Pelikan Creates Some Flops and New Horizons

Upcoming puzzles from Pelikan and their wonderful designers.

I wasn't expecting anything from Jakub, Jaroslav and team until after the upcoming IPP and was very surprised when an email came from the wonderful Pelikan guys informing me about their upcoming releases and a request for reviews as soon as possible. I then received a beautiful bunch of toys and a growl from she who frightens everyone who meets her. To be honest, I cannot blame her this time - there are another 8 puzzles here and I hadn't put away the toys from the last delivery yet. I know my desk is under the toys but I haven't seen it for a very long time!

Luckily for me, a general email had also gone out telling the world that the Pelikan team were taking a summer break and not returning until tomorrow (10th July) and I, therefore, had a nice 10 day period to plough through these fabulous and difficult puzzles (GULP!). Luckily, I managed to do it (apart from one incredibly tough challenge) with a tiny bit of cheating from Burrtools.

These should be going on sale within the next week or so I hope.

First I have to start with the 2 incredible puzzles from Dr Volker Latussek - they have given this post it's title. We have two more puzzles in the Flop series - believe me, these are not flops as puzzles! They are incredible and one is seriously difficult! Volker emailed me and Jakub to explain what he was trying to achieve:

Fritz Flop

Fritz Flop delivery position

Fritz Flop pieces

Fritz Flop has been beautifully created using a lovely pale Downy Birch wood.

I just love how Volker always specifies a delivery setup for his puzzles. It can be quite a challenge if you aren't paying attention to return the puzzles to the start position. Volker wrote this:

"With the release of TETRA-FLOP I announced a small series of four FLOP-puzzles: FRITZ-FLOP, DICK-FLOP, TEFKA-FLOP and SOMA-FLOP. As an encore, the series will be completed with TETRA-FLOP and for lovers of L-shaped tricubes L-FLOP.

The FLOP series puzzles each consist of a cuboid box completely filled with various tricubes and tetracubes. The box has the largest possible rectangular opening on one side. Each of the four FLOPs has a unique kind of rotation. The solution to each should be unique.

When a FLOP is placed on a flat surface with the opening at the top facing forward, the movement of the pieces is sometimes reminiscent of the Fosbury flop - a revolutionary high-jump technique that sent established records tumbling. The inventor of this technique is the forgotten Austrian athlete, Fritz Pingl, for whom the first FLOP puzzle is dedicated.

My friend Fritz hoped the puzzle could be made in birch wood, and Pelikan were able to fulfil his wish. Many thanks for that.

FRITZ-FLOP has only five pieces: two tricubes and only three of the eight tetracubes, making it the smallest FLOP. I think it's really suited to being a coffee table puzzle. I selected this combination from what seemed like an infinite number of possible combinations. I suspect it is the only combination that fulfils all of the characteristics of a FLOP puzzle. The fact that this combination exists at all, fills me with great wonder, as does the story of the high jump. Please play and enjoy."

I reviewed the Tetra flop from the last release and am surprised to see that some are still available for sale. It was a seriously difficult puzzle but had some wonderful moves in it. I needed a little help and despite that did not feel that I lost out on the puzzling. Working out the moves required after getting a little position help did not detract in any way from my puzzling pleasure.

With the Fritz Flop the puzzle is certainly a lot simpler in design and hence very solvable without help. It is still a challenge with the simpler set of pieces and only looking for a 3x3x2 block shape. The fun part is getting the pieces through the restricted opening which it just smaller than 3x2 in size. There will be rotations and space needs to be left for the rotations to occur. Knowing this helps with working out the possible assemblies to try. Before writing this review I entered the pieces into BT and found that there are 28 possible assemblies of the pieces into the block but doing this is not necessary for the solution. I picked the pieces that I felt were likely to be the last to be inserted and then tried to place the rest into a shape that would allow it. Of course, my first decisions were incorrect and I spent a good few hours attempting impossible solutions - they looked good but there was no way to insert them through the opening. Most of the assemblies stand no chance of insertion and can be discarded quickly. After a few hours, I had exhausted everything I could find apart from one which looked promising but I just couldn't get it to assemble in the box. Time for a break and the following day, I had a fabulous Aha! moment - not only is this a packing puzzle but it is a sequential movement puzzle as well. The rotational move is simply joyful.

Believe me, there are no clues in this photo!

I heartily recommend buying this set - it is pure Latussek genius!

Soma Flop

Soma Flop delivery position

Soma Flop pieces (yes, it's a Soma cube)

Soma Flop has been made using Jatoba and Limbs woods - the voxel size is the same as the others in the series. Again there is a very specific position for the storage. Volker wrote this about it:

"Originally DICK-FLOP and TEFKA-FLOP were scheduled to follow after FRITZ-FLOP, but SOMA-FLOP is really special. Everything is there: the seven parts of the SOMA-CUBE and even a cube-shaped box. The only tricky thing is the size of the opening.

Only?

I learnt a lot from my experiences with SOMA PACK and SHRINKING SOMA, but I couldn't achieve what I was hoping for from a FLOP puzzle at first. Obviously, the search was eventually worth it: SOMA-FLOP has a wonderfully confusing solution, which I suspect my mind wasn't willing to see. I couldn't see the solution for absolute ages because I didn't know it existed. I guess that's the difference between the designer and the solver: as the solver, you can trust that SOMA-FLOP has a solution! The opening is amazingly large - any larger in fact and the SOMA pieces could effectively be packed as into an unrestricted box.

My thanks to Pelikan for making this idea a reality and to Oskar van Deventer for inspiring me to create SOMA-FLOP with his PENULTIMATE SOMA."

This puzzle caused me "some difficulty" and a minor heart attack. I have waxed lyrical about Soma cubes before and certainly feel that everyone who collects puzzles should have at least a plain Soma cube and a variant or two in their collections. Combining a Soma cube with a packing puzzle and incorporating aspects of TIC puzzling too is a major triumph. This puzzle is very VERY difficult but don't let that deter you. First thing to do is remove the pieces from the box. Easy peasy? Erm - yes as long as you don't allow anything to move once there is a little space in the box. I was not careful enough and after removal of the easy two pieces, stuff slid around inside and I couldn't take any more pieces out. OMG! It took me over an hour to free them up and get to the point of attempting to solve the puzzle.

As Volker has stated, there is a nice large entry to the box but not quite two voxels wide. This restriction is the key to the rotational requirement. The non planar pieces need to be tilted to be inserted and there needs to be enough space for this to be allowed to happen. Does this help you narrow down the assemblies? I think it does if you are an assembly puzzle aficionado. I am an assembly idiot and as everyone knows - there are 240 possible cubic assemblies of the Soma pieces. 

I played for a while trying to randomly find cubic assemblies that would allow the non-planar pieces to be inserted early and the linear pieces last. I found a few but had no way to easily narrow them down. I do think that this is possible for all you great puzzlers who read my drivel but for me to manage it, I would require many days or weeks of attempts and a lot of swearing. I had a deadline to meet and therefore had to use a hint. I got the solution and squinted at it quickly so that I only viewed the two pieces that were to be entered last which would leave me to find the positions of the other pieces and then the rotation(s) required to solve it. After 3 days of working on the cube to be inserted I realised that  I needed more help. Burrtools told me that there are 18 assemblies that allowed the last 2 pieces to be where I needed them and from there I could visually restrict the other solutions until I had a few possible solutions to work on. 

I worked on these possibilities for another couple of days and managed to decrease my solution set to just one by totally failing to get the pieces into the box. That last assembly also wouldn't go in - even when you know what goes where, it is really really hard to make it happen. My Aha! moment came as a huge relief and pleasure. This is simply superb! I don't think that there are any spoilers in the photo but I have hidden it behind a button just in case.

This took me days!

Petit Box

Petit Box by Osanori Yamamoto

Another beautiful creation by Osanori-san made using Limba and a very vibrant Purpleheart.

Recently, Osanori-san has been designing a whole set of interlocking puzzles where board burrs pieces are locked inside a box frame. I have previously reviewed his Gem puzzle and the Slider 2 which is still available. Like Slider 2, this has four plates trapped inside the cuboidal frame and there is a lot of movement after the first few pieces have been moved. This puzzle is a very nice fun challenge. After that first exploration, the pieces move very freely and it is quite easy to get stuck in a loop. There are a few places where it looks like rotations begin but these are not useful to you. On several occasions, I thought I was getting quite close to the removal of the first piece but could not find the pathway and kept backtracking to the beginning. The fun part of playing with this (and it's predecessor) is that it opens up enough for you to be able to look inside the frame and see what is blocking your moves. In the end for me, I had to open the space inside right up and then plan a potential disassembly. After that, it was "just" a matter of utilising the space that I had to wind the peeves around each other. The removal of the first piece takes only 12 moves but it is a real challenge to find them. Reassembly is fun if you have memorised the positions and the pathway and quite possible from scratch if you have not and you are highly skilled.

4 plates and a frame.

Connecting Cubes

Connecting Cubes by Lucie Pauwels

There are 3 wonderful challenges by Lucie in this release by Pelikan and this one is delightfully colourful and a fun challenge for beginners and experts alike. It is very reminiscent of some of the wonderful challenges made by Vinco that I reviewed many years ago.

This consists of 8 cubes each of which has a unique arrangement of a slot cut out of one face and a connecting board on another face. The aim here is to make a 2x2x2 cube. There are also a few other possible simpler assemblies which you will find along the way. I think this is a perfect coffee table puzzle. It looks gorgeous and is something that no one could resist picking up and playing with. The best way to approach this is to actually think© about the different types of pieces and how they interact and allow the chain of cubelets to build up. I started off with random attempts at assembly and quickly realised that wasn't going to work for me. After that, I attempted an exhaustive search for the correct combination which also failed due to my inability to remember my previously attempted assemblies. Having discovered that that there is much more to this than meets the eye, I categorised the cubelets and established how the different subtypes interacted. After that, it took me another 5 minutes to assemble my cube. It is very pretty and I won't show you the solution!

Archipuzzle

Archipuzzle by Lucie Pauwels

Lucie designs a whole gamut of different types of puzzle and this is a very different design to what I have seen before. It looks very simple like many of her designs but has just the right challenge level. This is very reminiscent of the extremely challenging Stuffing Burr from Dr Latussek (also still available). The aim is to take the 5 L-shaped notched sticks and assemble them in such a way that the notches are all filled. Lucie's version has 5 sticks which alters the challenge considerably. Each stick has the notches in a different set of orientations. Like most puzzles, I started with random assemblies to see what happened and how they all interact as the chains build up. Quite quickly I came to realise that the chains move further and further apart and then the final piece cannot possibly reach to bridge the gap. Then I realised that the alternative was to build a clump of pieces and hope the ends were close enough to reach each other and then also have the notches the correct orientation. Just as with all of Lucie's designs, this also doesn't work well and it actually requires a little analysis of the types of pieces and how to use them. All in all, this took me nearly an hour and I had my assembled chain. It's a fun thing to do and it's only a slight shame that the created shape is not particularly attractive for storage.

Oekanda

Oekanda by Lucie Pauwels

Oekanda by Lucie Pauwels has been beautifully crafted from Oak with Bubinga pieces. It is reminiscent of the Pin-up box from the February release which is an entry in this year's IPP design competition

The third challenge from Lucie in this release is a real fun one that also requires proper analysis for a satisfying solve. It is a packing puzzle but with a difference - the frame is extremely open and the pieces properly complex making it also an interlocking puzzle. It arrives with the pieces sort of randomly stuck in the frame and on taking the puzzle out of the packing bag, half of them fell out and I couldn't work out how to put them back.

These pieces are really quite complex which made me think it would not be too difficult a challenge to assemble into the 3x3x5 shape with 2 voxels sticking out into the frame. My confidence was misplaced! I found this to be a real challenge to create a shape. My random attempts failed (as usual) and then I realised that I had to think© about the shapes and what possible ways they could be oriented within that cuboid shape. Having realised this and starting to work more systematically on the shape and interactions, I was able to discount quite a few of my possible placements. After an hour of play, I had a major Aha! moment and found my assembly outside of the frame and then worked to place it inside. It really is quite lovely and a fun challenge. I have put the next picture behind a spoiler button - it's not much of a spoiler but don't look if you are worried about seeing too much:

Solved after a bit of analysis

Alma

Alma by Alfons Eyckmans

Alma has been made using Maple, Purpleheart and Wenge.

It would seem that no Pelikan release is complete without something wonderful from Alfons Eyckmans. He designs burr puzzles that are both beautiful and interesting to solve. The Alma looks like a very complex construction but is actually just a 6 piece burr made from L shaped plates. I cannot resist Alfons' burrs - there is always something fun to explore and this is no different. The pathway to the removal of the first piece is fairly well hidden but there are only a few relatively short blind pathways to get lost in and the removal of the first piece takes a fun 10 moves. After this it remains quite a stable construction (just a slight tendency for one piece to sag) and then another 4 moves to remove the next. 

6 very nice L-shaped plates

Having disassembled this over about an hour, I scrambled the pieces and left them for a while before attempting a reassembly. I thought that I had a reasonable memory of the process but somehow got stuck and kept going round and around in circles with one of the pieces continually being trivial to remove and not being interlocked as it should. It took me another hour to realise what I was doing wrong and get it back together. I definitely think that for the more advanced burr puzzler there is plenty of scope for this to be an assembly puzzle and for the "normal" ones amongst us (are any of us that normal?) this is a fun one to partially memorise and then work on the assembly from that. Of course entry of the pieces into Burrtools is also part of the fun.

New Horizon

New Horizon

The final, but definitely not the least impressive, of the puzzles in this release is New Horizon from Alfons Eyckmans made from Pink Oak and Wenge.

This is something new from Alfons - I initially thought that it was another of his interlocking burrs in the shape of a cube and oh boy! was I wrong! Some of Alfons' cube burrs are really really tough but this is a whole other level. It is not at all what I was expecting - it is not a disassembly puzzle, it is an assembly challenge and a very very tough one. To take the cube apart it just requires finding the correct places to put your fingers and the pieces just pull apart sequentially until you have 12 rather interesting shapes to analyse.

I removed the first 6 of the pieces and decided to put them back together to form the cube. Unfortunately, even with only a 50% disassembly, I could not seem to work out which pieces went where and in what order. Whilst looking for the entry point for the first of those 6 pieces, another one fell onto my pile and then I really was in trouble - I couldn't remember the order of any of them and quickly decided to complete the dismantling - it was quite a fun thing to do.

12 odd shapes

Having taken my photo I have embarked on an assembly challenge and so far have completely failed. There are notches and "sticking out bits" to analyse and which restrict how the pieces will fit together. Also the orientation of the 1x2x2 voxel oak protuberances which will ultimately form the corners can only fit together in certain ways. This will require quite a lot of analysis and I suspect, will end up with me resorting to Burrtools. But the clever ones amongst you should be able to assemble this from scratch - it will be a wonderful challenge. I will keep trying for a week or so before I resort to BT.

So what should you be buying from this release? Personally, I think they are all fabulous. My favourites have to be the Flop series from Dr Latussek - even with a small cheat they are a wonderful challenge with some brilliant Aha! moments. You should also pick up the remaining Tetra flop to ensure that you get the whole set. After that, I definitely enjoyed the Oekanda from Lucie and the Connecting cubes is perfect as a coffee table puzzle. If you are a burr fanatic then Alfons' puzzles are a delight and I adore these framed plate puzzles from Osanori.

There is something for everyone!

Creative Crafthouse - Soma cube (craftsman edition)

Another puzzle I bought from Creative Crafthouse was a rather nice medium sized Soma cube made from rubberwood, stored in a matching well made box.

All puzzle collections should include a Soma cube!

Brian and Ken Broke It

Then Brian Teamed Up With Andrew to Make a Cluster - I Said "F$&@"

It's a Soma Cube...but they broke it!

I've discussed Ken Irvine a few times on this blog - he's a sort of evil genius (a name which he is positively delighted to have received) who seems to be brilliant at solving puzzles and amazing at designing them too! In fact, his wood-working skillz are pretty impressive too (Sigh! I wish that I had some talent in some field or other!)

Apparently, Ken had a wonderful idea to fiddle with the classic Soma cube (a puzzle that everyone should have in their collection). He decided that it was much too easy having a 7 piece puzzle to make a cube in one of 240 different ways. In his delightful/annoying way he decided to make it a 6 piece puzzle that only had one assembly! He named it the Broken Soma because he took the 3 voxel L-shape and broke each of the cubies in half before fixing them onto the 6 remaining pieces. Hence it is a "broken soma". Except, we all know the real reason it is so-named...it only takes a short ¼ hour or so before anyone playing with it decides that he has taken a perfectly reasonable puzzle and BROKEN it! It seems bloody impossible! The puzzle was debuted at the Rochester puzzle party earlier this year where several people, including Brian Menold, tried and failed to solve it over the 3-day party. Eventually, Brian solved it after getting home and this seemed to be the response that most of the extremely skilled puzzlers at this event had to this delightful design.

Brian asked Ken for permission to reproduce it to which the response was a resounding yes. I had a little play with Allard's copy at the last MPP and after about 30 minutes was completely convinced that it was impossible - this proved to me that I was quite correct to have ordered a copy myself and couldn't wait for it to arrive (the Royal Mail seemed to have lost track of my package for a week or so). I am always delighted to try anything new from Ken's evil twisted (but clever) mind and of course, anything made by Brian will be stunningly beautiful even if it remains unsolved and in pieces for a while. I bought a copy made from Olivewood and Moabi which looked stunning on Brian's store and is even more beautiful in the hand.

I have carried this with me to work as well as played at home for several weeks. In my usual fashion, I went about it by randomly trying to combine pieces and of course failing every single time. There was always a piece sticking out or a small ½-voxel gap in a wall. I tried combining the half pieces and tried putting them at the ends of edges and nothing would work at all. Ken had certainly broken my Soma! I gave it to people at work to try and they were all convinced quite quickly that it was impossible. This includes a consultant and clinical fellow foot and ankle surgeon who are quite used to taking a fracture random assortment of funny shaped bones or fragments and putting them together into something vaguely foot or ankle shaped - of all the types of surgeon I work with, their 3D visuospatial ability is pretty much second to none. Between the two of them, I challenged them for an hour or so and they also were convinced my puzzle was broken. I also gave it to my anaesthetic assistant and one of my senior anaesthetic trainees to attempt during a rather long case. They are also pretty good at 3D reconstruction (having gotten very used to using 2D ultrasound and creating a 3D mind view from it) and yep...they declared it broken too!

At some point during all this torturing, I sat down and took Allard's advice and actually had a think©! Apart from causing a severe headache, I had a very nice realisation...there is something you need to figure out before it will be solved. You may well solve this by chance, by random piece placement but this is actually quite unlikely. Once you actually think, you realise exactly what is required and you can quite quickly assemble a cube.

This photo really gives almost nothing away!
Just look at the beauty of these woods!

The Aha! moment is simply wonderful. It is not the feeling of exhaustively working through every possibility (my memory is nowhere near good enough for that), it is the feeling you get from a sudden realisation that you know exactly what is required and can do it in minutes. Brian and Ken have created a masterpiece...I would say that every collection should have a Soma cube as well as a broken one. Thank you so much, my friends!

It's a Cluster F$&@!

Another genius who has been collaborating with Brian is the incredible Andrew Crowell. I have tried to make sure that I get a copy of almost everything he designs. This is courtesy of either Brian or the world expert on Turning Interlocking Cubes, Bernhard Schweitzer. Not everything that comes from Andrew's warped brain is a cube - he has designed a few other shapes but in common they always share the common feature of requiring some really complex interesting rotations. I am still struggling with a couple of PackTIC designs despite months of work. When Brian showed off on his site the Cluster puzzle which whilst not a cube still requires a bunch of rotations, I couldn't resist - plus my fetish for gorgeous wood meant that I just had to own a small amount of Patagonian Rosewood.

Surprisingly, this puzzle is still available in Yellowheart or Peroba Rosa for a very reasonable $54 - go and get it now - you really won't be disappointed.

I had left this one until I had solved the lovely fun FantasTIC and then set to. The fact that it is not a cube shape makes it both easier and harder for some reason. I was able to discern what I thought was the placement of the pieces fairly easily and then try and find the order of insertion and the correct rotations to get them in place. Except...this wouldn't work for me. I am a bear of very little brain and so kept trying the same thing. After a couple of days of failing to place the last piece and not realising that the gap was not the right shape, I suddenly took note and decided to start afresh. This time, I realised my stupid mistake and then was forced to hunt for another assembly entirely. Because of the odd shape of the intended final puzzle, I found this quite tough and discovered the alternative placement of the first piece entirely by accident. Aha! Now on to the main rotational placement. I had discovered a very interesting move that would allow entry of other smaller pieces but there seemed to be no way to get both of them inside...stuck AGAIN!

A few days later, I went back to it and thought to myself:

"What if I...?"

OMG! That is amazing! Who would have thought I would have a railway inside the puzzle or is that a Scalextric (remember those?) - there is a totally unexpected sequence of moves in there and it made me chuckle when I found it!

It's a cluster - brilliant - go get one

Well, I had better leave you now - Mrs S has just returned from a few days visiting the out-laws in Auld Reekie and if I don't sit and chat then she may get really upset at the pile of puzzles that have arrived in her absence as well as a few more that will be arriving soon! After a trip to the homeland, she packs a mighty Whack! Ouch!

How Do They Keep Doing This?

Latest releases from Pelikan

Having received the new puzzles from Jakub and Jaroslav, they promptly went on holiday and I thought I might have had plenty of time to solve and write about all these wonderful new designs. Oh boy, I was very wrong. Even whilst on holiday (vacation to the yanks) they still think about all their devoted puzzle friends and sent me a message asking if I could have a review to them before Friday 15th. OMG! The pressure is on! I really went for it. This was not made particularly easy by the fact that there are several difficult packing puzzles this time and I am terrible at packing puzzles. Many of you will have read my reviews when they went up on the Pelikan store describing the puzzles - if you have then no need to read on. I just didn't have time to publish the reviews with decent photos here until now. 

I have not managed to solve them all but I certainly have a review on them all for you and hope that this helps when you are choosing what you should buy. Without further ado, on to the puzzles:

Typhoon S1

Typhoon S1 by Osanori Yamamoto

I absolutely love this particular subgroup of the interlocking/caged burr puzzle. A lot of the high piece number caged burrs can be extremely difficult and quite a few have completely beaten me. There are a small group consisting of a frame with just 4 burrsticks sitting inside that I really enjoy the process of exploration and disassembly. The reassembly is a challenge but definitely possible with such a low number of pieces. 

Galaxy

Galaxy Z

Mysterious Galaxy

The master of this type is Osanori Yamamoto who began my love of these with the incredible Galaxy, Galaxy Z and Mysterious Galaxy puzzles. This kind of puzzle can be expanded to make them more difficult and maybe slightly more interesting (as Dan Fast did with the Stir the Coffee puzzle in the last release. Osanori has designed a lovely little challenge here which Jakub and Jaroslav have brought into the world beautifully using Jatoba and Wenge. The fit is perfect and the exploration is great fun. There are quite a few short blind ends and it's possible to go in a loop. I got stuck at one point and could not find the critical move - everything is visible as you progress but due to the ends being at 90º to each other I found my moves were easily blocked. After a couple of evenings of play I suddenly found my hidden move and I was able to take out the first piece. 

It's a fun reassembly too

Having disassembled it, I scrambled the pieces and attempted reassembly and really struggled. I did manage to work out what went where and in what order but the hidden move that I had found fro the disassembly was also hidden on the way back to the beginning. Brilliant puzzle which is just the right level of difficulty and beautifully made.

Insider

Insider by Alexander Magayarics
Pelikan will be sending these as disassembled puzzles

This absolutely stunning puzzle designed by Alexander Magyarics was sent out to me fully assembled. I suspect this was done to prevent the captive piece rattling around in the post and getting damaged. If Pelikan does decide to send it out assembled then I would very much suggest that you get your significant other puzzler in your life to take it apart for you and then you treat it as an assembly puzzle. It is truly gorgeous having been made from Zebrano and Jatoba - the grain is just stunning! It is also a substantial puzzle in your hands being an 8cm cube. This size is very welcome so that you can easily get your fingers inside to manipulate the pieces. There are 3 pieces and the box which has some pretty big holes in it. Only 2 of those pieces can be removed and the other has to remain inside. 

Insider pieces (the third is captive inside)

The disassembly is a nice little exploration and after that the captive piece can rattle around into any orientation. This means that as a packing puzzle you cannot create your shapes outside before working out how to put the pieces back inside. Mrs S never agrees to play with my puzzles and I dismantled it and scrambled all 2 of the pieces and left them for several days. As expected (Alexander had suggested that I do this), the reassembly is a significant challenge - I am critically dependent on creating my shapes first and working backwards. This is not possible and I had to try and do it in my feeble mind. It took me a couple of days before I succeeded and that was only because I understood the disassembly. If I stared from scratch then I might still be doing it! Beautiful AND brilliant.

Golden Pot

Golden Pot by Yavuz Demirrhan

When Yavuz designs something, I always pay attention. He is an amazing designer as well as a superb craftsman. The belief that there is a pot of gold at the end of a rainbow is a wonderful piece of old Irish folklore and it is quite surprising that a Turkish man living in Germany can get a pair of Czech craftsmen to make it but even without a hint of Ireland in the manufacture, this is a simply wonderful puzzle. It is made with an American Walnut pot, a Merbau, Purpleheart, Garapa and Maple rainbow and Grape pieces. Yavuz has used a subset of the Soma cube pieces (including 3 that are doubled up). The aim is to pack all of them into the pot so that the gold forms a level surface with the rainbow buried in it. This is made really challenging by the fact that there is only a 1 voxel clearance around and underneath the rainbow's end making the insertion of several pieces quite challenging. I still struggle to assemble a soma cube and anything like this with a restricted entry is a huge challenge for me. Random trial and error didn't work for the first couple of days and eventually I had to think©. It is actually the restricted entry that is the most important part.

This is one that I will put on display in the assembled form - just gorgeous!

It made me stop and work out how I could get the awkward pieces inside - there is only one assembly but there are 2 ways the pieces can be put inside. A really difficult puzzle for me and will be beautiful on display in the puzzle room.

Soma 6 Pack

Soma 6 Pack by Lucie Pauwels

Lucie Pauwels is well known for designing really clever and fun challenges which are often variations on a familiar theme which she extends or alters to make them more interesting. Jakub must have seen how good this was and decided that we all needed to experience it. He has created a stunner using very vibrant Padauk and Wenge. In essence this is "just" another Soma variant - take the simple tri-ominoes and tetrominoes and create a 3x3x3 cube! But, and it's a really big BUT... Lucie has taken away one of the tetrominoes. Does this make it easier? Yes, it makes it very easy to create a cube with a 4 voxel gap in it but the she has made the puzzle MUCH more difficult by giving us a 3x3x3 box to assemble the cube in with a rather restricted opening and that 4th tetromino is actually fixed into the roof of the box - yes, the roof of the box is part of the shape. I find this also quite mind-boggling because I cannot create my complete shape outside the box easily. Having taken the pieces out to take my photo, I couldn't put any more than 4 of them in and actually needed a rotation to do that! OMG! This was going to be really tough for a Soma idiot like me.

"Just" a soma cube? Not for me it wasn't!

It took me several hours to solve this one and a huge sense of achievement. It is perfect for anyone who really likes to collect all the Soma variants out there (Haym Hirsh has created quite a few that Brian Menold has made over the years and they are massive challenges).

Scrooge

Scrooge by Alfons Eyckmans

This gorgeous construction is another magnificent burr design from Alfons Eyckmans. This one made from Bubinga and Wenge looks ferociously difficult. Anything with this number of pieces frightens me but I still cannot resist them. My fear is always getting badly lost in the disassembly and then being unable to return to the beginning or make progress. This puzzle is complex but not so complex as to worry anyone about being unable to make progress. The reason that Pelikan decided to make this is because it is effectively a 6 piece burr (albeit with stick length of 8 voxels) held within a frame made from relatively simple burrsticks. I absolutely loved the initial exploration of the movements as there were not too many available and certainly no chance of me getting stuck. The first piece takes 25 reasonably logical moves to release and thereafter the rest of the solution progressed very enjoyably. The puzzle remained remarkably stable (if a little squishy) even after 6 pieces had been removed and I eventually managed to remove the entire frame (which consists of 6 identical versions of two types of piece) and was left with the 5 piece burr intact and remaining to be dismantled.

The pieces look fearsome but it was a really fun disassembly

The reassembly will definitely require Burrtools but that is half of the fun.

Minas Tirith

Minas tirith by Tamás Vanyó

This incredibly striking puzzle is yet another fabulous creation by Tamás Vanyó. It has been made with Elm to match the pale city that was shown in Peter Jackson's amazing Lord of the Rings films. Like the Caste builder set in the previous release, the Minas Tirith is constructed using 2x2xN sized pieces that fit in a frame which has restrictions in it. Unlike the castle builder set, the frame actually forms part of the outer wall of the puzzle and greatly restricts the ability to insert the pieces and means that the order of insertion is crucial. I have to state that I have not had time to solve this puzzle. The aim is to create a "city" so that none of the inner rooms are visible externally and also there is an extra challenge which Pelikan have added. Once the puzzle has been dismantled you will see a bunch of interior channels cut within many of the pieces. The aim is to assemble your city so that the supplied metal ball bearing can be inserted into the hole near the top and then can navigate the carefully assembled maze so that it can exit the exterior door after tilting it back and forth in the correct direction. This will be a huge challenge for any puzzler and will leave you with a stunning puzzle to put on display afterwards.

So which should you buy? Well all of them of course! I know that most of you cannot buy them all so will state that my favourites are Insider for the extra challenge of the captive piece, Golden Pot because it is just so beautiful and Scrooge because it is still a six piece burr but made more interesting!

Now I had better reassemble Scrooge before a certain cat runs off with a piece or Mrs S chucks them away for cluttering up her kitchen!

Spring With Pelikan (part 2)

Pelikan spring release - coming 17th April 2pm CEST

I do apologise to all of you and especially to Jakub and team about spreading the reviews over 2 weekends! I was just too busy to work on all 6 in one week and have any chance at all of solving and understanding them. It did not change Jakub's intended release date but has inconvenienced him by being late getting my reviews for him.

Today I finish off the final 3 and they are something else in terms of complexity and difficulty. They are also very beautiful!

Euklid for Bernhard

Euklid for Bernhard - simply gorgeous

This fabulous addition to the Euklid series (I have still not managed to solve the Euklid for Nick!) is a tribute from Dr Volker Latussek to the amazing puzzler, collector and friend, Bernhard Schweitzer. Volker wrote the following about the design of this puzzle:

"When Bernhard Schweitzer told me that he was winding up his puzzle collection, I remembered our first meeting at Bernhard's house. Back then, I had designed my first puzzle, which I wanted to enter in the Nob Yoshigahara International Puzzle Design Competition in 2011 after doing some web research. I didn't know that the IPP was being held in Berlin at the time, and Bernhard hadn't told me, but he encouraged me to send in my two copies. WAY is still the most important puzzle for me today. I called it the Puzzle Construction Set because it could be used to formulate very different challenges. I didn't win a prize at the IPP, but the puzzle was published by Popular Playthings under the name ROUNDABOUT. Unfortunately somewhat modified. But back to Bernhard.

Bernhard showed me his collection at the time. I had never seen anything like it before. He told me stories and anecdotes about some of the puzzles from the community, a world that was completely unknown to me. I still remember the HASELGROVE BOX by Jenifer Haselgrove: it was probably my personal key experience that gave me time to think about what I should, and hopefully will, come up with over the years.

With EUKLID FOR BERNHARD, I want to say thank you for the encouraging comments on my ideas and the time we spent together at the puzzle parties at Bernhard's home in Glattbach.

It has become a EUKLID with an addition. When the six blocks are packed into the box, give the puzzle a good shake and then open your ears for a short walk with Jenifer Haselgrove to empty the box again.

Thank you, Bernhard."

Volker tends to stipulate not only the delivery packing as well as the dimensions of his puzzles but also the wood choices as well. His decision this time was absolutely inspired as it is an absolutely gorgeous combination of Purpleheart for the box and Downy Birch for the pieces. Interestingly the pieces are all very similar in size - 21mm deep with 3 pieces 47x25mm, 1 of 47x47mm, another 47x30mm and the other 52x25mm. There are only a few combinations of sizes that will fit within the walls of the box.

Now I had not read this tribute when I received and worked on my copy of this puzzle and had no idea that it might have a common feature with the Hazelgrove box. That would not have helped me much because I don't own and have never played with one of those famous puzzles. I set to in the usual way that I do with this sort of puzzle - I look at all the pieces and try to see which dimensions are combinable inside the confines of the box. 

I found several ways that all the pieces would fit inside but the restricted opening meant that I was unable to achieve the vast majority of them. I played for a couple of days with it and failed every time until I had a sudden Aha! moment and all 6 pieces were inside. I was very pleased with myself and took my obligatory photo. Only when I received the introduction from Volker did I begin to question myself. My solution did not have any fancy locking mechanism and seemed a lot simpler than most of the previous Euklid puzzles. I looked at the solution that was provided by Jakub and my solution was different. You have 2 challenges here - an easier one (mine) and a REALLY fancy one that was the one intended by the designer. The intended solution requires thought and dexterity - it is very impressive (rather like Bernhard!)

Stefka-Flop

Stefka-Flop by Dr Volker Latussek

This is another (and to me, unexpected) entry in the Flop series of packing puzzles. I have said on several occasions that this Flop series of puzzles by Dr Latussek are an incredible feat of puzzle design and when coupled with Pelikan's magnificent craftsmanship and wood choices, they are some of the highlights of my packing puzzle collection. This one was stipulated to be made with a glorious Purpleheart box and Acacia soma pieces. Volker wrote the following about this puzzle:

"Since 1987, the 1996 Bulgarian Olympic champion, Stefka Kostadinova, has held women's high jump the world record with a height of 2.09 meters - providing a fitting conclusion to my little series of packaging puzzles with the STEFKA-FLOP. As previously announced, LITTLE TETRA-FLOP will come as an encore, however, I would still like to pursue the principle further and use the term FLOP here and there, e.g. perhaps for a COFFIN-FLOP.

STEFKA-FLOP with seven pieces follows DICK-FLOP with its six Tetra cubes and FRITZ-FLOP with only five pieces. The boxes are completely filled, and the opening is so large that some pieces have to tumble out of the box. STEFKA-FLOP has a very unusual, and very beautiful, new turning movement in before a flop.

Oskar van Deventer has previously published STEFKA-FLOP under the name UNFOLDED-FLOP. The seven pieces corresponds to the SOMA CUBE with an unfolded v (I). That was a consolation, because at first, I couldn't find a SOMA-FLOP with all seven pieces of the SOMA-CUBE."

They are not just packing puzzles with restricted openings...they are also variants on the Soma cube, using entirely Soma shaped (or a subset of them) and also are TICs as well with the very important requirement that a few of the pieces cannot fit through the entryway without rotation and then often need rotation into place inside the box which adds a special requirement for the correct order.

The Soma cube has 240 3x3x3 assemblies and I am still ashamed to say that it takes me quite some time to find even one of them! And that is without the restriction of doing it within a box and also without further hindrance of restricted entry and rotational moves! This is going to be a hell of a challenge for any puzzler. I spent 3 days attempting this amazing feat of puzzle design and had to peek at the solution to find the last 3 pieces to be inserted. Having restricted the number of pieces I needed to experiment with, I finally managed to find a bunch of cubes that assembled that way and then still could not get them into the box. With a deadline looming I looked at the cube assembly that was required and spent another happy hour or so working out how to put it inside the box. Even with a huge clue, it is still a decent challenge. I am sure that the rest of you with more time to play will manage this without help.

This is a fantastic addition to the series and I cannot wait to see the others that Volker intends (I am sort of hoping they won't be quite so tough).

SISU

SISU by Benjamin Heidt

The word Sisu is a Finnish word - it is not easily translatable into English but it roughly means:

Strength of will, determination, perseverance, and acting rationally in the face of adversity. Sisu is not momentary courage, but the ability to sustain that courage. 

Does this mean that it requires enormous strength of will to solve it? I also noticed that there is a hole in the box which goes all the way through and remembered the scene from the recent movie where the hero stabbed a Nazi in the head through and through with his knife. I've added the image below - it's not suitable for people of a nervous disposition or children - You have been warned! Don't look unless you really want to know what the Finnish war hero, Sisu did.

It has been beautifully made by Jakub and team from Mahogany, Ash, some magnets and a steel ball bearing. It is a restricted entry packing puzzle as we have seen many times before and also has pieces that are based on the Soma puzzle. Making this one very different from the others we have seen before, the pieces have some beautifully drilled holes in them. Some of these holes are blind ending and others are part of a channel through the piece and out another hole. The aim seems to be to assemble the pieces in the box and close the lid on top and then to roll the ball bearing through the maze that has been created until it comes out the other side. This means that the assembly requires the formation of a maze that goes entirely through the puzzle. This significantly adds to the challenge!

Now this is an interesting puzzle to write about! I have so far not come even close to solving the full thing. Just before starting to write this review, I have finally managed to assemble the pieces into a cube shape - I am ashamed to say that this has taken me a whole day! I then went to BT and discovered that there is only one possible assembly for these pieces into a cube. I will then need to see how to get them into the box through the H-shaped entry - I assume that only one of the 6 possible orientations of the cube will be possible to assemble in the box and probably not without some fancy sequential moves. The pieces that have rotational symmetry will need to be oriented correctly to form the complete maze - whilst the piece shape might be symmetrical, the holes and channels are not. After this I will have a blind maze to negotiate with the ball bearing.

I love a puzzle with multiple challenges and this will require some significant "Sisu" to achieve it! Despite not having completed the challenge yet, I know that this will be an essential purchase for you all. Hopefully Mrs S will not get upset with my muttering and stab me through the head later tonight!

Thank you Jakub, Jaroslav and team for the wonderful challenges and also to the amazing designers - you are all brilliant. 

Get there at 2pm CEST on 17th April to get your pick of these puzzles.