonable price - You really should drop Radek an email and ask to buy some - he's great to deal with and the prices are very reasonable.

Pachinko Box - A Beautiful Discovery

Pachinko Box

I'm sure you all knew this was coming - after all Allard published his review a few days ago! We have known about the Pachinko box for several years as Wil Strijbos has discussed it with quite a number of members of the puzzling fraternity for quite some time. It always appeared to be not quite ready and many of us thought it was a myth only inside the devious man's head. However at the King's day puzzle party that Wil hosted this year an almost ready prototype was shown around and the buzz amongst us got louder and Wil even sent out an email newsletter telling us it was about to be released. Many of us held our breaths and just a few weeks ago that fateful email came out and many of us drew in a VERY sharp intake of breath - this was a very costly puzzle! Wil went on to explain that the cost to himself to produce it was significantly higher than expected and in order not to make a loss, he had to charge such a high amount.

Now I know that Wil is not one to fleece us, over the years he has shown me that he deals very fairly with me and with others and I will always take him at his word. Puzzlers are a trusting bunch (except when it comes to solutions) and that trust is earned through years of treating people well. So after my initial gulp and sly look at Mrs S to make sure that she had not seen my gasp, I sent off the email placing my order - the decision must have taken me at least 60 seconds! After all I am Wil's official troubleshooter so I need to have a copy of all his significant puzzles to allow me to troubleshoot. I reckon I must get 1-5 emails a week asking for information or help and without playing with them I couldn't provide that help.

Streetwise Puzzles Inc.
General Manager	: Iwahiro
Product Manager	: Tom
Approbation Manager	: Louis
Trouble Shooter	: Kevin
Logarithmic Analyser	: Goetz/Nick
Jointly Responsible	: William

That is my justification to Mrs S and I am sticking with it. Whack! Ouch! I'm glad you're so understanding dear!

Not Just a Lowly 6 Piece Burr!

Just 6 piece burrs? Definitely not!
From the left... Wallace, Gwendoline, Thrym and Gromit

I still have 'Manflubola' and have massive burns, bruises and bleeding ears because it mutated and the present Mrs S now has 'Shebola' and is blaming me for it. I promise that I didn't share any of the technicolour mucus with her as she wouldn’t let me! Of course I still went to work and did my on-call last Monday as it was probably safest for me to get out of the house rather than risk being at home and being murdered by “she who has a lethal stare”. On top of being ill it was time, yet again, for me to write our triple consultant on-call rotas and with all the summer annual leave requests it was a bit of a nightmare that took me 9 hours yesterday. All in all, I haven't been able to do much puzzling this week…..except for a few burrs - I couldn't resist those! I am a bit stuck on the Canal House from Jakub/Pelikan and have put it down for a while to allow a break and coming back to it with fresh eyes later. There are still copies of all the latest burrs available so get them whilst you can!

The pic at the top of the post is a wonderful series by Stephan Baumegger. Three of them were in my top 10 favourite puzzles from last year. They all look like variants of the standard 6 piece burr but they are much more fun than the normal burr. They do consist of 6 pieces but that's pretty much where the similarity ceases. Most 6 piece burrs (I have three very very beautiful sets (see number 7 from the top 10)) are based on a 2x2x6 or 2x2x8 grid for each stick and so there are severe limitations on the shape of the pieces that can be made and the moves that are required to assemble or disassemble them. Rob Stegmann has a huge discourse on the possible shapes of burr sticks and is probably the world's greatest authority on them - his site is well worth reading through. This series of burrs from Stephan is of great interest to me because the sticks are actually based on a 3x3x8 grid which allows for hugely complex constructions and effectively allows him to design a moving interlocking maze. They are less difficult than the 18 piece high level burrs because they have less pieces and a lower number of moves to solve them but I find them absolutely fascinating because I love the exploration involved in solving the maze and much of it is open to be seen and explored.

Gwendoline (I have no idea why)

At the end of last year Stephan showed me a burrtools file for a fourth in the series which he had called Gwendoline (I have no idea why!) and said that it was unlikely that it would ever be made because the pieces were just too complex and difficult to make. They would probably not be stable. After I admired it and the complexity of the pieces, I said that if he ever was to make a copy then he should put my name down for it as I loved this type of puzzle and wanted to continue with the series. I heard nothing for several months and then was surprised and delighted when he told me that he was going to be able to make it and he also offered me a few others that I had admired on his FB page. How could I resist? Much to Mrs S’ disgust, I couldn’t!

Gwendoline was the first one I played with about 6 or 8 weeks ago and it took me about ½ to ¾ of an hour to dismantle it and the reassembly after scrambling the pieces was another hour. It’s a wonderful maze to explore and a fabulous piece of the puzzle maker’s art. The pieces are phenomenally complex and I see why Stephan thought that it was impossible but it has proved to be very stable and a fantastic worry bead to play with.

Gwendoline pieces - incredibly complex

I have made videos of others in the series and I know that a few of you like to see them in video form so have a look below. Warning - if you don't want to see a spoiler then don't click play on the video!

Next up is another fantastic burr that Stephan sent me called Backflip:

Backflip

I originally thought that it was more than 6 pieces but I very quickly realised that this one also is a 6 piece burr based on a 3x3x7 grid. It is therefore almost part of the series above. However when I began to explore I realised that this was less of a maze and more of a serially interlocking puzzle. After just a few minutes I had made a few moves and couldn't find any more. It took another 15 minutes of staring at it to see that a certain push would split the puzzle partially apart and then after another move or 2 I had this:

2 halves of Backflip

The two 3 piece halves come apart quite easily to reveal their beauty with distinct layers of Wenge and Maple and hence the name Backflip. Several of the pieces look very similar and I had inadvertently mixed them up on my lap-sleeping cat!

Showing off the front and back sides of the sticks - a brilliant design!

What followed last night was a good hour of swearing under my breath to work out firstly which way to group them into 2 sets and then how to interlock them in a way that will let the 2 halves come back together. This is some serious fun (at least I can say that in retrospect) and is another that I can heartily recommend. It’s not part of that series but very nearly.

Divorce - an odd name?

Amulet from Adin

Another burr that I solved this week is Divorce - this one is not on his Puzzlewillbeplayed page and so if you want to see it then you’ll need to buy a copy from Stephan. I originally thought this was another oddly designed 6 piece burr with extra pieces added to it a bit like the fabulous design called Amulet that was a gift from Adin which also made it into my top 10.

After seeing Divorce in the flesh I wondered whether it was a caged 6 piece burr. However when I started to play with it I realised that it was a very different beast entirely - it was a 6 piece burr in a cage that splits apart. There are a few blind ends but like many of Stephan’s designs there is a lovely pathway through the puzzle with the main challenge being to work out what move goes next - it’s almost a sequential discovery puzzle but without tools. I was playing with this at work when after a fair while it split apart and my mouth must have dropped open because the nursing staff around me started to laugh at my expression. I quickly put it back together again and went back and forth to this point a few times but never dared to go any further at work. I now understand the reason for the name - a married couple are a very complex series of interlocking parts and it takes some real determination to split them apart. That evening at home, whilst trying to block out the sound of Mrs S coughing her lungs onto the work surface, I split it apart and took a couple of quick iPhone photos of the two halves (just as an emergency clue in case I got totally stuck later) and marvelled at the design.

2 parts of the divorce - like a married couple?

I finally dared to take it completely apart to take my final photo of the scrambled the pieces. Just as in a separated couple, the 2 halves don't fall apart but it is possible to make it happen. Again, as in a divorce it is with some determination perfectly possible to put it all back together but it takes a fairly good memory and a good bit of determination. I do think that puzzle assembly is easier than people assembly although the madmen I work with seem to dismantle people quite regularly - it is amazing what you can do with a knife and a powersaw! The reassembly of the puzzle is great fun - there is the initial challenge (like Backflip) of organising the 2 halves correctly and believe me, when you’re not very bright like me, this is a huge challenge!

If these are pieces of a divorced couple then these must be organs?
Now I'm getting silly - I blame the Manflubola!

My lesson for today (as well as my profound statements on marital therapy) is not to look down on burrs with a low number of pieces - a “simple 6 piece burr” may not be quite as simple as you might think. It is well worth asking the craftsmen about some of their designs with lower numbers of pieces - they can be very interesting indeed! Another great example of that was the Gravity puzzle that I described last week - it is a delight to explore!

Have a nice weekend everybody - keep well and try to avoid either being pulled apart or falling apart (save that for the puzzles).

Yet Again a Solution without Understanding!

Gordian Knot taken to another level

The size and quality of this blog post may well be reduced today - I have a hideous mix of Man flu and Ebola aka "Manflubola" which has resulted in large quantities of technicolour mucus and assorted nasty noises emanating from my person. This has very much annoyed the present Mrs S and she has utilised the laser burning stare many many times. Luckily she has decided that I am too infectious to get close to and so a Whack! Ouch! has not occurred.....yet! To make things worse, it is her birthday today and if I know what is good for me, I had better pay her some attention and not spend too long on puzzle stuff. If there are no more blog posts after this then please have her arrested and search for my body....it may be in pieces!

To compare

Way back in 2012 I published an article that I have referred to many times over the subsequent years about how a puzzle is only really properly solved when it is understood well enough to be able to do it repeatedly and without error. The puzzle that led to this statement was none other than the wire version of the Gordian Knot (not to be mixed up with the plastic board burr bearing the same name). The original puzzle does not seem to be stocked any more by Puzzle Master in their wire puzzles selection which is a shame because it was a terrific challenge. It took me a very long time to be able to say that I had solved the Gordian knot and I was pleased to be able to put it away knowing that it was truly done. At the end of last year I received a new consignment of wire puzzles from Wang Yulong in China and have been working my way through them but reached the point where I was well and truly stuck. I put them down (I had left them in my work bag and forgot about them) whilst I focussed on various burrs and other new acquisitions but the "call of the wired" always kept me picking them up and wistfully failing to solve them. One of the most frightening of all was a more complex version of the Gordian knot which had extra loops on it just to make it harder! I have played with this for months and always shied away when things began to get very tangled up. Eventually, I couldn't stand it any longer and made a determined attempt to solve it. I knew from my previous puzzle experience and from reading Goetz' compendium of N-ary puzzles that this was supposed to be a logical sequence based on Gary binary code. Looking through Goetz' pages I could see that this was very similar to his Gordian Knot 6 and and the Electro 1 which are Ternary.

Over the last week I played and played with it getting a few steps in and getting confused and ending up back at the beginning by accident or getting a few steps further and being a coward, backing out. Finally I made a concerted effort under the influence of a cold remedy and a large glass of wine and suddenly the string was out!

I have absolutely no idea how I did that

Mrs S was doubly annoyed with me because along with all the snorting noises I had been making I let out a big shout which ended in a coughing fit and upsetting her concentration! After I recovered from the laser burn, I put the puzzle down so that I could take a photo the next day. I did not feel the urge to reassemble it straight away before I forgot how because I had absolutely no idea what I had done! As usual I prove that I am not terribly bright!

The following evening after the photos, I started to reassemble it and was surprised that I could get about half way without any problem and then could go no further. Each time I tried to progress I ended up with the string removed. This was a problem that was starting to panic me because I had no solution diagram and as a bespoke puzzle none would be available for download! It took me 2 days to reassemble it with much effing and blinding and when it was back together I had another quick drink of wine and swore that I would not be taking it apart again! Yet......the lure of the puzzle.....and I remembered my initial article and picked it up again.

I NEED one of these!

I am now able to remove the loop and put it back pretty much every time by just sort of weaving through but not really understanding it. So far I have done it about 10 times (it takes me a good 20-30 minutes each time) and am no closer to understanding the N-ary/logical sequence in it. The one thing I love about the N-ary puzzles are the discovery of the magic sequence and then using a rhythm to solve it. Last week's Delirium 13 review was all about the sequence being understood and followed.....for a VERY long time. In the end I emailed Goetz about it and as a good puzzle friend (I was his exchange assistant at the London IPP) he provided me with a very long and detailed explanation of the puzzle. I am having to work through it slowly because his mathematical skills are much greater than mine. I haven't reproduced it here but may do so in the future with his permission but he is thinking of turning it into an article for the CFF journal. All in all the Gordian knot and it's more advanced brother is a brilliant puzzle. They occasionally come up at auction made by Rick Irby and are well worth acquiring if you can. I now need to find some way to acquire the even more complex Devil's cradle which is one level higher with 4 pairs of loops - if anyone has a copy to sell then please Contact Me.

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My friend Jakub Dvořák of the New Pelikan Workshop posted on Facebook that he had a couple of new additions coming up for sale. Of course I couldn't resist them and they arrived yesterday. My advice is to go there and BUY THEM NOW! These puzzles are simply stunning.

Gravity

Gravity was designed by Tim Alkema, a relative newcomer to burr design, and this one is just fabulous (I reviewed his Padlock Burr last week). It is not a super tough puzzle at level 14.2.2.2 but has something really unique and fun about it because it requires you to visualise the hidden 2x2x2 block inside and move it around under gravity to unlock the piece movement. Made from Cherry, Wenge, Purpleheart, Acacia and Padouk it is simply gorgeous and the block piece is a wonder to behold.
Tim said this about it:

"Gravity has easily become one of my favorite designs because of its unique and interesting solution. I was inspired to make this design after receiving so much interest in another one of my designs involving a hidden piece. I think Dario Uri put it best: “The title already explains the type of movement. During the solution process the small cube "falls" four times moving invisibly inside other pieces. Fantastic!"

 I agree with Dario - Fantastic! Putting it back together is just as much fun! No need for Burrtools.

Just look at that block!

The other very unusual design was one I really couldn't resist - the Canal House designed by N.J. Damstra. Made from Cherry, Wenge, Purpleheart, Maple and Padouk the burr is in the shape of a lovely house and is a mixture of boards and burr sticks:

This puzzle is a limited run puzzle and will sell out quite quickly so you may want to grab it soon. Even Mrs S has agreed that it is beautiful and can be allowed out of the study (renamed as the Puzzletorium). I have yet to solve it - the design was made with the aim of being tough but not impossibly hard and this is perfect for me. As I explained last week a good puzzle is not just about sheer number of moves, it is also about exploration, fun and beauty. This really fits the bill.

Whilst you are at the Pelikan site, have a look t the superhero burrs by Dan Fast - they are also limited edition and some are still available. I have yet to solve Batman (I'm stuck) and haven't tried Superman yet!

Now I had better get back to Mrs S before she loses her temper and finds some way to replace me with a more attentive husband!