Good Puzzling Comes in Three's?

Three Pieces? Or Three Puzzles?

TripTIC

NeuroTIC

You cannot have too many Turning Interlocking Cubes! Especially made by Brian Menold or designed by the "Master of the TIC" - Andrew Crowell. Brian's last update had 4 TICs in it and I picked these 2 because I already had copies of the other two (SkepTIC previously from Brian and remaining unsolved as well as XiTIC from Bernhard:

XiTIC pieces

XiTIC assembled

I really need to find my copy of SkepTIC and solve the damn thing - I seem to remember that I bought it in March last year and could not assemble it and have put it down somewhere - who knows where!

SkepTIC pieces still to be assembled

When Brian offered these puzzles that I did not have in my collection, I could not resist. Well, you all know that I struggle to resist many puzzles that are put on sale and have really annoyed Mrs S by continuously increasing the size of my collection and failing to put them away. She was distinctly unimpressed when they arrived. I had been hoping to intercept their arrival without her noticing whilst I have had a few days of annual leave over the last 2 weeks. Unfortunately, she had me doing DIY and gardening for much of the time off and I couldn't get to the door in time to intercept before she got there. I was wiring in replacement smoke and fire detectors and up a ladder when the package arrived! I nearly fell off the ladder in my haste to get to the door first but she's too damn quick! 

In the evenings after finishing my enforced chores and (for once) not electrocuting myself, I set to playing with these fascinating TICs. The fun thing about both of the new arrivals is that they have only three pieces in each:

TripTIC made from Paduak, Canarywood and Angelique wood

NeuroTIC from mixed woods

I started with the "easy" one, TripTIC, as it only had 2 rotations and 11 moves. and quickly found the end positions for each of the pieces and individually found the rotations but when trying to put all three pieces together the pieces interfered with each other's moves. until I found a very nice little position for one that opened up a hole for the introduction of the other and after about 15 minutes I had a lovely little cube:

See! I can solve the odd puzzle occasionally!

Time to move onto the harder one...NeuroTIC also has 3 pieces but despite having only 2 rotations, it has a higher level of 13.3 and as Brian puts it: "some interesting moves". I definitely struggled on this one. I quickly determined the final resting positions but putting any third piece into the mix quickly blocked me. I couldn't seem to work out which piece to use first and I ended up having to solve this over 2 days. Yes, I forced Mrs S to allow me a little puzzling time during my time off. Whack! Ouch! Sorry dear. As Brian said, there are some really clever moves involved here and the final rotation that allows the rest of the puzzle to slide together is absolutely delightful. 

Absolutely wonderful assembly process

Disassembling the puzzle caused me a little trouble. I got all caught up and had a piece trapped and unable to release it despite working out the correct rotation first. This could easily also be a disassembly puzzle. 

I really never know how to store these puzzles - should I keep them disassembled? Or should I keep them as lovely looking cubes to be taken apart - this would help with storage but decrease the repeatability of the puzzles.

Of course, I couldn't buy just 2 TICs from Brian. I had to make the postage worthwhile - I also couldn't resist a third one being released by him from the amazing Haym Hirsh, the Green T-Box:

Green T-Box

I had already bought the original T-Box by Haym back in December 2021 and thoroughly enjoyed the sole process of packing 6 T-shaped bars into a beautifully designed box so how could I possibly resist a reworking of the original idea with another 6 T's of different dimensions and a different set of obstructions in the box? Again, it was beautifully embellished.

After spending a few minutes trying to rearrange the pieces in vertical positions from the placements they arrive in, I quickly realised that vertical placement was definitely not going to cut it! This one is damned fiddly - the tolerances of the woodwork is astonishing! Even a tiny amount of tilt to a piece will get it wedged in amongst the other pieces and require a frenzied shaking and tapping of the box on your palm to free them up. After ½ an hour of repeated attempts in the box, I had to start to think© outside the box and realised that it was not quite a case of simply shoving the pieces inside in the correct order and orientation. The pieces needed to be placed and some of them slid into position inside. It's a very satisfying feeling when the final piece drops in and the lid fits on top snugly.

Trust me, all the T's are inside

What is next for Brian and Haym? Will we have Black T-Box? Oolong T-box? Who knows! Whatever it is, I will not be able to resist. 

Thank you, Brian for a week of delightful puzzling to take my mind of the DIY and gardening. In fact, I have had quite the roll this last couple of weeks - I look forward to showing the completed puzzles off to you over the next couple of weeks.

Chasing the Serpent's Tail - Uroborus

Uroborus by Girish Sharma made by Brian Menold

Another week goes by and I make absolutely no headway solving either the Box of Celts or Vertigo puzzles. Yep! Not even the first step of each! I am truly not terribly bright - but, I will keep at it. Perseverance is definitely my thing. In desperation, I turned to yet another of Brian Menold's gorgeous creations, the Uroborus designed by the incredibly talented Girish Sharma (he seems to be catching up with the master of the TIC, Andrew Crowell). It was Girish' second entry into the IPP design competition in 2022.

This puzzle is a more suitable size to be putting in my work bag for intermittent play when I get a quiet moment. It saw the light of day on several occasions and completely bamboozled me for quite a long time. There are "only" three pieces to be interlocked so should really not be hugely difficult. Despite this "should not be difficult", I really struggle to find an assembly for the 3 pieces even without actually trying to navigate the rotations. I was able to work out how to interlock any 2 of them in a few different ways but each time there did not appear to be any way that the third piece could fit into the 3D structure. This impasse went on for several days until I finally found a possible assembly. Time to navigate the rotations...

This is where it all got a bit frustrating. I am sure that you can all hear Girish laughing at me from wherever you are in the world. All three pieces end with a corner to corner gap and thus appear to be very restricted in how they can be introduced to each other. I figured to myself that I should start with the two larger ones and after a bit of dizziness inducing rotation I managed to get them interlocked in the correct position (yay!). Now it was time to introduce the third one and here lay a big problem. I tried for hours and hours and could not do it. Maybe I should start with a large one and the small one? AT this point, I had a horrible realisation that I had been wasting hours on an impossible assembly! 😱

Had I started with those two pieces from the beginning I would have very quickly realised that I had decided upon and attempted something impossible! This situation is quite unusual for these puzzles. I have previously found that the first difficult stage of finding the possible assemblies usually ends with just one possibility leading to a prolonged attempt at actually getting it together. Here, however, there are obviously (in retrospect) more than one assembly. Aargh! Time to find another one.

Finding the first assembly had taken several days and I was rather anxious that it might take weeks to find the other one (not helped by the fact that I am terrible at remembering what I have tried before). Getting increasingly desperate, I finally found another assembly and set to putting it together. This time I tried to make sure that the small piece could physically be placed (it is very limited in the rotations it can do due to the small hole in the middle). This proved easily possible and gave me the confidence to try assembling the larger pieces. Oh boy! Brian wasn't wrong when he said that the rotations were dizziness inspiring. There were quite a lot of turns involved and a few required very precise placement of the pieces before a particular move was possible. After about an hour, I had what I needed and then got the third piece attached as well - Yeehaw! Solved it!

Uroborus solved!

Dismantling the bloody thing was also a fun challenge. Needless to say, I had completely lost track of all the various rotations required and even had forgotten the direction to move in. I was stuck for quite a while this morning trying to take it apart again. 

This puzzle may look relatively easy but it really wasn't. It took the best part of a week of swearing before I found the solution. It definitely has two phases with almost equal difficulty. Finding the correct assembly was horrendously tough for me and then the assembly almost as hard. I created a BT file to establish how many possible assemblies there are and was horrified to see that there are 5 and presumably only 1 is actually achievable. Girish, you are a genius!

A Puzzling Tribute to Christoph Lohe

Very sad news

After my last post (about Christoph Lohe's marvellous design, Neighburr) I received an email from both Laszlo Molnar and Goetz Schwandtner with the very sad news that Christoph had sadly passed away at the end of January this year. It would appear that his family had not had contact with him for a  few days and contacted the police and he was found in his flat. It has been judged to be natural causes. As many of us puzzlers are getting older this sort of thing should not come as a shock but he was only 65 years old. I guess that with what I do for a living, I should not be that surprised.

He was a significant scientist having  received a MSc in Experimental Physics from the Technology University Aachen in 1989 and a PhD in 1993. He worked as a Product manager Ferrofluidics, Nuertingen, Germany, 1996-2000. Project manager Aixtron AG, Aachen, since 2001. As a scientist of note he had been listed as a noteworthy physicist by Marquis Who's Who.

I considered Christoph a friend. We had never met and I was not constantly in touch with him but we exchanged emails every few months to discuss puzzles and his wonderful designs. You can still buy some of them from PuzzleMaster here or print them yourself from Thingiverse here.

His amazing skill as a designer is shown by the fact that I have reviewed 20 of his wonderful designs here on my little section of t'internet. I thought that it would be a nice think to look back at a few of my absolute favourite of his designs. 

Collaboration with the TICMaster, Andrew Crowell

Cyburr and Chamburr from Pelikan

Climburr from Matt Nedeljko

When the first 2 came out from Pelikan, I wondered whether these two masters of puzzle design had created a completely new type of puzzle and raved about them. They made my top 10(ish) in 2021. The Climburr was felt to be too difficult to produce in wood by Jakub and it was only when Matt Nedeljkogot the courage to attempt them did we get to attempt the final one in the series. Spoiler alert - it was fabulous and made the top ten in the next year.

Locks, Locks, Locks!

Mini lock 1 & 2

Spiral Lock

Burrlock E

Key Trap

Christoph had a bit of a thing about locks and keys but not in the classical sense. He designed burrs in that shape. The fun thing is that rather than make simple 6 piece burrs where the pieces interact in the 3 axes, Christoph made the burrs with a frame to restrict movement and a key and shackle (and pieces) to lock up in at least 2 of the axes. The one amazing thing about all of Christoph's designs is that they are not terribly high level but are always challenging and fun without being too arduous. I absolutely adored these. The fact that even the late Eric Fuller thought well enough of these to make one of them, does show how good they were.

Framed Burrs

I adore a burr that has just the standard 6 pieces but is constrained in its movement and interaction by the presence of a frame. It makes them so much more interesting.

Neighburr by Brian Menold

Bouquet

Castle

Timburr

Again, we have puzzles that are so good that both Jakub and Brian Menold decided they were worth putting the effort into manufacturing in reasonable numbers. They all had something special and were all great fun without being too difficult.

Unconventional packing puzzles

Whenever I think of this particular type of challenge the names that always spring to mind are the incredible Alexander Magyarics and Osanori Yamamoto. But they were not alone, Christoph also had a fascination with these and designed some amazing puzzles:

Liliput

Trenta

Box with 2 balls

Kamelle Box

This is only a few of his great contributions to the puzzling world as well as to my collection but they include my favourites.

Do you have any favourites that you think should be given special mention? If so then please leave a comment below.

Rest in peace Christoph - I was proud to call you a friend.

Always Take Your Photos First!

Neighburr designed by Christophe Lohe made by Brian Menold

Sigh! I have to say it yet again...I'm an eejit! I caused myself a flurry of work at the last moment for this post because I wasn't paying attention. I blame it on the fact that Mrs S is back "ooop North" again and I am home alone with a disturbed cat and a workload that is just too high including having to work the weekend yet again! The disturbed cat is gradually being made better by Prozac - yes, he's on the happy pills and making me look like a coke addict. Every couple of days I can be seen cutting a white powder on a glass coaster with a razor blade! The capsules are 20mg and I need to give him 2.5mg, hence I open capsules, pour out white powder and use a double edged razor to portion it into eighths and into little spoons for each day. The image is perfect, all I need is a rolled up £50 note and I am ready to be arrested! 😱😱😱

Having given my excuses, here is todays puzzle and what I did:

Bouquet

I had a little splurge with Brian Menold's Woodwonders store (I cannot resist the gorgeous woods and his fabulous choices in puzzles) and one of the delights was a caged 6 piece burr designed by Christophe Lohe - the Neighburr. I love burrs in general but I am hopelessly addicted to caged burrs - especially if they are caged 6 piece burrs because the addition of the cage can turn a relatively straight-forward exploration of simple moves into a wonderful interlocking nightmare. It is also made much more fun when the basic grid for the pieces strays away from the standard 2x2xn grid. The Neighburr has burr sticks based on a 2x3x6 grid and ads in the feature that one end is 2x3 and the other 2x2. This allows for much more interesting shapes and interaction. My copy has a wonderfully white Holly frame and the pieces are beautifully coloured Koto (white), Kirandy (yellow) and Redheart. This puzzle is very reminiscent of the Bouquet that I bought and wrote about a few years ago. That one was a fantastic challenge with a level of 23.3.5.3.3 and this one was described as an even harder level 34.3.2.2 - who could resist? Chris has a special skill with his designs - he always manages to find interesting shapes, interesting moves and just the right difficulty level.

Having received a bunch of puzzles from Brian, I put a few of them in my work bag and started playing whenever I had a brief moment at work. The disturbed cat was interfering with my ability to concentrate at home! There are quite a few moves open to you initially and all but one fails to lead very far which is also part of Chris' special skill. As you work your way in the puzzle does become a little rickety and require a little bit of control of the pieces to allow subsequent moves to happen but no rotations seem to be possible to inadvertently knock you off progress. On several occasions I got lost and couldn't seem to progress or find my way back but always after a little panic found my way to the start. In my usual to and fro process, I managed to gradually work my way in. This puzzle has a wonderful unlocking sequence with a lock mechanism being used, moving a piece before re-locking and then carrying on with another piece. The sequence of Aha! moments is wonderful.

I got to a point where there were a good few pieces sticking right out but not actually free. Everything could be seen inside but I just couldn't find the next move. At this point it was time to extubate a patient and I put it down for a couple of hours. The break did me good, on picking it back up, I could see the next moves straight away and I removed my first piece. Time to back-track. Except...I tilted the puzzle to align the removed piece and a precariously hanging second piece fell out on to my anaesthetic machine. Aargh! I bent down to pick it up hoping that I remembered the correct orientation and tilted it again whereupon 2 more pieces fell out - Double aargh! At this point with my surgeon laughing at me, there was no hope that I would be able to assemble it again without Burrtools. To be honest, I don't really mind that because making the BT file is all part of the fun.

Interesting pieces

I took my photo this morning of the pieces and looked through my photo database and to my horror realised that I had dismantled this one without taking my initial photo. I needed to make my BT file and reassemble it before I could blog about it. As I said above - I'm an eejit! When I went to BT to enter the pieces I suddenly found that this was not an easy one to enter the starting shape without having an assembled puzzle, or at least a photo to use as a reference. Luckily Brian has photos in his archive gallery but even then, this one is a bit awkward to enter into BT without having a puzzle to rotate around and look at from all angles. My initial attempts produced a puzzle with no solutions but after a bit of fiddling with my pieces and pushing them into the frame and rotating it around, I managed it and reassembled the puzzle.

This is absolutely terrific as I have come to expect from Chris. It even has some repeatability due to the lovely locking mechanism. 

Now, it's time to clean the litter tray (yuk!) and spend some time with the disturbed cat whilst playing with some of the others I received from Brian:

Uroborus by Girish Sharma

Persistence of memory by Alexander Magyarics

RIB

RIBlet

RIBeye

Yep! A series of wonderful Ribs designed by Andrew Crowell. These are 6 piece board burrs that need to be assembled with rotations. I hope that I have more luck with these than with the RIPley board burr which I haven't managed to assemble after quite a few years!

Happy New Year! My top ten(ish) puzzles of 2023

Finally cleared my desk

Cubes-a-fillin

Now I have a REAL puzzle room!

Happy New Year to you all! I have no idea what happened to 2022 - it seems to have disappeared without me noticing.

Welcome to my customary end of year post looking back at how I did over 2023 and which were the best puzzles I managed to solve. As always, thinking about it was triggered by Peter Hajek's request for the top 3 acquisitions of the year. Peter wants to know the best arrivals in the collection and I always write about my best puzzles solved which makes it a little harder to come up with a good list. Whilst I have had a pretty good year of puzzle arrivals (much to the disgust of "she who must be feared"), it has felt like a bad year for me in terms of puzzle solving. I feel that I have worked my little arse off in the various hospitals and don't think that I solved very many. Except that after looking back through my archive of blog posts and my database, can I see that I didn't do that badly. 

Nowhere Near Solving!

I did purchase quite a lot of puzzles that I have so far completely failed to solve (some despite months of trying)! So here is a quick list of what look like absolutely fabulous puzzles purchased that I cannot solve:

Orbit by Dee Dixon (I've found nothing useful whatsoever!)

Uplift by Dee Dixon (It rotates and a button pushes but that's it!)

Burner by Dee Dixon (only arrived a few days ago)

Smack-N Moles by Stickman (gorgeous and I have no idea what is going on inside)

WDIGMI from Tanner Reyes (a gift that looks gorgeous and compelling and is completely beyond my meagre packing skills)

A whole bunch of N-ary wire puzzles from Aaron Wang - they should be lovely and logical and yet I am still stuck! Thank heavens for the quick reset!

Crazy Double Circle Cube - Encouraged by Jason Burgo to give it a try and was getting somewhere when the black version broke on me. I have since replaced it with a coloured plastic one and am too frightened to touch it again!

Free the Washer from Phil Wigfield. Phil is quite a character and creates some absolutely beautiful puzzles from brass and steel. He has got rather side-tracked on dexterity puzzles which I cannot do but also an SD puzzle earlier this year. I've been trying for months (9 of them) and only managed to find one move!! Aargh!

Euroka - stunning design by Juno. I dismantled it and it now sits in its' cloth bag in pieces because I cannot put it back together despite having a video to look at.

Almost there

In this section I always place a few fabulous puzzles that in anyone's year should be a top ten puzzle but because I am greedy and have bought more puzzles than Mrs S thinks are good for me, I have to place a few fab toys in this section just to highlight how great a year it has been:

Magyarics Amazement

Alexander continued to work with Pelikan as well as 3D print some of his own puzzles and they are all so SO good but due to some amazing challenges also produced this year, they have been dropped down to the "almost there" list and believe me, they really are almost there! It is a mark of how good a year it was that these are down in this section:

Captain Hook

I almost feel guilty that one of Alexander's puzzles is in this position. His stuff is all incredible and with Captain Hook, his entry into burr design has the usual Magyarics flair with some very unusual shaped pieces and a very confusing yet fun sequence to assembly as well as disassembly. In a normal year this would be right up there at the top.

Infinite

This is CLASSIC Magyarics design! A packing puzzle with restricted entry. Alexander has done many of these over the years and all are fun. Many of them (erm Tigridia) are almost too difficult for a [numpty](https://dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/english/numpty) like me. The Infinite puzzle, however is just spot on! It is difficult but not impossible and supremely logical! It is possibly the best of Alexander's designs to date!

Stupendous Osanori

I received puzzles by Osanori-san both from himself as well as recreated beautifully by Pelikan. I am continually amazed at his design skills. There were some of the best puzzles ever from him this year

Gem

Gem was an incredible design both as an assembly puzzle when bought direct from the designer but also still fun as a disassembly puzzle from Pelikan. It is a remarkably simple design but the sequence to discover is fabulous.

 

Shutout

Shutout won a prize at the IPP in 2022 and for a very good reason. The version from Osanori himself as well as the Pelikan version is stunning and a perfect challenge for all levels of puzzler.

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Finally...On with my top ten(ish) puzzles solved in 2023:

12) Japanese packing delights

I have bought rather an embarrassing number of packing puzzles from Mine and have only managed to solve an even more embarrassingly low number of them. The tray packing puzzles are a particularly difficult challenge for me but there have been a few that were loved at MPPs and by a certain fellow puzzle blogger and so I worked extra hard on those.

Chained Lumbars looks so easy with identical sized sticks held together by a chain - that chain really gets in the way so you have to work out how best to use it.

Coin Wallet - Piles of coins to be inserted through a limited opening into a plastic wallet. Can it be that difficult? I spent quite a long time working on it and really loved the final sequence - I keep it in my work bag to torture colleagues with.

Karakuri packing - Allard loved it, Michael Q loved it and I couldn't solve it! Finally, I had to impress a young lady at work and worked on this during a very long boring operation in the angio suite. I amazed both myself and my colleague by doing it within an hour or so. The required moves are beautifully hidden!

11) Peanut puzzle

The Peanut puzzle is an incredible design by the Puzzle Master himself, Stewart Coffin. I have never managed to get a beautiful wooden version but was sorely tempted when I saw the cast resin versions created by Lewis Evans. They look amazing and he has recreated Mark McCallum's work as a ring bound booklet giving a whole lot of wonderful challenges. I am terrible at this sort of puzzle but absolutely adore playing with these amazing designs.

10) Parasitic Burr

The whole puzzle world was shocked when our dear friend Eric died so suddenly and unexpectedly. We mourned him and we even mourned his business as many thought it would go with him. I was delighted when Steve, Tom and Jeff decided to continue his legacy and create beautiful puzzles with incredible precision and also choose designs that are so much fun to solve. I could not resist the Parasitic burr by Tyler Hudson (who has designed some really fabulous puzzles) and was delighted to receive something not only beautiful but also a lovely fun challenge that took me nearly a month to solve without resorting to Burrtools.

9) TIC Food

I was delighted to receive 6 food based TICs designed by Laszlo Kmolnar and made by Jeff Baz in the spring from a new friend of mine (Neil Seidlitz) and spent a very happy month working out how to put them together. Even though I am terrible at assembly puzzles, I seem to be getting almost "fair to middling" at these TIC puzzles. The wonderful assortment of shiny woods makes them particularly wonderful!

8) A whole bunch of animals

Jakub, Jaroslav and team have had a tremendous year in 2023 producing some absolutely stunning puzzles for us in multiple different genres. The thing that has stood out this year for me has been the sudden arrival of Kumiki themed puzzles either of their own design or designed by some other fabulous designers. They were all gorgeous and clever in their own way. I think my favourite has been the crab but it is very hard to choose just one.

7) Amazing Twisty Puzzles

I know, I know! Most of you are not that interested in Twisty puzzles but you really should be! They are relatively cheap, have some incredible geometries in them and, once you have gained some experience with them, can be reduced to relatively simple ideas requiring only the use of rather basic techniques and often a lot of intuition.

The Crazy Pyraminx crystal looks horrific but literally can be solved using the old up, up, down down sequence in creative ways. It is almost solved by intuition alone. It is fabulous!

The Son-mum 4x4 is another tremendous puzzle that looks horrific but again is almost entirely solved by intuition until you then have to solve a standard 4x4 cube. It is wonderful and fun.

The Master mixup cube type one looks even worse than the others because when scrambled it looks like a Porcupine. I was worried that I would need some fancy commutator (which I am not good at finding) to solve it but yet again, that was not the case and it solves mostly by intuition - amazing!

Finally I have to shout out the creators at Sengso for producing various crazy cubes. I thought they might be relatively easy but have been delighted to see internal bandaging which adds a whole level of complexity to the solve process. They include the Crazy 2x2 plus set, the crazy 4x4 versions and on my list to buy is the Crazy 5x5 versions too

6) Handy Burr

Jerry McFarland makes it into my top ten pretty much every year! His brain is just not normal - he seems to discover something new and beautiful to do with wood and magnets every year. People do complain that he doesn't manufacture enough to keep up with demand but that's because his attention span is just too short to stick at any one thing for very long. I am always very grateful when he contacts me to sow off a new creation. The Handy burr made me laugh out loud when I realised what he had designed and seemed to be wanting me to do. Fabulous!

5) OMG Packing Heaven or Hell

Almost every time I type Dr Latussek's name I have to comment on his incredible (warped) mind! Volker has had an amazing year with multiple designs produced absolutely beautifully by Jakub and Jaroslav's Pelikan puzzles. There were so many to choose from and all have differing geometry and difficulty levels. I have to stress that some of the ones I highlight here are the ones that were not too difficult for me but I am so delighted to have a good collection of them. My utter faves from 2023 were: 

Tube in cube - the use of cylinders with slanted cuts in a cubic packing puzzle was bamboozling for me but very rewarding when I finally worked it out

Ode to the Bevel - was not terribly difficult to work out various assemblies but all but one was blocked. It had such a lovely move to get that last piece placed.

Fritz Flop - The Flop series are really very difficult and most required me to head to Burrtools to find possible assemblies (I really loved Tetra flop despite having to use BT) but the Fritz flop has a more restricted set of pieces and was actually solvable by me within a few hours. Three of the set are still available now and Fritz flop is on sale!!!

4) Bad Moon

Another incredible creation from Dee Dixon! His craftsmanship is stunning and choice of woods inspired. His puzzles are all nice and chunky which makes them a tactile delight to play with. The logic is superb and great fun to work through. I particularly loved the use of curved surfaces and tracks in this which confused my usually rectilinear brain. In fact I got myself into some trouble and had to use my anaesthetic skillz to get myself out of trouble (Thank heavens for the Glidescope!)

3) Dial Case

Juno has had a relatively quiet year this year but his foray back into SD puzzles was not a disappointment. In any normal year, this would be my absolute number one puzzle of the year but there were so many incredible puzzles to choose from that this amazing creation came 3rd! This was a significant challenge with multiple steps and as always, all pieces beautifully made from wood. The sequence of Aha! moments was marvellous and some of them really quite hard to find. I also really love how Juno always teases me about boxes!

2) Walter's Radio

Yes, Dee Dixon has two slots in my top ten this year!

Last year Angry Walter only made it to number 4 in my top ten. It was an incredible puzzle and the amazing thing is that Dee managed to surpass even that this year. It was less beautiful than Walter had been with his gorgeous cacophony of wonderful woods but the puzzling steps were very complex and confusing. This one took me 3 months to find all the steps - it was stupendous!

1) TIC Vault

I heard about the TIC Vault at last year's EPP and contacted Andrew Crowell as a result, shortly afterwards. Boy! I was not disappointed! A combination of sequential discovery puzzle and difficult TIC is very hard to beat! The only possible way this could have been improved would have been to have been manufactured from wood. The puzzle was/is a masterpiece of design in multiple genres and made me laugh out loud as I completed all of the complex sequences on the way to finding my way inside. Andrew is the master of the TIC and also becoming a master of SD puzzles!

Do you agree with my top 10? If you have any different thoughts then please comment below or even use my Contact page to tell me how wrong I am. I look forward to your thoughts. 

Happy New Year to you all!

I really hope that you all have a wonderful year in 2024 with good health, success and plenty of wonderful puzzling. I look forward to entertaining and maybe helping many of you in this year. Hopefully there will not be any skipped blog weeks either (I've had enough of being operated on now for quite some time 🤞🤞🤞).