OMG! Yellow!!

It says "my head hurts" - it certainly does!

Keebox Yellow

Yes, you knew this was going to happen. I have the final Keebox (so far) in the series solved and can write about it... sort of! This one is a huge step up in difficulty from the first ones and even a good bit tougher than last week's orange one. It is level 4 out of 5 and estimated to take 45+ minutes to complete. Needless to say, during my week of play, I spent a LOT more than 45 minutes on it. There were several steps I got very stuck on. To be perfectly honest, I only finished the solve this morning and I have not yet reset it and there are a couple of steps that I don't really understand very well. It is still available from their Etsy store or from PuzzleMaster and is well worth investing your time and money in. I do know that at least one friend is taking my name in vain for encouraging him to fall into the madness.

Initially there is very little that is possible and when you do it nothing seems to happen. The one thing to say about the yellow version is that there are lots of pieces that move that you wouldn't expect to. So for this reason, it's important to push and pull everything if you cannot find the next move and do this in combination with pushing or pulling other things at the same time. Eventually there is a nice Aha! moment to speed you on to the next stage. After that first step there is a cavity revealed and a couple of coins with nowhere obviously to put them. With a little trial and error I found a place to put them but that was no help at all - no further steps revealed themselves - I was missing something. Turning the puzzle over and over and poking my finger inside gave me another Aha! moment and the customary early move of removing the faceplate happened and showed the usual "Always Keep playing" motif embossed inside. At this point the heart starts to race as something obvious can be seen. Another tool and the coins suddenly make sense. This feels like a very big step but it's only the early easy stuff! Yes, my head was already beginning to hurt!

The next step is reminiscent of the Purple one but even better! The implementation is wonderful and I actually laughed out loud. I had my next piece of information to use in the next section and suddenly a large item was available for use elsewhere. There is no obvious place to use it so more exploring is required. At this point I got very stuck and only managed the next step by brute force of all the possible arrangements of the pieces before revealing where to use the large item I had used before. I have to be honest, Having solved it, I went to the solution page to try and understand how this step had been intended and I still don't understand the clues given. I can do the required step but have no clue why I should do it that way. This only slightly detracted from my enjoyment of the puzzle.

At this point I had a clue for how to use the large item and I tried it. Yet again I got stuck here. I couldn't do anything - something had got stuck. I did notice that a sliding piece inside had wedged diagonally and would not return to the place it had come from - A sharp kitchen knife was require to lever it back into position and I carried on trying the same things over and over again. Suddenly something changed and I could rotate something inside and then I couldn't. I had no idea why I couldn't but it was stuck again. Cue, lots of shaking about and pushing and pulling on everything I could reach...

Something fell out!

Aha! Except I have no idea where this came from.

I retrieved the yellow token and have only a vague idea how or where it came from - I was fiddling with a couple of mechanisms at the same time and turned it over to find the token fall out into my lap. When I turned the puzzle over the "place/drawer/hole" that it had come from had closed up under the influence of gravity and I had no idea where it came from! Aargh. 

After about an hour of turning it over and over again I noticed something inside a hole. and my final Aha! moment was there. This was a MASSIVE odyssey - I got stuck on several different places but always managed to eventually progress. The reset was fun as well and I gained a full understanding of the mechanism. It's not a cheap puzzle this one but still worth every penny. 

My only criticism of this and the orange one is that there are several combination type locks during the solution and the hints for the numbers to use are really quite esoteric and I don't really easily manage to understand the clues. The final one in this puzzle remains incomprehensible to me even now. I'd be interested to hear how you get on with the combination locks.

I know these are "only" plastic puzzles but this is an incredible set and you should buy them. Don't think about it - just do it! The sides of the boxes have a hint of a fifth Keebox with a level 5/5 and a description of "#*%#!". When that is released it will be arriving straight away!

Orange Is Almost Always Better

It says a real challenge!

Keebox Orange

I know it's not Apple's Cosmic Orange (where do they get the names?) but, by and large, things that are orange are always looked on favourably by me! Last week I embarked on a Keebox odyssey and managed the first 2 with a small struggle and a bit of luck. I did manage to solve part of it by brute force before noticing where the clue to the method was amongst the myriad of pieces that I accumulated during the solve.

I had begun work on the third in the series before I wrote last week's post but had not gotten very far and in fact was completely stuck after just a few moves. This one is level 3 out of 5 on their scale and apparently should have taken me about 30 minutes. I know the site states 30minutes + but a puzzler of my experience would hope to be at the bottom end of the time requirement. However, let's not forget that I'm not terribly bright and I certainly am pretty rubbish at puzzles so maybe a bit more than 30 minutes? I was astounded, however, that this one took me several hours spread over an entire week! It is a significant jump in difficulty. It is a vibrant orange and a bit bigger than the first 2 at 8 x 8 x 6.5cm in size. 

Looking at it there is obviously a lot more to it - we have 4 knobs on it, 3 sliders, some kind of tab and a ball bearing visible at the bottom with a maze embossed in the back (presumably to navigate the ball bearing through.

One trapped ball bearing

Just as with the last two there is almost nothing possible apart from one fairly obvious move at the start and you are quickly on your way. The first step immediately reveals a whole lot more "stuff" but whilst you can look at it, you cannot yet manipulate it. Only one new step is possible - I was beginning to have hope - a bit of early hand-holding seems very inviting. The second step leads to another and a tool is a suddenly in your hands. I like to go back and forth to make sure that I have understood what I have done and to assist with the later reset. I did find it took me a good 10 minutes to understand how the tool had been locked in place. It is very simple but very ingenious. 

The tool is flat and looks like there might be quite a few places to use it but only one actually does something. Yay! A big breakthrough - a new tool that looks like there's an obvious place to use it. I am on my way as the ball bearing gets released into the first part of the maze.

A rather complex maze map

After my initial surge of pleasure. I got stuck at this point for a whole week.

The ball bearing was in the first section of the maze (see the bottom of the map to the left) - I needed to get it into the next area and could not do so. I went back and forth with the bearing and even right back to the start of the puzzle. There is always the promise of a hint but you know me, I like to suffer for months or years. So I continued to go back and forth for days doing the same things over and over again.

Two portions of maze and a button

The ball bearing was able to freely enter the right hand slot above but could go no further. There is a flush button that I used one of my tools to press and this produced a little cavity for the bearing...and trapped it! Bugger! Pressing the button in would release the ball back to the right hand slot but nothing would let it proceed on its merry way. In fact, having pressed that button, it was no longer flush with the surface of the box. It remained partially depressed. Days went by and I despaired. I was obviously missing another tool but despite using everything I had in as many ways as I could think without causing harm. Then something made me think© again and I had a wonderful Aha! moment as I realised that tools can do more than one thing at a time. 

Symbols on the sliders

After this, I was able to start work on the maze with my map. This was a little challenging because the map is on the back and a lot of the time the manipulation of the ball with gravity required the puzzle to be facing the other way. The ball gets navigated mostly by sound as you hear it drop down short or long paths. It does intermittently appear at the front of the puzzle. 

I managed to negotiate the full length of the maze and realised that at the end it could be used to manipulate something else but despite this it did nothing useful. Looking at the puzzle, it was obvious what it was doing but I could see that one final tool remained unfound and it was critical for the next step - I could see what I needed to find but how on earth did I get it?

There were a few elements on the puzzle that I had not utilised yet - the sliders on the sides have a bunch of symbols on them and there was a knob on top. I had no idea what to do with the symbols and I did end up cheating by part brute forcing the trial and error and also a little lock picking. This gave me the tool I needed and I was able to combine this with another mechanism to release my final piece. In retrospect, I now realise that the symbols on the sliders were not random and paying attention throughout the solution would have just given the code. However, having found my final moves I had the third token in the series:

Yet another brilliant creation!

In total I think this must have taken me about three or four hours to complete. Definitely 30 minutes PLUS! The reset is just a matter of navigating everything in reverse. The maze is still a challenge to navigate and it took a while to realise there is a step in the middle that I had solved by accident in my turning it back and forth.

Should you buy this? Hell yes! This one is stunningly fun and a real challenge for any puzzler. The side of the box tells you so. It is still available on the Keebox Etsy store and also from PuzzleMaster if you live in North America. If I were you, I would buy the whole set and solve them in difficulty order. You really won't regret it.

I have a little annual leave the next couple of weeks and hopefully will manage some puzzling amongst all the chores and DIY that Mrs S has planned for me.  😱

The Keys To The First Two Boxes?

Keeboxes - all of them!

Oh dear! Yes, yet again it's Allard's fault! I had seen the Keebox puzzles at the MPP in May (Allard is the organiser so it MUST be his fault) and even spent a happy 10 minutes playing with the Blue one before quickly deciding they were so good that I needed to stop solving and buy the bloody things. I was sitting next to Ali who was playing with one of the others and we both simultaneously decided the same thing and put them down. I opened the webpage on my phone and left it there in my Safari tabs as a reminder that I HAD to buy them soon. I went home at the end of the puzzle party and promptly forgot about them as the tab containing the webpage got buried amongst others about Sci-Fi and fantasy as well as work stuff. I think I currently have about 60 open tabs! The Keebox ones got buried and forgotten (I think it is still there on the phone now). I wasn't reminded at the last MPP in July due to having to spend the day with the present wife instead of puzzlers and only a few weeks ago was I reminded when Allard posted his review. Much to the disgust of Mrs S, I immediately fired off an order via the Swiss boys' Etsy store and, of course, I had to have the whole set - there are four currently but I am certain there will be more eventually. For those of you who are unfortunate enough to be subject to the whims and stupidity of the orange buffoon and are now either being charged huge tariff charges or even unable to purchase from abroad then PuzzleMaster may be helpful to you (I am not sure how Canada post has been affected) - some of the Keeboxes are available from PuzzleMaster here.

Unfortunately I got hit by a big customs bill plus the Royal Mail hostage fee. I paid this and a few days later a nicely packed box of boxes of keeboxes was unpacked. Mrs S was "delighted to see more plastic in the house but I pointedly ignored her.

They seem to have updated their packaging since Allard got his (something I didn't notice until the last MPP when I saw Allard's boxes and noticed that mine were much more colourful. I also received the purple one which may not have been available until recently.

Blue box - easy peasy?

It is really quite attractive for a plastic puzzle

Being rather rubbish at puzzles I started on the blue/"easy" one. The box is perfectly designed to contain and show off the new toy. There is a leaflet inside that tells you (in multiple languages) to find the hidden token. There is a QR code to get you to a webpage that can provide hints and solutions but I am hoping not to use it. You all know me by now that I tend to keep trying at these toys for months or even years until I eventually get there. Reassuringly, the leaflet says that the blue one is level 1 out of 5 which should take me 10 minutes. The puzzle is 6.2 x 6 x 6cm in size and made from PLA - it's a perfect tactile size and weight.

Always keep playing

Whilst I agree with the difficulty level - it is a nice fun introduction to the series but it certainly took me more than 10 minutes. Watching Tamsin play with it and get stuck in the same places that I did was fun and I would hope that you would also be challenged the same way. There is a whole sequence of moves which have to be done in the correct order. Various protuberances on the puzzle interact with each other and release tools to be used elsewhere. At some point in all the puzzles in the series the front plate is released and reveals the message to "always keep playing". There are threaded parts, reverse threaded parts, sprung parts and a short maze. The progression is very enjoyable with getting stuck at various stages for 5 minutes or so providing just enough challenge to not make one give up. It is plastic and care is needed not to use too much force when trying certain moves but it's pretty clear when what you are attempting to do is not the right thing. I think I found the token after about 20 minutes - lovely to do and actually lovely to do repeatedly. I think I will take this to work to torture my ODP with on Wednesday during my usual orthopaedic bloodbath! I think he will have some time between intubation and running the cell saver to play with my torture device!

Blue token found

Having reversed the process to reset the puzzle it was time to move on to the next and bamboozle myself again. The next in the series for me (I don't think Allard got to try it because it is the latest one).

Purple box - tricky

Even more attractive than the last one

The purple one is level 2 out of 5 and should take expected to take 30 minutes by the creators. They put a plus sign after the 30 minutes on the webpage and it certainly took me that plus amount of time above the 30 minutes! There are a couple of steps in this one that are really quite hard to find.

Having solved the blue, I was aware of the types of things I could/should try and the first couple of steps proceeded very nicely with little Aha! moments and a grin indicating that I had this. And then I was stuck for a while - probably about 10 minutes before I found my next step and received another tool which I didn't know how to use. From here I was stumped for yet more 30 minutes "plus". I actually did one aspect of the puzzling to find the tool by brute force of trial and error. It didn't seem right and I put it back to have a rather long think©. There were a few puzzle pieces and some arrows on the puzzle which indicate what is needed to do. The Aha! moment for this is delightful - they really have thought every step through.

I now had more tools and no idea what to do with them. Stuck again! Eventually, I did what I should and LOOKED at the puzzle properly. There is a feature that stares you in the eyes and dares you to try something without you realising that it was making fun of your inability to see it. 

If you are bright then you will see it straight away (I didn't feel too dopey when Tamsin also couldn't see it straight away). I think the "plus" on the timescale here took me to a total of an hour of puzzling. It's perfect and also very clever:

Purple token found

This one is even more fun than the last one to reset. 

I have started on the next most difficult in the series - orange is apparently "a real challenge" - it says so on the box. I'm about an hour in to that one and completely stuck after just a few moves. I can see what needs to happen but I don't have the tools yet to do it and am not sure where to look. For the moment, I am going to hold off on getting clues.

If you haven't considered getting these yet then stop considering and buy them - they are perfect little challenges and suitable for all levels of puzzler. I am sure that PuzzleMaster will restock soon for those of you in the USA and Canada. Otherwise the rest of the world can go to the Etsy store and buy direct. Do it now!

Did Juno Con Me? No Way!

The Con Way Puzzle by Juno

Frame assembled

A little while ago Yukari sent out an email to the puzzling world offering Juno's latest creation, the Con Way Puzzle, for sale. it was made from gorgeously grained wood so how could I turn it down? Also it was a design by Juno so how could I turn it down? On top of that, it came with a stand and I am a sucker for a puzzle with a stand for display so how could I turn it down? Fear of the present wife could have made me turn it down but I hit buy before I had time to think about what "she who must be flinched from" even impinged on my mind! Only a few minutes later did I wonder about the Whack! Ouch! that I might receive....again!

This gloriously beautiful thing arrived within a week from all the way across the globe and I lined up all the pieces for my photos. It was beautiful made from New Guinea Walnut and American Cherry. I admired the grain and then looked with horror at the shapes which appeared to be random and then the frame which unexpectedly came in pieces. I have a long history with Johan Heyns' puzzles having wonderful frames to display them on and me finding the assembly of the frames being a huge first challenge! I managed the frame after a few minutes of offing and blinding and had a look at what I had to play with:

This puzzle is based on a design by the famous mathematician, John Horton Conway who many of us have followed as teenagers interested in recreational maths. I remember programming the Game of Life into my Sinclair ZX81 - sigh, good times! The Conway puzzle was a classic packing puzzle that appeared in Stewart Coffin's Puzzling World of Polyhedral Dissections and has been made in some beautiful woods by various creators. It turns out that the original version was not that tough once the puzzler made a certain realisation. Juno had decided to take the initial idea and make it better by making all the cuts skewed. He had been worried that the challenge was too easy but when people tried out his 3D printed prototype they had really enjoyed it. As a result I have another piece of glorious wood in my collection.

I knew nothing about the original puzzle and set to afresh. There are 6 pieces that seem to be based on a 2x2x1 basic shape and then 3 mini cubes that are 1x1x1 voxel in size apart from the fact that only one of the pieces has been cut with orthogonal cuts. Everything was at an odd angle and looking at the pieces, they were all slightly different meaning that finding a basic assembly pattern wasn't going to do it. Juno showed off the solution to one of the versions way down at the bottom of his product page but I was determined not to look at it. 

This is not one to solve on your lap (especially with cats around) - you need a flat surface and I would suggest a ruler or tape measure as well. Knowing that the cube is going to be 60mm in each direction was going to be very helpful. The grain of the wood was not going to be helpful - Juno was careful to ensure that you didn't solve it as a 3D jigsaw with the picture being the grain. I found that the constructed frame was very useful to find corners that were 90º in all dimensions. This helped narrow down what pieces could go where. After finding a few corners (unfortunately several pieces had 2 corners that could have been external and needed a trial and error approach with the ruler. I had sort of decided on what I thought was the only possible basic arrangement of the basic shapes but not workout which ones exactly went where.

I did take it to work a couple of times but got no where with it apart from to make a couple of arthropods laugh at my failure. Home it went for me to have a proper effort on. My basic idea was right but I needed to find which slanted cuts would match with each other - there were not going to be any odd corners internally which definitely helped.

Finally after a couple of hours of thought and a bit of trial and error, I had my Aha! moment and had a rather precariously assembled cube to pick up and place on the display frame, hopefully without it falling apart. I have put the photos behind a spoiler button so as not to inadvertently give any clues but I suspect that the grain in my version will be very different to yours and the pictures will to be helpful.

One Con Way Puzzle assembly

The single voxel cube is in the centre

I love a puzzle with a stand!

There are still 5 of these left in stock as I type. If assembling cubes is your thing then this will not disappoint you. It is a thing of beauty when on display, the frame is a puzzle in itself and this might be a really good puzzle to give to "normal people" to play with! it's very tactile and compelling to play with.

Thank you Juno and Yukari for yet another lovely fun challenge!