Masterpieces Ahead

Upcoming delights from Pelikan

Last week I tantalised you all with the news that there was soon to be a new release of lovelies from our wonderful friends and enablers at Pelikan and luckily for me I have been home alone all week whilst Mrs S is up visiting the out-laws. It hasn't been all plain sailing and puzzling as the usual chores that she would have done have been left to me as well as work as always. I also have to pay especial attention to our rather disturbed cat who is still missing his brother and is prone to wandering the house wailing at all hours of the day and night. But even with those distractions I still managed to work my way through all seven of them and I present my reviews for you here and then once I have edited and sent them to Jakub the puzzles will go on sale probably within a week.

The releases this time are:

We have (from back left):

Hippo designed by James Fortune

Stir the coffee designed by Dan Fast

Boo Burr designed by James Fortune

Four Mirror One designed by Osanori Yamamoto

Fermat meets Fuller designed by Dr Volker Latussek

One Flower designed by Osanori Yamamoto

Time - 4 - T designed by Alexander Magyarics

Time - 4 - T

Time - 4 - T 

This was the first puzzle I worked on because I am always intrigued by everything that Alexander designs. This diminutive and very pretty puzzle is made from Maple and Purpleheart and is vibrantly gorgeous despite being only 42mm across each side and 15mm thick. It's as portable as any Hanayama puzzle and much more pretty. Alexander has been emulating Osanori Yamamoto again with a puzzle consisting of 4 shapes trapped in a frame requiring them to be removed. This is a new idea for Alexander and yet again he shows his mastery of all aspects of puzzle design. Also on show is the Pelikan boys mastery of woodcraft - despite being so tiny, every piece has been made with supreme precision and the movement of everything is smooth and perfect. I did wonder whether rotations might be essential and I will let you discover whether or not that is the case. This is not a difficult puzzle but it is delightful to explore with some nice Aha! moments as you work through.

Simply perfect and precise

Having dismantled it, I would advise leaving the pieces for a few hours before trying to reassemble. It is definitely achievable and leaves you with a great sense of achievement. This is a delightful beginning to my week of Pelikan play.

Four Mirror One

Four Mirror One

This lovely puzzle by Osanori Yamamoto looked very familiar to me but I could not recall where from. After taking my photo and having a fiddle, I realised that I had another copy of this made by Brian Menold way back in 2015. This version by Pelikan is made from Wenge and Ash with a very striking grain enhancing the beauty. At that time, I had managed to disassemble the puzzle within a few minutes and found the reassembly the real challenge. Back then I must have been much better at puzzling because this time taking it apart took me about 30 minutes. Like many of Osanori-san's delightful frame-based creations, there are multiple rotations required to remove the pieces and with this one there are a huge number of rotational moves possible in multiple positions. On a couple of occasions, I had rotated several of the pieces but found myself unable to move further but also could not remember how to return to the beginning. There are no fancy hidden rounded edges here that allow special moves - it is a matter of making the right amount of space to facilitate a rotation before then moving on to the next piece and eventually orienting one of the pieces into the position where it lines up with a T shaped gap and gan slide out. After that the removal of the rest is easy.

Fab - all the T's are identical

Just like last time I played with this puzzle, I left the pieces for a few hours before the reassembly was attempted and this was again a significant challenge for me. It took me even longer than the 40 minutes back in 2015 - I am slightly ashamed to admit that it took me nearly an hour! Great puzzle - if two separate craftsman make it then it probably is good!

One Flower

One Flower

The second of Osanori-san's designs in this release is another frame and burr piece puzzle. This one is utterly gorgeous made from Padauk and Garapa. There are 2 pieces that straddle the frame and there is a decent sized hole in that frame for the pieces to come out but the pieces are almost the same size as the hole and need to be moved into a certain position for them to be releasable. Easy peasy, I thought! Move them around - rotations will be required as usual and this should not take me long. Wrong! At each corner of the frame is a square peg which severely limits the rotations (and other types of moves) and I found myself completely blocked. I realised after 15 minutes of trying the same thing over and over again that I must be missing something. Alternative directions of rotation maybe? Nope! I put it down for a while and only when returning to it on a second day did a thought permeate my dense skull. This must require something special - what if I try... Aha! I don't recall Osanori trying this before.

Nope! No spoiler here - not showing the pieces

The reassembly is fairly straightforward since there are only 2 pieces and a frame but the delight in the special sequence remains. This is one that I will probably be handing out to friends and colleagues to play with and will enjoy watching their confusion when want they want to do won't work.

Stir The Coffee

Stir The Coffee

The first of two absolute masterpieces in this release, Stir The Coffee is a significantly complex burr puzzle intended for people who really enjoy burrs - it is not for the beginner. I have known Dan Fast for many years (it may be nearly a decade now) and he comes across as a loud, brash Canadian with big opinions (you only need to view some of his videos on his CrazyBadCuber channel to realise this). But one consequence of Dan's personality is that when he starts a hobby or project he totally immerses himself in it and ABSOLUTELY masters it. He has been playing with Burrtools for a good few years now and has created some fabulous designs which he puts on Puzzlewillbeplayed and Facebook. Dan's own personal preference is for really high level burrs but he is in touch with the rest of the puzzling world and realises that such puzzles are a very small niche. As part of his mastery of the art of design, Dan has worked out exactly what the average burr puzzler wants...a challenge with a moderate level that remains stable during play. He also has a superb eye for aesthetics and makes shapes that are just beautiful. At a level of 54.4.2, this puzzle was a higher level than I would normally like (I find that anything above 30ish gets too complex for me to keep a track of the moves and possibilities) but yet again Dan has shown his skill - despite requiring so many moves, there are remarkably few false paths and those that are there, are short or circular leading back towards the original path. The challenge here is to discover the correct moves which are remarkably well hidden. The structure is extremely stable throughout and the pieces dance back and forth to stir the coffee in the rather beautiful cup before the simple but stunning teaspoon is removed and then you can empty the cup.

It's a masterpiece

The disassembly took me a good few hours in total with several periods of going round and round in circles trying to find the moves that I was obviously missing. Despite the extremely high level, it was always possible to backtrack to a place I recognised and start again. Only once I was very near the finish did I get lost but then the only way was forward. This is an absolute masterclass in burr design - Dan has got it absolutely right with a beautiful look, a high level but very achievable for anyone used to playing with burrs. Of course, Jakub and Jaroslav have brought this to life in a simply spectacular way. I cannot wait to see whether they produce anything else.

Fermat Meets Fuller

Fermat Meets Fuller

I have to start the review with these simple words:

"Buy this puzzle! It is incredible!"

Dr Latussek has a very strange mind! I do not understand how he designs these things - Burrtools is no use for them, he must do this in his head. This is not normal, there is absolutely nothing in my head at all let alone complex geometric manipulations. Volker has created several packing puzzles over the last few years and I have only ever managed to solve a couple of the simpler ones - it is telling that one had "for kids" in the name. So when I received the Fermat for Fuller, a few things raced echoingly through my empty noggin. First was the memory that I had not yet managed to solve the original Fermat (I had reviewed it unsolved here and Allard had reviewed (solved) it here), and secondly I wanted to know why it was meeting Fuller? 

Volker told me:

"with FERMAT I wanted to learn how triangular parts interact with one of my typical boxes. When I talked to Eric Fuller about this, I came up with the idea of dividing a cube into six triangular parts and in placing this cubic dissection I had a long and clarifying conversation with Eric Fuller some time ago. Then I had the idea to dissect a cube (cubic) into triangular parts (Fermat). Fermat meets Fuller was born." 

Pelikan has created this using American Walnut and Merbau (which has stunning grain with amazing looking end-grain faces. The precision required for this puzzle is something to behold - it is simply perfect! Only Jakub and Jaroslav can do this in large numbers! 

Delivery configuration

I even struggled to dismantle the delivery position

I took the two loose pieces out of the box and saw the other four in the base and tried to remove them - I couldn't take them out - this was going to be a challenge! Once I had removed them then I had seen the kinds of manipulations that are possible and hoped that would arm me for the solution. I am terrible at this kind of challenge and did not hold out much hope but once I had seen the possible moves and that there was actually quite a bit of room in the box and a relatively large opening, I had a few ideas.

Needless to say, my ideas all failed for the first couple of days of trying. The next thing to do was to look at how many ways the base layer could be arranged, and then see how I could place the extras in the top layer - this is the real challenge - placing a base layer is fairly easy but this really blocks any space left for getting later pieces inside. After 3 days of failure I was becoming increasingly desperate and was losing hope. I then had a large Eureka moment (no, I did not leap out of the bath and run around naked - even with Mrs S away). I had found an arrangement that would leave a very nice gap to place the final pieces but then had to see whether I could place the first pieces in that position. I was stuck...until I realised that the relative thicknesses of the thick, medium and thin triangles had all been very specifically chosen. These pieces had been designed to allow one very very special sequence of moves. IT IS STUNNING! Volker has out done himself - this puzzle is a design masterpiece and is an essential purchase for any serious puzzler. As I said earlier: 

BUY THIS PUZZLE! 

Believe me, you will not regret it!

Hippo

Hippo

Peekaboo

Recently Pelikan have produced a series of wonderful puzzles that contribute to Goetz' Burr zoo and I was very pleased to see them continue this with the Hippo. This one has been designed by a relative newcomer to puzzle design, James Fortune, who I have been watching on Facebook for a year now. James has also set up a shop selling his designs that he has 3D printed (I have not tried any of these but they look amazing). For a design to be accepted by Jakub and Jaroslav, it must be pretty special - they always prototype them and check for poor design features like lack of stability or not a fun solve. The Hippo is a wonderful creation which is perfect for all puzzlers interested in burrs. It is beautiful, having been made from Maple, Purpleheart and Walnut with a wonderful bevelled finish and a lovely surprise once you find the correct start of the pathway. It is this first step that I struggled with the most. There are a couple of moves that are nice and easy to find and they are the wrong ones because they lead nowhere. I had taken this to work to play with and during a lunch break people watching me were extremely disappointed to see me go around and around in circles getting nowhere. Luckily I had to work again and used that as an excuse to stop making a fool of myself. 

Eventually I found the very well hidden first moves and I was on my way. This puzzle has a level of 7.8.8.3.24.7.3.2.3.2.3.2 which is absolutely perfect. There are a few blind ends but none terribly deep and a lovely wide circle where a lot of possibilities lead you astray. I managed to get the first piece out relatively quickly once I had found the initial moves but the removal of the next two pieces took me a VERY long time. I could always return to the beginning but I was missing a well disguised move which I finally found yesterday. Usually with these, they become very unstable after a few pieces have been taken out but this one does not. It becomes sort of "squishy" and there are a few possible rotations that need to be controlled but with a little effort the removal of all the subsequent pieces can proceed without collapse right down to the very last pair. This is nothing short of extraordinary! During the solution, the hippo moves about a little but remains fairly static with just the sticks moving around him - he really gets in the way! There is also a particular feature of a couple of the burr sticks that links them together - it does look like they should separate on several occasions but they are firmly hooked up.

Beautifully made and a beautiful design.

I currently have this in pieces next to me and have created a BT file (a huge part of the fun) and look forward to reassembling it and trying again. If you enjoy burrs or want to try them out then this is a perfect puzzle for you.

Boo Burr

Boo burr

Booo!

This is another creation from the prodigious mind of James Fortune and is also a member of the Burr zoo. It is simply gorgeous made from Wenge, Zebrano with Maple pieces hidden inside. I was a little mystified at the name initially but the reason for it becomes apparent very quickly when (at least the way I had it orientated) a white piece unexpectedly drops out of the puzzle into your lap onto a sleeping cat who shot of reminding me that he had a VERY sharp claw that I needed to clip. Yeeeouch! Picking up the fallen piece, I see why the puzzle is called the Boo burr. Genius. Getting to that first piece removal only requires 5 moves (the whole puzzle has level 5.17.4.5.2.4.3.1.2.4.2.1.2) but finding the sequence took me a while. Again the critical position to find is quite well disguised. Once out there are quite a lot of possible paths and I struggled to work out where to go. I think I found the next piece removal by luck more than anything as it required a further 17 moves. From there on, the path is a nice gentle exploration of burr moves which, again, leaves you with a stable, if squishy, puzzle for the entire remainder of the disassembly. The seventh piece removal provides another surprise:

We have two ghosts in the burr!

I will need Burrtools to reassemble it but that is just as much fun as the exploration and disassembly. Another fabulous burr from Pelikan that will keep all us burr enthusiasts very happy!

So we have yet another phenomenal release coming up from Pelikan soon and there are definitely puzzles that you won't want to miss out on. The Fermat for Fuller and Stir the Coffee are essential puzzles in my opinion - absolutely masterpieces of design and craftsmanship! After that, you have quite a few wonderful puzzles to choose from - do you like burrs? Then the creations by James are just the right difficulty level. Do you like these stunning sequential movement puzzles? Then the designs from Osanori-san or Alexander-san are brilliant! Keep an eye out - I don't know when they will go up for sale but it won't be long!

I Have Worked As Fast As I Can!

Coming soon from the New Pelikan Workshop

I showed off on my New Additions page that I had just received another huge batch of puzzles from Jakub and Jaroslav that they were hoping to release soon. I know that you all want to know about them as soons as possible and they want to sell them soon as well. I know that they like for me to write a bit of a spiel about them for their site and hence I start work as quickly as I can. Luckily I had a week of annual leave this week and did get a bit more time to play than I usually would BUT Mrs S is still a woman to fear if I don't do all the chores and duties that she has decided I must do and hence I did not have quite as much time as I needed. Plus...I am only human and my very feeble brain can only solve so many puzzles in a short period of time without feeling like it is going to explode. There are 9 in this release and I have managed to solve 5 of them so far. I will work on the remainder as quickly as I can.

I have no idea when these will be put up for sale so keep an eye out on the Pelikan puzzles site for updates or (if you are North America based) then keep an eye on the Pelikan section of PuzzleMaster for them appearing there (this normally happens a few weeks after the initial release).

I will start with the 2 puzzles from my friend Alexander Magyarics - right up front I have to shout out that HE IS ON FIRE!!! The puzzles that Alex has been designing recently have been not ownly beautiful in their design but absolutely astonishingly fun designs to play with and solve. He has got just the right difficulty level and play experience recently and these are the very best he has produced.

Colliding Galaxies 2

 Colliding Galaxies 2 by Alexander Magyarics 

Let me say from the beginning that for me this was the pick of the bunch - it may not be for everyone but I seriously struggled with this and the Aha! moment when I managed it was something truly special. Yet again this is another 3x3x3 cubic packing puzzle with a fancy box and a complex restricted entry which must be completely closed once solved. The title comes from the rather nice 3 armed hole on opposite poles of the box - the one pictured above is made from Cherry and Wenge and of course, like all of Jakub's work it is superbly made. The 4 pieces are quite restricted in the way they can be inserted into the box but so much that there is only one choice. Alex is not going to make it too easy by restricting too heavily.

Solving this was an unusual experience for me - I did my usual of trying to solve it outside the box and got only so far before having to change my approach - this may because I am stupid I guess. I found a few ways to construct a cube and felt this part was quite fun. Finding which orientations would fill the entry gaps was rewarding too and I had narrowed my assemblies down to only one or two. My next step is to seat the box on my lap (or the sleeping cat on my lap) and alongside it put the assembled shape I thought might be correct and then work through the possible disassembly. The problem for me was that these shapes and the holes in the box were too complex for me to keep visualised and held in place during the process. I tried this each evening for several days and just could not do it. Eventually I abandoned that approach and did something I have almost never managed before - I actually tried to assemble it within the box without having worked out what order or sequence to use first. What a challenge! Which pieces to put in first etc? Eventually I managed to get 3 of the pieces assembled inside but the 4th was a problem. I could do this with several combinations of 3 different pieces, Aaaargh! I spent 3 evenings desperately trying to get this together and always found that the crucial move that I needed was blocked until I noticed something special. A few slides later and:

At last! Fabulous!

I had not tried a particular set of positions before (I don't know why but I just had a mental block and couldn't see it) and suddenly I found the setup position I needed and AHA! It went together like a dream - this is a STUNNING challenge. You may find it easy but for me, I just could not seem to visualise the sequence. It forced me to work in a different way to my usual.

Play-boy 2

 Play-boy 2 by Alexander Magyarics 

It arrived like this

Yet again, we have another puzzle based on a non-rectilinear grid. Only Pelikan seem to have the courage to do these sorts of puzzles - probably because they must have a way to create the necessary jigs cheaply and easily. This puzzle has been made from Pink Oak and Padauk. Taking the pieces out of the box as it had been packed for transport, I could see just how accurately these had been made - the pieces had sharp corners and I had to be careful not to stab myself. I am sure that you can see it straight away but for me it took a few days for me to realise that this one is also "just" a 3x3x3 cube to be fitted into a box with a complex entry hole. The special feature is that this box and the pieces have been sheared along the x-axis to make a shape that is also quite difficult to visualise in your head (of course, YOUR head is probably more capable than mine).

I had taken this to work because I knew that I had a vascular case down in our angiography suite which was going to be a very easy anaesthetic and a VERY long procedure. I needed something to keep me out of mischief (I get up to all sorts of pranks if I am not kept properly occupied) - this puzzle was going to save the staff from being annoyed by an anaesthetist with the mind of a 12 year old and a low boredom threshold!

I worked on this in my usual fashion - assemble the correct shape outside the box and then work out whether and then how it can be placed inside. I am not good with a non-rectilinear grid and just finding the shape took me a little while. There are some big clues as to what is needed in looking at the shapes. The restricted entry is very helpful in limiting the possible assemblies and I was pretty sure that I had the correct one settled on fairly early. Time to work through the disassembly first outside the box and the skewed shape made it hard for me. After about ½ an hour I had it worked out - solved in about an hour? Not so fast! Actually doing the assembly proved an extra fun challenge - gravity has to be utilised just right and a good bit of dexterity - it was almost like a non-rotational version of the Rollercoaster puzzle which I reviewed here. The nursing staff and my ODP had watched me working on it with fascination and were almost as delighted as I was when I stood up and showed them this:

That was FUN!

Yet again Alex and Pelikan have produced something wonderful and requiring a different thought process to usual.

No Pelikan release seems to be complete without something from Osanori Yamamoto - the next two were his challenges.

All Tetra Pod

All Tetra Pod by Osanori Yamamoto

This puzzle has been beautifully made from wenge and Padauk. This was the first one I tried from the current batch - I thought I might manage to do it fairly quickly because the pieces are relatively simple being just the complete set of tetrominoes and also because I distinctly remembered having solved a very similar challenge from my good friend from South Africa, Johan Heyns. He had produced the Tetro puzzle from Ishino's site complete with a frame and a stand - I had written about it here and had enjoyed it a lot.

Tetro pieces - see the similarity?

Assembled in the stand

And there was my first mistake - the similarity was only superficial - Johan's puzzle was relatively easy because there are 63 possible assemblies into that corner shape and whilst finding one of them was not trivial, it was not too many hours of work. The new design from Osanori-san has a much more restricted entry (in fact, it is a corner shaped box with only a slot for entry). I think I had made about 6 different corner shapes which would not go inside the frame before I realised quite how much more of a challenge this was. I needed to think in terms of the restrictions as well and that really added to the challenge! Over an afternoon I think I lost most of the rest of my hair from this puzzle - it is a massive challenge and it transpires there is only a single assembly out of the 63 which is assemblable inside the box. It requires a lot of thought and a LOT of trial and error - fabulous!

That took me a very long time!

Palace

Palace by Osanori Yamamoto

Palace has been made from Pink Oak and Wenge. I know...it's yet another packing puzzle! Yet another of those 3x3x3 cubes that need to be inserted in a box so that they fill all the entry holes! Over the last few years I have bought dozens and dozens of these puzzles and I never ever get fed up with them! They are all very similar in idea yet all very different in challenge. I absolutely adore them because they require several different trains of thought and then some fun manipulation of pieces and even some dexterity too. Osanori (and Alexander) are the absolute masters of this subtype of the packing puzzle group (I consider it a mixture of packing and interlocking along with some dexterity).

Palace looks pretty simple because there are only 3 relatively small pieces and they don't look terribly complex but there is the challenge - such compact pieces still need to fill some very big gaps in the box. It is quite easy to make a few shapes outside the box which will fill the gaps so maybe the challenge will be small? Unfortunately the entry is really not very restricted at all and therefore it requires a lot of trial of different orientations and assemblies before the appropriate thoughts begin to percolate my dense noggin. Like most of Osanori-san's designs, the pieces need to dance around each other quite a bit - in this case there is one particular move that I really struggled to find at first. The Aha! is tremendous when it hits you and everything finally slots into place.

Palace solved - magnificent!

I would be interested how all of you store these puzzles? Do you leave them in the solved state? Do you put them on display in pieces or just assemble into an incorrect shape for the shelf?

Web 3

Web 3 by Dan Fast

Finally today, a new design from a man we have not heard much from in a long time...Dan Fast (he used to be called the CrazyBadCuber but has given up that moniker now) has designed a few puzzles over the years (both Twisty and interlocking/burr) which I have had the opportunity to review and enjoy a few times on the blog. Dan got into Burrtools a few years ago and has recently been playing with it again. He sent me a few BT files a month or so back to ask my opinion and I was fairly positive about them. Jakub also got to see them and was enthusiastic enough to make a quick prototype (really really quick!) and made the decision to produce one of the easier of the designs. Web 3 is the result. This has been gorgeously made from Garapa and Ovangkol (stunning grain on it). Dan has designed a whole bunch of these up to 8x8 but I think jakub wanted something more approachable for all puzzlers.

The aim here is to slot the pieces into the frame to create a lattice that sits flush with the base. My first attempt at this had it solved in about 5 minutes and I was left with a feeling that I was missing something. I took it apart and gave it to a coworker and they really struggled - I must have got lucky. They eventually put it together and were very pleased with themselves so I tried again. My second attempt was less straight-forward. It requires a little trial and error but mostly, after the first few attempts, a definite plan and logical approach. It is still not hugely difficult (I think that a 4x4 version might be really really tough - too tough for me) and they final assembly gives a nice satisfied feeling. This is definitely suitable for beginners and experienced puzzlers alike. Dan has commissioned Alfons Eyckmans to make a full set for him up to 8x8 - now that will be a wonderful puzzle set for his collection!

Fun challenge and looks great on display

I am continuing to work on the rest of the puzzles and will hopefully have reviews up for you all soon.