Pelikan Puzzling Continued

Cabinet - a Pelikan design

Yes, it's time to continue the reviews of the upcoming Pelikan release. I have been playing all week and have just finished them this morning. 

Cabinet

Every now and then Jakub releases a Pelikan in-house design. They are usually boxes with clever mechanisms and you really won't be disappointed by this. At yesterday's MPP, one of the topics of comnsversation that I had was about the Karakuri puzzle boxes and how beautiful they are with simple(ish) short but very elegant solutions. I lamented that I didn't dare get into Karakuri collecting as it would be the death of my marriage and my bank balance but I agreed with the elegance and simplicity. I have to say that the Cabinet puzzle by the Pelikan team is worthy of this same admiration.

It is beautifully made - and wonderfully tactile. There are 2 drawers and one knob. As it arrives, there is a good bit of rattling from inside. The challenge is to open the drawers of the cabinet and find the gold bars and the jewel inside (plus an extra treat). Nothing moves at all at first but it won't take very many of you long to get the first drawer open to find a treat inside. After that a little exploration will reveal the first of the prizes. Aha! Real care and attention in every part. At this point you have what looks like it can be used as a tool...you will have done it countless times before on other puzzles and been able to manipulate the mechanism. I tried this repeatedly and had no luck. I began to think that maybe the mechanism was stuck. I tried variants of my manipulation many many times with alterations in the orientation of the puzzle and got absolutely nowhere. I tried this again and again and again. Nope! Nuffink! I then had another thought and tried that but still no luck. I tried for a whole week. Eventually, I contacted Ivan Danik to ask for a hint. He didn't say much but did manage to tell me that my original thought which I had been trying for a whole week had been wrong. Grrrr! I am not very bright. Having abandoned that completely I had a little feel about and had a wonderful Aha! moment. I had actually used the correct move but needed to do it properly. After another try my treasure was all available. 

The Cabinet is just like a Karakuri - it is beautifully made with perfect tolerances and a simple but very elegant mechanism. All of you collectors out there will need this.

Teapot

Teapot by Lucie Pauwels

Another tray packing puzzle by the incredible Lucie Pauwels! There is no limit to Lucie's skills! I reviewed an interlocking puzzle coming from her and Pelikan last week which was fascinating and here she turns her hand to a rather lovely and clever tray puzzle. This is very ingenious and a good bit harder than it looks. What goes in a teapot ? Tea of course! What goes in tea? Sugar lumps! Here we have a pot and 8 different varieties of tea (T) made from Pink Oak to be placed inside the pot. Two other variants will be on sale: Wenge/Maple and Purpleheart/Ash. There are 4 single voxel holes left after all the teas are inside and these can be filled by sugar made from Maple. Normally you'd put your sugar in your cup but here it gets added to the pot.

This is a deceptive puzzle - it really doesn't look that tough but the lengths of the stems of the T's make it difficult to pack the cavity efficiently leaving only small few gaps. I worked for a long time (hours) to find the solution and it was very gratifying to eventually manage it. I dare say it can be solved by brute force but the best approach is to experiment with how the T crosses and stems can interact with each other and then plan what you need to do to keep the gaps to a minimum. There is only one solution to this and it might take you quite some time to find it. Perfect for all levels of puzzler.

Olympic Rings

Olympic Rings by Lucie Pauwels

Yes, another tray packing puzzle by Lucie. This follows a totally different premise than the Teapot puzzle. Instead of having to fill a cavity with shapes that get in each other's way, the aim is to fill a pathway with relatively simple pieces but a very limited length to the paths. The complexity and the logic comes from the constraint formed by the intersection of the paths. This one has pieces made from Pink Oak but it will also be available in Merbau.

I started placing the larger pieces in the lengths of the paths and then trying to fill the smaller gaps that were left after that.This seemed like a really good idea but it did not lead me even close to a solution. My next approach was to take the  3 more complex pieces and place those at the path intersections and then work from there. This definitely improved the situation but did not get me all the way. I ended up resorting to Burrtools and just peeking at the position of those complex pieces. Once I had them placed properly, I was able to progress quite logically with the rest of the puzzle. If I had not been time constrained then I might have managed this without cheating. It is a very challenging but logical puzzle which should only need a little trial and error. It is very attractive when complete and looks great on display.

Fatino

Fatino by Dr Volker Latussek

Another masterpiece from the master of the packing puzzle! Dr Latussek has been challenging us with restricted entry packing puzzles for years now and every time a new one is released, I think that he cannot have found something new but he has. This one has been beautifully made with a Mahogany box and Wenge pieces.

This time it looks like the puzzle should be possible without rotations because the limited entry hole is still a whole number of voxels in each dimension. BUT don't let that fool you. The pieces are all pentominoes and hence quite long. Any of them that have to go sideways perpendicular to the hole will need rotating into place once inside or tilting slightly through the gap. The hole to be filled is a 4x4x2 space and we have a total of 30 leaving 2 gaps to be hidden somewhere inside. This is going to be fun and VERY difficult!

Volker said this about the development of the puzzle:

In the past, I’ve combined some of the 12 flat pentacubes with other polycubes to design packing problems. In addition to the well-known pieces of the SOMA CUBE, I’ve also used spatial pentacubes - which are described by a 3x2x2 envelope - in a rather unobtrusive way. There are 15 different shapes of these, based on a rather casual remark by George Miller I’ll call them Fats. The Fats possess a harmony that is indescribable to me when they are combined. I will present my special discoveries to you at Pelikan. 

I’ll start with FATINO, six Fats in the box so familiar to me with a centered slit opening. In fact, I already had this CASINO-like box and, with FATINO, the name of the puzzle for the first time before I began finding the six matching Fats that describe a unique solution. The Fats are really bulky, as if they didn’t want to fit into the box. Ultimately, however, six of them took pity on me and gave me a truly beautiful solution. I really hope you enjoy the game of the Fats so much that you look forward to the discoveries to come.

I had to use Burrtools to find me some assemblies and then experiment with them to try and get one of them inside the box. Even using BT this way, isn't a panacea as each shape that is found (there are 6 of them) will have 8 possible orientations to try and of course, then you will need to see whether the disassembly is possible through the slot in the top of the box. Once I found a possible assembly it was a lovely dexterity and sliding problem to get the solution.

Damn! That is tough!

This is a stupendously good challenge. It is definitely possible by normal human beings (many of you might need BT to systematically find the possible assemblies and try them) but after that the puzzling is wonderful.

Yasya-Flop

Yasya-Flop by Dr Volker Latussek

Another puzzle in the "Flop" series is one that is not to be missed. There have been quite a few so far and this one is by far the most difficult. Jakub and team have made this from a wonderful Saman wood (aka Monkeypod) and Purpleheart. It arrives with all but one of the pieces packed in the box and took me quite a bit of fiddling to actually remove the pieces. This bodes for a very difficult solution to get all of them back inside.

The box has a 3x3x3 cavity and a 1½ voxel wide slot in the top through which all the pieces of a standard Soma cube need to be placed. I have mentioned many times that I am terrible at assembly puzzles. My appreciation of this occurred many years ago when I bought my first Soma cube. So here, I need to find one particular assembly of the Soma cube and then work out which orientation to try and then how to get the damn thing into a box through a small hole using rotational moves! Does this sound like fun to you? Yes, it does to me too.

Volker wrote this about it:

Fritz Pingl (FRITZ-FLOP) and Dick Fosbury (DICK-FLOP) are the namesakes of my FLOP SERIES. The rotation of individual pieces in these unique packing puzzles is reminiscent of their high jump techniques.

While I was recently playing with my STEFKA-FLOP, named after Stefka Kostadinova, I unexpectedly found a new solution. This is, of course, terrible, since every FLOP is supposed to have exactly one solution. But this new solution is so beautiful - not least because, just like with the FRITZ-FLOP, the opening can be compressed to exactly half of one of the square sides - that I don’t want to keep this experience from you. A production by Pelikan was a must. 

While searching for a suitable name, I learned that Stefka Kostadinova’s long-standing world record in the high jump from 1987 was surpassed in 2024 by Yaroslava Mahuchikh with a jump of 2.10 meters. So I dedicate my YASYA-FLOP to this exceptional Ukrainian athlete, who is affectionately called Yasya by her friends.  While solving the YASYA-FLOP won’t let you set a new world record, I hope you understand why this solution has remained undiscovered until now.

There is an immediate way to cut down the possible assemblies as the final pieces to be placed have to be able to drop straight in through the opening as there will be no room for rotations at that stage. This helps considerably but if I was you, I'd have a BT set of Soma solutions available to search through.

Not for the faint-hearted!

In the end, due to time constraints, I had to get the solution from Pelikan to give me the intended assembly and orientation and then work out how to get it inside the box. The movements are very complex and require considerable dexterity as well as judicious use of gravity to place pieces. Make sure that you know what you have done as taking the pieces out will be almost impossible. This is an amazing challenge but definitely only for the most expert of puzzlers.

Less is More

Less is more by Dr Volker Latussek

This gorgeous puzzle from Volker has been beautifully made from Wenge and American Cherry. It is stunning to look at and beautifully made. I thought that it had been sent out in the solved position but reviewing the instructions revealed that there is much more to this puzzle than meets the eye. Yes, it is a tray packing puzzle with a 7x7 tray and there are quite a few assemblies in the tray.

Having taken the pieces out for the photo, I found even packing them back in the tray very difficult. Finding the one that left me that nice square gap was almost impossible for me. But, for all of you who want something more interesting than a simple square tray packer, there is a LOT more to do - this is also an anti-slide puzzle. In fact, it is a multi level anti-slide puzzle. This will keep you challenged for a VERY long time.

Volker said this about it:

Nine pentominoes in a square grid (7x7). So what. The idea behind this particular anti-slide puzzle - simple in concept - kept me occupied for several years, and its implementation proved too challenging for me. I had to seek advice from Andreas Roever and Peter Müller, an algebra professor at my university in Würzburg. In the end, Peter Müller calculated the solution sequences. Unfortunately, my knowledge of Fortran wasn’t sufficient. But now, after an initial prototype with 6 pentominoes instead of nine for the Nob-Yoshigahara Design Competition 2025, Pelikan can release a small series for enthusiasts of such puzzles, and I’ve met a mathematics professor whom I can now call Peter. Peter, thank you so much for your great support, which allowed LESS IS MORE to come to life. 

LESS IS MORE contains various challenges, but in particular sequences of stable arrangements: Pack the nine pentominoes into the frame so that they do not slide. Remove one piece - the remaining eight pieces still cannot slide. Repeat this step until there are only three pieces left that cannot slide. 

When I play LESS IS MORE today, I am still amazed by the interplay of the pentominoes in the sequence from nine to three pieces, which still surprises me with its length.

Another goal of LESS IS MORE: Select three or more pieces so that they do not slip, and no further piece can be added without slipping, and no piece can be removed without the remaining pieces slipping.

I preferred to do the puzzle in the reverse order to the suggested one by Volker. Take 3 pieces and create an anti-slide placement with them (that isn't terribly difficult to do). Then add another piece from the unpaved ones and just add it to the shape already made in such a way that the new shape also cannot slide (this took me a little while). You will probably need to experiment with a whole bunch of 3-piece placements before you find one that works when adding a fourth piece. It was quite gratifying to find a four piece anti-slide assembly. Next, try to add another piece in and still have it not slide. keep doing this until all 9 pieces are placed. This will be a huge challenge! I am not entirely sure that a human can achieve this. I did manage to create a 5 piece non-sliding assembly but that is as far as I got. The computer programmers amongst you might manage to create a program to do this. If anyone is actually able to do it all without computer assistance then I would love for you to tell me.

If you manage the primary puzzle then there is a secondary challenge: Find 3 pieces to create an anti-slide assembly but in such a way that it is not possible to add any more pieces that are anti-slide. This is not terribly tough but having done that, do it again with 4 pieces - none of the 4 can slide but it's impossible to add a 5th piece that doesn't slide. Keep doing this up to 9. So many challenges in one beautiful tray puzzle.

All of these are amazing puzzles! They should hopefully be going on sale later this week. My picks from them are Cabinet (who can resist a Pelikan design puzzle and this has a very ingenious mechanism), Swan cube (it's just beautiful logic) and Fantino for the elegance. But you cannot go wrong with any of them. 

Let The Pelikan Puzzling Begin

Five Helicopters by Tibor Mikloš

This is a rather quick blog post. I have just spent 45 minutes on the phone trying to provide computer support to my 86 year old Mother-in-law for her 10 year old iMac. To my utter horror, TeamViewer no longer supports her ancient operating system and everything had to be done by her describing what she saw on screen over the phone and me trying to give instructions. She is not very computer savvy (unsurprising given her age) but she does try and manages reasonably well for the most part. I am not sure who was in worse condition at the end of it all. I think she was a bit frazzled but had mostly managed to achieve what she wanted and I had chest pain. As a result of this, plus the puzzles only arrived on Thursday, I only have two little reviews for you.

Yes, it has been a few months and it is coming up to the IPP so it is time for Jakub and team to release the next batch of puzzles. There are a good few, including one of the greatly anticipated Pelikan design puzzles.

Five Helicopters

Amongst this release are a few tray packing puzzles which is one of the less common types for Pelikan to release. Of course, they won't do one with plastic pieces, they make theirs out of an assortment of rather lovely woods which have been laser cut and a wooden tray as well. This one was designed by Tibor Mikloš who was last featured on this blog and from Pelikan back in December 2023 with a padlock burr that one was a very nice design and this also doesn't disappoint. 

Usually, I am terrible at this sort of puzzle - I find that I spend most of my time performing lots of random trial and error packings and can't keep track of what I have attempted. This means I go round and round in circles before giving up in disgust at how rubbish I am. I have many many puzzles from Mine that I haven't managed to solve for this reason.

In this one there's a lovely large space to fill and 5 identical helicopters to place it it. The thing about this challenge is that the helicopters, with their blades and tails are very spiky and take up a large space and don't seem to interlock together in any intuitive ways. I played with the pieces outside the tray for a while and found a nice way to put 3 together which didn't leave a lot of space between them. Maybe there would be a fun mathematical tiling to use? I placed them in the tray and picked up my 4th piece only to find that if I tried to continue the logical sequence, it wouldn't fit. I tried the same thing many times and singularly failed. maybe it's not a mathematical solution? I then looked at the pattern on the side of the tray to see if I could place some pieces closer to the edge and make more space as a result. This was a key thought! Unusual for me to have thoughts but I had better make the most of it. After another 30-40 minutes of playing I had a major breakthrough and had my 5 helicopters in the tray and a photo taken. Hooray! Ive solved a packing puzzle without just trying random things! It's pretty good this one - perfect for a beginner or an expert!

Swan Cube

Swan Cube by Lucie Pauwels

The wonderfully talented Lucie has appeared on my site many many times and I have gushed every time about her designs. She has not disappointed here either. The Swan cube is made using Wenge, Maple and wonderfully vibrant Merbau. It arrived assembled as a sort of cuboid structure with gaps in it so obviously not correctly assembled. Obviously, the aim is to dismantle it (quite an easy feat) and then assemble it as a proper cube shape with no gaps/holes. In the assembled shape above there is no indication of the reason for the odd name, but once the 6 pieces have been separated the reason immediately comes clear:

Six swan shapes

The pieces all have a hole in the side and a swan shaped neck and beak that clearly needs to engage with the hole. Once all beaks are in all holes then we should have a completed cube - easy? Nope! Luckily, I did have the forethought to take a photo of the assembly orientation so that I can store it in the transport configuration.

I began looking to see how the walls, holes and beaks would interact and quickly made some good progress...until I had a piece where the beak wouldn't reach the hole. Damn! I knew it had been going too well. Starting afresh with a different set of beaks and holes and I had something that really looked promising as it would make a nice half cube around one corner. The problem here was that whilst the three pieces should interact nicely, it would require a coordinate motion to achieve it and that wasn't possible with these shapes. Sigh! After yet more failure, I realised that two of the pieces had an extra cubic on them. That was getting in the way of what I wanted to do. Time to think©.

After a little more time I had a rather good idea. I worked on my idea for a while and made progress gradually until my last piece fitted perfectly into place.

Oooh clever!

This was very gratifying and a perfect logic puzzle. I dare say that it can be solved by randomly putting pieces together until you get the right assembly but this should be solved as a pure logic problem. It is very clever and looks lovely in both assembled and false assembly positions. Probably best for the more medium experienced puzzler rather than absolute beginner.

I will be working on the rest of the puzzles over the coming week or so and get my reviews out to you as soon as I can. However, my experience with providing remote computer support has given me the overwhelming urge to lie down for a while! 😱😱😱

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.

Pelikan Begin 2026 With An Extravaganza

There are a LOT of fabulous puzzles here

On Monday, February 2nd, 2:00pm CET, Jakub and team will be releasing the first set of wonderful toys for 2026. This release has some truly incredible puzzles to keep you busy for a while. As always, they have been made from glorious woods with incredible precision. The choices of challenge are all superb,

Grid by Lucie Pauwels

Prison by Lucie Pauwels

Donjon by Lucie Pauwels

Yoga I by Benjamin Heidt

Conundrum by Benjamin Heidt

Minima-Flop by Dr. Volker Latussek

Minima XIII by Frederic Boucher

CUBI series by Frederic Boucher

I have had these puzzles for a couple of weeks and have been hard at work solving them so I can review them in time and help you make a choice. Whatever you choose, you cannot really go wrong here. 

Conundrum

Conundrum by Benjamin Heidt

Here we have another fascinating burr by Benjamin Heidt. The box from Pelikan says "mixed woods" but the pre-release gave more information - it has a beautiful set of dark woods (Bubinga, American Walnut, Purpleheart, Wenge and Padauk) arranged into a caged burr containing 4 sticks held vertically alongside each other in a frame. Initially it looks like the frame can split into several more pieces. As usual, Benjamin has created a fun logical sequence of moves that follow each other very nicely without leading you too far into long dark pathways. as you explore, these pieces dance around each other in a circle and go back and forth. After a decent sequence the dance stops dead and there seems to be no way forward and it looks like you need to go back and explore the side paths further. This won't get you anywhere so after a little while of returning all the way back to the beginning and trying alternative starts you realise that there must have been a hidden move at the end of that dance. There is a lovely Aha! moment when you find the cleverly hidden move and then suddenly the dance can continue to the removal of the first piece. The removal of the remaining pieces is now a nice logical sequence that you can work out by looking inside the space left after the initial removal. At level 21.3.3.2 this is a fabulous fun challenge with a lovely Aha! moment to keep any burr solver happy.

The reassembly would be impossible from scratch for all but the best burr solvers but having gone back and forth multiple times, I was able to put it back together straight away from memory with only a bit of experimentation. Fabulous!

Prison

Prison by Lucie Pauwels

There is something compulsive about the packing puzzle designs from Lucie Pauwels! This wonderful little challenge has been beautifully created by Pelikan with a wonderfully contrasting Bubinga frame (prison) and white Maple pieces. The prison consists of a simple 3x3x3 cube but is made much more complex by the addition of a single voxel hole in the floor and ceiling which also have to be filled - on top of that the openings to be fed through are partially obscured on all sides leaving a 2x3 gap on each face. The pieces are a variety of small simple shapes - there are 7 pieces in all to be placed in the prison. I thought initially that this should not be terribly difficult but the slightly limited entry and the need to fill ceiling and floor holes turns this into a proper challenge. Burrtools tells me that there are 151 possible assemblies and I struggled to find even one of them! I think it must have taken me a good 30-45 minutes to get my first one. Working outside the box as is traditional was not helpful as it is really hard to hold the pieces in place as you progressively add more of them. I was forced to work in the prison to use the prison bars to hold the pieces as I added extras. I frequently seemed to be making progress only to either have a final shape impossible to add into the puzzle due to blocking walls or the final gaps were split into several shapes. I had to use a bit of thought to work out an initial approach and then a lot of trial and error to get the first assembly. There is plenty of repeatability here to look for different assemblies.

Late update!!!!

Having posted this article, I was contacted by Lucie this morning to tell me that I had completely misunderstood the nature of the puzzle! Jakub and Simona don't give me the instructions. I had assumed that this was a packing puzzle but I can now tell you that the packing element is a secondary challenge (and not even the toughest challenge). It would appear that the top surface of the prison is held on with rather strong magnets and it can be lifted off to give very good access to the cavity of the prison. The true aim is to place all the inmates inside the prison and then replace the roof. This sounds easy and it really is BUT the pieces need to be placed in such a way that once the roof is back on, the pieces cannot slide out. Yes this is an anti-slide puzzle and looks like a very difficult one. I will need to go back to it soon.

Donjon

Donjon (delivery positions) by Lucie Pauwels

Donjon (or dungeon) is yet another very VERY difficult puzzle from the warped mind (we have one prison and one dungeon in this release!) of Lucie Pauwels.  Made from beautifully contrasting Ash and Wenge, the first challenge is to remove all the pieces from the transport positioning. This in itself was a major feat due to the very limited access! The aim is to place all the "prisoners" through the entry down below the surface into the dungeon and lock them in. The dungeon itself is just a 3x3x3 cube but the entry is ferociously blocked by a complex crowning door leaving only a 1x3 entry gap on each side. It is made even tougher by the fact that the entry gap is very narrow (smaller than a finger) - controlling the orientation of the pieces is going to require considerable dexterity. Having eventually taken all the pieces out, I was seriously worried about my ability to get enough back in even for storage, let alone solving it. I started assembling my 3x3x3 cube and quickly realised that could not be the sole aim - the presence of a 1x1x5 piece made me realise that the aim was to create a 3x3x3 shape filling the box and then lock them in with a crosspiece. The use of gravity to move pieces around inside adds to the fun - The Pelikan team have made the pieces with such precision that everything slides beautifully by tilting the box in whatever direction that you need.

There are 213 ways to use the pieces to make a cube so the use of the limited entry to narrow it down is crucial. There are 3 pieces with 90º corners in their shapes which very much constrain the orientation and movement once placed through the very limited entry hole. Finding the orientation of these and an order that they can be inserted without blocking each other is key to the solution here. This puzzle took me many hours and a little help from Burrtools as well. The end result is very satisfying - once the locking piece has been placed, the pieces are all locked inside. Inverting the puzzle will not let anything drop out. This is a huge challenge for any puzzler!

Grid

Grid by Lucie Pauwels

Grid is the third design by Lucie Pauwels in this release by Pelikan. It has complex pieces made from Wenge to be fitted into 5x5 grid constructed from an acrylic plate which has been beautifully frosted. We are accustomed to amazing wood from the Pelikan team but even their plastic work is perfect.

My initial approach was the usual random placement of pieces onto the grid which always progressed very nicely until I realised that I had isolated one small section of the grid and could not place a piece to fill it. Maybe starting with the more complex pieces would help? It did up to a point but then I always got trapped with a couple of pieces unplaceable. This was going to need planning - not only are there 3 complex pieces but there are also a couple of simpler pieces that have missing side voxels. My head was starting to hurt and I was on a deadline. I decided to use Burrtools to give me the position of just one piece and this was miraculous. After finding the position of just one of the complex pieces, the remainder of the assembly was wonderfully logical with literally only a few possible piece placements making the final assembly a lovely exploration. Maybe you talented puzzlers out there can solve it without help? If you can't, then making the BT file is fun and just makes the puzzle all the more satisfying.

Yoga 1

Yoga 1 by Benjamin Heidt

4 possible tetrominoes

This unbelievably complex design by Benjamin Heidt has been made by Pelikan to look incredibly beautiful using stunningly marked Leopardwood for the panels of the box and Garapa for the pieces as well as the corners of the box. Benjamin has picked 4 of the possible tetrominoes to be placed in the box which already has 4 voxels stuck in place inside and then deliberately not told us which tetrominoes he has chosen - he (and Pelikan) have obfuscated the puzzle even further by creating a hinge across each pair of dominoes and allowing the poor challenged puzzler to rotate the pieces into any of the 4 possible shapes. My goodness! This is hard enough if we were given all the correct pieces in the correct shapes to be inserted. By adding the hinges the puzzle has been made MUCH tougher! This is not for the faint-hearted.

Creating a Burrtools file for this puzzle is a challenge in itself - it will require you to know about how to use variable numbers of pieces (it is actually a great way to educate yourself into the more complex aspects of the program). Once this has been done it can be seen that there are 268 ways to insert these different combinations of these tetrominoes inside the box but only 1 is actually possible to create as a true solution. Amazingly it requires at least 1 of every type of tetromino (I'm not telling you how many of which ones). I have been working on this for many hours and have so far not managed to get anywhere at all. I suspect that I will need to go back to BT and find out how many of each piece type is required and try with that knowledge.

Minima 13

Minima XIII by Frederic Boucher

I have reviewed many Minima puzzles over the last few years. The original idea by Frederic Boucher was to fit various pieces into a 2x2x3 space through a limited opening and requiring various rotational moves which are facilitated by odd holes in the sides of the box. The series has been continued by him and also taken up by many of the best puzzle designers in the world - I have lots of them and love the variety of challenges. I now have several versions of the Minima 13 and reviewed it in June 2025 having taken 4 years to solve it. When I finally managed to review it last year, I said that this 13th challenge in the Minima series was the utter pinnacle of the series - it is quite literally the very best of them all. It takes the original premise to pack the pieces inside and adds extra stuff:

1. It is trivial to place all the pieces in the box without rotations but this is clearly not the solution because...
2. There is a single coloured voxel which must not be visible from the outside
3. Several of the pieces have been cut at odd angles to allow some rather fancy rotations.

This is a seriously tough challenge and the Aha! moments are multiple and difficult to find. I had almost no recollection of the last solve and it took me quite some time to get it again this time. The crucial moves are very well hidden.

If you own the rest of the Pelikan wooden Minima series then this is a MUST BUY. If you don't have a copy of the 13th challenge at all then this is a MUST BUY! The Minima 13 was one reason the whole series made it to my Top ten(ish) for 2025.

Minima Flop

Minima Flop by Dr Volker Latussek

Yes, we cannot have a Pelikan release without an incredible challenge from Dr Volker Latussek! This one takes the amazing Minima designs from Frederic Boucher and adds a certain Latussek flair to it. The Minima Flop has been gorgeously created using Purpleheart and Saman (also known as Monkeypod). It is simply stunning. The puzzle arrives in a specific transport configuration that Volker always designs and the initial challenge is to take the pieces out - this will give you at least an idea of the types of moves that are possible with this box and pieces. There are 4 cornered triominoes to fit into the usual 2x2x3 space. It looks like it should be a simple challenge - Volker has even given us 4 really quite large holes in 4 of the faces. One of those holes is huge but not big enough to place a piece inside on its side. Volker said this about the puzzle:

"Frederic Boucher said to me in the summer of 2024, asking if I would like to contribute a puzzle to his MINIMA SERIES. At the time, I was deeply immersed in working on my FLOP SERIES, so I suggested a MINIMA FLOP. I was confident that I would come up with something suitable despite the strict requirement of a 2x2x3 box. It quickly became clear to me that it had to be a four-piece puzzle consisting of identical pieces. The pieces could only be V-shaped. Now, the task remained of finding the right openings. And, to suit a FLOP, as many openings as possible with dimensions of 1.5x1. To my surprise, there were five of these openings, two of which I had to combine. This was the only way I could meet the requirements. MINIMA-FLOP is a nice experiment within MINIMA and FLOP. Frederic wrote to me that he had a lot of fun with it. I wish the same for you."

The name gives us a clue about part of the challenge - Minima Flop will have rotational moves like the other Flop puzzles multiple times during the solution. This gives the puzzler a few obvious things to try having some memory of what has been done before but there really isn't much space inside and as soon as one other piece has been placed, the flop move that you really want to try gets blocked almost immediately. This is time to think© and work out what is needed. The name and the simplicity of the pieces leads you astray and you need to discard your preconceptions and start from scratch. I spent a long time trying to do what I had learned in previous releases and failed before I was forced to think again. Unlike Frederic, Volker doesn't give you any useful bevels or angles on the pieces. There are no small holes in the box panels. It requires multiple rotational moves to get the pieces inside and the solution is just beautiful. 

The Cubi Series

Four amazing Cubi challenges by Frederic Boucher

There seems to be no end to Frederic Boucher's talents! Not only do we have the incredible Minima series, the Jammed series (two of which I still haven't managed to solve) as well as numerous tray packing puzzles, he also has created a series of cubic packing puzzles here that have an enormous challenge to them due to very irregularly shaped pieces, blocks attached to the inside of the boxes, as well as rotational moves. Effectively, these seem to be the combination of a Turning Interlocking Cube (TIC) at the same time as a packing puzzle. This series has been fabulously recreated by Pelikan using beautifully contrasting woods.

We have:

CUBI 12 - Ash and Wenge

CUBI 18 - Limba and American Walnut

CUBI 24 - Limba, American Walnut and Acacia

CUBI 25 - Mahogany and Zebrano

Cubi 12

Cubi 12 by Frederic Boucher

This initial slightly easier "taster" puzzle for the series consists of a box with a rotational symmetry to the interior. and four identical Wenge pieces made from 3 offset cubies. They need to be placed inside without anything protruding above the top surface (it will obviously not be completely filled when solved). I started with the 4 pieces and worked to create a cubic shape that would interlock enough to be reduced to a 3x3x3 cube. This part of the challenge was actually not that difficult. There are 58 ways to create a shape that fits in a 3x3x3 box but most of them are not symmetrical or pleasing to the eye. Searching through them to find something that would fit amongst the pieces stuck to the walls of the box was a fun exercise and quickly revealed a rather beautiful shape. Now time to place it inside the box. At this point I realised I had a problem. Burrtools will not solve this one - rotations are required. However, once I had realised this I quickly saw what was needed and managed my assembly. This is really very clever and definitely possible by any decent puzzler. I suspect the rest will be MUCH more difficult!

Cubi 18

Cubi 18 by Frederic Boucher

The second level of the Cubi series consists of 4 rather complex shapes created from cubes offset from each other. Two of them form rather fun looking staircase shapes around corners. I started initially looking at making a cube outside of the box but they were quite awkward to hold in place and I swapped quickly to trying to place the pieces into the box past the various obstructions attached to the walls. This was definitely the right approach as insertion of these large pieces takes a bit of thought and rotational ingenuity. Getting one in is easy but the second always seems to be blocked. I tried the second shape first and then the other was blocked. I was fixated on this for quite a while before exploring further. There is an alternative way to place one of them and it only got me even more confused until I went back to my initial thought. Trying the same thing again did not get me anywhere until I looked at the pieces properly. Whilst one is identical no matter which way it is inserted, the other can be reversed and whilst it looks similar now there is no blockage. My advice to you of to look at the pieces properly and experiment with everything that you can do. After inserting those, it only took a little further exploration to work out how to place the other two. The Aha! moment with this one is fabulous!

Cubi 25

Cubi 25 by Frederic Boucher

Whilst this is the 4th in the series if you take them in ascending numerical order, it probably should be the third that you try. Jakub and team have made this absolutely gorgeous from Zebrano with a Mahogany box. Again there are a number of pieces to place inside the box which has a couple of half-voxel pieces stuck to the walls. These half voxel interfere with your ability to place the in the box and also will form part of the eventual cube shape. To make it even more difficult this time, several of the pieces are made with half voxel lengths on one or more places. This will make it seriously tough to assemble the cube shape. After I failed for a while, I counted the total number of voxels on the pieces and there are 25 in all plus the 2 halves stuck on the walls (not much room to manoeuvre). I decide to try and make a cube shape outside the box with half voxel gaps in the crucial positions. I'm not very good at Soma cube puzzles and this is similar but much harder. It took me over an hour to find a cube shape - remember, the half voxel shapes make all the difference to your search. Having made my cube it was a lovely, much smaller, challenge to reassemble it in the box. Rotational moves and sliding is required. This is great fun and a wonderful next step up in difficulty!

Cubi 24

Cubi 24 by Frederic Boucher

The fourth (and final?) puzzle in this wonderful Cubi series is a really tough challenge! There are 3 beautiful grained woods. The box has a slightly limited entry due to the attachment of a 1x2x½ voxel piece across one corner. The pieces are rather complex with 2 ½ voxel pieces attached to each one. There is also a disk with smiley face on it to be added inside. This is another one where it would be best to assemble a cube outside the box and the work out how to get it inside. Burrtools won't help you as a rotation is required but it can help you search for cube assemblies. I needed this help and found 57 possible cube shapes but as soon as you adjust it to leave the 1x2x½ voxel gap, it is reduced to a single possible solution. In the interest of time, I used this to find the position of a single piece and then worked from there. It still took me quite long time to find a solution outside the box. Assembling it inside was a lovely sequence! I am sure that all you fabulous puzzlers will manage this without resorting to Burrtools.

This is an incredible release of brilliant puzzles to start off the year. There are challenges for all levels of puzzler. To me the absolute essentials are:

Minima XIII - if you have the others then this is a must buy - it's the best of the series.

Minima Flop - it's a Minima with the Latussek extra

The Cubi series - any will do but the set is incredible!

Probably The Toughest Pelikans Ever!

Upcoming puzzles from Pelikan

10 days ago, I received the latest batch due to come out from Jakub, Jaroslav, Simona and the team and managed to solve just one of them (Petit Albert) in the time to review it for last Sunday's blog post. Since then, I have been slogging away at them to try and have something to help you decide what to buy when they come out. I suspect it will be later this week. The amazing bunch is from a very talented bunch of designers:

Social Distance Soma Cube by Lucie Pauwels

Antislide 2L by Lucie Pauwels

Smuggler by Lucie Pauwels

Out of Center by Alfons Eyckmans

Minima 2nd Drawer by Frederic Boucher

Apotheca by Dr Volker Latussek

Slider H by Benjamin Heidt

Petit Albert by Dr Volker Latussek (reviewed last week)

Social Distance Soma Cube

Social Distance Soma Cube

I couldn't resist starting with this one - it is simply gorgeous! My version is made from Purpleheart and Maple and I am told that there will also be versions with Bubinga and Maple as well as Wenge and Maple. A very nice playable size at 78mm in each dimension. It arrives assembled in the cube shape but don't fret about the solution being given away. Tip it out of the packaging and it will quickly fall apart into the constituent pieces:

OMG! Not JUST a Soma cube!

Lucie has taken the Soma cube and separated the 27 individual voxels by a bridging piece. Taking it apart reveals that the constituent parts are still the standard Soma shapes but you can see that the bridges appear to be in specific places on each piece. As usual, the challenge is to assemble the puzzle into the standard cube again (I do wonder whether any of the other Soma challenges are possible as well and I may well attempt to put these into Burrtools to see if that is the case. The cube shape of the Soma cube has 240 solutions but the version designed by Lucie has just one.

I am terrible at assembly puzzles and do not expect to solve this any time soon without help from Burrtools. It is still a very compulsive puzzle and I couldn't stop trying as many assemblies as I could find. My problem is keeping track of what I have tried. Given more time I think that the placement of the bridging pieces will allow a more logical approach but I haven't found it yet.

This is well worth buying - it is beautiful, very difficult and compulsively addictive.

AntiSlide 2L

AntiSlide 2L

Another compulsively beautiful puzzle design from Lucie Pauwels. This one will join the others in her series of tray packing puzzles with anti-slide challenges (Minimal Frame, Open Frame and Trimini Frame).They are all wonderful challenges with effectively 2 levels to the puzzling. First of all take all the pieces and pack them into the tray - the fun thing with this one is that it is now a 3D packing puzzle and you need to form 2 layers on the tray and then second, much MUCH more difficult, the assembly needs to be made in such a way a way that the pieces cannot slide out sideways if turned on its' side.

This is a nice pocketable puzzle with a tray that is 6cm square and has just 2 retaining cubies in opposite corners and the pieces are all made from various attractive woods. This one accompanied me to work for a day or so and kept several people amused. Even finding one assembly is tough. It took me several hours before one was found and of course, it wasn't the anti-slide solution. The presence of an L shaped piece makes that challenge very tough. Placing the pieces into Burrtools reveals that there are 41 assemblies. It took a careful trawl of the 41 solutions before I found the correct solution.

NOT the final solution - just one I found on the way!

Smuggler

Smuggler by Lucie Pauwels
As delivered it doesn't look like much!

This lovely puzzle from Lucie Pauwels looks very straightforward when delivered. Just a tray packing puzzle with some very attractive pieces made from Ovangkol to be packed into a standard Maple tray. It is a lovely size to play with at a table (11.5cm across in a 3 layer deep tray). Only when you look at the pieces closely do you realise that there is something odd about some of them - they are 3 layers high and when they are looked at from a particular direction, there seems to be notches in them each of which is a single vowel in size. There are 8 pieces each having 1 voxel missing and then four 2 voxel bars to be inserted alongside them. Tipping the pieces out of the tray reveals the full extent of Lucie's madness and what is going to be required:

Interesting tray packing pieces with 4 "gold" bars to hide

This was the easy bit

Now we understand the name. Smugglers have often buried their treasure to keep it away from competitors and the authorities so that they can come back to it at a later date. Here we need to place all the pieces in the tray so that they lie flush with the edges. Then we need to find a way to repeat it but with the gold bars inside and hidden. To do this will require solving the packing with the notches in the middle layer to be organised so that they line up with 4 2x1 voxel gaps.

I first of all set to work on just the main pieces and ignored the gold bars. I found quite a few assemblies for this and, after playing with Burrtools, discovered that there are 168 ways to do this. I then worked on adding first one and them progressively more of the bars. Placing just one was relatively trivial once a packing for the main pieces had been found. Placing a second one, at least for me, did not seem much tougher. I have been trying to assemble the packed tray with 3 of the 4 bars now for a day or so and have so far failed. I am sure there is some logic to it but I haven't yet worked it out. Burrtools tells me there are 30 solutions. The final challenge with all 4 bars has just one solution. I expect this to take me the rest of my life! For you tray packers, this might just be an essential purchase.

Out Of Center

Out of Center

I am a sucker for a good burr! I am not good at assembly but that is why Andreas gave us Burrtools! The disassembly, I find a delight of effectively exploring a hidden internal moving 3D maze as you slide pieces about. I have quite a few burrs, both stick and board versions and as the number of pieces go up, they get much much more difficult. My 18 piece burrs are always a huge challenge and this one by Alfons Eyckmans is something very different to everything else I have ever seen - this is the first time I have ever seen an 18 piece board burr! It certainly is not for beginners. Jakub and team have made this beautifully from Wenge, Maple and Bubinga. They have made it a decent size at 10cm across.

This is a huge challenge but also a lot of fun. From the very beginning there are quite a few possible moves but the pathways aren't very long to get lost in. It will be important, as with all board burrs, to ensure everything stays aligned and no rotations happen. I don't think there are any early rotational shortcuts but small rotations will block the required moves. As I got further and further into the puzzle, I realised there was a repetitive locking and unlocking sequence which gradually made space for pieces to be further and further extended out of the puzzle. The burr has a level 22.3.6.1.2.1.1.1.1.1.1.2.2 disassembly which is just perfect for most experienced burr-istas and remains pretty stable right through to the final pieces being removed.

Looks horrific to reassemble?

Having taken it apart, there was no way that it was going back together from memory. Burrtools to the rescue again and despite being a board burr and despite the huge number of pieces, it was a nice easy assembly to follow. It will look lovely on display.

Minima 2nd Drawer

Minima 2nd Drawer by Frederic Boucher

It took a while to open the drawer!

This incredible design by Frederic Boucher is the next in the Minima Drawer series. I reviewed the first one here in July. Like the first one, this is a "must have" for any serious puzzler. But be warned...it is MUCH tougher than the first one. 

Pelikan have made this with an Elm box and Wenge pieces. On arrival, only one of the pieces is outside the box and the drawer will not slide to release the others. It takes a bit of experimenting with gravity and rotation to release the drawer enough to release any pieces. Once you have them, the difference from the first puzzle is clear - the dowels are captive inside and actually prevent the drawer sliding completely out. There are 2 L shaped triominoes, 2 dominoes and one single voxel piece. All have holes drilled through in various positions.

I have not yet managed to solve this one despite several hours of attempts. It is clear that an assembly will be needed outside the drawer first and then a sequence of insertion and moves will be needed to get them inside. Make sure that you keep track of the movements that you use during the insertion because it is quite easy to get blocked up and unable to move. At one point I had to shake pieces about inside to release a blockage and nearly had a heart attack! This is an incredibly tough challenge! Let's also just say that Burrtools will NOT help you with this. Good luck!

Apotheca

Apotheca by Dr Volker Latussek

The second puzzle in this release by Volker is another one that reveals that he has a very devious mind!  It has been beautifully made using a lovely grained Limba Frake for the pieces and American Walnut for the box. The box is 7x7x6.5cm and, as always with Volker's puzzles, it arrives in a special delievry configuration. This one looks solved when it arrives but notice that the pieces are protruding from the box. Obviously when packed they will be flush with the surface.

Shallow notches and dowels on each piece and in the box

Taking the pieces out reveals the madness in his head! The pieces are really fairly simple with 3 and 4 voxel L-shapes to which shallow holes and dowels have been added as well as a single dowel on one wall of the box.  This one looks very similar to the Farmacia puzzle from April's release but the are bound to be some special differences.

Having taken my photo of the pieces, not only could I not assemble the cube, I also couldn't put them back in the box into the delivery position! Having worked on so many puzzles this week, my head was broken!

The intention is to create a 3x3x3 cube inside the box. The presence of the dowels means that this has got to be done in a certain order and only one orientation. Again, Burrtools is not useful for this puzzle which really adds to the difficulty. 

Volker was very pleased with how this puzzle design worked out. he said this about it:

"When working with the usual v's and developing FARMACIA, I had to learn that some very nice moves are not possible. However, from my experience with FILLING V, I know how powerful L's are. So what could be more obvious than turning four v's into three L's and filling the 3x3x3 box together with the remaining five v's? And suddenly, the previously impossible moves become possible.

I really hope that you too will see that the price of losing the simple and clean construction principle of the 9 v's of FARMACIA is not too high and that the beauty of the solution in the APOTHECA solution justifies the mixture of eight v's and L's. In fact, the mixture is so powerful that I can offer another puzzle with APTEEK. Perhaps Pelikan will once again show how perfectly crafted ideas in wood enrich the world of mechanical puzzles."

With this description, who can resist? I have still not solved the Farmacia puzzle! I thought it was related to the Logical progression puzzle which ultimately took me a couple of years to solve. Whilst the Farmacia is solvable using Burrtools, the Apotheca has been deliberately designed such that "impossible moves" become possible and I suspect this one will forever be a nemesis. It will be fun to keep trying over many years!

Slider H

Slider H by Benjamin Heidt

Finally, a stunning looking puzzle from Benjamin Heidt. This chunky 7.5x7.5x8cm puzzle has been beautifully made by the Pelikan team from Padauk, Acacia and Peruvian Walnut. It is a good solid heavy puzzle and arrives with one piece outside the box which has an H shaped opening. Benjamin has taken the basic Soma cube pieces, one has been glued inside the box and another pair have been altered and combined into one complex piece.

Pieces outside the box

One is captive inside

The aim is to insert the pieces inside so that only one colour is visible from above when finished. There is a second solution that does not have this restriction and this will be a nice extra challenge for you. I started placing pieces inside the box straight away and failed to pack the cube before I realised that something was amiss. Have a close look at the trapped piece inside and you quickly realise that there is a gap underneath that cannot be reached by sliding pieces in from above. There is something very interesting built into the mechanism of this puzzle which Pelikan have made with extreme precision - it is a marvel to play with and once you have realised what is possible then you are on your way to a solution. It might take you a while! I still haven't solved it!

So we have an incredible set of puzzles coming from Jakub and team soon. These are significantly tougher than many of the usual puzzles and may keep you going for a very long time. I have yet to solve  all of them with some I have only partially completed.

My favourites are:

Petit Albert - a stunning idea and beautifully produced.

Slider H - an interesting twist on a classic

Minima 2nd drawer - it's just so clever (or it will be if I ever complete it)

Social distance soma cube - so gorgeous on display and a huge increase in difficulty for a classic puzzle.