Mike is my saviour - Quik-Sane and Solitaire Chess

Something old, something new, something borrowed, something blue.

Last week I bemoaned the fact that I had fallen behind with my puzzling despite still being tempted to buy more and more toys by those pesky craftsmen. That trend continued this week when I received some new toys from Eric Fuller (including one from his auction site which I had been after for quite some time) - I will show them off on my New additions page soon. I've actually had a week of annual leave this week and have only had time to solve just one puzzle during the whole week! Mrs S has forced me to do lots of "maintenance stuff" around the house as well as do a very thorough (and exhausting) clean up of the garden. In fact I am quite surprised that I can move today after spending so many days lifting and bending outside in the blistering heat (it was 38ºC)! I was even able to get up and down to re-grout and reseal my shower this morning! Whenever I seem to be up against a blog-writing wall, my good friend and the official Puzzlemad foreign correspondent, Mike Desilets, springs into action to my rescue with something very different to my usual fare which is always beautifully written and interesting. He has done it again this week - thanks Mike.


Aloha Kākou puzzlers,

I’ve been mulling over this material for a little while now, but when I saw the title of Kevin’s last post, I knew I had to kick it into high gear. “Falling Behind” is not a good feeling in any context, puzzling included. I have fallen so far behind on my own tanglements that I’ve had to take refuge in the warm arms of Amanda’s vintage puzzle collection. Since Kevin can’t partake, being fully two oceans away, I will try to buy him some time with an overly long, rambling post. I trust his next post will be titled “Catching Up.” (Ed - I will do my best)

This installment picks up where the last one left off - in the realm of vintage sliding block puzzles. There is one more of that class that I feel compelled to highlight before taking you off in a completely unexpected direction. So let’s get right to business.

Our fourth vintage slider comes from Amanda’s collection, as you probably guessed, but I intend to get copy for myself very soon. It is the Qwik-Sane puzzle, invented by James R. O’Neil and produced and sold by WFF’N PROOF (WFF = well-formed formula). WFF’N PROOF enjoyed an early peak of popularity in the 1960s and 70s, which is why I put them in the vintage category, but they continue to produce their diverse range of logic-based puzzles and games today (under the care of the Accelerated Learning Foundation). This line has an explicitly intellectual bent. As the Qwik-Sane box informs us, this is “A Topological Puzzle for Thinkers.” The attitude and approach foreshadowed Binary Arts’ early philosophy (and marketing) and has a certain Gardneresque quality to it. WFF’N PROOF was also one of the early advocates of puzzles and logic games for “mental fitness.” Their signature logic game, WFF’N PROOF, claims to improve your IQ by 20 points after three weeks of play! Of course, the marketing of logic games and puzzles for mental fitness has been all the rage over the past few years. This despite the fact that there is no empirical evidence that they provide significant mental benefit. If you’re after mental improvement, then I suggest getting out of your puzzle chair and exercising. You’ll find this article very revealing. But marketing is marketing, and the idea of puzzling as mentally ‘healthful’ has an undeniably intuitive pull. The good people at Thinkfun® have been particularly adept, though certainly not alone, in capitalizing on this fact. Witness their repackaging of several established puzzles into a “Brain Fitness” line that encourages the buyer to “Cross Train Your Brain.” The science was perhaps somewhat equivocal when the line was launched (I’m being generous), but it has become increasingly less so with each new study. It will be interesting to see if profitability trumps intellectual honesty for puzzle manufacturers going forward. Recent legal decisions have slapped down the most egregiously deceptive ‘brain health’ claims (e.g. Lumosity). I can only assume this has industry-wide after-effects.

Qwik-Sane, with custom outer cardboard ‘frame’ by vintage puzzle surgeon Amanda.

Sorry, that was an unplanned digression. A blog goes where it will (Ed - I particularly enjoyed the meander off territory). I should mention that I have no intention of impinging the honour of one of puzzling’s most successful and profitable companies. I actually love Thinkfun’s products and I own a good many of them. Later in this post I will even review one of them (I think I just heard my editor fall out of his chair; this will be another Puzzlemad first, if I’m not mistaken (Ed - OUCH! That hurt!)). But let’s get back to the puzzle at hand, for goodness sake. As mentioned, Qwik-Sane came from the mind of James R. O’Neil. Not much is known about Mr. O’Neil. We do know that he held a number of patents for games, see here and here. And we also know that he invented Qwik-Sane sometime after his retirement from the U.S. Department of the Treasury, probably in the late 1950s or very early 1960s.

Cool vintage literature. Old puzzles are like time-capsules.

WFF’N PROOF offerings (including Qwik-Sane) from an ad in a 1978 issue of Popular Science.

Qwik-Sane rules.

Although Qwik-Sane is in some respects a straightforward slider, it is also somewhat different from the vintage sliders I discussed earlier. The puzzle consists of 9 lettered, one-unit-square blocks (unique except for two Hs), 1 two-unit rectangular block, 1 three-unit rectangular block, 1 square block with an image of Auguste Rodin’s “The Thinker,” and finally 1 square place-holder block numbered “35.” The 35 block indicates the number of moves (ideally) it takes to solve the puzzle. The starting layout of the puzzle is as shown in the figure. After removing the “35” block, the objective is to transport the “thinker” from the upper right to the lower left (instructions are to remove “35,” put thinker in upper right, then maneuver it to lower left). Unlike many early sliders where the final position for most blocks is arbitrary and only a target block is moved to a required solved position, in Qwik-Sane all the blocks except the two H’s are uniquely marked and have required positions. Not only must your traveling block reach its destination, all the other blocks must be returned to their original positions. I don’t know the sliding block class well enough to know if this is was innovative in the 1960s, but it certainly enhances the solving process and puts the puzzle a cut above most of the other sliders I’ve played with. It bears a certain similarity to the Time puzzle, which I also enjoyed immensely. There is not just a pathway to the solution, but a system of movement to be discovered. Kevin, take note—this is your kind of slider. Think of it as a two-dimensional twisty if that helps. (Ed - You've convinced me! I have been looking out for a copy of the Time puzzle but not found one yet - I have managed to find something similar and modern which I will show off at the end of the post).

With a 35-move shortest solution, Qwik-Sane provides plenty of challenge. I didn’t count my moves, but it couldn’t have been more than 50. That sounds like a lot, but they go by quickly. Fortunately, this layout does not send you down long dead end pathways like some of the more difficult sliders. My approach was to get the thinker to his required spot first, then reconstruct the lettering without disturbing him any more than necessary. There were some set-backs, but it was enjoyable working out the proper moves. This puzzle certainly has replay value. Wait a week and you will probably have to figure it out all over again, though the moves will likely get more ingrained the more you play. Since I have to give this copy of Qwik-Sane back to Amanda, there is no danger of that happening to me.

Qwik-Sane is a great example of mid-century American puzzle design and it seems to have enjoyed a very wide and long-lived distribution. There is even a copy in the collections of the Smithsonian’s National Museum of American History. They provide a nice write-up, from which I have drawn liberally. Vintage Qwik-Sane puzzles are widely available on ebay and other second-hand sites, usually very cheaply. I was also shocked and pleased to find, as mentioned above, that Qwik-Sane is still being sold by the original makers. You should probably get your puzzle from the source, unless you prefer true vintage (a real collector would get both). Check out the offerings of the Accelerated Learning Foundation and also read about president, founder, and WFF’N PROOF inventor Layman Allen. It’s a small off-shoot chapter in puzzle history (they are more into games than puzzles, truth be told), but certainly worth knowing about.

A long-lived puzzle that holds up well.

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For the second half of the post, we now shift gears to a radically different type of sequential movement puzzle—Vesa Timonen’s Solitaire Chess. Followers of the major puzzle blogs will recognize immediately that I have veered into a corner of puzzle blogdom very competently covered by Gabriel Fernandez’s great blog (Ed - I agree. It's a MUST read blog). Gabriel is the only blogger who consistently reviews the wide array of commercially available, off-the-shelf puzzles available today. When I am in a store agonizing over which Smartgames, Thinkfun, or Brainwright puzzle to buy next (on any given Sunday), I eventually get out my phone and check his reviews. They are invariably well written and informative - in short, a huge help. (Ed - one reason I don't review these is because they do not seem to be easily available in the UK, even on Amazon UK)

Gabriel has, of course, already reviewed Solitaire Chess. So why retread old ground? Well, Gabriel’s review dates to 2012, and while still perfectly serviceable in all respects, Thinkfun has since repackaged and reissued Solitaire Chess as part of their Brain Fitness line which I good-naturedly derided above. This review is meant as a kind of update to Gabriel’s review. Also, you can never have too many perspectives on a classic puzzle. Sure, it’s only been around since 2006, and history will be the final judge, but I have no hesitation dubbing it a “modern” classic.

Vesa Timonen’s Solitaire Chess; Brain Fitness version by Thinkfun.

I’m going to assume you’ve read Gabriel’s review before embarking on this one, so you already know that Solitaire Chess is the invention of Vesa Timonen. No need to go into Vesa’s credentials, we all know them well enough. I will just say, for the record, that he is one of my favorite designers. For his puzzles, of course, but also for his design philosophy. You can find a great interview with Vesa over here which provides some insight into his process and approach. You’ll learn that not only did he invent solitaire chess conceptually, he had to develop the software that generates the many individual puzzle challenges. The whole process took about a year and half. Time well spent I’d say. Even out here in Hawaii I know of three stores within easy driving distance where I can pick up Solitaire Chess. A great design combined with Thinkfun’s extraordinary distribution network, it has become a fantastically successful puzzle, arguably in the league of Nob Yoshigahara’s Rush hour, if I may be so bold.

Let’s review the puzzle just a bit, as a refresher. It’s simple really, like all great puzzles. Solitaire Chess consists of a 4 x 4 unit chess board upon which are arranged a number of standard chess pieces according to a “challenge” layout. Pieces move according to standard chess movement rules. Pawns may only move ‘up’ the board. There is no castling, en passant, or pawn promotion, just basic movement. To solve the layout, one must perform a continuous series of captures until only one piece is remaining. All moves must result in a capture. That’s not too complicated and you can get a good feel for it after just a couple tries. Layouts for the game range from the almost trivial to some true stumpers. Since you’ve already read Gabriel’s review (and its comments section), you know that accomplished puzzler George Bell found the challenges too simple and, well, unchallenging. If you are especially adept at chess (Ed - I am truly awful at chess!), that may well be the case for you. Certainly the beginner and intermediate challenges are not overly tough. However, I found myself well and truly stymied by a number of the expert level layouts. A few of them were multi-session affairs. I think most people will find this puzzle a challenge from mid-level onwards. My own experience was very much in line with Gabriel’s, right down to the solve times. Moreover, I found it to have that indefinable “fun” quality that is the hallmark of most Thinkfun puzzles. In short, I enjoyed Solitaire Chess immensely. I agree wholeheartedly with Gabriel’s assessment that it is “one of the best puzzle/games from Thinkfun and also from the genre.”

A nice warm-up challenge.

Why is this puzzle so brilliant? Well, for starters, because it has almost nothing to do with chess, other than the movement rules. Once you take away the concepts of opposed advancing forces, an opponent intellect, attack, defense, check-mate, ect., you are left with precious little resembling chess. Just the movement rules, now combined with the classic peg solitaire ‘clear the board’ objective. Conceptually, Vesa’s solitaire game could have been designed with any movement rules one wished to concoct. But imagine trying to market a puzzle to the general public with new abstract movement rules for 6 different pieces. A tough sell, I would think. But Solitaire Chess has no such worries. Most people already know the basics of chess, at least in passing. That is to say, ‘most people’ who would peruse a store’s puzzle section. Such puzzle nerds (Puzzlemad editorial staff included) have a high probability of knowing more than a little about chess. (Ed - I know I'm crap!)

It’s no spoiler to note that the knight, with its unique L movement, does the lion’s share of work at the higher levels. The knight’s interaction with the other pieces allow this puzzle to achieve some very challenging configurations. The rooks and bishop’s certainly traverse the board in interesting ways and are not to be underestimated. Perhaps the biggest surprise was the central role of the humble pawn in several of the higher-level layouts, often far in excess of its station. Although the pawn has very limited movement, it has the ability to linger outside of the main action and is consequently difficult to ‘get to.’ You’ll understand when you play. Another surprise was the role that the king and queen play in this puzzle. They figure prominently in the earlier challenges but become increasingly rare at the higher levels. I think this is due to their high latitude of movement. The queen can usually muscle her way through any layout and sweep the board. The king less so, but ultimately its rôle in a solution was simpler for me to intuit. Importantly, the king must be the final piece on the board whenever it is present in a layout.

Something a little more challenging.

Part of the excuse for this review was the reissuance of the puzzle in the years following Gabriel’s initial treatment. At present, you can purchase either the original version or the new Brain Fitness version. I have the latter. You can also download a mobile Solitaire Chess app (iOS UK, iOS US, Android) from Thinkfun for $2.99 for play anywhere, anywhen. There seem to have been other apps around, but my quick and dirty google search produced mostly dead links. Although my preference is always for a physical puzzle, it is worth noting that Thinkfun provide 400 electronic challenges for your $2.99 purchase. Buying the physical puzzle will run you $20 US and you get either 60 (original) or 80 (Braintrain) challenges. The superior value of the electronic version is clear. Better yet, just go to the Thinkfun website and play for free! I don’t know how many challenges they provide, but it’s a good option if you are sitting on the fence.

But back to the physical puzzles. This is a mechanical puzzle blog, after all, and I can only push my editor’s patience so much per post (Ed - you've been so good to me that you have a LOT of leeway). Depending on the store you go to, you will see either the original version (as reviewed by Gabriel) or the new Brain Fitness version. The original follows Thinkfun’s early approach (now fading) of providing an entirely self-contained puzzle. The puzzle itself doubles as a box that contains all the pieces and the challenge cards. This is handy and I normally favor this approach. It’s neat and tidy. That said, I must admit that I prefer the Brain Fitness version, which comes in a slick cardboard box that is clearly labeled for an adult audience. No exuberant cartoon characters or exclamation points on this one. The game is played directly on the challenge cards, which are strung on a smoothly turning spiral binder. There are two reasons I like this construction. First, setup is faster. If you’ve played any of these modern multi-challenge puzzles at all, you’ll know that the set-up phase can quickly become a tedious chore. In the original version, you have to slide a card under the transparent play surface and then set up the pieces. Then remove it and begin again, etc. I know it doesn’t sound terrible, but by layout 40 you’ll wish there was a better way. I think the Brain Fitness version is more efficient in this respect - just flip the card and throw down the pieces. The second reason I like it has to do with piece movement, or lack thereof. The plastic play surface of the original has circular indents that hold the chess pieces in position, but also prevent sliding them around. This goes against the grain for anyone who has actually played chess. I prefer my pieces to slide across the board. The hard glossy cardstock challenge cards in the Brain Fitness version provide a great surface. Overall, I prefer the newer version for its ease of play and manipulation. It also has 20 more challenges than the original, so there is that too. Price-wise, they are about the same.

Now that all sounds like a good plug for Thinkfun, and surely they deserve your puzzle dollar, but you actually do not need to pay anything to take a stab at this puzzle. Everyone has access to a chess set (at least in this audience) (Ed - I am ashamed to admit that I don't own a chess set because I am so bad at it and Mrs S doesn't play either) and everyone can make a 4 x 4 grid with paper and pencil. All you are missing, and what Vesa has worked so hard to generate, are the challenges. Luckily for us, Thinkfun at one point offered a set of 40 free solitaire chess challenges. I don’t know when or where this happened, but the internet is forever and the pdf pops up in a number of places around the web. I imagine Thinkfun would prefer to sell puzzles, not give them away. But knowing that the leadership at Thinkfun have a strong relationship with the avocational puzzle community, I believe they won’t begrudge us a little fun at their expense. They are rich beyond all imagination, I assure you. That said, I recommend you click here for the extra challenges before the lawyers, Interpol, and/or Mr Timonen break down Kevin’s door and haul him away (Ed - too late!!! The men in white coats have got me). For those of you like me who are happy to purchase a copy of Thinkfun’s very well-made puzzle, these extra challenges simply provide additional value and fun. With the sole exception of challenge 9F, which is equivalent to Brain Fitness challenge #26, they are all new challenges (I went to the trouble of checking them all for you. Just one of the many services we here at Puzzlemad provide.). They probably come from the 400 challenges in the electronic game, I imagine. I don’t think they come from the original version, but maybe Gabriel or someone can check on that and let us know.

That’s it for this post. Thanks for tuning in and congratulations on making it all the way to the end. Hopefully it was worthwhile and, like all Puzzlemad posts, will help separate you from your money. Happy puzzling!

Thank you so so much Mike. That was a very enjoyable read and may even stimulate me to buy the puzzles, or a chess set or.....having surfed the web for nice chess sets I am very tempted to buy a beautiful Backgammon set - I am a not bad player but only have a small travel set not something of beauty for the living room! Hopefully when I am back at work I will get some time to solve some of my backlog of new puzzles!

In the meantime here is the version of the Time puzzle I got hold of. My version is from Ton Delsing and bought courtesy of Wil Stijbos:

Falling behind

Rift

Is it just me? Have those wonderful (and pesky) craftsmen suddenly increased their puzzle production rate recently? Just when I have quite a lot of expense at home with builders in doing "stuff" around the house (NO! She won't let me build a puzzle room extension!),  the craftsmen suddenly hit me with a whole lot of new toys which are "essential" to purchase. In order to pay for all this stuff I seem to be working far too much and hence I am falling behind in my solving. I now have a huge backlog of unsolved puzzles, most of which I have not even had time to look at let alone attempt a solve. I have even failed to take photos of a few solved puzzles.

It doesn't help that a certain Chinese designer whose puzzles I showed off last week has made some N-ary puzzles which require an ENORMOUS number of moves - I have been working on the easiest of the Chinese ring variants, Corn on the cob I for a few evenings and have managed to get just over half way.....this has required several hundred (if not over a thousand) moves without counting the getting lost and having to backtrack a few times! I think Goetz who is the Streetwise puzzles official Logarithmic analyser might actually know the correct number of moves - I cannot work it out because I am too dim for that sort of thing and I cannot count past 20!

Looks so close but I think this is just over half way!

Time and Strijbos has Defeated me! What About Aaron?

The Revenge Lock aka the Wanderer

It's time to produce my own write up of Wil Strijbos' latest marvel, "Revenge Lock" aka "the Wanderer" which I introduced and described a couple of weekends ago here. Allard has already published a fantabulous review of this brilliant puzzle here so go and read it first. You can then marvel at how good a puzzler he really is....because he managed to solve the damn thing despite being lead astray initially by the puzzle pusher's prototype. I, on the other hand, have had the benefit of more time with it as well as never having seen a prototype and have still failed to complete the puzzle!

No clues on the back

So what is my excuse? Firstly I have to emphasize (as I often do) that despite what I do for a living (you would imagine that being a doctor I would need to be clever), I am really not terribly bright (Mrs S says I am often really quite dense) and my wonderful puzzle pusher has had me beaten for a good 2 weeks! My second excuse is time!!!! For some reason I have been working my arse off (for you Americans that would be ass). I never seem to get a break at work (even for lunch) and the caseload I carry is too complex to take my eye off the ball/patient/monitors/ventilator for even a moment and think about a puzzle! I am sure that many potential patients are greatly relieved to read that!! My days have been very long and in order to preserve my health, when I get home in the evenings I do have to spend some time with "she who frightens me to death" lest she follow her full name through to its' final conclusion. With last weekend having been her birthday there was no puzzling allowed and yesterday was yet another day to write the on call rotas for my department - after 8½ hours on the damned rotas, puzzling proved impossible. Yes yes yes, I can hear you now....that is a feeble excuse! I agree which is why I put my lack of brain power first!

The Curvy Copter Taken to Extremes - It's Still Great Fun!

Very Puzzle's Clover Cube

I've had a nother really busy week and just not had enough time to get fully to grips with the Revenge Lock from Wil Strijbos that I showed off last week. Luckily for all of you Allard has reviewed it for you here and I will hopefully get to write something next week. But I still have something very interesting to show off today. Yes, I know that it's a twisty puzzle and I know that half of you puzzlers switch off when you see one but with this one you really shouldn't! Today I am going to discuss the next iteration of one of my favourite group of twisty puzzles - the edge turners.

A long long long time ago I went crazy over Tom Z's curvy copter - it was my first ever mass produced edge turning puzzle and going along with that it had the special ability to "jumble" which effectively means that different piece types can be interchanged and then they start to block each other. A side effect of this is that the puzzle becomes ferociously misshapen when scrambled which adds hugely to the "fear factor". BUT and it is a very big BUT, whilst the edge turners look horrific, they are actually very nice logical puzzles which seem not to require lots and lots of algorithms to be committed to memory. They are so so good because they can be solved by intuition and understanding and only a very simple single algorithm is required for the final stage of shifting and turning corners. So let me emphasize:

The edge turning twisty puzzles are NOT hugely complex - they are nice intuitive puzzles

S o don't switch off/go away - these are definitely puzzles to be considered for any puzzler who can think© and who can think logically - at most a simple 4 move algorithm might be needed.

Those dastardly designers continued to work on the edge turning puzzles and produced further versions that were either deeper cut or allowed the blocking pieces (during jumbling) to be split and this made for the Curvy Copter 3 and Curvy Copter plus respectively:

Above we have the Curvy Copter 3 with deeper cuts giving us extra pieces

This is the Curvy Copter Plus with petal pieces that are split in half to allow further mixing

Apart from the inevitable move to other Platonic solids (the curvy dodecahedron was a wonderful extension of the series) we all thought that the only other way to give us more fun challenges (remembering that all of these puzzles were pretty intuitive in their solution) would be to go higher order. This has not been mass produced as yet but one of my "pride and joy" puzzles which I must admit is not quite as intuitive as all the others is the Master curvy copter designed and produced by the incredible Eitan Cher. This was effectively a 4x4 version and was one of my puzzles of the year in 2013.

I have to admit that this one is a bit less intuitive than the others!

I honestly did not expect to see any more edge turners produced but was truly delighted when one of the most innovative puzzle designers and manufacturers, Leslie Le, of the Very Puzzle company announced last year the imminent production of totally new edge turning puzzle, the Clover Cube which is pictured at the top of the post. I bought mine from my good friend Marty who has a fabulous store based in the UK but it is also available from other stores including Puzzle Master in North America. This puzzle is very reasonably priced considering the amazing complexity of the construction.

The clover cube looked like something truly special - it was still an edge turner but instead of going deeper cut or higher level, Leslie had chosen to make the cube a bit bigger (it's a huge 9cm cube!) and used that space to have 2 overlapping edge segments that can turn:

One edge turned - it doesn't align fully!

3 edges turned - jumbling!!!!

It's my puzzling look!

The jumbling that can occur with all the other edge turners still happens and it shape shifts in a truly fascinating way! Of course I HAD to buy it but was just a teensy bit worried that it might not be as intuitive and easy as the other edge turners. After all, I am not terribly bright and if it gets really difficult then I would be in trouble!
Despite what Allard said about me here in his write up of the 26th MPP, I don't usually solve lots of puzzles in a short space of time with ease. I spend a lot of my time making the lots of annoying noises and also amusing Mrs S by looking like Plug from the Bash Street Kids.

I just scrambled it without any exploration!

After my initial horror at the sheer size of it, I threw caution to the wind and just scrambled it! There was no exploration or anything....I figured that it should be very like the other edge turners and would be pretty easy! I did get a bit of a shock when I looked at the final result and this was carried around with me for several months. I tried what I had done with the original Curvy Copter and I was getting nowhere fast. It remained in my bag for ages and taunted me until Derek also started to taunt me about it.

Intuition will get you back to cube shape as that is just a matter of playing with it. After that you need to take a leaf from Allard's book and truly THINK© Playing with just one side of the cube and adjacent edges, I realised that there was just a 4 move algorithm that could be used very creatively to cycle 3 pieces. With setup arrangements it became very obvious that you could use the same 3 cycle to swap edges about or to to move the petals with attached corners. The Aha! moment was fantastic and all of a sudden I was on my way!!! Yessssss!

I knew the corners were going to be awkward but hopefully I could rapidly work my way through the other pieces. There are quite a lot of pieces to this puzzle so it took a while to work through. I was really enjoying myself for 2 or 3 evenings and Mrs S continued to laugh at "Plug" but I was a happy puzzler. It took me 2 evenings alone to work out how to get the last 4 edges pieces into place - not being very bright, I had forgotten that I could use four separate 3cycles to cycle 4 pieces around. After that the petals were a dream to move once I had worked out the setup moves.

I was left with the corners and looking at them it became clear that there was a very simple intuitive method to just swap 3 of them around and that would rotate them clockwise too. It was just a matter of thinking again! After 3 months of hesitation and nearly 2 weeks of proper play it was solved. THIS IS A BRILLIANT PUZZLE!

Of course the advantage of the twisty puzzles is the replay value - there's often a new nuance to be found in subsequent solves. After a short discussion with Derek who had also solved his, I scrambled it again but this time I used my solving techniques to scramble it really really well!! I started again with glee and all was going well when.......Nooooo! Something impossible occurred! I had been moving the edges about again and was expecting to get my previous 4 pieces left to place at the end of that section. I sat back with a look of disbelief on my face when I realised that I had just 2 edges left to swap....... this is NOT possible! The "law of the cube" means that a 2 piece swap is never something that is required. I was missing something. I was completely stumped and actually frozen into immobility. Sometimes I would just rescramble a puzzle when this happens in the hope that I can get out of it in the next solve. But here I didn't want to solve this by chance, I needed to understand it.

So how can a 2 cycle be changed to a 3 cycle? I am sure that all you clever puzzlers out there can just look at the puzzle and scream the solution at me! What I need is to find something else that I can interchange with the edge pieces and then put back somewhere else. It took me a further 2 evenings to realise that there are 4 petals of each colour. The petals can be swapped with the edges temporarily and hence I eventually realised that this was the solution - I just needed to do four 3 cycles involving petals and edges and I would have fixed my conundrum. Again the aha! moment was truly awesome! I repeat:

THIS IS A BRILLIANT PUZZLE!!! You really should buy it! 

I still need to solve it a few more times to finally say that I have mastered it but it is yet another candidate for my end of year top 10. There is much about it that is just intuitive as it relies almost entirely on a single 4 move sequence with setup moves. It requires thought rather than memory of algorithms which is the reason I love edge turners. I have been a bit sidetracked this last week by the wonderful new toy from Wil Strijbos that I mentioned here.

Of course, Leslie has not rested on his laurels there! He has produced a whole series of these wonderful new edge turners! I have the Clover dodecahedron and Icosahedron waiting for me and hopefully Marty will get the 2 Octahedra in stock soon as well.

Looks ferocious

But it should just be like the cube but MORE!

This should be a very similar solve to the cube (I hope) but I haven't had the courage to scramble it yet! The Dodecahedron is available from Puzzle Master here or from Marty here.

Holy Crap!

2 adjacent edges turn

The corners turn too

The Icosahedron has an awful lot of pieces but also has the added "twist" that the corners rotate as well as the edges - the design skills in these puzzles are incredible.

It is available from Marty here and I am sure that Puzzle Master will be getting them in stock soon.

Don't be frightened of twisty puzzles - the edge turners are very logical and need thought rather than algorithms. You CAN remember 4 moves!!!

Bounty from the Midlands

Yesterday I attended the 26th Midlands puzzle party and caught up on puzzling, gossiping and the general teasing that always occurs when the bunch of us get together. Someone actually was hoping to meet the present Mrs S which I thought was particularly brave of them! They couldn't believe that I got away with what I write about her most weeks. I informed them that she never reads my drivel and that they were welcome to take her off my hands whenever they wanted! She even comes with her own shoe and handbag collection.

Having spent so much time puzzling yesterday, I feel that I ought to spend a little time with "the frightening one" today and will postpone the post I was planning on until next weekend. Instead here is a little summary of my purchases from the MPP.

The two highlights of the meetup was getting to see Laurie Brokenshire and Ethel again who was looking rather well considering all he has been through recently and also getting to meet the most famous puzzle pusher in the world, Wil Strijbos. I did purchase a few things from him (how could I resist?) the most important of which was his newest creation, the Revenge lock aka the Wanderer. Here's what he said about it:

Christoph's Burrlock is Amazing!

Burrlock E

The last update from Eric (aka the Doctor of wood) on Cubic Dissection caught me a bit by surprise - not the timing but the sheer number of absolutely ESSENTIAL purchases! I try (for financial reasons and to prevent discord with she who frightens the living Bejeezus out of me) to keep the number of puzzles arriving at once down as much as possible because I have sort of run out of space and she is getting fed up with the mess!!! Things are so bad that my desk is currently strewn with puzzles that I don't have anywhere to put away! Here's a quick snap:

Lord help me! Where am I going to put these?

When Eric did open his store I absolutely HAD to buy 4 puzzles - the voices told me to and they drowned out the buzzing disapproval from Mrs S. One of the puzzles that I really couldn't resist was the Burrlock E by Christoph Lohe - he makes absolutely fantastic designs that are not hugely high in level or enormously difficult but are just plain fun to play with and solve. He seems to pay special attention to the playability. I reviewed his Mimicry puzzle from Jakub's New Pelikan Workshop puzzles here - it was not a tremendously high level but was a fabulous challenge and great fun to solve. The Closed box was also a fantastic puzzle also produced by Jakub. So not only do I lurve the puzzles designed by Christoph, I also really like burrs that have an interesting shape - this one in the shape (and with the function) of a padlock particularly appealed to me. I had also enjoyed the Padlock burr from Eric and designed by Tim Alkema, so how could I possibly resist another one?

Has the Snake Turned me to the Dark Side?

Carousel Puzzle

This post will be a bit shorter than normal - I've had a central heating engineer here most of the day as our heating packed in. This means that I'm starting late. I was contacted by Kelly Snache (aka Kel Snake) a few weeks ago. He was touting his wares and knew how much I loved beautiful wood. He was right and I immediately collapsed and sent some PayPal. It is even nicer in real life than the photos show. It is also really quite large - at 13x22.5x12.8cm. Mrs S was immediately horrified: "where is it going to go?" I actually don't have a proper answer to that just now as a major reorganisation to create space is required for all my latest puzzles (most of the ones from this year).

I resolved that this puzzle was allowed because it was really a sequential discovery puzzle with a cavity but many of my puzzle friends seem to be unconvinced.

Even a Visit to Aaron's Dentist is Fun!

No one likes the Dentist......except me!

Back in March I showed off some new wire puzzles from Aaron King (aka Wang Yulong) and I have been working on them on and off ever since. I have of course been sidetracked by a few wooden things in the meantime and unfortunately work has got in the way quite a lot. I have managed to solve a few of them and am stuck on most of the others - I actually think that Aaron might well be the most talented disentanglement puzzler in the world. A friend of mine who knows him quite well has told me that he can solve almost all of these puzzles entirely in his head which is absolutely amazing.

Aaron doesn't sell his puzzles direct to us, the usual place to get them is via the Felix puzzle store in China. I have dealt with them quite a few times over the last year or so and have had a very good experience each time. The puzzles I am showing here are not yet available on the store but hopefully will be available soon. The ones that are on sale were reviewed by me here and are simply brilliant. Also for a peek at possible future puzzles have a look at Goetz' page (date 2017-04-28) for some more which includes some wonderful looking and very advanced N-ary puzzles which I hope I will also manage to buy in the near future.

New Hanayamas - Fun, Not Too Tough But Far TOO Small

Cast Shift

Hanayama Cast Shift - these are really hard to photograph!

My friend Hendrik runs the PuzzleShop.de store (well worth a look around as he has a lot of very interesting stuff for sale) and announced on Facebook a few days before the German Cube Day that he would have a few of the latest Hanayama puzzles for sale at the meeting and also for sale by post to interested parties. He only had a limited number and seeing as my usual puzzle outlets (PuzzleMaster, Sloyd.fi and Hanayama UK) and had not received any of these latest ones in stock, I immediately sent him a PM and placed an order. About a week later they arrived in the post and I immediately tore into them. I have not seen the European or American packaging for any of the last puzzles as mine have all had the Japanese boxes. As I discussed back in August Hanayama has changed the name on the box to Huzzle which I am reliably informed by a Japanese speaking friend (Taroh) that there is a perfectly good reason for it:

はずす: "huh-zu-su" means 'to take apart' in Japanese, and puzzle is written ぱずる　(pronounced "puh-zu-ru"). Hanayama combined the two words together to make up a portmanteau that describes a puzzle you take apart.

The most recent one is the Cast Shift which I actually think should be called the Cast Hashtag because that's exactly what it looks like. It consists of 4 nice shiny chrome board burr pieces which are interlocked alternating up and down with the name and the Hanayama copyright on the pieces. The puzzle is 4 x 4 x 3.5 cm and a very nice heft. The packaging states that it is level 3 out of their scale of 1 to 6 which should make it a small challenge but not terribly tough. I personally would put it at a level 2.

Challenged by Cubes from Johan and Brian

3 Piece Burr Cube 50

3 Piece Burr Cube 50

On the stand

This puzzle, called the Three Piece Burr Cube 50 was designed by my friend Frank Potts so I knew straight away that it would be good. The very fine craftsmanship was by another good friend Johan Heyns who has made quite a few puzzles for me over the last few years and every single one has been beautiful and a really fun challenge (a good few have been in my top 10 each year). Johan has opened his own on-line store selling puzzles and beautifully turned pens - you should definitely add the store to your list of puzzle links. This particular "cube" was one of his recent offerings and is a very reasonable price at $55. This for a 7 piece puzzle 85mm across each side and very attractively made from Mansonia and Yellowwood (indigenous to South Africa). Of course, it wouldn't be a puzzle from Johan if it didn't come with a stand and it will be going into my dining room display of Heyn's puzzles.

This puzzle immediately took my attention because it is just the right difficulty level and also because it is 2 puzzles in one. The cube itself can be disassembled with a level of 7.12.5.8.15.3 (totalling 50 and hence the 50 in the name) which is perfect and then the central 3 board burrs can be assembled into a cross with a stunning level of 24.3 - how could anyone resist?

I started on it in my customary armchair complete with cat and TV on in the background and discovered a few moves quickly which were rather interesting and led to the removal of the first of the corner pieces. I wondered whether it was going to be too easy. I backtracked to the beginning and started again. Yes that first piece was quite easy but......the next piece definitely wasn't! I fact I stumbled around for the whole evening without being able to find the correct sequence. Now I was really pleased - I did want a challenge after all. It took me another whole evening before I finally found the route to the next piece. There is a very well hidden move amongst that 12 and I really struggled to find it. The aha! moment was wonderful. I did think that it would get much simpler after the second piece was removed but again I was stumped for a while. There are only a further 5 moves and my dimness showed through as it took me an hour to find them. Removing the last of the corner pieces should have been really simple but it required a lot of setting up to open a space for the piece to come out. This time I was able to plan my sequence but still got stuck for a while. At this point there are just 3 board burr pieces left intertwined and interestingly it requires another 15 moves to separate the first one and yes I seriously struggled! It took a whole extra evening! I could have done it quicker as there is a rotational exit for one of them but it doesn't happen by accident. After 3 whole evenings of work (Mrs S said that this was a 4 'Plug face' out of 5 puzzle.

4 identical corner pieces and some fabulous board burrs which aren't as fragile as they look

Usually I would scramble the pieces and leave them for a while before attempting the reassembly but I had an excuse to keep on playing - I had to assemble the 3 board burr. The level looks pretty tough but the experience of working through the cube does help. I managed to assemble the board burr reasonably easily and marveled at the stability when assembled:

Attractive without the corner pieces

Finally it was time to reassemble the cube and the moves during the disassembly caught me out again. I really struggled to find the sequences and for a while contemplated Burrtools. At that time, however, the cat was far too comfortable to let me get up and go to the study to enter the shapes into that wonderful program. I forced myself to keep working on it and after a fourth evening actually managed to put it all back together. This puzzle is really really good - just the right difficulty level that you don't need to use BT to solve but still tough enough to keep you challenged. Johan made a dozen of these and at the moment there are still a few left. There has also been a recent new offering which i have not tried yet but looks lovely.

Whilst I am focussing on Johan, let me show you one of his coordinate motion puzzles which I bought at the same time. This puzzle is the Exploding star - a beautiful 3 piece coordinate motion puzzle again complete with a stand. It's not particularly difficult compared to the 4 layer co-mo that I reviewed here and which is available in nested form here but it is well worth showing off:

Almost every Heyns puzzle has a stand

Side 1

Side 2

Pieces

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T Cube

T Cube

In Brian Menold's last update he released a whole lot of fabulous toys for us. The cream of the crop for me was the Tronc commun 3 which I reviewed last month but I couldn't resist another one from him. I love board burrs and have bought almost all of those that he has produced but I also love framed burrs. This time around my eye was drawn to something that looked quite simple - the T burr designed by another friend, Yavuz Demirhan, who has recently been recognised for his skill with a short film that was aired on Aljazeera TV Turkey. This particular one caught my eye because it was framed and also so beautiful having been constructed from Red Palm and Bloodwood.

It looks pretty straightforward with simple pieces and a level of just 9.3.2. Brian said this about it:

"I had to make this design because I thought that a simple frame with no obstructions and three identical pieces that simply had a perpendicular piece added to the end could not be that difficult. Well it did take me a bit of time to assemble these, as I tried the first 2 without cheating (something I rarely do for time sake) I was surprised that it took me so long to get them together. Now, it is not a very difficult puzzle for most of you, but it will give the beginner a run for his money!"

How could a puzzler resist? Last week I played with it and did realise how simple the pieces were - they are literally just T's. There is a lot of movement in the puzzle and after a couple of moves it does become very loose and flops about. I got quite lost during the disassembly and am pretty certain that it came apart by accident after an inadvertent rotational move or two. In pieces the simplistic beauty really shows:

Just look at that wood! Stunning!

After this I immediately tried to reassemble it. No need to scramble as all the pieces are the same and no need to wait because I really had no idea how I had got it apart. It is only 3 simple pieces so how hard could it be? OMG! I'm either really not terribly bright or this is quite a challenge. I couldn't put it back together! A whole evening of effing and blinding got me nowhere! Brian seems to think that this is not difficult for most of us puzzlers but I think he is forgetting how much experience he has developed over the years. This may be simple for some of the burr geniuses out there but for us mere mortals, this is a very nice challenge. The following day I managed to assemble it by working it out step by step. I still struggle to solve it now despite having done it 4 or 5 times - I've not memorised the solution and have to work it out from scratch each time which still proves to be a challenge!


Brian is updating his site with new puzzles today (April 23rd) so be sure to have a look at what he has available and don't forget to visit Johan's site for some of his beautiful work.