They Were "Big in Japan"

Slide Packing - It was "Big in Japan"

When the package arrived from Mineyuki Uyematsu, Mrs S was not amused at yet another delivery of toys for me. My excuse was that 2 of these were VERY special and had been major winners in the IPP design competition. That evening whilst I was balancing beautiful blocks of wood on my sleeping cat's head as I tried to solve them my wife looked pityingly at the cat and sang so you could say that these were "Big in Japan, Alright?" I, of course, couldn't resist it and joined in with her and sang along. Now those of you of a "certain age" will understand my reference in the title - let me say this takes me back to very happy times! Quickly click on play in the video below - go on, you know you want to! Go to 1min 10sec for the best bit!

Did you watch it? Did it bring back memories? Yes, I know, Mrs S and I are completely crackers!

Packing in some beautiful wood

BDSM with interesting box to pack

At least twice this year (here and here) I have waxed lyrical about the fantastic collaboration between extraordinary puzzle designer Laszlo Kmolnar and the amazing craftsman Brian Menold. Laszlo has produced a whole series of cubic packing puzzles which look quite simple yet require some very complex thinking because they are not just about randomly rearranging pieces until they fit in the container. Each design has added something special....either rotational moves to orient some of the pieces once inside the container or some very unusual diagonal sliding moves to get the pieces to interlink. The shapes are just "simple" cubes very like the classic Soma cube but with containers that have very constrained (and sometimes multiple) openings for the pieces to be placed through. So not only do you need to find the correct one of a number of possible cube constructions but then you need to work out how to get the pieces through the window(s) and then how to get them facing the correct way. I absolutely adored the ones I had bought so far and despite not being good at packing puzzles, I had managed to solve them all.

I am not sure why the puzzle was called BDSM - I am not really into that scene despite all the Whack! Ouch!'s that I receive but maybe it's because you need to be masochistic to try it?

Cast Cake

No Fiddling! It's Time to Think©

Hanayama Cast Cake

Last weekend I blogged about 2 of the latest Hanayama cast puzzles which have yet to be generally available outside of Japan. I am sure they will be available from all the usual puzzle suppliers soon. I began my odyssey with the easiest of them (a level 1), the Cast Diamond and decided that it was a fun little puzzle with little challenge for the experienced puzzler but a really nice one to give to friends to watch them attempt. Then I moved on to the hardest of them (level 6 out of 6), the Cast Infinity which I actually found relatively easy but I have been told by other puzzlers that it actually isn't as easy as I think it is and many people may find it a reasonable challenge.

I had seen on Facebook that quite a few puzzlers had really struggled with the supposedly easier challenge of the Cast Cake. The Cake is rated as a level 4 on Hanayama's 6 point scale putting it at the same difficulty level as the Cast Möbius which Mike reviewed for me here. He was not very impressed with it and rated it much easier than a 4 (as would I) and it certainly would not be in the same league as others rated as level 4 like the Cast Marble, Cast Radix, Cast Donuts and others. All of those have been reviewed by me (Marble, Radix, Donuts) and I have thoroughly enjoyed them but consistently thought of them as considerably harder than the level 4 they had been given. I have to say that the Cast Cake also should be rated as a level 5 or maybe 5½. This puzzle was designed by the incredibly talented Bram Cohen who is responsible for quite a few puzzles in my collection, many of which are incredibly challenging.

These Cast Puzzles Are Easy....

Or Are They?

Hanayama Cast Diamond

Todays' post will need to be a quickie....I am on call again today and could be asked to go in to the hospital at any moment and so need to write about something that won't take too long. August has been a bad month for me with the on call rota - I have done the full 2 months worth of on call duties in one month! You would have thought that as the fool that writes the rota, I could avoid that situation but no....most other people have children and so wanted lots of annual leave in August and the only way to fill the 3 rotas and still allow all the requests I had received was for me to do more in that month. I'm getting far too old for all this!

Recently my friend Nigel returned home from the IPP in Japan and brought with him the 3 latest Hanayama cast puzzles for me to play with. After a little PayPal had flitted across the intertubes, my new toys arrived and I decided to try and space them out a bit and not greedily solve them all at once. I have to say that I really liked the new packaging:

Cast Huzzle?

I asked on my Facebook page why Hanayama had called them a Huzzle and got a very interesting response from my Friend Taroh who is a native Japanese speaker:

はずす: (pronounced "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.

A Pelikan Extravaganza!

How gorgeous are these?

At the end of July I showed off on my New additions page a big bunch of puzzles that I had bought from Jakub prior to them being made available for general sale. I have been just soooo busy at work and at home that I have barely had any time to puzzle at all and I am eternally grateful to Mike Desilets for writing a guest blog post for me when I had nothing to write about. I didn't realise that Jakub was holding off putting these puzzles up for sale until I had written a little review for him and you. This is one of the reasons that I get advanced access (I do still pay for them) - he likes me to try them and write something to help you all decide which ones you want in your own collections.

Well this week, Mrs S was off up to Edinburgh to visit the "outlaws" and I was hoping for a little time to play whilst all by myself. This would give me a chance to solve some of these beauties and write something for Jakub too. Despite "she who must be flinched from" being away, I still had little time! She had given me strict instructions and a rather large list of chores to do!! She even left a passing comment that I must not indulge too much in the unhealthy grub that I love and must continue to go to the gym because "if you get fat....then you're out". Gulp! You will be pleased to know that as she is driving back just now, I have done all the chores, tidied the house, cleaned the cat litter tray (Yuk!) and ticked off all items on her list. I have even been to the gym twice to achieve a body "less horrific" because, let's face it, I'll never have a body beautiful!

I now can write reviews of all 7 puzzles - that should shortly be up for sale on Pelikan puzzles' site. To make up for some relatively short blogs recently, this one is rather large...I hope you enjoy it.

Guest Post - Shunting

Hi everyone, it's been a really busy week for me being on call plus long days then, with my insomnia making me crash in the evenings and having to yet again write the consultant on call rotas yesterday, I have had a week with absolutely no puzzling in it at all! Not a thing...nada! Sob!!! Even Mrs S noticed that I wasn't playing as usual. I am therefore, so grateful to the Puzzlemad roving reporter, Mike Desilets, for producing a wonderful article for me. He always seems to know just when to drop something into my inbox. I'll hand you over to him just now. I am sure I will interject the odd comment now and then.

Historical Shunting designs
(This is a screenshot from Rob Stegmann's extensive page on the subject)

Aloha Kākou readers. Just popping back into the blogosphere for bit. I was originally planning to present Part 2 of the MrPuzzle post - the workshop tour - as my next Puzzlemad hijacking (Ed - I'm waiting with bated breath!). I will do that, eventually, but this past month I was inspired by some other events and research which I’d like to get off my chest. This post is not a straight-up puzzle review, but more along the lines of puzzle advocacy. Specifically, I am advocating for some enterprising designer/builder to fill a notable, and unacceptable, void in the puzzle world - an almost complete absence of mechanical shunting puzzles. It’s an admittedly obscure subset of (I assume) the sequential movement class, but I’ve become utterly fascinated with them over the last few months. If my enthusiasm is even partly transmissible to the community through Puzzlemad, then maybe resurrection of this time-honored puzzle type is possible. Further down I’ll throw out a particularly intriguing design I came across, developed by a notable model railroader.

So how did I come to the conclusion there are not enough (or really any) shunting puzzles out there in the wild? Well, first you have to know how I even became aware of these fascinating puzzles, or rather, reminded of them. Let’s retrace my steps, shall we? Don’t worry, it’s a short trip, and I’ll even throw in some pictures to keep you occupied. Cue music.....

It all began a few months back when I was out on a run in the neighborhoods near my house. I Have recently reached the age where I can refer to myself as being at a “certain age”  (Ed - I got there quite some time ago), I’ve come to the realization that knee joints are not designed to take repetitive impact for long periods and, quite likely, did not even evolve to be useful beyond that “certain age”. That’s a problem for someone who is accustomed to a steady dose of exercise-induced endorphins (Ed - I always thought exercise was bad for you but when Mrs S threatened to chuck me out if I got fat, I took up exercise and lurve those endorphins!). A great solution for me has been running hills. There is hardly any impact running up a hill, and boy will it get your heart rate up fast. On one particular death-run, I crested the summit and paused to enjoy some well-deserved wheezing. While collecting myself for the next go, I casually inspected the ever-present pile of trash by a particular neighbor’s house. I am always fascinated by what people put out on the curb (a professional bent) so I can’t help but look over the pile. Junk, as usual. But one thing catches my eye. This:

Twisty Solving by Intuition?

It is Possible with Carl's Bubbloids

Bubbloids

My recent splurge of puzzle acquisition has been unfortunate in its timing - I have had some very long stressful days at work and have had to work weekends. This coupled with some home stresses meant that I have had less puzzling time than I wished for. Finally, when I did have time, I just didn't have the brain power and energy for anything really complex. Last week I was really pleased to go back to some more basic puzzles - it required less concentration power but was still a pretty good challenge and was really entertaining too.

The Bubbloid twisty puzzles were designed by Carl Hoff (whom I got to meet at the London IPP) and ever since I saw his announcement of their design on the Twisty Puzzles forum and after he showed off the 3D printed version, I had coveted them. There had been some mention that they solved the same way as the Mosaic cube (and later Oscar's Mosaic cuboid) but I had never managed to acquire either of these and was left to my wistful drooling - I lurve twisty puzzles with different turning mechanisms or different geometries to the usual. Unfortunately the 3D printed versions of these (and Carl's other wonderful designs were just too expensive for me at that time - I had spent rather a lot of money!

It was a delightful surprise to find out at the beginning of July that Calvin Fan (of HKNowstore) had teamed up with Carl to facilitate the mass production of 2 of the Bubbloid cuboid series. They were renamed from Carl's original names and I think for the better as it now describes the dimensions rather than just the overlap. Within just a few weeks of the announcement they were up for sale. I bought mine from my good friend Martin who has opened up his own Twisty puzzle on line store in the UK - his prices are excellent and service is superb! If you want to buy the Bubbloids from him then click here. If you live in the Far East then Calvin's HKNowstore is a good bet.

Bubbloid 445

Bubbloid 445 Scrambled

It's Good to Play With Some More Basic Puzzles

Und plus Kugel

Recently I have been playing with, and failing to solve, some incredibly complex puzzles including Brian Young's SMS Phone, Johan's Moluscub and Jakub's Superhero burrs. So I was really delighted when I received an emailed newsletter from my favourite puzzle pusher, Wil Strijbos, with details of a whole bunch of disentanglement puzzles that had been produced by Jean Claude Constantin just in time for people attending this years' IPP in Japan. This set of beautifully made wire (and string) puzzles looked like a trip back to some very basic disentanglements with very simple shapes intertwined. Looking at these I felt that I was going back to some nice "BASIC" (Blush) puzzles for a little bit of light relief. I knew they wouldn't be really easy because Wil had said this about them:

Most of them are very challenging and hard to solve. But you can "Try when you fly" on your way back home ;)

There were 10 new designs available and I had already obtained 2 of them. One was the U-Twins which had been inside Allard's Loopy box exchange last year. I wrote about that one at the beginning of this month when I called it Allard's Evil Puzzle. From my experience with this puzzle alone, I knew that I just HAD to have the rest in the series! The U-Twins/Evil puzzle had taken me months and months to solve and even then I had needed a clue from Joe at the last MPP. If that was anything to go by then the other new ones were essential buys!

I placed my order last Sunday for all the ones I didn't have already and was hoping that they'd arrive whilst I was home on a Thursday afternoon and "she" was out. They did arrive on Thursday but unfortunately whilst I was out at work.

U-Loop - Derek's current nemesis

Mrs S was not impressed when she answered the door to our postie and a nice box arrived with Wil's absolutely unmistakeable packing tape covering every edge and corner. She was even less impressed when she saw the potential jingliness that I unpacked. She gave me a laser burning stare and threatened me with a Whack! Ouch! if I so much as thought about making a noise during our TV time that evening. Gulp! I promised to be quiet and she covered up the laser. Even with my previous experience I was reminded how difficult these could be by my good friend Derek who had been given a copy of the U-Loop which he had managed to take apart some weeks before but to date had singularly failed to reassemble - he was relying on me to tell him how to put it back together! If a genius of that calibre had struggled then I was going to be in trouble (after all, I'm just a newbie at these puzzles!) We then proceeded to have a discussion about genius and newbieness and I went to bed later that evening chuckling - it is really good to have puzzle friends around the world who can challenge each other and generally take the piss! Derek and I do that a lot!

A Cheat! I'm Sorry!

Axis from Rademic Puzzles

This will be an attempt at a quickie - I know I don't really do short reviews due to my verbal diarrhoea but I seldom get complaints. I'm on call today and hoping not to be called in (sleep deprivation is hard at my age!!) so whilst I have a few moments I'm going to attempt a blog post.

700,000!!!

After my triumphant announcement yesterday, I have to admit to something awful.... I have been a cheat and hope you can forgive me. A few months ago I acquired a couple of absolutely beautifully made Hedgehog in cage puzzles from Rademic Puzzles in the Czech Republic and absolutely loved the look and quality of them. Oli had raved about them on Facebook and Allard reviewed a few here. I solved the Gen version quite quickly and enjoyed the process very much and wrote my thoughts here.

The puzzle is 50 x 75 mm in size and weighs 340g. The cage is beautiful having been made from brushed stainless steel and it certainly feels a solid puzzle - drop it on a kitchen tile and you're in trouble with the wife. The hedgehog itself is 6 spined and stunningly made from a vibrant red anodised aluminium with the spines being varying lengths but each is at 90º to the others. It is really beautiful and a great price at 599 Czech Koruna (approx £18.50 or $24.50)

Thank you all so much!

687753 +12530 = 700283

It hardly seems any time at all since I passed my last hurdle and here I am having passed 700,000 pageviews just yesterday! Thank you everyone for reading my drivel - I hope I entertained you and I will try to keep it up. Tomorrow might be a bit hit and miss due to being on-call (which has been rather busy over the last year) but if I don't get called in during the day then I should have a short review for you.