Puzzles can be Big or Small, Metal or Plastic...

Either way, I struggle!

Tree Box by Diniar Namdarian
Just realised that I too the photo with the tree rotated anticlockwise! Doh!

Quite a few months ago I bought a whole bunch of 3D printed sequential movement puzzles from the Master of that genre, Diniar Namdarian. I reviewed the Mazeburr-L here a little while after purchasing it and was very pleased to see it win a Jury Honourable mention prize in the 2019 IPP design competition. Amongst the other puzzles was an interesting box which Diniar describes as a sequential movement/sliding piece puzzle mixed with box and take apart puzzle and jigsaw. Who can possibly resist that? Certainly not me!

When it arrived, I was a little startled at the size...it's big at about 20cm square 5cm deep. There is a nice Bonzai tree printed in relief on the top. After a few days of playing with other toys, I started exploring. Initially, there seems to be no way anything can slide or move. After thinking© for a few seconds, I tried the obvious and I was then able to slide other pieces around. Unlike the classic 15 puzzle, this has pieces that are not single units in length which severely limits the movements that can be made. Despite this, there are 2 or 3 possible sequences that can be started with and I rapidly started to worry that I might be totally lost. I resorted to my usual to and fro movements to try and keep track...this helped only for a bit! Despite extensive exploring, I was struggling to find any way to remove any more pieces or find another mechanism to open the box. The standard tongue and groove method of holding pieces in place was causing a few problems. After several days of playing in the evenings, I had a lovely little Aha! moment and rapidly followed it by a couple more. I had a nice pile of pieces and an open box.

That was fun!

At this point, I went back to the messages from Diniar about the puzzle and realised that the main challenge of it was to reassemble it and refashion the Bonzai tree. No kidding! I had absolutely no clue at all of the order that I had removed the pieces and only a very vague recollection of which pieces were removed from a specific position. The essence of it is that the puzzle no longer looks like a tree when you dismantle pieces so that even if you can put the pieces in then there is no guarantee (it's actually highly unlikely) that you can move them back to the start position.

This stayed as a pile of pieces in the box for nearly 2 months! Once or twice a week I went back to it and tried again. In the end, I had to position the pieces on a flat surface in the start position and move them around until I found the first exit pieces again. At this point, I was able to memorise the piece positions at which they come out and work backwards. It took ages and I very much doubt I could have worked it out any other way. Very clever and rather pretty - well worth a place in a puzzler's collection.

Having solved a large plastic puzzle, I decided to move on to a couple of very small ones:

I've imaginatively named it Yoshi Katani Small puzzle 1

and Yoshi Katani Small puzzle 2

At the last MPP, I admired in Allard's collection, a couple of little acrylic boxes full of tiny pieces all packed in cleverly. Allard, the monster that he is, saw my interest and instead of letting me idly explore from the solved packed puzzle, he upended it and told me to have fun. Swine! I set to playing with the Yoshi Katani small puzzle 1 and in the 15 minutes or so that my attention span lasted, I got nowhere close to putting it back. I glanced briefly at the other one (helpfully named number 2 because Allard cannot remember the proper names), and he immediately tipped the contents out before I could even look at how many pieces there were, let alone the arrangement! He then said that they were duplicates and that I could have them - Thanks, mate! Do you fancy putting them back in their boxes so that I can explore them gently? That will be a no then! I dutifully came home with my pile of (un)happiness cubes in pieces and these 2 little packing puzzles.

This week, I have had some time off work. To my mind, it was to allow me some puzzling time and relaxation but unfortunately "she who has a cat 'o nine tails tongue" had other ideas! DIY was the order of the week! I have successfully rewired some sockets, replaced my house wall thermostat (with only one teeny electric shock which only hurt a small bit - honest) and then replaced a door handle and tubular mortice latch with one that actually allows the doors to open - where does all that nasty black stuff come from? And thank heavens I remembered to put some newspaper down to catch it rather than getting it on the carpet!

In the odd few minutes of spare time, I had a fiddle with something small! These things are only 4x4x3cm and very fiddly. They are very nicely made from coloured and clear acrylic. As with all packing puzzles, I began with trial and error of random assortments of pieces. You all know that seldom works and I was forced to use my feeble electrocuted brain! The puzzle number 1 (whatever it may be really called) is actually a very nice logical puzzle which even I was able to solve by examination of the pieces and a little thought. It went together very nicely:

Yay! Very logical!

Mrs S dropped it during her tidying up and I had to solve it again - interestingly it still took me about 10 minutes! Small puzzle number 2 looks even more logical but so far after quite a few hours of play, it has completely beaten me! I have a pile of little pieces in the kitchen which the cats periodically move around (but don't solve) and which Mrs S is getting pissed off with. I will need to keep at it but all the obvious things which the offset holes have made me try have not come to fruition.

Another lovely puzzle that I tried this week and actually managed to complete was the Hanayama Cast Slider (reviewed beautifully by the PuzzleMad foreign correspondent, Mike). I very much agree with all of his thoughts.

Cast Slider - very mobile but very hooked together

There are some extreme movements possible and as you do them you get a full view of every part of the puzzle. During the exploration, a couple of ideas will immediately appear in your brain to try and if you do them right in the correct direction then there is a nice logical (again) solution. Perfect for beginners and experienced puzzlers! This can be bought from Nic Picot in the UK or in North America is available from PuzzleMaster.

For once a puzzle only took me an evening to solve!

Go buy one, its a nice pocket puzzle with which to entice others into our habit/addiction!

Finally, as always when one is on leave one catches a cold and feels miserable! I looked so awful that Mrs S had pity on me yesterday and allowed me to create a quick video showing off how to go about Aaron's Chinese soft rings. I don't really like solution videos much - I prefer videos that just give a clue to push start a puzzler towards the solution. The video below is for people who are truly stuck. Try to watch as little as you need before it gives away more than you want.

Now it's time to tiptoe back towards small puzzle number 2 before she notices that I am idle! Shhh!

Diniar A-mazes me and Unlocks Just the Right Combination

Mazeburr-L

Every year around now (i.e. just before IPP) I have a little chat with the King of the sequential movement puzzles, Diniar Namdarian, about his latest releases. He shows me a bunch of pictures of stuff he has designed and made and I pick a few. After a minute or so (the chat is via FB messenger so often a little disjointed), he asks whether I really don't want to choose one or other and makes a comment like "that one is really good" or "it's the best of the bunch" and I hesitate for a moment and tell him that I will buy them all. This happened yet again this year and I received a bunch of new toys a while ago. The latest batch looks like this:

I cannot resist the colours!

After the wheeling and dealing have been done, I usually have to admit to him that I have failed to solve one or other of his previous creations and he very gently makes fun of me. The problem is threefold...

1. I cannot resist buying all of his creations (they are really reasonably priced),
2. They usually have multiple challenges and come with a wonderful ebook of delight,
3. I am simply rubbish as sequential movement puzzles!

The Mazeburr-L immediately sprung to my attention amongst the pictures he showed me. The name Mazeburr for me is synonymous with fun...I have all three of the other shaped Mazeburrs and have an extensive supply of challenges for them.

Three Mazeburrs so far now I have another to add to the series.

The existing Mazeburrs (including the Split Mazeburr which I reviewed in March this year) all consist of a bunch of maze plates on the surface of a shape with pins that protrude into the maze from plates underneath. The aim is to remove the plate with the opening on it by effectively navigating multiple mazes simultaneously. They vary in length of solution from a nice easy 20 moves up to an impossible (for me at least) 350 moves. They are a delight to look at and a delight to play with too. The Mazeburr-L consists of sticks with gaps "cut" into them and a frame to hold them in place but that is where any similarity ends - the aim of this Mazeburr is to manipulate the gaps in the sticks to allow you to advance the little blue ball from its' starting position to the square exit hole and then out (in the picture at the top the blue ball needs to move from the top right position to the bottom left where you can just about see a small gap in the covering acrylic.

Diniar provided a lovely 16-page ebook (which lives on my iPad) to go with the puzzle and I have been working my way through the challenges. The sticks are all numbered and each end is marked with an 'a' end and a 'b' end to ensure that the puzzle is set up in the correct orientation:

22 different burr sticks

Initially, when I started playing I felt I had to guess where the gaps were going to be (or remember where they had been from setting up the next challenge when I realised that Diniar's attention to detail was superb...It's impossible to see it in my photos but there is a groove printed into the top surface of each of the sticks marking the position of the underlying gaps. This means that guesswork is not required. Once the puzzle is set up as shown in the diagram (complete with start and end position) then play begins:

Just 6 of the 84 challenges
Notice I have been marking the ones I have solved off in my pdf viewer app

The sticks all lie within notched grooves forming a 3x3 grid and each of the sticks can be in any of 7 positions (they all start in the centre of position) and they need to be moved where the gaps will allow. This moves the gaps around and then the ball can hop through the gaps into adjacent spaces and then the sticks moved again to set up the next move of the ball. At certain points, there are several options for where the ball could be moved and as the decision tree widens the puzzle gets tougher. On many occasions, I found myself fairly close to the exit and blocked, needing to backtrack a fair way to an earlier part of the decision tree. This can get quite confusing at times but is very rewarding when the ball finds its' way out.

Solved it - on to the next one.

The solving process for me is a mixture of logic and trial and error which, for me, is rather soothing. The challenges escalate in the number of moves required but I seldom manage to solve them using the minimum number of moves. The difficulty level, like the other Mazeburrs, is not really just a function of the length of the solution (the longest is 45 moves), it is much more related to the size of the decision tree and how much back and forth is required. I found most of these quite soothing to solve (I have solved just over half of them so far) although I have been forced to play with this one when Mrs S is not in the room - the ratcheting in the burr stick grooves means that every single move of the sticks makes a clacking noise and if they move several notches at a time (up to 6) then there is a very annoying (to Mrs S) THRRRRAP sound. I guess that if I need to make 30 or 40 of these noises for each challenge then Mrs S may well go beyond the Whack! Ouch! and may even melt the plastic puzzles and encase me inside the molten mess (especially if the pile of burning wooden puzzles is still alight).

Lots of pieces and spares too

Diniar provided a nice little bag with all the sticks inside as well as spare blue balls (because everyone needs more blue balls!) and also spare corner pieces which may snap after repeated flexing to open the puzzle up. I have to say that this has been a wonderful purchase and for the number of challenges has been fabulous value for money. Diniar always prints his designs so well and puts so much thought into the challenges - when he makes them available, don't hesitate, just say yes!

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Combination Lock

The one puzzle in the bunch that I hesitated on was the Combination Lock - I hesitated because it is just a single challenge and looks like a free-form sliding piece puzzle. I am simply terrible at this sort of puzzle. So when I left it out of my selection, Diniar put me straight and I quickly gave in. Let's face it, these are 3D printed and are not terribly expensive. Straight up, let me say, Diniar was right! This puzzle is a lovely challenge and a beautiful little voyage of discovery.

The aim is to move the lettered buttons from the start position at the top into the end positions along the bottom right-hand side. They move via the slots in the centre rotational piece and obviously, will need to be moved back and forth via the extra "storage area" on the left-hand side. To you, this looks easy but, to me, it looks like an impossible task. I have had this next to me in my pile of puzzles to be played with for a few weeks and have not dared to pick it up until now. This week I had a little free time when I had to wait for Mrs S to attend the dentist. I gave her a lift and stopped off in a nice little cafe to drink, stuff my face with a cake and play with toys (much to the amusement of both other customers and the baristas). With trepidation, I took it out and quickly started to move pieces around.

It becomes obvious quite quickly that, whilst it looks like there is a lot of leeway to move pieces, there are actually considerable constraints to what you can and cannot do:


The deepest slot in the centre cannot be accessed from any of the start positions due to the length of the arms of the slot which causes a problem later on in the solve, the shallow slots in the centre don't allow full movement of the pieces to or from the storage area and the centre cannot rotate much when pieces are in any of the shallow storage slots.

The learning curve is quite steep, I discovered the above constraints very quickly and gradually found more problems as I moved pieces around and found the moves that I wanted to make in the order I wanted to make them very definitely hindered. I had a nice 45-minute wait for Mrs S to have her mouth "seen to" (unfortunately the lips were not sewn shut preventing the frequent furious talking to that occurs chez Moi - Whack! Ouch! Sorry dear! This amount of time was just about right for me to have my coffee and a sneaky cake (Whack! Ouch!) AND solve this wonderful challenge:

Done it! Fabulous!

Diniar was right - when you buy any of his latest releases then you MUST ensure that this is in the purchase. It is just the right difficulty level, with several Aha! moments and a satisfying end. The reverse process is also a challenge (I doubt that you will remember the sequence that you performed to get there). This is also perfect for kids and newbies to try their hand at.

Thank you, my friend, these were wonderful.