There's A Loach In The Upcoming Release!

New Releases Coming From Jakub and Jaroslav's Pelikan Puzzles

I have had a little annual leave recently and had to use a lot of it for stuff around the house but was very delighted to receive a new big box o' puzzles from Jakub containing 6 new beauties. I even had some time to start proper work on them. 

We have:

Loach Bed by Osanori Yamamoto (Top 10 Vote getter in the 2026 IPP design competition)

Mirror Tetra X2 by Oasnori Yamamoto

Window 444 by Lucie Pauwels 

Family Puzzle by Lucie Pauwels

Albert by Dr Volker Latussek

Frau L. by Dr Volker Latussek

This week I have solved the first 4 and will be writing about them.

Loach Bed

Loach Bed by Osanori Yamamoto

This wonderful diminutive puzzle was a Top Ten Vote getter in the IPP design competition for a very very good reason. In fact, it was one of the puzzles I voted for myself. A supposedly simple packing puzzle with a limited entry (single voxel) made from leopard wood and 3 bright yellow pieces made from Movingui (it will also be available made from Acacia and Walnut). There are 2 simple rods and an S-shaped piece to be fitted inside the 2x2x3 box so that the entry is left filled.

I remember playing with this in Italy. I remember the beauty, the perfect logic and the marvellous Aha! moment. I then also remember the Oh $3*t moment when I realised that it needed to be solved outside the box in your head first and then the sequence produced from memory completely blind. This makes this puzzle ABSOLUTELY BRILLIANT! The first challenge outside the box is to work out how the S-shaped piece can be inserted and then where the two rods can be placed alongside it and still allow some movement. Then work out a sequence that can allow removal of the pieces. Great! You know what is needed. That took me about 10-15 minutes (I am not terribly bright - I am sure that you will be quicker than that). Then once you know this then insert the pieces inside in the correct order and within a single move of inserting the third piece nothing more can be seen and the rest is done from memory and blind. At this point the careful sequence that you have worked out becomes less obvious and finally you will realise that you need to use gravity for the moves. So rotating the whole puzzle up and down backwards and forwards suddenly makes you question whether you a. can remember where everything is and b. what direction things need to move when the orientation is different to the one that you worked out the sequence.

This picture is not helpful!

The feeling of success is fabulous. Enjoy it...then leave the puzzle for about an hour or so and then with what you know in your head and no real muscle memory left, try and take the pieces out. This again needs to be done blind and can lead to some heart-stopping moments when you have turned it over and about and hoped the required moves have happened but find that a crucial move now won't happen. At this point you need to backtrack without knowing the state of the pieces inside. At one point I got rather badly lost and had to put it down for a bit in a panic. The disassembly is just as challenging as the assembly - there's a reason it won a prize - BRILLIANT!

I would suggest that you do not give this to newbie puzzlers without keeping a close eye on what they do. You could end up with a locked puzzle because you can't see what's going on inside.

Mirror Tetra X2

Mirror Tetra X2 by Osanori-san

This delightful challenge made from Acacia and Padauk arrives as a loosely assembled brick. The aim is to assemble all the attractively symmetrical pieces into a solid 4x4x4 cube with the extra constraint that the cube is formed from 2 mirror coloured halves. 

The puzzle is not hugely difficult but is very compelling to play with. The pieces mostly have tongues or grooves in them (or both) as well as a single 1x2x4 plate and a 2x2x2 cube. Making space for these is both helpful and a hindrance. The most confusing part is the inclusion of two pieces that have a side length of 3 voxels which, for me, made them quite hard to place. Burrtools tells me that there is only one assembly and knowing this, the colour requirement is actually a nice clue as to what you can and cannot do.

It's definitely not a trivial puzzle and actually took me the best part of an hour to assemble it. This is perfect for all levels of puzzler.

Window 444

Window 444 by Lucie Pauwels

Lucie Pauwels always comes up with very interesting challenges and this is no exception. It's a sort of framed jigsaw/packing puzzle made from a whole bunch of gorgeous woods. It arrived like this with all but 2 long pieces in the tray. Once you have tipped all the pieces out you realise that there are 3 different size groups to be inserted - 4 long ones at 5x1 units in size, 4 medium ones at 3x1 units in size and then also four 1x1 pieces. In terms of voxels, with the protrusions and cavities the pieces are considerably more complex and if you were going to put this into Burrtools then you would need a 18x18 voxel grid to do it. But I would advise you - DON'T use Burrtools! There is absolutely no need to do so. This puzzle is wonderfully logical and needs only a little exploration to notice a few critical features which will make you think©. Once you have thunk then the solution needs only a little trial and error and progression happens very quickly. It is very satisfying when you find where pieces need to go. If you make a mistake, it takes a bit of doing to remove the incorrect pieces as they fit together so perfectly (as you'd expect from the Pelikan team) - a small suction cup tool would be very helpful.

This lovely puzzle is another that is perfect for all levels of puzzler - It encourages thought and planning rather than too much trial and error.

Family Puzzle 

Family Puzzle by Lucie Pauwels

Here we have a rather beautiful and very very challenging tray packing puzzle by Lucie Pauwels. It looks much easier than the Window 444 but is a much more difficult puzzle. We have a nice small tray with a cavity measuring 8 voxels high and 15 across. There are 8 rectangular pieces of varying sizes to be placed in the tray and each of them has a single voxel notch punched out of one edge. All the pieces are made from a different rather lovely wood making this a very attractive puzzle to play with. So far so easy - place all these pieces in the tray. There should be plenty of space. 

However, the puzzle is not going to be that easy - Lucie would never let you be that easily successful! On top of the larger pieces there are four 1x2 voxel pieces (mine are a rather lovely Zebrano) which also need to be inserted into the space alongside the bigger pieces. Once all the pieces are in, there will be no holes left. It seemed to me that the obvious thing to do was to insert the bigger pieces and pair up the notches is 4 of them to make space for the small rods. easier said than done. After an hour or so of attempting that, I gave up and just fell back to trying to insert all of the large pieces and ignoring the rods. Even doing that is a challenge as they always seem to fit easily up to the last one:

Not even close on the simple challenge!

After a lot of trial and error I had a crucial Aha! moment which I am sure would occur to you much earlier. After that I was able to get all the large pieces inside but I was a very long way off from getting all the notches lined up. I found quite a lot of possible simpler packings but none allowed me to place all of the rods. I did make a BT file and found that there are 96,608 possible ways to place the large pieces. Time for more thought and more trial and error. I have so far been unable to solve this one so far. BT tells me that there is just a single solution and I have no idea how to go about finding it. 

I think that the better puzzlers out there amongst you will be able to logically approach this and find the solution. Good luck - it's a massive challenge.

Also Coming Very Soon...

Safe 2 by Pelikan Design

Jakub has informed me that he will also be releasing the Safe 2 puzzle soon - I reviewed the Safe 1 here and adored it. This new version is also a sequential discovery puzzle designed by Jakub and team. It is apparently very difficult - Ivan has been working on it for a while and the "Master of puzzle boxes", Peter Hajek, has rated the puzzle box as "good" which is very high praise from him.

There will be 2 versions. The standard version will be €420 and a special version made from Fossil oak (5 copies only) will be €600. If you wish to pre-order then this can be done right now by emailing Jakub and paying a deposit. 

Contact him at https://www.pelikanpuzzles.eu/contact/ or email info@pelikanpuzzles.eu

Pelikan Waits For No Man!

Having returned from the IPP, sneaked my new puzzles in (in their rucksack) and secreted them around my study, I started to work my way through them. I thought I was doing pretty well and felt I might just manage to get a few blog posts in before anything else arrived (I might have a couple on the way). Just when I thought I was safe, Jakub contacted me to say that he was ready with the next batch of Pelikan wonder. My first thought was: "Hooray! More gorgeous beauty and fabulous, difficult challenges" This thought was rapidly followed by another: "She's going to kill me!" Luckily, this time, the box arrived, and it was smaller than the previous ones. She who must be feared thought there were fewer puzzles in there, but don't tell her...they have just been packed tighter. Gulp.

Matruschka

Matruschka by Benjamin Heidt

3 tiny pieces make a stand

There have been quite a few creations on this blog from Benjamin. He designs interlocking puzzles and burrs that are just the right difficulty level for most puzzlers, with some very interesting design features and a lovely sequence to explore. Many burrs are much too complex for most due to multiple long blind dead ends, or alternatively have too simple a sequence and no challenge. Benjamin always gets it right, and Matruschka is a beautiful example. This chunky puzzle is made from Wenge, Cherry and Acacia with a diminutive stand made from Merbau. Looking at it, I was slightly confused as there only appears to be Wenge and Cherry visible, but after a couple of moves, the reason for the name and the extra wood type becomes apparent. A matryoshka doll is the name for the Russian nested dolls, but here Benjamin and the Pelikan team have taken the idea and altered it a little bit to make a nested burr.

The initial exploration reveals quite a few possible moves, and I was worried about having lots of long blind ends to explore, memorise and discount on my way to the correct solution. You can be reassured that, as usual, Benjamin has got it just right. There are quite a few possible ways to start, but the sequences are short before they stop, and you are forced to look elsewhere. The tolerances of the burr manufacture are superb, with everything sliding beautifully. The correct sequence is very well hidden, but once found, you are quickly on your way to the disassembly, and more and more pieces can be removed after you look for the unlocking sequence. The burr within a burr is revealed nicely:

Acacia burr nested within the final 3 large burr sticks

Once the inner burr is released, it can also be disassembled into 6 very beautiful sticks and then the whole lot displayed. 

 

That's a LOT of burr sticks!

The reassembly would actually have been possible for me without the use of burrtools, as I had sequentially removed pieces and placed them in their correct order and orientation on a table. I think most puzzlers should also manage the reassembly if they are careful to do this. Unfortunately, a cat decided to run across my carefully arranged table and scatter the sticks widely. A few unsafe for blogging words were uttered, and Burrtools was going to be my next step.

Once you have done the reassembly that you found then it is time to do it all over again! The 3-piece stand that is interestingly burr shaped can actually be reassembled inside the 6 piece burr so we end up with a burr in a burr in a burr! This is simply amazing!!!

This is a wonderful challenge for all burr aficionados, just the right difficulty level! With an extra twist at the end.

Surround Wil

Surround Wil by Frederic Boucher

There seems to be no end to the puzzle design skills of Frederic Boucher - there are several of his designs in this upcoming Pelikan release. This delightful packing puzzle is fun and should be perfect for all puzzlers of all levels. The puzzle is made from Acacia and a very vibrant Purpleheart. It is quite reminiscent of some of the packing puzzles by Yuu Asaka. There are 4 longer pieces with curved ends, and half-circles cut out, plus 5 disks, all to be fitted into a tray that is too small to take the long pieces side-by-side. If you look at my photo, the top-most large piece is tilted as it doesn't fit in.

This inability to fit the pieces side by side is a big clue that you need to get inventive with how the big pieces can be organised. I found a lovely way to get them all in the tray, but then the half-circle cutouts had been filled, with no space left for the disks. Time to think© and get creative. There is a lovely Aha! moment in this one, and it is very satisfying to pack them all in. This will be coming to work with me to challenge my colleagues - it's perfect for casual puzzling..

T Time!

T Time! by Frederic Boucher

This wonderfully clever packing puzzle by Frederic had me fooled for most of the week. It looks like a simple tray packing puzzle, but there is MUCH more to it. There is a 5x5 space inside the tray and 5 T-shaped pieces to be fitted inside alongside a 2x2 smiley disc. That doesn't look too difficult until you realise that the tray is covered by an acrylic cover with a T-shaped hole in it, in one corner. This explains the nicely curved corners on the pieces - they need to be inserted and manipulated using the holes in the bottom of the tray, plus some use of gravity, until they are in position. There will obviously need to be some rotational moves as they cannot possibly be arranged in the same orientation as the hole in the lid. It doesn't take long to find at least one (if not a few) possible arrangements of the pieces in that 5x5 space, but then the fiddly task of actually getting them into place begins, and, OMG, it's difficult! I spent several days trying everything I could to pack them all in. Nothing would work, and I had to stop for a bit and think© again. 

Finally, after several days of work, I had a special thought (unusual for me!) and realised that there was something very unusual about the design. My jaw dropped when I finally succeeded - Frederic is a genius!

Convolution Cube

Convolution Cube by Stewart Coffin

Convolution ball

Over the 15 years of this website, I have reviewed several versions of the Convolution puzzle by the amazing Stewart Coffin. This incredible interlocking design is not solvable by Burrtools due to the requirement for a rotational move with one of the pieces (does that make it a TIC?). I have a version from Brian Menold and a fabulous spherical version from Pelikan.

I personally would say that a Convolution (as well as its associated cousins, Involute and Involution) should be part of every serious puzzler's collection. All 3 are essential. If you don't have this, then you owe it to yourself to buy a copy. The Pelikan team have done a wonderful job creating this out of multiple different beautifully vibrant woods and the fit is just perfect!

Only 7 pieces but great fun!

The next bunch of puzzles will be reviewed next week - they include more from Dr Volker Latussek, another from Benjamin Heidt and then yet another unusual puzzle from Frederic Boucher. Wish me luck solving them!

Angel's Wheel

Jerry McFarland Makes an Angel's Wheel

Classic Bits and Pieces version of Satellite burr

Jerry McFarland never stops thinking about new ways to bamboozle us! This is great for those of us who like new toys but not so great for the rest who are patiently on his waiting list for one of his previous puzzles. His boredom threshold is amazing - he starts making a batch of puzzles for people and then gets fed up and moves on to something new. Out of the blue, he emailed me to say that he had been making the Burrnova 3D but has found a way to improve it (version 3.0) and also still working on (and improving) the incredible Burrlephant for people but wanted to produce something for the next IPP. He has been thinking about a classic puzzle called the Satellite burr and wanted to improve it in the traditional McFarland magnetic way.

The original had been mentioned in the 1893 Hoffman book and has almost certainly been recreated many times. Jerry wanted to make it slightly more interesting with the addition of magnets and brass ball bearings. You know Jerry by now...Of course he did! Jerry also decided to use some rather gorgeous wood (Bloodwood and Jatoba) - I think he specifically does that to entice me - he knows I can't resist it. When he sent me the pictures, he seemed to think that it did not look like a classic McFarland puzzle. I had to tell him that the curved shape of the pieces was the only thing that might confuse people. As soon as anyone sees it, it can only be one of his creations - there is something absolutely unmistakeable about his creations. It is the wood used, the lacquer finish and of course as soon as it's played with, the "clack, clack" of the magnets pulling the pieces back together. 

He wanted to originally call it SatBurr but his grandson came up with the Angel's Wheel instead. 

"Inspired by the Ophanim—mysterious “wheels within wheels” described in ancient texts—Angel’s Wheel is a satellite-style burr that moves freely in all directions while guarding its inner secret."

The Ophanim - I find this image quite disturbing
Ophanim, or "wheels," are a class of celestial beings in Judeo-Christian theology described as wheels intersecting wheels covered in eyes, symbolizing omniscience and guiding God’s chariot throne.

The second copy was made for me and after a bit of PayPal moved across the pond, it was sent over. When it arrived, I was not disappointed with the beauty of it. Luckily there were no eyes in it but there was a fair bit of rattling inside. The secondary aim is to remove the brass balls from there cavity inside.

I had to spend a week or two working on the Pelikan puzzles before I could find time to play with the Angel's Wheel. All I was able to do during that time was marvel at the clacking noise - my goodness, he uses string magnets - don't put it near your pacemaker! Finally I found some time last weekend and immediately set to exploring. I have never played with a Satellite burr so had no idea what I was trying to do. Initially nothing slides or moves and it requires a little careful observation to notice something peculiar about the construction. Once you have noticed this then you can start to move the odd part. It doesn't really release much until you think© a bit and look in other places. There is a nice little Aha! moment and a little feeling that you might need more than 2 hands and at one point I found myself using my nose to push something. Luckily I have a particularly large nose!

Things were moving but it didn't seem to help much. I put it back the way it came with a very satisfying Thwack and thought a bit more. Eventually I realised that I was overthinking it and if I move certain parts in certain ways then it makes space for a really useful move. After that I was well on my way and dismantled all the curved sections. I emailed Jerry in triumph and he pointed out that it was not complete until the brass balls were removed. Doh! I had completely forgotten about that. 

I went back to it a day later and realised that an odd flaw that I had noticed on one of the pieces was not a flaw. It had been put there deliberately by Jerry and there were several of them. There had to be a jolly good reason for that. A quick experiment and I had a cat playing with my brass balls! Mrs S would have been very unhappy if one ended up inside the cat so I quickly separated them and took a photo.

Beautifully made - complete with brass balls!

Jerry has put his usual mark inside and mine has serial number 2 which I am very proud of. This will be taking centre stage in my McFarland display - it is very different to his usual.

This puzzle is very beautiful and fun to play with having its magnetic action but it is much less difficult than Jerry's previous puzzles. Jerry plans on making a few more for sale at the upcoming IPP. If you are interested and will be there then let him know and he might be able to reserve one for you. 

Ze Next Ones From Pelikan Are Just As Much Fun

Diasafe by Lucie Pauwels

Last week I reviewed the amazing Minima-Ze series about to be released by Pelikan and saved the others for this week (yes, I didn't have time or ability to solve them all in a single week). I managed to get to the remaining wonderful puzzles this week and even solved some of them.

Starting with the rather unusual looking Diasafe by Lucie Pauwels, I couldn't work out whether it was a maze puzzle or a packing puzzle and eventually settled on the latter. We have a rather attractive set of Wenge pieces each of which has a rather colourful jewel on the top and a box made of Pink Oak which has an S-shaped path in the top surface. Clearly the aim is to fit the pieces in one layer inside the box via the 3 voxel opening in one side. The interior of the box forms a 7x7 square and the jewels are expected to protrude into the path. 

I started by just forming squares with the pieces and quickly realised that my usual approach with packing puzzles of starting outside the box was not going to work. I found rather a lot of square assemblies very quickly and a quick play with Burrtools revealed that there are 2004 possible squares. Time to make squares in the box using the pathway in the top and you will quickly realise that there is quite a lot of thought going to be required. I started randomly and found that it is possible to place many of the pieces somewhere inside quite easily but the larger ones are either very rapidly blocked from moving along the path and two of the shapes cannot physically be placed with out rotating them at some point whilst in the box. This forces the perplexed puzzler to think about the order of placement. These pieces that need rotation need space to do so. Maybe they need to be placed early before the pathways gets too blocked up?

I got stuck after 2 days of trying and was forced to go to BT to at least look at possible final square assemblies which ended having the jewels protruding into the pathway. Interestingly, there are only 3 possible ways to create a square with the jewels still in the S-shaped track. Of these 3 assemblies, just one can be physically completed. It is very clever and a fun puzzle to think about. This is perfect for advanced puzzlers and beginners alike.

Shrine

Shrine by Lucie Pauwels

Shrine shows off the breadth of Lucie's skills. Not only does she design amazing packing puzzles but she also can design very clever interlocking puzzles. The Shrine has been made from a vibrantly gorgeous Bubinga and an Acacia block which needs to be held securely inside the assembly. There are 6 pieces which are 1x3x7 voxels in size and each has a 1x3 voxel slot in it. They all have ½x1 voxel protuberances and cutouts at various points in them. Counting them reveals that there are just enough to have all holes filled. The end result shape is not terribly obvious and I thought that this might be a significant difficulty in the solution of the puzzle but in reality this is a really clever sequential assembly challenge. Finding which pieces cane interlock with each other shows that there are not many possible assemblies to try and it is just a matter of thought© to assemble one piece into another and progressively build up a pleasing shape. After a few have been put together the addition of a 4th or 5th (depending on which you start with) becomes impossible. Having met an impossible to finish position several times, it occurred to me that I might need to make two assemblies that fit together rather than each one after another. Once I had realised this, then the assembly is a fun exploration of which pieces fit together in which order. Another beauty by Pelikan which is suitable for all puzzlers.

I have put the final assembly behind a spoiler button:

This doesn't really tell you how to assemble it

Thyor

Thyor by Dr Volker Latussek

This rather stunning creation made from Wenge, Padauk and Maple by Dr Latussek is called Thyor. Was this something to do with the God of thunder? I was rather mystified at the name until I received an explanatory email from him with an explanation. This puzzle is a tribute to one of the original German puzzle manufacturers: THYOR is short for "Thirty Years Of Rombol". Volker wrote this:

"The Kröger family runs a small game publishing company in Paderborn, Germany. My friend Bernhard - whom I still addressed as Mr. Schweitzer back then - recommended my SOMA PACK for publication there. It was my first mechanical puzzle to go into series production at Rombol.

Recently, after the relaunch of rombol.de, I read that the Kröger family had already begun publishing designer puzzles in small series as early as 1996. With the company’s 30th anniversary this year and the handover to the next generation in the family, I also wanted to personally express my gratitude for the great collaboration. Since the Kröger family now also distributes Pelikan puzzles here in Germany, I asked Pelikan to publish my puzzle THYOR: Th-irty Y-ears O-f R-ombol.

For THYOR, I experimented with 1.5x1x1.5 instead of the usual 1x1x1 voxel. As always, even changing just one parameter opens a whole new world. In THYOR, I break down a 1.5x1x52.5 rod into 18 sections for the 6 pieces that need to be packed into the box. I’m very confident that the solution will be unique even after you’ve played THYOR; at least, some of my fellow metagrobologists have confirmed this."

Volker always defines a specific setup position for the transport of his puzzles and this alone can be a huge challenge. I removed just one piece for the initial photo and stopped there. The other pieces did not seem to want to come out terribly easily. I backed off for a while as I did not want lots of pieces lying around with me unable to put them back into the box again. 

When I did come to trying to solve this one, I was not disappointed! I managed to remove 3 of the 6 pieces without too much trouble but the remaining 3 just would not come out of the box. The lip of the box stopped them from just dropping out and it became clear that rotations were going to be needed just to get access to the pieces. I'm slightly ashamed to admit that it took me a good 30 minutes just to get access to the pieces and begin trying the full assembly.

This challenge is very different to most of Volker's previous puzzles. It does not require rotations to achieve the main aim (the rotations are only needed to get the pieces out). This one can be solved by Burrtools and creating the BT file after you have solved it will add to your fun. It's not an easy one to create (at least for me) - at one point it was going to take 860 millennia to find the solution! Maybe that will give you an idea of how tough this challenge is?

The Secret Of Two Friends

The Secret of Two Friends by Pelikan

This stunning Puzzlebox is a new design by the Pelikan team. It has been beautifully made from a rather dark oak and a metal lock, keys, hinges and decorations. The aim is to open the chest and see what is rattling around inside. 

The lock can be opened using one of the keys and the chest will still not open. Something odd is going on inside. There is no movement where you think it should be. Time to investigate further and something interesting shows up quite quickly. There is then a need to use what you have in creative ways. I did have to let the Pelikan team know that one piece is too fragile and they have assured me that they are aware and will be fixing that.

I have only found the first small part of the mechanism and have failed so far to complete the task. I have tried using all the pieces I have in ever more creative ways but cannot seem to unlock the chest. I do know how it should open but I seem to be missing a step in the solution. This is definitely a lovely puzzle for anyone's collection and as a rare Pelikan design it is worth getting hold of.

A Jigsaw But Not A Jigsaw

Jigsaw Box by No Problem Puzzles

Kumiki Crane

It has been a busy week at PuzzleMad HQ. Despite the catastrophic loss of the orthopaedic cement supply to the National health service, I had a very full week of operating and then lots of meetings to attend. This was then followed yesterday by an MPP (I am sure that Allard will write this up soon) and today by a fun episode of DIY. Someone has decreed that the compact fluorescent tubes used in my under cabinet lights in the kitchen are no longer available in all the sizes I need (one had blown last weekend). Mrs S decided that it was necessary for me to replace the light fittings completely so that she didn't chop any fingers off whilst cooking. Today, I have failed to electrocute myself, which is a bonus, but spent a good 3 hours with LED fittings, wires and junction boxes. Mrs S is now happy (phew) but it does mean that I have actually not managed to solve anything complex this week (apart from a bunch of Karakuri puzzles that I managed to get my mitts on at the MPP). My unsolved puzzle backlog is epic!

I did come home from Birmingham yesterday with a couple of freebies. The Jigsaw Box designed by Theo Geerinck and the late Symen Hovinga and a Crane puzzle rather reminiscent of the origami flapping birds that I used to make as a kid (I can still remember how to fold it).

Whilst relaxing in front of the TV with Mrs S last night, I took the crane apart and scrambled the pieces. 

Quite lot of small parts to fall down the sofa

Once I had left it for a while I attempted the reassembly. I didn't think it would be terribly tough but Mazikeen was very intrigued by the small green pieces. She would not get off my lap and would not stop pawing at them. At one point she grabbed a wing and ran off with it 😱. I really don't want to have a partially assembled puzzle and even more didn't want a trip to the vet for removal of puzzle piece from cat intestine. So ensued a hilarious romp around our conservatory as I chased the puddy tat behind the sofa and out the other side before retrieving the errant piece. The reassembly took me another 20 minutes due to constantly dropping pieces whilst preventing the minx from running off again. The assembly, once completed was a nice rewarding challenge and requires a little thought to ensure that the key piece actually locks in place. Thanks Allard.

Next up, the Jigsaw box. 3D printed with 4 identical walls to the box and a lid and bottom. the walls can slide onto each other sequentially but this leaves the top and bottom of the box blocked. It seems impossible to place them. Time for a think© and it quickly becomes apparent that this little challenge is not a Jigsaw. It's a coordinate motion puzzle. I was kind of hoping that I might have more luck with this than the last coordinate motion puzzle that I picked up at an MPP!

This six piece puzzle from Stewart Coffin remains in pieces!

Luckily, the jigsaw box is only a little bit fiddly and doesn't require 4 hands and the ability to reverse gravitational fields. After a few minutes, avoiding the cat and jiggling pieces about to the right position and then pushing them all into place simultaneously, I had my Jigsaw box:

Strangely satisfying!

Hopefully this week will give me a bit more puzzling time.

Pelikan Summer Release 2025

Upcoming Puzzles From Pelikan

Yes, if you have been watching my new stuff page or my FB page then you will have seen that quite a few new toys have arrived at PuzzleMad HQ over the last month or so and Mrs S has become increasingly irritated with me. The camel's back very nearly snapped at the end of last week when I had to admit to her that there might be another delivery from Jakub, Jaroslav and team whilst I was at work last week. My incipient murder was delayed by a plane malfunction in Germany and the promised big box didn't arrive on time. The end result was that it was delayed until last Monday and I was working from home - no there were no knee replacements on the kitchen table! I was doing committee work on the dreaded MS Teams - 😱. The arrival of the box was beautifully timed between meetings and I managed to intercept it and secrete it away before there was an explosion! Phew.

The downside of the delayed flight was that I had much less time to play. I have only managed to solve 4 of the 8 arrivals so far. Hopefully the rest will be ready for next Sunday.

The Bunch 2.2

The Bunch 2.2 by Alfons Eyckmans

This gorgeous cube is another of a long line of amazing interlocking puzzles from the Master, Alfons Eyckmans. I have quite a few of these now, both direct from him, as well as versions from Pelikan and they are always great fun to play with as well as looking fabulous on display. This one is very attractive made from Wenge, Maple and Purpleheart. It is a simpler design than many of the others but this makes for a rather nice exploration and solve. 

My first time dismantling it I found a rather nice rotational shortcut but quickly put the piece that is removed back in the puzzle as I know that Alfons tends not to like rotational solutions. The first piece comes out nice and logically and opens up quite a lot of movement but for a while I was missing the key move that would allow me to progress. It was a nice surprise when I found it and even then the next part was not obvious. The puzzle does reveal the inner locking mechanism and that helps you plan the next few moves. 

It's going to be fun putting this back together

Having disassembled it, then is definitely a fun challenge to scramble the pieces and then reassemble after the memory of the disassembly has faded. Great fun! If you love cuboid interlocking puzzles and Alfons' work interests you then this is a brilliant one for your collection.

Rising Peaks - Everest

Rising Peaks - Everest by Girish Sharma

This is another of Girish Sharma's amazing interlocking cube creations.  Judging from the name Rising Peaks hyphenated with a mountain name, I suspect this is the first in a whole series of these puzzles - I certainly hope so! Beautifully made using Padauk, Wenge, Acacia and Maple, the initial challenge is to separate the pieces from their travel assembly. Maybe I'm not very good at puzzles (it does say that all over my website) but I actually took a good 5 minutes taking it apart. Then obviously you have to assemble them into a 4x4x4 cube using linear moves only. Many puzzlers have moved away from solely linear interlocking puzzles but I still love the standard interlocking puzzles that I first learned about so many years ago from Richard Gain. They provide a wonderful challenge and can be quite tough. This one is absolutely superb. 

From the beginning it is very easy to establish the positions of the 4 pieces but actually assembling them is a tremendous fun challenge. Working out which pieces to use first and which subsequently get inserted is part of the difficulty. There is no obvious order when looking at the shapes and in fact the required order was a bit of a surprise to me. At first it's possible to place any 3 pieces in a promising arrangement but the final one ain't going nowhere! I spent a good 45 minutes trying various arrangements of the first 2/3 pieces before I found a sequence that looked promising - something worthy of Girish' design skills. Once I'd found this start, I thought I was making progress until miraculously a piece fell out unexpectedly - I sort of lost track of what I was doing and ended up back at the beginning. Start again...

Continuing in my search I noticed a possible move that I had missed the first time and that opened up a whole set of dance moves of the pieces in an out around each other. The Pelikan team have made this beautifully tight so the pieces don't flop about and each move has to be made deliberately with the occasional "thwack" as they settle in to place. I had my cube assembled in about an hour. 

There is NO spoiler here - the relative positions of the pieces are really obvious

Having taken my photos, I then struggled to dismantle the puzzle and put it back into the storage/travel position. It's a disassembly challenge as well as an assembly one. I redid it a few hours later and even though I remembered the vague order of the pieces, it still took me quite a while to repeat the process. 

This is another masterpiece of design and manufacture by Girish and Pelikan. If you like interlocking puzzles then this should be high on your shopping list.

Minima Magnetik

Minima Magnetik by Frederic Boucher

My goodness! Is there no end to Frederic's design skills and ideas?? Here we have yet another wonderful puzzle in the now enormous Minima series. I have written extensive reviews of Minima puzzles over the last couple of years and have to admit that this series is one of the single most compelling series I have ever played with. I had thought that Frederic might run out of ideas but there seems to be no sign of it so far. The Pelikan team have made this version using Jatoba and Acacia woods with a bunch of magnets. This amazing design looks so simple until you casually have a play. The usual 2x2x3 box has two entry holes to it and what looks like some finger-holes as well. Anyone looking at these shapes (1x1x2 sticks) with a hole in one end and another at the front will be able to think of quite a few ways to get the pieces inside and think this is simplicity itself. I sort of thought so too until I received the instructions.

"First place the box on a flat surface.

Pack the pieces inside su that no magnets are visible through any holes in the box.

Once a piece has been placed in the box, you can not touch or move the pieces with your fingers or move the box"

Ah! Now we have an entirely new challenge! It is a simple packing but made challenging by the constraints. The magnets are obviously the key to manipulating the pieces. To add to the challenge the embedded magnets have their polarity arranged such that 4 of the pieces have one orientation, another the opposite way around and one piece has no magnet. First challenge is to decide which way around the box needs to be placed and then it will be necessary to use both repulsion and attraction to move the pieces around. If the pieces are placed through one hole and another piece placed through the other, then it is quite possible for a diagonal repulsion to occur and another piece placed to prevent this. There is a whole lot of challenge to this one.

I worked out an approach after about half an hour of fiddling out of the box and attempted to do it inside. This taught me that I needed to be very careful with the exact order that pieces need to be placed. I thought I had my solution and took this photo:

No magnets visible but....

Having been unaware that this design was being made by Jakub, I had ordered the same puzzle from Tye Stahly's Nothing Yet Designs store and had actually received his copy a few days earlier (thanks Allard, for forwarding it on to me). 

Minima Magnetik from Tye

I set about doing the same thing with the 3D printed version and, to my horror, it would not work! The repulsion of the magnets was not quite strong enough to achieve one of the crucial moves. This could only mean that my initial solution was not the intended one. It also means that you have two solutions to find if you buy the Pelikan version of this puzzle. I went back to the drawing board and have to shamefully admit that it took me another 2 days to find a solution that would work with both versions. The actual sequence of moves is really quite involved requiring multiple steps. This is a must have puzzle!

Minima Drawer

Minima Drawer by Frederic Boucher

This gorgeous creation is yet another Minima design by Frederic. It is also another of those must have puzzles. This version has been created using a very beautiful Leopard wood and Maple and is stunning. It arrives with the box completely closed and one L shaped piece outside. The drawer of the box can slide in either direction, although on arrival it can will only go one way and reveals a number of pieces inside. It's not straightforward removing all the pieces and requires the drawer to be moved in both directions to progressively release the pieces. Be careful! It's easy to get stuck!

Dowels galore!

Once you have all the pieces, the extent of the challenge becomes clear! There drawer is prevented from coming out by a one voxel dowel attached to the roof of the puzzle inside. There is also another one voxel dowel pointing horizontally inside the drawer. The pieces and extra dowels need to be placed inside the 2x2x3 cavity as usual. Having experienced the minor challenge of removing the pieces from the transport position, I knew that multiple moves would be required and sliding the drawer back and forth. Gravity was going to be a key consideration here. There are a few arrangements that will fit the space given but it is clear that most are not physically possible. The approach here has to be to find an assembly and then work backwards to see whether it can be removed from the box. 

No spoiler - it is solved!

I think I got somewhat lucky and found the solution after only a whole day of trying but on the way I nearly had a heart attack several times. The limited opening means that some of the pieces need to be rotated into the box and if they are not right or in the right order, they must be removed using the same rotation. Sometimes this can be very hard to achieve and leave you with a huge challenge and worry that you have trapped them inside permanently.

This one is a minima for true puzzle professionals - it is fabulous!

I will be working on the remaining 4 puzzles over the upcoming week and will finish the reviews next Sunday.