A Huge Selection Of Pelikans!

Upcoming release from Pelikan

Couldn't fit into the grid 

A rather large box arrived earlier this week and an annoyed Mrs S muttered "not again" to me. I gritted my teeth, kept my head down and promised not to leave them lying around once I had solved them (there is a rather embarrassing number of puzzles just strewn all over the house just now and I need to put some away before there's a bloodbath in PuzzleMad HQ.

This time there is a huge selection of puzzles from your favourite designers and a variety of different types of puzzle with varying difficulty levels to suit everyone. 

From top left above:

Zack Die Krone by Stephan Baumegger (2 versions available)

The Horns of Booth by Dr Volker Latussek

PSI by Girish Sharma

5 Balls by Frederic Boucher

One Match Left by Jorgos Anastasou

Serial Square NTC by Lucie Pauwels

LOL by Frederic Boucher

Sam Duo by Frederic Boucher

Heavy Lifter by Girish Sharma

Yes U Can by Frederic Boucher pictured separately

Jakub has asked for me to give some reviews as quickly as possible and so I will be spreading them over two weekends of blogs. Expect them to go on sale quite soon.

Zack Die Krone

There will be 2 versions of Zack Die Krone by Stephan Baumegger, both are absolutely beautiful. This fabulous puzzle is not for the faint-hearted. When I first picked it up, I thought it was a 6 piece burr in a frame and expected a huge struggle as a result. When I had a closer look I was relieved to see that it is "just" a mere 3 piece burr within a cage that has a big hole in the top. How hard could it be? OMG, it is a serious challenge!

There are a few possible moves at first but after that the possibilities open up quite a bit as there is plenty of space to look at what is happening and also plenty of space to move the pieces around each other an around the frame. Initially the frame really gets in the way of what you want to do but after a bit of fiddling a way method of getting around it can be found. Once this has been done, you will need to carefully control the pieces as they appear to become quite unstable. Rotations won't happen easily but are possible and you will need to prevent that. I managed to unlink one side of a piece from the others and then got very badly stuck being completely unable to progress and needed to backtrack to the beginning again. Luckily, I found that it's usually pretty easy to backtrack if you paid attention but I dare say some of you might get lost at some point.

I remained stuck at the same position for a whole evening before I managed to find a possible move. It's a huge advantage being able to see more or less everything that is going on and sort of planning what you can do. With great satisfaction I found a path to release a piece from both the others and then a simple matter of releasing it from the frame. I had my 4 pieces and could take a photo. At level 21.8.3 for the complete disassembly, this is a huge challenge for anyone and only the very best of you will be able to reassemble it without Burrtools (I certainly needed it)

An incredible challenge The magnets hold it stable when assembled

One Match Left 

Looks just like a matchbox

As expected - one match inside

A new designer I've not heard of before, Jorgos Anastasou seems to have been designing for a few years but this is the first of his that has been mass produced. This beautiful cute little puzzle is made to look like a matchbox (very reminiscent of the matchbox playground from last year). It's made of Jatoba, Wenge, Maple & Cherry. Only two of the woods are visible from the outside of the box. There appear to be two but pieces inside the box which can slide and reveal a lovely little single match left in the box (hence the name). 

After six moves the match can come out but the tray formed by the two but pieces still won't slide out. A further 7 moves leads to one more part removal and a further 2 to complete disassembly. It's not terribly difficult but it's lovely and really quite cute. I suggest that you leave the pieces for a couple of days before attempting the reassembly. It will keep you nicely for a little while. Not hard but just right for a little light puzzling.  Indeed, Jorgos wrote about it:

"Sometimes the simple things can be the most enjoyable! The "One Match Left" is a moderately difficult level 6.7.2 disassembly challenge with a unique solution reassembly. It's fun to determine the position of the small match piece trapped inside the seven unit burr pieces and frame. Τhanks to Pelican for making my design a reality with their high quality construction and materials! Have fun!"

He's right, it is a simple thing compared to may others that have been made but it is a delight and very beautiful.

Leave it for a few days and assemble from scratch

Heavy Lifter

Arrives incorrectly assembled

5 pieces

This wonderful interlocking 4x4x4 cube puzzle is by the amazing Girish Sharma. It has been stunningly produced in some lovely woods - Zebrano, Acacia, Wenge, Maple and Massaranduba. It has been incorrectly assembled for transport and quickly comes apart into 4 rather complex shapes and an L. I did not receive any instructions and from the start assumed that it was a TIC. As a result, I set to work looking for the position of all the pieces and then rotational moves to get them interlocked. The process took me about an hour whilst watching TV with Mrs S. It was really very satisfying to work it out and seat the pieces into place. I was so delighted that I did it repeatedly that evening. 

The following day I got my instructions from Jakub and was stunned to realise that it was not meant as a TIC...he wrote:

"Over the last few months, I have been tinkering with the idea of high level 4x4x4 IC which form a full visible cube. So far, I've known the highest level to be 11 by a few designers. The challenge I took on myself was to design something with a higher level. This is first of the many designs that I have coming up in future. 

Heavy Lifter is a level 12.2.2.2 IC with 5 pieces. The puzzle comes disassembled and the goal is to assemble the pieces into a 4x4x4 cube. Once you have assembled the cube, you might realise the importance of the name of the puzzle."

Amazingly, it was actually an interlocking cube very similar to many of the wonderful Microcubology puzzles I bought way back at the beginning of my puzzling odyssey but MUCH MUCH tougher. The following evening, I just had to try again and do it without the rotations. This was a huge challenge as the TIC part had given me some preconceived ideas that I needed to get rid of. Girish has created an absolute monster of an interlocking cube which is absolutely wonderful to work on. The "proper solution" took me well over an hour and was joyous - this might well be my absolute favourite of the bunch.

This was an absolute joy to solve

LOL

Laugh out loud?

This made me laugh when I managed it

How can anyone resist a new puzzle designed by Frederic Boucher. I certainly can't and if it's called LOL then there is guaranteed to be something sprecial about it. This puzzle is very reminiscent of the Galette by Osanori Yanamoto in that there is a small flat box with a limited entry and a set of pieces to insert inside. There's no window in the front so it will all need to be done with dexterity and gravity along with quite a lot of thought. The puzzle is beautifully made from Jatoba and Cherry with the puzzle name on the surface which I think might be Marquetry (it's something I've never seen from Jakub before). 

The 5 simple pieces are to be put inside to make a 4x5 voxel rectangle. It's made more complex by the fact that the largest piece can't even fit through the 2 voxel opening - it requires a rotation to get inside and maybe there will be rotations needed inside the box without easy access?

There seem to be only a limited number of ways to create the rectangle and some of them are quite obviously impossible. I found a couple that potentially might be possible but finding a way to get them in the box is a huge challenge. The pieces block each other from getting into position and manipulating them through the tiny entrance hole is a frustratingly difficult experience. At one point I had a really good idea and it worked. But then the next step wouldn't work at all and I had a mini heart attack trying to undo the first supposedly good idea. It took me a good 30 minutes to get the pieces all out again and calm myself down.  There had been quite a lot of swearing during that process and Mrs S kept glaring at me! Having retrieved all the pieces I had a little think© and found myself trying to do the same thing over and over again. At one point, a little experiment with the pieces revealed a very subtle design element and yes, thank you Frederic, I did laugh out loud. A few minutes later I had my assembled puzzle:

Phew! That took a while.

Subsequently I received the instructions and found there was another challenge to be had:

Frederic wrote about it:

"LOL is an assembly puzzle with a very simple goal: Assemble the five pieces to make the acronym LOL, respecting the following rule: the 3 characters must have the same size (height and width). Will you discover the trick and succeed in the challenge? Exclusively for the PELIKAN version, a box is included. As a second challenge you must pack the pieces completely into the box. I hope this puzzle will make you laugh out loud!"

It appeared that I had only done the secondary challenge. The primary challenge still awaited me. This took me another hour or so yesterday and the important thing is to assemble the letters standing up on a flat surface. There is a very special trick that has had be done during the manufacture of the pieces to make it work. Another laugh out loud moment!

Sierpinski's Burr

Sierpinski's Burr by Tyler Hudson

Finally for today, I have a wonderful caged 6 piece burr from Tyler. He has been quite prolific over the last few years and has designed several different kinds of puzzle. This is a caged 6 piece burr which has had 2 opposite corners chopped off to allow quite a lot more freedom of movement for the burr sticks. It really adds to the challenge and allows it to reach quite a high level. I loved it but it might be too difficult for many of you if you are nor big burr fans. It has been beautifully made by Jakub and Jaroslav in Mahogany and Acacia. The angles of all those cuts must have made manufacture a bit of a nightmare to produce but the effort was well worth it. Obviously, it needs disassembly and then reassembly.

Tyler wrote about it:

"Sierpinski's Burr is a variation on the traditional framed 6 piece burr, in which 2 opposing corners have been removed. The resulting shape is one I hope you find quite interesting! It adds a few extra moves to the puzzle, and also provides small windows through which possible moves can be deduced. At level 40, it may sound a bit daunting, but keeping track of the solve is manageable, without too many dead ends. I don't think this one will be the hardest burr out there, but it should be a lot of fun to work out. Of course, the puzzle is named after the Sierpiński Triangle, which the triangular faces of the burr resemble. Pelikan's build of my design adds a lovely tactile feel, as well as being a beautiful wood combination. I hope people enjoy it! :)"

He is absolutely right! This is a huge challenge but is definitely manageable.there is a particular sequence that recurs several times and each time it is done it allows further progression before being undone and moving other pieces. The entire disassembly is level 40.6.3.1.2.2 so once the first piece is out then the rest will follow quite easily by looking inside and working out what is possible. 

A fabulous burr

Having taken my photo there was absolutely no way I could reassemble it myself and off to Burrtools I went. So much fun in one small cube! 

I have only had 5 days with the puzzles so far and managed to solve 5 of them in that time. I plan to work on the rest for next Sunday - come back for them.

My pick from this bunch is the Heavy Lifter and the LOL puzzle but all are absolutely fantastic!

Lulled Into A False Sense Of Security By Frederic

...And Tye

Haeckel Sphere designed by Lee Krasnow

It seems like I place an order with Tye Stahly quite frequently. Mrs S certainly thinks so! In my recent delivery, I couldn't resist adding a new design that the amazing Lee Krasnow has come up with, the Haeckel Sphere. I let Tye choose the colour scheme and when it duly arrived I took a photo and put it on my puzzle tray. One evening we had a Teams meeting for our group of orthopaedic anaesthetists and during that meeting I couldn't resist picking it up much to the horror of people in the group.  It was not clear to me how it came apart so I grabbed it on opposite sides and pulled. It duly separated in two and then promptly fell to bits in my lap to the amusement of several onlookers.

12 identical pieces

It was hard to concentrate on the meeting whilst working out how this went back together. It's not terribly hard to decide how the pieces assemble but at several points it requires a bit of dexterity to recreate the two halves and align them correctly to get it back together. There are quite a lot of colour options suggested by Lee to create extra puzzle assembly challenges of different external patterns - if you order from Tye then I am sure that you can get various colour schemes.

Flushed with success, I couldn't resist moving on to one of the many puzzles designed by Frederic Boucher. Over the years I have bought, been given and reviewed many puzzles by Frederic and uniformly enjoyed and been bamboozled by them. Amongst my favourites (and Allard's) are the various Minima puzzles but Frederic does do other types. I have a few of his tray packing puzzles and have always struggled with them. I put it down to the fact that I am simply awful at them.

In the last delivery was a beautiful packer with wooden pieces made from colourful cubes (produced by Baz). Tye created the nice tray for them. It's called Artefacts.There are two sets of challenges:

Artefacts side A

The tray is 5x5 and the wooden pieces consist of paired cubies which are connected to each other at a half cubic overlap plus a peg which is effectively a 2x1 shape. The first challenge is to pack all the wooden pieces and the peg flat into the tray. There are 3 possible solutions.

Showing that I am an eejit with these, it took me 2 days to find the first packing pattern. The half voxel attachment really caused me issues. I ended up trying lots of random placements over and over again until something clicked and I had my "what if" thought©. Having found that one, I realised that the next was just a matter of flipping a couple of the pieces. Yay! Maybe I am less of an eejit? Then I went for the third assembly and I realised that I hadn't improved at all. It took me a whole day of play to find it!

The next challenge set by Frederic is to put the peg on its end in the hole in Tray A and then assemble the 5 wooden pieces in the tray around it (only one solution). I thought to myself that this should be an easy prospect. After all, the end on peg is just a single voxel in the centre rather than the 2 on its' side. I set to work and it proved to be a lot of work! OMG! Why is it so difficult? I spent several more days failing to solve this one. I got a bit desperate and even resorted to Burrtools. Much to my horror, Burrtools was unable to find a solution! This meant that Frederic had lulled me into a false sense of security with the initial challenge! I was going to have to place at least one of the pieces in the tray at an angle. So far after over a week of attempts, I have failed. Turning any of the pieces even slightly diagonally seems to block off a lot of space and makes it impossible to place the other pieces. I have tried to be systematic and try placing each of the pieces individually at an angle but to no avail. Frederic has beaten me - sob!

In desperation, I moved on to the third challenge with this puzzle. Side B of the tray has small half voxel bulges on each edge at odd positions. 

Artefacts side B

The offset position of the bulges leaves a 2 voxel gap on one side and a 1½ voxel gap on the other which prevents placement of a pice flat in that gap. The challenge here is to find a set of 4 of the wooden pieces that can be packed flat in the tray. It's not clear whether it is possible with all combinations of 4 or just one of the 5 sets of combinations. I have tried all of them several times and completely failed to find any packing method that can get them in. It's been days!!

Again, I created a BT file for this part of the challenge and not one of the combinations of 4 pieces can be fitted inside the tray orthogonally. I then attempted to search for tilted assemblies but the bulges completely bugger that up for me!

Yet again, I have been beaten by Frederic and Tye! I've given up for the moment but may well go back to it when I am feeling like being a sucker! Thanks guys for the lesson in humility! 😱😱😱

Rainer Nearly Killed Me...Again!

Popplock T14

T13 unsolved

Every few years, Rainer Popp lets loose on the world the latest edition of his incredible series of beasts. It had been almost 3 years since the T13 was released and I (as well as the rest of the eager puzzling fraternity) had begun to anticipate the next one. This does remind me that I have so far completely failed to do anything with that one and it has been sitting on my puzzle tray next to my armchair for over 2 years. In fact it has been responsible for a significant part of the weight of it and upset Mrs S by marking the carpet. I really should get a move on and start work on it again.

I guess that a few people get to hear early when the latest release is coming but I had absolutely no idea when it was due to be released. In fact this one has been released in phases already. At Peter Hajek's End of Year Puzzle Party there were a good few people who showed it off and several others piped up to say they had been working on it for a while (including Allard. Whilst I gulped at the knowledge of the cost of it (handmade puzzles from brass and steel are never going to be cheap) I fired off an email to make an enquiry and was duly put on the waiting list. A few weeks later a VERY heavy box arrived and the sheer beauty of the creation was revealed. It is 1.7Kg! I received the dire warning of a painful death if I were to crack a tile or the kitchen granite and I insisted that it would only stay in the kitchen for long enough to take my photos. It was very quickly taken into the living room to be a couple of weeks of evening puzzling. It isn't much fun having nearly 2Kg of brass on your thighs and it doesn't mix well with china mugs!

It has rivets and dials and a key and...no bloody keyway! That's very odd. Reassuringly, the underside has Rainer's mark:

The only thing possible at this stage is to poke at things and try to push and pull stuff. Needless to say, not a lot is possible. A few things can be twiddled but that's about it. I spent a couple of evenings twiddling and alternating that with prodding and can only say that by pure chance doing the same thing over and over again actually made something change. Wow! There's a first time for everything.

In my usual manner I backed up to the beginning and tried again. It didn't work this time. That's odd! I was sure that I hadn't hallucinated it. I tried it a few more times until suddenly it worked again and I had an idea what was required. I had no idea how it worked that way but I could do it repeatably. With my discovery, I had a piece separate from the main body of the lock. What on earth was I supposed to do with that? Time to look and think© again. After all these years, I am still rubbish at this thinking business. If you look close enough then there is something obvious to see at this point but fiddling with that obvious item doesn't seem to do anything. It's time again for random movements until something happens. Just because you cannot see it doesn't mean that nothing is happening or changing whilst you carry out random moves. Discovering my second item I could see what my random moves had done and why they had the desired effect. My second item is MUCH more useful straight away - YAY!

I had a keyhole at last but the key wouldn't go in it - there is a front and a back keyhole and they aren't aligned. Damn - he's a sneaky bugger!

And here I got stuck....for a very long time! By this stage I have a few pieces and none of them seem terribly useful even in combination. I suspect that this is the place where Allard spent a very long time as well. I spent over a week at this point with nothing I could even try. I did end up sneaking a little peak at the solution (these are nicely set out in stages to allow clues for just one step without revealing others). Interestingly, the step that was described was exactly what I had been trying to do for a week or more and not managed to make it happen. Did I have a defunct lock? Impossibly unlikely from Rainer but I fetched the device I had used all those years ago when I had locked up my Louvre puzzle:

It's amazing what you can do with an unfolded paperclip!

This amazing device showed me that the lock was fully functional and I put the lock back to the beginning again and put the unwanted tool away and started again. Even knowing what was needed and how it worked I still couldn't do it with the pieces of the lock. Why was that? Because I wasnt doing it right of course! It took another couple of days before I found the right technique and it's very very subtle. It requires the exact combination of moves and positioning to do the required thing but it works every time if done right - Phew!

Having done that elusive move, I'd like to say the rest was plain sailing but I can't. I am not terribly bright because I was only able to do the next couple of moves before getting stuck again.

I'm not going to give much away here but at this point the key is useful in several ways - mostly unexpected ways. The most important movement to be done is a bit of a shock when you do it. The clue to do it comes by a careful examination of the entire exterior of the puzzle and having a think©. At this point I was thinking the impossible or even the slightly unfeasible. I thought to myself

"Self, that cannot be possible!"

Of course, with Rainer, the impossible is actually quite likely. After a bit of wrestling I noticed a teeny tiny change and continued what I was doing and got the fright of my life! I had sort of understood that it was going to happen but when it did, it was quite a shock! The engineering in this thing is incredible! 

It was still not over! I had thought that the huge move might be it but there was still more to be done. The next steps were quite logical but nicely disguised and it took a few minutes to find out what was needed. Suddenly, I had an open lock and a breathless admiration for Mr Popp's ingenuity - this might be the best one yet!

There is absolutely nothing given away in this picture

I have taken a photo of all the pieces that I had at the end and it is breathtaking! This will definitely be in my top ten(ish) of 2025.

The reassembly is a perfectly logical sequence and only takes a couple of minutes. Now that I know the solution, the whole process (including the difficult step) can be done quickly and easily in no time at all. Every single time I do it I find myself with a very big grin on my face! Amazing!

Thank you Rainer - keep doing what you do, it is fabulous. I look forward to the T15 in a couple of years.

Clawing Back From The Edge...

Or Can You Have Too Much Of A Good Thing?

A Tetralogy of Tetra-Claws

When the genius (yes, it's Derek Bosch again!) produces something for the IPP, everyone should sit up and pay attention. Derek, has an ability to visualise and create 3D structures better than anyone I know (probably the only person who comes close is Lee Krasnow and unfortunately I cannot really afford any of his wonderful toys. 

Derek had discussed with me the design woes as he developed the Tetra-claw puzzle and I was delighted for him when he created a really clever puzzle which falls into the N-ary/Gray code genre as well has having a bit of a dexterity aspect to it as well. I wasn't able to attend the IPP last year in Texas but I heard that the exchange went well and Derek duly risked the wrath of Mrs B when he acquired about 80 extra toys to squeeze into his already crammed house. Oh boy! I definitely know the pain of trying to squeeze more toys in than I have space for under the baleful eye/whip of a pissed off woman!

I had absolutely no expectation of receiving one myself but did hope that I'd get to play with one at an MPP sometime. To my grateful surprise, Derek told me that he would print me a copy when he found some time. I was, of course delighted and a box arrived last week much to the displeasure of "she who causes the seasons to change from fear". I was even more surprised to find a group of 4 very similar looking puzzles of different sizes. 2 of them are made from the most amazing plastic I've ever seen - they have an iridescent sheen to them and they have a colour gradient from one end of a piece to the other. I have no idea how this works as they show no sign of interchanging spools of plastic.

On questioning, Derek told me they are small Mini-claw, 4 colour standard Tetra-claw, Purplish Tetra-claw plus and monster sized Tetra-claw extreme. He suggested I work up in size with the mini really just being there to show me how the initial piece assembly was organised. Of course, I couldn't resist and set to work almost straight away in front of the TV.

Mini Tetra-claw has lots of movement and comes apart in just 4 moves. I didn't know that until it fell to bits in my lap! OMG!

Whilst it was all very exciting to see that happen, I had absolutely no idea how they had been organised or what order they went back together in. I was texting with Derek as it happened and he was helpful enough to send me a trio of photos showing the order and general organisation of the pieces for assembly. Thanks mate! 

Without those photos I would still be fighting with the mini Claw!

Well, that was a shock!

With the photos and his text in front of me I was able to gather the pieces into an appropriate shape to have it fall to bits in my lap again and a wild expletive got Mrs S' attention. She said I had gone rather pale. The reason for this was that I had a sudden thought that I might have 16 pieces of plastic and no way to put them back together again! In some trepidation, I asked Derek how much dexterity might be needed and also how many hands. Unfortunately in PuzzleMad HQ there is only one pair of hands that will work on puzzles - no assistance is available. Derek reassuringly told me that all that was needed was 1 pair of hands and a table. Maybe I should not be attempting this on my lap?

In the end it took me another 6 or 7 attempts before I had the little orange monster back together. After this, I at least had a rough idea how the pieces needed to be held to get them to begin their interaction.

I immediately set to work on the exchange puzzle/basic Tetra-claw. I was vewy vewy bwave and continued in my armchair whilst watching TV and not a table in sight! 

This one, straight away, revealed itself to be N-ary in nature with the legs moving in and out around a hidden maze and after one sequence, the moves of another leg becomes available. Fun and interesting. 

The sequence is not very long and I did not need to take any notes. I went back and forth multiple times to lay down a muscle memory of the moves but with it on my lap I did not dare actually take it fully to bits at that time. I left it until the following day to attempt the full disassembly:

Almost there

Different mazes and pin count visible

Having taken it fully apart, I was able to appreciate the extent of the genius design. It becomes obvious that there are pins on the ends of the claws with one having 3 pins and no mazes, 1 having 2 pins and one maze and so on until there is one with 3 mazes and no pins. Brilliant!

I had not actually paid enough attention to how the pieces were actually oriented when they came apart and so, even though I knew from derek's pics how they should be aligned for initial assembly, I did not know which claw should align with which part of the next claw. Time to Think© which hurt me a lot. Even though I think my 3D visuospatial ability is pretty good because of what I do for a living (converting a 2D ultrasound image to a 3D knowledge of a space for nerve blocks should be useful), I really struggled to work out how the pieces needed to interact initially.

Reassured that I could do it with one pair of hands and a table, I sat down and after a few false starts, I managed to created my widely separated shape which could then be collapsed down using the reverse of the sequence that I had learned and I had it back to the beginning in about an hour - Phew!

It's gorgeous!

Did I even dare try the Tetra-claw plus? I wasn't sure at all but I knew I had a potential blog post with this and I had to be a bwave boy!

The Plus version started off fine with me learning the sequence gradually but I began to catch glimpses of the mazes and realised this was going to be a huge undertaking. I had better return to the beginning and take notes as I explore. Except...

Aargh! I managed to do something odd. I found myself going round and round in circles and not managing to get back to the beginning. What was I doing wrong? I have no idea! It obviously is not a good idea to multitask whilst doing these. Eventually I managed to reset and then started the sequences on each arm and developed my own notation to describe what I was doing. It probably took me an hour to find the final moves to release the claws for disassembly (it would seem that the final part of the sequence is different to the rest and quite well hidden. I fully explored back and forth a few times and then screwed my courage to the sticking point and took it apart. Oh my! It is a beautiful thing to behold:

Nearly apart

Much more complex mazes!

Whilst it was fully extended and rather rickety, I was very careful not to jiggle it and ensured that my notes included the rough orientation of the pieces. Even though you can work out the orientation of the pieces from scratch as you try to assemble, I did not feel terribly confident and just noted which maze was visible on each claw. Of course, this didn't help me at all!

After taking the photos for my records and the blog, I started to put it back together again and full of confidence, managed to get the 4 claws interacting with each other. Hooray! Maybe I am less of an eeejit than I think? Nope...I'm a fully qualified eejit! My notes did not take into account how I had turned the puzzle during disassembly and whilst they stacked with the tips all engaged, they would not actually interact with each other. Bugger! Back to square one and work it out from scratch. 

The working out didn't actually take very long - After about 15 minutes, I had the tips ready to go and the puzzle started to be slid together. The sequence was going well until I found that I could not get one of the claws to engage with its' maze - oh hell! I went back and forth with increasingly strong swear words (I can swear like a trooper in Tagalog much to the amusement/horror of the Filipino nurses I work with and this was less alarming to Mrs S who was sitting with me). I ended up returning to the beginning many many times and trying different orientations of the 3 maze claw before realising that I had that correct all along but had missed my entry point moment for that particular maze. Derek, I don't know whether you did that on purpose but it scared me to death! Finally after about 2-3 hours I had reassembled the Tetra-claw plus! I was petrified of the next challenge. I went to bed last night considering writing only about the first 3 but I knew you would all be disappointed in me if I did.

It's extreme!

This morning I bwavely decided to "go for it" and maybe be left with one unasssembleable puzzle.

I started out as I did before with a quick exploration to see which pieces moved. I have worked on a technique where the first 2 claws to move are kept as back left and back right and then the third piece to move becomes front. After that the last piece to move will be oriented at the top. Those in the know would quickly tell me that this is not a very good choice as inevitably the first piece to come out seems to be one of the back claws. I probably should make it that the first removed piece is the top claw but I had my technique and my notation and did not dare change anything. 

The exploration of this showed me quickly that the mazes were significantly more complex and a couple involved a sort of loop/hook which made the sequence more of a dance as several pieces deeded to go back and forth multiple times. I got lost a few times initially before I properly started taking notes. Here is what my notes look like for the extreme:

Yes the writing is bad! I can understand it...sort of!

Eventually, I was getting towards the exit with one claw fully extended but this time, there was still quite a lot of work to be done to actually release the first piece despite that fully extended claw not taking part any longer. I got lost a couple of times trying to find the moves to open the exit - it was well hidden in the maze. Once I had found it, the whole thing was fully extended and rather unstable (hence no photo) and I took it apart for the obligatory photo:

Some very complex mazes on this one!

I was feeling a bit cocky by now! This was the fourth one - I MUST be able to reassemble this one. I had not taken note of which way the mazes were facing when disassembled. I figured that I had had to work them all out so far and this would be just more of the same. I was right but it took me quite some time to get the bloody thing back together. I had the same problem as the previous one getting the claw to engage in its maze. Multiple attempts and backups finally got me there! Phew!

I have had 4 days of fun with these - they are amazing. Thank you Derek for the gift and the opportunity to bask in your genius again. I can conclude that the answer to my question at the top of the post is that you CANNOT have too much of a good thing!

If you get a chance to play with one or maybe even buy them for your collection then jump at the chance. They are NOT just an N-ary puzzle. There are multiple sequences and then the work required to find the way the pieces will interact to get them assembled. Of course, a bit of dexterity too but not so much that you need to "phone a friend".

He Risks A Whack! Ouch!

But He "Creeps" Past It! Phew!

This required wine...LOTS of wine

When Mine offers puzzles, most of us say yes and we wait for a bit for hime to manufacture said puzzles and postage occurs when you least expect it. My package went into my tracking app and for some reason went from Japan to China and then on to India. I have no idea why - my knowledge of shipping lanes and flight paths is sketchy to say the least but even I know that is an odd path to take to the UK. The tracking stopped in India for a week or so and I resigned myself to waiting for a long time. The app and the Yamato website had no further updates. In the meantime...

Tye Stahly also manufactures some new toys and puts them up for sale. The UK puzzlers have a good thing going as he combines them all together into what I imagine is a shipping container which heads towards Allard's house and very forgiving wife (Gill is an angel!) I knew the shipping container had set off but I didn't know more. It must have been a very fast ship or maybe even one of those airyplane things because after just a few days from going on sale to somehow being forwarded on by the PuzzleMan himself to arriving at PuzzleMad HQ was incredibly fast. 

Both boxes arrived on the same day and due to work commitments, I didn't get to open them straight away. I have worked yet another 6 day week and "she who must be feared" got fed up having two medium sized boxes sitting in the porch cluttering up the place. She obviously hadn't thought it through properly because boxes in the porch don't really count as clutter. It's only when you open said boxes to find a total of 16 new puzzling toys on the kitchen work surface that you realise what clutter is! Whack! Ouch!

Yes, she actually opened the boxes for me and laid out the pile o' puzzles on the kitchen granite for me. When I got home from work on Saturday, she stood there glaring at me and menacingly tapped her foot whilst I made excuses. In the end I couldn't really think of any decent excuses and offered her wine to make up for it. This mollified her a little bit so I tried more wine but it didn't help much and I suspect I'm going to suffer in the near future. To try and improve the situation, I have taken my photos and have endeavoured to stash them somewhere not cluttered until I have had a chance to play. Phew! I might have got away with it. Whack! Ouch! Maybe not...

The first one I have tried was one by the amazing Yuu Asaka. I couldn't resist the Creep 2 puzzle which looked so different from his usual packing puzzles:

Creep 2 pieces

The stated aim on the box (the puzzles from Yuu-san are always beautifully presented) is to insert the two sliders completely inside the tray.

It is only a level 2 out of 5 and the expected puzzling time should be about 20 minutes according to the designer. Well we will see about that! I am famous/infamous for taking days or weeks instead of minutes.

This puzzle reminded me very much of a wonderful puzzle by Robrecht Louage, the Cerradura Doble.

Off we go...

The gaps in the frame at each edge are different sizes which should give a clue to which pieces go where and indeed, I was able to quite quickly determine then final position of the two sliders. There's nothing else to do other than to slide them each inside in turn and look at how they will interact as you move the pieces back and forth. At this point, I realised that Yuu-san is what is known in the trade as a "sneaky bugger"! I spent the full amount of time (20 minutes) trying the same thing over and over again but it just wouldn't work. Did I have the wrong pieces? I actually checked the pieces against on-line photos and there was no mistake - silly me ( or...I'm an eejit).

Time to think© and it hurt a bit. Eventually, I had an aha! moment when I realised my initial supposition had been incorrect. Once I had made my discovery, I had my solved puzzle and it's really quite satisfying. The whole puzzle seems to be about misdirection. The design makes you think the wrong thing and if you are anything like me, you will be stuck on that wrong thought for a while before eventually forcing yourself to look further. It is really very clever and almost perfect for newbies or visitors to the house who you would like to bamboozle. I think I will take it to work to torture people for a while. Hopefully Mrs S will not murder me when she sobers up/regains consciousness from the barrel of wine I have had to ply her with!

If you are wanting to buy a copy then PuzzleMaster has it for sale here and you could even buy the rest of Yuu-san's puzzles at the same time. In the UK you could try JPGames or Crux puzzles.

Jagsaw VI - An Exercise In Logic

Jagsaw VI by Alexander Magyarics

I received a nice big package from Alexander at the end of the year and when opened I was delighted to see a whole bunch of interesting challenges in the box - Mrs S was not quite so delighte, however.

I was intrigued to see something that is new to Alex's repertoire, a jigsaw puzzle. As you know I have been a little fixated on Jigsaws recently having had very mixed success at the wonderful jigsaws in trays designed by Haym Hirsh. 

The interesting thing here is that it is only a six piece jigsaw with no frame and instructions to make a 3x2 array of the pieces:

Instructions that give away nothing except a very big clue...only 1 solution!

 Having seen that there are only six pieces and no restriction of a frame, I decided that this was to be my next challenge this year. After all, how hard can it be? Have I learned nothing from these blasted puzzle designers yet? Apparently not! 

The pieces are standard jigsaw pieces with all the protuberances or orifices being either rectilinear, singly curved or doubly curved which restricts which pieces can intersect with each other. I started initially with random pairing of pieces to see which pieces could interlink and how many possibilities for each piece there was. It quickly became apparent that it would not be possible to solve this with random trial and error. The pieces were too similar and with six of them I could not keep track of what I had tried. Time for a little think©ing. This was going to hurt!

This might make things much harder!

I spent a good couple of days fixated that there would be no interior gaps (i.e. the single curved protuberances would only interact with single curved orifices. I thought that this would significantly limit the number of possible interactions that I needed to try and would leave me with a pure logic based solution. Two days wasted on that - it certainly helped with the logic but, of course, Alex would never make it quite that easy! Eventually the realisation whacked me over the head that there were going to be gaps and irregularities in the outline. The only stipulation in the instructions was that they should fit together in the 3x2 grid. The shapes would restrict the way they could fit together by preventing some fits completely but if there was a gap then that would still be allowable. This then helped me find one piece that could ONLY be oriented in one way on the outer edge. From this, it was possible to work out several possible pieces that might go next but walking this pathway seemed to end in dead ends fairly fast (I was hoping that this was the sort of approach that Alex had intended because my head was hurting quite a lot at this stage). I did need to keep track of 2 or three possible pathways and eventually narrowed it down to decide on another definite external edge.

Once I had worked out this, it became a little bit more logical but still a fair bit of trial and error as every piece had several possibilities.

Finally, after about 5 days, I had my solution. It was very satisfying. This is a rather clever puzzle which needs thought and planning rather than trial and error. It certainly is good for beginners to show them that simple looking puzzles might not be as simple as they appear. Having said that, I think most beginners would give up long before they found the solution. I very nearly gave up myself. I think my Jigsawing period might have to stop for a little while due to brain-ache!

Having found my assembly, I had a fun time putting this into Burrtools to prove to myself that there was indeed only one solution and that it did not fit together with no gaps. Thank you Alex, it was a lot of fun! Plenty more challenges left to do from your box (although Mrs S is threatening to hide the box away 😱.

Perseverance Pays Off...

Finally!

The Snowman Puzzlebox by Kyle Chester-Marsden
Someone has stolen the poor snowman's nose

I hadn't managed to attend many MPP's last year and also don't really have time to lurk in the Discord and hence missed out on a few of the beautifully made puzzles from Kyle and from what I have heard, I have really missed something special. In mid November he put out a little announcement on the Mechanical Puzzle Community Facebook page that he was making some more of the Snowman boxes available again as potential Xmas presents. He had made these as presents for Xmas 2023 but as usual, I had not seen them and missed out. They had been reviewed back in February by Steve and looked fabulous. This time around I saw them announced and contacted him immediately! Phew! For once, I had not let it get by me. The handy thing was that he had one available at the last MPP of the year and I picked up a nice brown box and sneaked it into the house. "She who must be feared" saw it amongst all the other acquisitions on my return and, luckily, it didn't register when I told her that was going to be her present to me at Xmas. 

We don't tend to do Xmas presents much because, by and large, we each buy whatever we want throughout the year and it seems pointless to buy something just because of the time of year. I know "she" will be buying clothing etc and "she" knows that toys will be arriving. We just try not to complain about it too much unless the clutter escapes into the shared areas.

Nice box with magnetic closure

Beautifully packaged

I hid the brown card box box in my study and totally forgot about it! I'm an eejit! I blame work mostly because I ended up in the operating theatre through most of the holiday period and just didn't seem to have much time. Finally just in time for New Years Day, I remembered it and unpacked. Marvelling at the packaging, I was delighted  to see something just beautiful inside. We have a small box with a disfigured Snowman on top. The top and bottom plates of the box are made from vibrant Padauk and the main body along with snowman, made from what looks like Maple. When turning it upside down there is an interesting clicking noise.

Time to explore and I quickly found that the snowman could swivel on his box but only a fraction of a turn before stopping dead. It could return but that was all that was possible. Examining it from all angles showed me that things moved inside and sometimes they allowed the snowman to turn further or turn back further... and sometimes turning it didn't allow any turning. Hmmm!

Why would the extra rotation be allowed sometimes but not other time? Time to think© and listen. After a little while I made a crucial discovery and I could rotate at will in any direction that I wished. At least I could do that for a few turns until I couldn't any more. It seemed to be very tight and I didn't want to use force. Time to search for something else. I looked and looked and looked, and...found nothing. I was stuck!

This being stuck seems to be something that happens to me a lot. Mrs S says it's because I'm an eejit and rubbish at puzzles. She is starting to insist that I shouldn't ever get any more. Sob! I thunk for 10 days until it occurred to me to have a proper close look at the puzzle using a magnifier app on my phone. At this point I had an idea and tried to implement it. I was so certain that I was right that I put the puzzle in a room with a dehumidifier and after 24 hours my suspicion was confirmed. The puzzle seemed to be rather tight and loosened slightly with the dehumidifier. This then allowed me to carry out the next movement and with a bit of a squeak, I was able to see the rather clever mechanism inside. There was no nose to be seen but part of the mechanism dropped out and looked like something that had an additional function. A few minutes later, after nearly 2 weeks of trying, the snowman and his nose were reunited:

Even Mrs S thought this was delightful!

Thank you Kyle, I love it. It's a clever mechanism with a nice added extra step. My only excuse for how long it took me was being busy and the humidity in the UK just now made it really quite tight. This will look lovely on display.

If you get a chance to try it or buy it then you will not be disappointed. Unfortunately, I missed out on the Reluctant Drawer from Kyle which won accolades at the End of Year Puzzle Party as well as in the Mechanical Puzzle Discord. Hopefully I'll get to play at an MPP in the future.

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Last week, when I mentioned Juno's incredible Tornado burr, I showed off (one of my) trays of shame:

A LOT of unsolved puzzles here

After another 24 hours of playing with the Tornado burr, I finally did manage to reassemble it and even did it again a second time. It's a bit fiddly but certainly very approachable for a lot of you geniuses out there. Don't be put off by the "burr" in the name. It's really not a burr in the traditional sense - I would recategorise it as an interlocking puzzle. Juno still has a few for sale here if you are interested.

The white bag at the back of the tray pictured above has been there for 18 months! I bought the incredible Euroka 10x3 puzzle from Juno in Feb 2023 and put it on display on a windowsill for nearly six months when a moment of madness made me disassemble it. I thought I could do it piecemeal and take sequential photos which would help with the reassembly. I wrote about it here. 

Lovely on display

Unfortunately the puzzle doesn't really come apart sequentially. I took it apart from the top and removed 3 layers before my Aha! moment collapsed in a heap on me leading me to the epithet below:

You Stupid Boy!

Over the subsequent 18 months I have repeatedly attempted reassembly only to be surrounded by pieces, a very high blood pressure and a new-found reliance on swear words. I have access to an unlisted video from Juno showing the assembly as well as the picture on his info page about it. Multiple attempts have failed and after last week's success with the Tornado burr, I was determined to assemble the bloody thing.

held by rubber band

This time I had a new advantage! I had a rubber band! These wondrous items have never been allowed in our house due to the fascination that our cats have had with them. They adored chewing them and once broken would swallow them. It all sounds perfectly reasonable and slightly funny until 24 hours later they reemerge from the cat at the opposite end. Picture the cat zooming all around the house with an itchy bum and a rather hideous springy brown kebab emerging from his back end. Then add to this wonderful image add a picture of me chasing him around with a piece of kitchen paper to try and catch and extract said kebab and rubber band. Whilst this seems funny to most blokes, it is not funny to Mrs S and as a result rubber bands are VERBOTEN! 

Our last cat unfortunately left us last year and I felt brave enough to keep a band or two in my study for emergency puzzling situations. This was just such a situation and I put said rubber band to good use. I managed to assemble the bottom 5 pieces and placed the band around them. I then built up the next 2 layers on top and it suddenly became stable. After this, I just had to work out how to place subsequent middle layers and finally, after several hours of attempts, I got them all to engage with a click. 

Hooray!

I'm not taking that apart again!

Mrs S was actually impressed when I showed her that it was finally assembled and threatened for a moment to take it apart for me. I snatched it away! I now think I could do it again but not for a while!

My other tray of shame has been removed from the living room! The weight of it has marked the carpet and I am told in no uncertain terms that I must redistribute them so that there is less weight on the tray. Some of these puzzles have been there for several years, unsolved but with a vague hope that I might one day mange them:

Marks on the carpet? Whack! Ouch!

Some fabulous and difficult puzzles here

In particular the Popplock T13 remains unsolved as well as Brian Young's Ages sequential discovery burr (not even found the first hidden move! Sigh! I must try harder!