He's opinionated, abrasive, very talented and a friend!

Now that got your attention didn't it?

Shake Something

I'm a day early! I'm working in trauma all day on Sunday and I didn't want to miss out on producing a review for you so I used a couple of hours today to put something together for you.

I know that the twisty puzzlers amongst you immediately know who I'm talking about - it can be none other than Dan Fast aka CrazyBadCuber and also now after a career change the CrazyBadTrucker. Over the years he has appeared and disappeared (because of arguments or disagreements) from various twisty forums including my favourite Twisty Puzzle forum. He's upset quite a few people along the way so why on earth would I even think about having an article about him?

Well over the years, I have come to consider him a friend! We chat fairly frequently on FaceBook and I've always found him to be very polite. He has many reasons for his personality which the world saw in a very candid interview (now made private) that he did with Rline on the TwistyPuzzling YouTube channel and let's just say that he has really done very well for himself despite occurrences in his past. One thing to say about Dan is that when he puts his mind to something, he really throws himself into it and does it properly. He started with cubing and became a fairly good speedcuber and then moved onto other twisty puzzles and now has the most extensive collection of puzzle mods by Traiphum anywhere in the world (something I'm rather jealous of) and then he went into puzzle modification himself and made quite a few fabulous puzzles (more of that later) which have sold for large sums of money.

His recent "fetish" has been for burr puzzles and he and I have communicated a lot about these. He solves them rather like me - he basically moves things randomly hundreds of times until he finds what he is looking for and then progresses by luck! It's sad for me to admit it but whilst I adore burr puzzles and the gorgeous woods and craftsmanship, I (and he) are not particularly good at them but we just can't stop trying to solve them and can't stop collecting. I did have a small try at designing them - most modern designers have learned to utilise the incredible Burrtools software from Andreas Röver to produce more and more complex burr puzzles of ever higher level of difficulty. My ability (and time to stick with it) was very limited and I produced only a few poor designs but Dan, as is his usual, stuck doggedly with it and mastered the program bit by bit (a teeny little bit of help from me) and has designed some fabulous puzzles which have even made it to production by craftsmen. Dan is aware that not everyone wants super high level burrs but we want puzzles that are interesting in shape or solve process. Two of these I will show today.

A unique challenge from Greece

There's going to be two posts this weekend! Watch out for the next one later today!!!

The 5x5x4 Floppy iCube

I watched in amazement when SuperAntonioVivaldi showed an entirely new class of cuboid - the Floppy iCube. The original icube was mass produced by Calvin as the 3x3x4 iCube and then my friend Dan (CrazyBadCuber) made the 4x4x5 version:

A Couple of VERY Complex Worry Beads

Crosscut

I had seen the Crosscut burr pictured above a long time ago in a Burrtools screenshot when Dan Fast (aka CrazyBadCuber) showed off his new design. I am amazed how quickly he has picked up the skills to design in Burrtools and has produced some absolutely fascinating ideas. A few have already been produced by Eric Fuller and Stephan Baumegger but this is the first to be made by my favourite Czech craftsmen. I got very excited when Jakub showed off one of the first and I immediately sent off an email expressing my interest.

I was delighted when it arrived earlier this week and it is just as special in real life as it was on Facebook. As you can see it is absolutely stunning having been made out of Cherry and Wenge. All the edges are beautifully bevelled and all the pieces fit together so perfectly that you cannot feel an edge between them.

I received it at the end of a VERY long day and after placating Mrs S about yet another delivery and having a bite to eat, I was too tired to do any more than idly fiddle with it. I took a photo and posted it on Facebook and a while later Dan asked whether I had solved it yet - he claimed that it was an easy one! Yeah! Right! He doesn't remember that I am really not terribly bright.

So 'painful' that my brain 'ruptured'?

It's Painful by Yavuz Demirrhan!

Many of you crazy puzzlers out there will be well aware that there has recently been considerable clamour by the puzzle purveyors to separate us from our hard-earned cash. There have been 3 auctions, Wil willed us to buy something, there was a further outbreak of Cubic dissections and then we all "wondered" how Brian Menold did it. Sorry about the puns! Now, having had a small hiatus from purchasing, I came back with a vengeance and managed to obtain something from an auction and from Wil, my twisty craving was fed and then I topped it off with some more wooden beauties.

I couldn't afford a copy of everything unfortunately (as I know some of you out there are prone to buying the whole lot!) so I tried to be selective and get what I thought might be interesting and/or beautiful.

Starting with this gorgeous piece from Brian Menold - he has recently become a full time professional puzzle maker and is gradually expanding his repertoire and using more and more beautiful woods. The quality of his work is now up with the very best and I chose just one from him this time. I had to make do with only the one for purely financial reasons - I would have bought several had I been able (yes they are THAT good). Yavuz Demirrhan is one of the most prolific puzzle designers in the world now (with 388 designs on Ishino's site). He is a good friend who specialises in interlocking puzzles with very unusual shapes and solution sequences. I adore the burr puzzles that are being designed by Alfons Eyckmans and Stephan Baumegger but Yavuz' designs are really different - he tends not to go for the really high level solution - the aim is to make something interesting. I have quite a few of his puzzles now and I have never been disappointed. It was tough to actually settle on just one but out of them all this had the nicest combination of woods and interesting shape with medium difficulty level.

200 posts - I have been VERY bad!

I really cannot believe it! This is my 200th post and, looking at my analytics data, I should achieve 200,000 page views in the next week or two! Is this a cue for a torrent of mushy nonsense from me? No! Yes! Alright - just a little bit. It hardly seems long ago that I passed the 100 post mark - this time I'm going to be:

"Wondering about wood,

being 'Fuller' it,

admiring the Pelikan,

being amazed at a burl

and finally, going CraaaazyBad with Traiphum"

I've not lost my marbles yet again - it will all make sense soon! Recently I have been buying new toys like there was no tomorrow so basically, to mark this occasion, I thought I would show off a few of the most beautiful and challenging puzzles that have arrived recently and describe my experiences with them. Many are still available for you to add to your collection. Hopefully this catharsis will make me feel better and help Mrs S forgive me!!!

Wood Wonders

Brian Menold is the head honcho at Wood Wonders (actually he's the only honcho) and I have been buying from him for 2 years now - his workmanship has developed during that period until it rivals some of the best in the business and like most (if not all) puzzle people he is a delight to communicate and do business with. During the penultimate sale, due to a quirk with the sales system on his site, I had all the puzzles in my basket snatched from me whilst I used my 2 factor authentication with PayPal - yes Nigel, I hope you feel guilty! As a result of this, he held the one puzzle I had managed to keep and when the next batch came out he contacted me to assure me that I would be able to get those I lost this time. Amongst a decent batch I obtained 3 particularly interesting puzzles from him:

Pyramidal Pile

4 Piece Pyramid

The first 2 are classic designs by Stewart Coffin and are beautifully made. It must be hard enough to make puzzles which are based on a cubic piece, but to make puzzles out of all sorts of other shapes just blows my mind! The pyramidal pile is, gulp, a sort of packing puzzle/construction puzzle. The lovely pyramid (made from Bocote with a Yellowheart tray) can be tipped out to reveal the pieces!

OMG! I think I've lost my mojo?

Euro

Pictured above is the Euro puzzle designed by one of my favourite puzzle designers, Jean-Claude Constantin. It looks so very simple and yet has become my new nemesis causing me to question whether I am losing my puzzling mojo?

I had been eyeing up a few of the wire puzzles by Jean-Claude for quite a while and finally bit the bullet and ordered this one quite a long time ago from Puzzle Master. It is designated as a level 9 (Gruelling) puzzle by the guys at Puzzle Master and I figured that at that level and with no string involved at all, it wouldn't be too bad and might in fact be quite a fun one to explore. None of the other level 9 puzzles recently have caused me much difficulty. Oh how wrong I was!!

It arrived in just a simple plastic bag with nothing more than a label on it - I do quite enjoy the unpackaging of puzzles and feel that some of the distributors are missing a trick by not giving us something to unbox! It is nicely made of anodised steel wire and measures 8.7 x 8 x 4.5cm. The puzzle is named Euro after the resemblance to the European currency symbol. The picture above makes it quite difficult to discern that there are 3 pieces - if you partially butterfly it then this becomes more obvious and also reveals just how interlocked all the pieces are:

Now you can see the pieces properly

 Instructions are to remove the ring from the other 2 pieces (in reality the ring is the first piece to come off - it will actually completely disassemble). No instructions or solution are sent out with the puzzle but if you want to download the solution then it can be found here in Puzzle Master's solution section. Someone has left a 5 star review on the product page but as far as I can tell there have been no descriptive reviews yet.

Masterpieces Ahead

Upcoming delights from Pelikan

Last week I tantalised you all with the news that there was soon to be a new release of lovelies from our wonderful friends and enablers at Pelikan and luckily for me I have been home alone all week whilst Mrs S is up visiting the out-laws. It hasn't been all plain sailing and puzzling as the usual chores that she would have done have been left to me as well as work as always. I also have to pay especial attention to our rather disturbed cat who is still missing his brother and is prone to wandering the house wailing at all hours of the day and night. But even with those distractions I still managed to work my way through all seven of them and I present my reviews for you here and then once I have edited and sent them to Jakub the puzzles will go on sale probably within a week.

The releases this time are:

We have (from back left):

Hippo designed by James Fortune

Stir the coffee designed by Dan Fast

Boo Burr designed by James Fortune

Four Mirror One designed by Osanori Yamamoto

Fermat meets Fuller designed by Dr Volker Latussek

One Flower designed by Osanori Yamamoto

Time - 4 - T designed by Alexander Magyarics

Time - 4 - T

Time - 4 - T 

This was the first puzzle I worked on because I am always intrigued by everything that Alexander designs. This diminutive and very pretty puzzle is made from Maple and Purpleheart and is vibrantly gorgeous despite being only 42mm across each side and 15mm thick. It's as portable as any Hanayama puzzle and much more pretty. Alexander has been emulating Osanori Yamamoto again with a puzzle consisting of 4 shapes trapped in a frame requiring them to be removed. This is a new idea for Alexander and yet again he shows his mastery of all aspects of puzzle design. Also on show is the Pelikan boys mastery of woodcraft - despite being so tiny, every piece has been made with supreme precision and the movement of everything is smooth and perfect. I did wonder whether rotations might be essential and I will let you discover whether or not that is the case. This is not a difficult puzzle but it is delightful to explore with some nice Aha! moments as you work through.

Simply perfect and precise

Having dismantled it, I would advise leaving the pieces for a few hours before trying to reassemble. It is definitely achievable and leaves you with a great sense of achievement. This is a delightful beginning to my week of Pelikan play.

Four Mirror One

Four Mirror One

This lovely puzzle by Osanori Yamamoto looked very familiar to me but I could not recall where from. After taking my photo and having a fiddle, I realised that I had another copy of this made by Brian Menold way back in 2015. This version by Pelikan is made from Wenge and Ash with a very striking grain enhancing the beauty. At that time, I had managed to disassemble the puzzle within a few minutes and found the reassembly the real challenge. Back then I must have been much better at puzzling because this time taking it apart took me about 30 minutes. Like many of Osanori-san's delightful frame-based creations, there are multiple rotations required to remove the pieces and with this one there are a huge number of rotational moves possible in multiple positions. On a couple of occasions, I had rotated several of the pieces but found myself unable to move further but also could not remember how to return to the beginning. There are no fancy hidden rounded edges here that allow special moves - it is a matter of making the right amount of space to facilitate a rotation before then moving on to the next piece and eventually orienting one of the pieces into the position where it lines up with a T shaped gap and gan slide out. After that the removal of the rest is easy.

Fab - all the T's are identical

Just like last time I played with this puzzle, I left the pieces for a few hours before the reassembly was attempted and this was again a significant challenge for me. It took me even longer than the 40 minutes back in 2015 - I am slightly ashamed to admit that it took me nearly an hour! Great puzzle - if two separate craftsman make it then it probably is good!

One Flower

One Flower

The second of Osanori-san's designs in this release is another frame and burr piece puzzle. This one is utterly gorgeous made from Padauk and Garapa. There are 2 pieces that straddle the frame and there is a decent sized hole in that frame for the pieces to come out but the pieces are almost the same size as the hole and need to be moved into a certain position for them to be releasable. Easy peasy, I thought! Move them around - rotations will be required as usual and this should not take me long. Wrong! At each corner of the frame is a square peg which severely limits the rotations (and other types of moves) and I found myself completely blocked. I realised after 15 minutes of trying the same thing over and over again that I must be missing something. Alternative directions of rotation maybe? Nope! I put it down for a while and only when returning to it on a second day did a thought permeate my dense skull. This must require something special - what if I try... Aha! I don't recall Osanori trying this before.

Nope! No spoiler here - not showing the pieces

The reassembly is fairly straightforward since there are only 2 pieces and a frame but the delight in the special sequence remains. This is one that I will probably be handing out to friends and colleagues to play with and will enjoy watching their confusion when want they want to do won't work.

Stir The Coffee

Stir The Coffee

The first of two absolute masterpieces in this release, Stir The Coffee is a significantly complex burr puzzle intended for people who really enjoy burrs - it is not for the beginner. I have known Dan Fast for many years (it may be nearly a decade now) and he comes across as a loud, brash Canadian with big opinions (you only need to view some of his videos on his CrazyBadCuber channel to realise this). But one consequence of Dan's personality is that when he starts a hobby or project he totally immerses himself in it and ABSOLUTELY masters it. He has been playing with Burrtools for a good few years now and has created some fabulous designs which he puts on Puzzlewillbeplayed and Facebook. Dan's own personal preference is for really high level burrs but he is in touch with the rest of the puzzling world and realises that such puzzles are a very small niche. As part of his mastery of the art of design, Dan has worked out exactly what the average burr puzzler wants...a challenge with a moderate level that remains stable during play. He also has a superb eye for aesthetics and makes shapes that are just beautiful. At a level of 54.4.2, this puzzle was a higher level than I would normally like (I find that anything above 30ish gets too complex for me to keep a track of the moves and possibilities) but yet again Dan has shown his skill - despite requiring so many moves, there are remarkably few false paths and those that are there, are short or circular leading back towards the original path. The challenge here is to discover the correct moves which are remarkably well hidden. The structure is extremely stable throughout and the pieces dance back and forth to stir the coffee in the rather beautiful cup before the simple but stunning teaspoon is removed and then you can empty the cup.

It's a masterpiece

The disassembly took me a good few hours in total with several periods of going round and round in circles trying to find the moves that I was obviously missing. Despite the extremely high level, it was always possible to backtrack to a place I recognised and start again. Only once I was very near the finish did I get lost but then the only way was forward. This is an absolute masterclass in burr design - Dan has got it absolutely right with a beautiful look, a high level but very achievable for anyone used to playing with burrs. Of course, Jakub and Jaroslav have brought this to life in a simply spectacular way. I cannot wait to see whether they produce anything else.

Fermat Meets Fuller

Fermat Meets Fuller

I have to start the review with these simple words:

"Buy this puzzle! It is incredible!"

Dr Latussek has a very strange mind! I do not understand how he designs these things - Burrtools is no use for them, he must do this in his head. This is not normal, there is absolutely nothing in my head at all let alone complex geometric manipulations. Volker has created several packing puzzles over the last few years and I have only ever managed to solve a couple of the simpler ones - it is telling that one had "for kids" in the name. So when I received the Fermat for Fuller, a few things raced echoingly through my empty noggin. First was the memory that I had not yet managed to solve the original Fermat (I had reviewed it unsolved here and Allard had reviewed (solved) it here), and secondly I wanted to know why it was meeting Fuller? 

Volker told me:

"with FERMAT I wanted to learn how triangular parts interact with one of my typical boxes. When I talked to Eric Fuller about this, I came up with the idea of dividing a cube into six triangular parts and in placing this cubic dissection I had a long and clarifying conversation with Eric Fuller some time ago. Then I had the idea to dissect a cube (cubic) into triangular parts (Fermat). Fermat meets Fuller was born." 

Pelikan has created this using American Walnut and Merbau (which has stunning grain with amazing looking end-grain faces. The precision required for this puzzle is something to behold - it is simply perfect! Only Jakub and Jaroslav can do this in large numbers! 

Delivery configuration

I even struggled to dismantle the delivery position

I took the two loose pieces out of the box and saw the other four in the base and tried to remove them - I couldn't take them out - this was going to be a challenge! Once I had removed them then I had seen the kinds of manipulations that are possible and hoped that would arm me for the solution. I am terrible at this kind of challenge and did not hold out much hope but once I had seen the possible moves and that there was actually quite a bit of room in the box and a relatively large opening, I had a few ideas.

Needless to say, my ideas all failed for the first couple of days of trying. The next thing to do was to look at how many ways the base layer could be arranged, and then see how I could place the extras in the top layer - this is the real challenge - placing a base layer is fairly easy but this really blocks any space left for getting later pieces inside. After 3 days of failure I was becoming increasingly desperate and was losing hope. I then had a large Eureka moment (no, I did not leap out of the bath and run around naked - even with Mrs S away). I had found an arrangement that would leave a very nice gap to place the final pieces but then had to see whether I could place the first pieces in that position. I was stuck...until I realised that the relative thicknesses of the thick, medium and thin triangles had all been very specifically chosen. These pieces had been designed to allow one very very special sequence of moves. IT IS STUNNING! Volker has out done himself - this puzzle is a design masterpiece and is an essential purchase for any serious puzzler. As I said earlier: 

BUY THIS PUZZLE! 

Believe me, you will not regret it!

Hippo

Hippo

Peekaboo

Recently Pelikan have produced a series of wonderful puzzles that contribute to Goetz' Burr zoo and I was very pleased to see them continue this with the Hippo. This one has been designed by a relative newcomer to puzzle design, James Fortune, who I have been watching on Facebook for a year now. James has also set up a shop selling his designs that he has 3D printed (I have not tried any of these but they look amazing). For a design to be accepted by Jakub and Jaroslav, it must be pretty special - they always prototype them and check for poor design features like lack of stability or not a fun solve. The Hippo is a wonderful creation which is perfect for all puzzlers interested in burrs. It is beautiful, having been made from Maple, Purpleheart and Walnut with a wonderful bevelled finish and a lovely surprise once you find the correct start of the pathway. It is this first step that I struggled with the most. There are a couple of moves that are nice and easy to find and they are the wrong ones because they lead nowhere. I had taken this to work to play with and during a lunch break people watching me were extremely disappointed to see me go around and around in circles getting nowhere. Luckily I had to work again and used that as an excuse to stop making a fool of myself. 

Eventually I found the very well hidden first moves and I was on my way. This puzzle has a level of 7.8.8.3.24.7.3.2.3.2.3.2 which is absolutely perfect. There are a few blind ends but none terribly deep and a lovely wide circle where a lot of possibilities lead you astray. I managed to get the first piece out relatively quickly once I had found the initial moves but the removal of the next two pieces took me a VERY long time. I could always return to the beginning but I was missing a well disguised move which I finally found yesterday. Usually with these, they become very unstable after a few pieces have been taken out but this one does not. It becomes sort of "squishy" and there are a few possible rotations that need to be controlled but with a little effort the removal of all the subsequent pieces can proceed without collapse right down to the very last pair. This is nothing short of extraordinary! During the solution, the hippo moves about a little but remains fairly static with just the sticks moving around him - he really gets in the way! There is also a particular feature of a couple of the burr sticks that links them together - it does look like they should separate on several occasions but they are firmly hooked up.

Beautifully made and a beautiful design.

I currently have this in pieces next to me and have created a BT file (a huge part of the fun) and look forward to reassembling it and trying again. If you enjoy burrs or want to try them out then this is a perfect puzzle for you.

Boo Burr

Boo burr

Booo!

This is another creation from the prodigious mind of James Fortune and is also a member of the Burr zoo. It is simply gorgeous made from Wenge, Zebrano with Maple pieces hidden inside. I was a little mystified at the name initially but the reason for it becomes apparent very quickly when (at least the way I had it orientated) a white piece unexpectedly drops out of the puzzle into your lap onto a sleeping cat who shot of reminding me that he had a VERY sharp claw that I needed to clip. Yeeeouch! Picking up the fallen piece, I see why the puzzle is called the Boo burr. Genius. Getting to that first piece removal only requires 5 moves (the whole puzzle has level 5.17.4.5.2.4.3.1.2.4.2.1.2) but finding the sequence took me a while. Again the critical position to find is quite well disguised. Once out there are quite a lot of possible paths and I struggled to work out where to go. I think I found the next piece removal by luck more than anything as it required a further 17 moves. From there on, the path is a nice gentle exploration of burr moves which, again, leaves you with a stable, if squishy, puzzle for the entire remainder of the disassembly. The seventh piece removal provides another surprise:

We have two ghosts in the burr!

I will need Burrtools to reassemble it but that is just as much fun as the exploration and disassembly. Another fabulous burr from Pelikan that will keep all us burr enthusiasts very happy!

So we have yet another phenomenal release coming up from Pelikan soon and there are definitely puzzles that you won't want to miss out on. The Fermat for Fuller and Stir the Coffee are essential puzzles in my opinion - absolutely masterpieces of design and craftsmanship! After that, you have quite a few wonderful puzzles to choose from - do you like burrs? Then the creations by James are just the right difficulty level. Do you like these stunning sequential movement puzzles? Then the designs from Osanori-san or Alexander-san are brilliant! Keep an eye out - I don't know when they will go up for sale but it won't be long!

Twisty Puzzle Madness - It's Tommy's Fault!

Yes Tommy! You know who you are! If she divorces me, it will all be your fault! Actually, maybe I can blame Mrs S instead! For a joke, at the beginning of my puzzling obsession, for Christmas 2010 she gave me a Rubik's pair of cubes - 3x3 and 4x4. I spent the next few days trying to solve them, much to her disgust. As a teenager, in 1981, when Erno Rubik first brought them to the UK, I had both cubes. At that time I actually managed to solve the 3x3 myself and did part of the 4x4 too! The rest I had to gain from one of the many books that were produced.

So during that Christmas period I worked and worked and worked on these blasted cubes and only got about 2/3 of the way through without finally having to resort to the internet and to find the algorithms I needed to finish them off.

Shortly after I managed the 2 she bought for me - I decided to buy some higher order cubes and went to Verdes international to buy the V-cubes from them (they were supposed to have a fantastic mechanism - they certainly do!) So up until a few days ago I had a collection which looked like this:

My small but perfectly formed collection. Up till recently!

Now, the internet is a wonderful place! But it is also a place of madness! I found a huge treasure trove of cubers out there with dozens of different approaches to solving cubes! One approach needed only 2 basic algorithms and a whole lot of thought! This appealed to me but I just couldn't get my head around what the author was trying to make me do - I tried for days to understand his method but I just couldn't make it work for me at all, so I abandoned it! Other approaches encourage you to learn dozens of algorithms - one for every possible orientation of the cubelets. The advantage of these techniques seem to be that they allow speed-cubing. I remember being able to solve a cube in about 45-60 seconds as a teenager but never the speeds that the guys seem to manage now (sub 10 seconds). I am an old man now (45!!!) and can barely remember who or where I am (I find myself halfway up the stairs, not only have I forgotten what I was going for but also whether I was going up or down!!) so there is not a chance that I could learn the huge number of different algorithms that was required for that!

Beautifully Camouflaged

or beautiful AND camouflaged!

In which I describe burrs and twisty puzzles with a common theme and obtain more punishment from Mrs S.

Portico puzzles

I posted on my New additions page that on Christmas Eve I had just received a wonderful surprise gift from Jakub, the co-owner of Pelikan puzzles. He had sent to me an advance copy of two puzzles designed by Stéphane Chomine (note that after a small fracas on Facebook, Stéphane is not publishing new designs on Ishino's site). These two are the Little Portico and the Portico J and they look very similar to the Guillotine burr designed by the hugely talented Yavuz Demirrhan - they look to be a sort of mirror arrangement to the guillotine which fascinates me. These two puzzles are not yet up for sale on Pelikan's site but keep an eye out because Jakub did post them on his personal Facebook page as a preview of things to come. I always say, whenever I get something new from them that at this moment in time the Pelikan puzzles are the most perfectly made in the world - fit and finish is just superb.

Win some, lose some, come close.....but fail again!

A puzzle for my birthday? Nope! She even made me work when it arrived!

Now if you hear lots of groaning sounds whilst reading this post you must blame the present wife! Mrs S was all very nice to me on my birthday on Friday and even bought me a very nice present (a Kindle Paperwhite and NOT puzzles). The following day it was all back to normal service again - she saw that the weather forecast for Sheffield was good for Saturday (and supposed to be bad for Sunday) and pronounced that it was time for us (me) to do the end of year gardening chores. I did protest that I had a new puzzle to play with that arrived that very morning but she glared at me until my skin began to peel off and I dutifully did as I was told. I absolutely loathe gardening! Many would say that as a very short man, I am very close to the ground and bending down to pick up fallen leaves and pull weeds should be very easy for me! Unfortunately, whilst it is true that I am very close to the ground, it is also true that my recent birthday makes me VERY old and bending down a lot and doing thousands of squats in one day is not good for someone so old! After 7 hours of it on Saturday I was ready to hide away from the "trick or treaters" with all the lights off and drink wine for the rest of the evening and play with my new toy!

Then this morning she sprung out of bed, saw that it was a beautiful day out and pronounced that I had more to do in the garden - time to scrub the patio and paths with bio washing powder to get rid of the algae. Does she not realise that Sunday is a day of rest, writing and puzzling? I moved a few muscles and realised that they hurt quite a lot but that would be no excuse. So I have been scrubbing for 4 hours today and am starting to seize up. If this blog post doesn't end then I am fixed in an agonising position in front of my computer....... please come and rescue me quick!

The topic for today is a mish mash of what happens after you get out of the habit of puzzling (or doing a particular genre) for a while and then start again. Recently after my bereavement, I pretty much stopped puzzling for a while because I had lost my mojo. Once my concentration had begun to return, I started to play again but with mixed success.

Happy New Year - My top 10 from 2013

Happy New Year to all my puzzle friends, designers, craftsmen and anyone else who has clicked through to this post by accident! I must warn you that this post is rather long - I'm not kidding - it's very VERY long! In fact I'm not sure you should bother to read it really - I'm sure you have much better things to do with your time! But if you are going to stay then enjoy my reminiscing about what seemed to be a very good year in 2013.

3 pictures of my study as it appears from L to R - my pride and joy!

Yet again I have been forced to rearrange my study to improve the organisation! Above you can see the group photos of my displayed collection - it looks good doesn't it? It doesn't end there however - the shelves in the cupboard are loaded with twisties too!

Mass produced twisties in a cupboard

But now I have had to break out of the study due to....  ahem.... "space problems"! Now, whenever something new arrives, if it is made from wood and looks gorgeous then I ask the question:

"Is this one lovely enough to be allowed in the living room"?

This year she has actually said yes on a number of occasions! So the rest of my collection is spread out and pictured below - notice the impossible folded card from Louis - Thanks mate!

Sculpture for her (puzzles for me)

A little theme starting - She didn't realise it would end up like this!

Thank you Louis for the impossible folded card!

But this is not all - I also have the wire and metal ones in drawers in a spare bedroom. So as I say many times:

"Houston, we have a problem!"

but never fear, I will rearrange and make room and I have had permission to use the whole top surface of the sideboard in the dining room - yay!!!

As a small treat to myself for the end of the year I have had a rather long look back at the puzzles I acquired during 2013 and tried to work out what my top 10 have been. I have cheated a bit by grouping some together so there are more than 10 but it's my blog and I get to choose. My criteria? Only that I love it! It can be because it gives me a good memory of someone or something, because the craftsmanship is so gorgeous (even if I haven't yet managed to solve it), or it can be because the solution was so epic or had such a marvellous Aha! moment that I continually get the urge to resolve it or shudder away from it but with a smile at the memory!

I have looked at my database and filtered on the puzzles that I have received during this last year and immediately have hidden that screen from the present Mrs S because it includes a total spend for the year! The amount horrifies even me and if Mrs S saw it then I would be a very ex Dr S!! A nurse's propensity for violence holds no bounds!!

So here we go my top 10 puzzles of 2013:

I Have Worked As Fast As I Can!

Coming soon from the New Pelikan Workshop

I showed off on my New Additions page that I had just received another huge batch of puzzles from Jakub and Jaroslav that they were hoping to release soon. I know that you all want to know about them as soons as possible and they want to sell them soon as well. I know that they like for me to write a bit of a spiel about them for their site and hence I start work as quickly as I can. Luckily I had a week of annual leave this week and did get a bit more time to play than I usually would BUT Mrs S is still a woman to fear if I don't do all the chores and duties that she has decided I must do and hence I did not have quite as much time as I needed. Plus...I am only human and my very feeble brain can only solve so many puzzles in a short period of time without feeling like it is going to explode. There are 9 in this release and I have managed to solve 5 of them so far. I will work on the remainder as quickly as I can.

I have no idea when these will be put up for sale so keep an eye out on the Pelikan puzzles site for updates or (if you are North America based) then keep an eye on the Pelikan section of PuzzleMaster for them appearing there (this normally happens a few weeks after the initial release).

I will start with the 2 puzzles from my friend Alexander Magyarics - right up front I have to shout out that HE IS ON FIRE!!! The puzzles that Alex has been designing recently have been not ownly beautiful in their design but absolutely astonishingly fun designs to play with and solve. He has got just the right difficulty level and play experience recently and these are the very best he has produced.

Colliding Galaxies 2

 Colliding Galaxies 2 by Alexander Magyarics 

Let me say from the beginning that for me this was the pick of the bunch - it may not be for everyone but I seriously struggled with this and the Aha! moment when I managed it was something truly special. Yet again this is another 3x3x3 cubic packing puzzle with a fancy box and a complex restricted entry which must be completely closed once solved. The title comes from the rather nice 3 armed hole on opposite poles of the box - the one pictured above is made from Cherry and Wenge and of course, like all of Jakub's work it is superbly made. The 4 pieces are quite restricted in the way they can be inserted into the box but so much that there is only one choice. Alex is not going to make it too easy by restricting too heavily.

Solving this was an unusual experience for me - I did my usual of trying to solve it outside the box and got only so far before having to change my approach - this may because I am stupid I guess. I found a few ways to construct a cube and felt this part was quite fun. Finding which orientations would fill the entry gaps was rewarding too and I had narrowed my assemblies down to only one or two. My next step is to seat the box on my lap (or the sleeping cat on my lap) and alongside it put the assembled shape I thought might be correct and then work through the possible disassembly. The problem for me was that these shapes and the holes in the box were too complex for me to keep visualised and held in place during the process. I tried this each evening for several days and just could not do it. Eventually I abandoned that approach and did something I have almost never managed before - I actually tried to assemble it within the box without having worked out what order or sequence to use first. What a challenge! Which pieces to put in first etc? Eventually I managed to get 3 of the pieces assembled inside but the 4th was a problem. I could do this with several combinations of 3 different pieces, Aaaargh! I spent 3 evenings desperately trying to get this together and always found that the crucial move that I needed was blocked until I noticed something special. A few slides later and:

At last! Fabulous!

I had not tried a particular set of positions before (I don't know why but I just had a mental block and couldn't see it) and suddenly I found the setup position I needed and AHA! It went together like a dream - this is a STUNNING challenge. You may find it easy but for me, I just could not seem to visualise the sequence. It forced me to work in a different way to my usual.

Play-boy 2

 Play-boy 2 by Alexander Magyarics 

It arrived like this

Yet again, we have another puzzle based on a non-rectilinear grid. Only Pelikan seem to have the courage to do these sorts of puzzles - probably because they must have a way to create the necessary jigs cheaply and easily. This puzzle has been made from Pink Oak and Padauk. Taking the pieces out of the box as it had been packed for transport, I could see just how accurately these had been made - the pieces had sharp corners and I had to be careful not to stab myself. I am sure that you can see it straight away but for me it took a few days for me to realise that this one is also "just" a 3x3x3 cube to be fitted into a box with a complex entry hole. The special feature is that this box and the pieces have been sheared along the x-axis to make a shape that is also quite difficult to visualise in your head (of course, YOUR head is probably more capable than mine).

I had taken this to work because I knew that I had a vascular case down in our angiography suite which was going to be a very easy anaesthetic and a VERY long procedure. I needed something to keep me out of mischief (I get up to all sorts of pranks if I am not kept properly occupied) - this puzzle was going to save the staff from being annoyed by an anaesthetist with the mind of a 12 year old and a low boredom threshold!

I worked on this in my usual fashion - assemble the correct shape outside the box and then work out whether and then how it can be placed inside. I am not good with a non-rectilinear grid and just finding the shape took me a little while. There are some big clues as to what is needed in looking at the shapes. The restricted entry is very helpful in limiting the possible assemblies and I was pretty sure that I had the correct one settled on fairly early. Time to work through the disassembly first outside the box and the skewed shape made it hard for me. After about ½ an hour I had it worked out - solved in about an hour? Not so fast! Actually doing the assembly proved an extra fun challenge - gravity has to be utilised just right and a good bit of dexterity - it was almost like a non-rotational version of the Rollercoaster puzzle which I reviewed here. The nursing staff and my ODP had watched me working on it with fascination and were almost as delighted as I was when I stood up and showed them this:

That was FUN!

Yet again Alex and Pelikan have produced something wonderful and requiring a different thought process to usual.

No Pelikan release seems to be complete without something from Osanori Yamamoto - the next two were his challenges.

All Tetra Pod

All Tetra Pod by Osanori Yamamoto

This puzzle has been beautifully made from wenge and Padauk. This was the first one I tried from the current batch - I thought I might manage to do it fairly quickly because the pieces are relatively simple being just the complete set of tetrominoes and also because I distinctly remembered having solved a very similar challenge from my good friend from South Africa, Johan Heyns. He had produced the Tetro puzzle from Ishino's site complete with a frame and a stand - I had written about it here and had enjoyed it a lot.

Tetro pieces - see the similarity?

Assembled in the stand

And there was my first mistake - the similarity was only superficial - Johan's puzzle was relatively easy because there are 63 possible assemblies into that corner shape and whilst finding one of them was not trivial, it was not too many hours of work. The new design from Osanori-san has a much more restricted entry (in fact, it is a corner shaped box with only a slot for entry). I think I had made about 6 different corner shapes which would not go inside the frame before I realised quite how much more of a challenge this was. I needed to think in terms of the restrictions as well and that really added to the challenge! Over an afternoon I think I lost most of the rest of my hair from this puzzle - it is a massive challenge and it transpires there is only a single assembly out of the 63 which is assemblable inside the box. It requires a lot of thought and a LOT of trial and error - fabulous!

That took me a very long time!

Palace

Palace by Osanori Yamamoto

Palace has been made from Pink Oak and Wenge. I know...it's yet another packing puzzle! Yet another of those 3x3x3 cubes that need to be inserted in a box so that they fill all the entry holes! Over the last few years I have bought dozens and dozens of these puzzles and I never ever get fed up with them! They are all very similar in idea yet all very different in challenge. I absolutely adore them because they require several different trains of thought and then some fun manipulation of pieces and even some dexterity too. Osanori (and Alexander) are the absolute masters of this subtype of the packing puzzle group (I consider it a mixture of packing and interlocking along with some dexterity).

Palace looks pretty simple because there are only 3 relatively small pieces and they don't look terribly complex but there is the challenge - such compact pieces still need to fill some very big gaps in the box. It is quite easy to make a few shapes outside the box which will fill the gaps so maybe the challenge will be small? Unfortunately the entry is really not very restricted at all and therefore it requires a lot of trial of different orientations and assemblies before the appropriate thoughts begin to percolate my dense noggin. Like most of Osanori-san's designs, the pieces need to dance around each other quite a bit - in this case there is one particular move that I really struggled to find at first. The Aha! is tremendous when it hits you and everything finally slots into place.

Palace solved - magnificent!

I would be interested how all of you store these puzzles? Do you leave them in the solved state? Do you put them on display in pieces or just assemble into an incorrect shape for the shelf?

Web 3

Web 3 by Dan Fast

Finally today, a new design from a man we have not heard much from in a long time...Dan Fast (he used to be called the CrazyBadCuber but has given up that moniker now) has designed a few puzzles over the years (both Twisty and interlocking/burr) which I have had the opportunity to review and enjoy a few times on the blog. Dan got into Burrtools a few years ago and has recently been playing with it again. He sent me a few BT files a month or so back to ask my opinion and I was fairly positive about them. Jakub also got to see them and was enthusiastic enough to make a quick prototype (really really quick!) and made the decision to produce one of the easier of the designs. Web 3 is the result. This has been gorgeously made from Garapa and Ovangkol (stunning grain on it). Dan has designed a whole bunch of these up to 8x8 but I think jakub wanted something more approachable for all puzzlers.

The aim here is to slot the pieces into the frame to create a lattice that sits flush with the base. My first attempt at this had it solved in about 5 minutes and I was left with a feeling that I was missing something. I took it apart and gave it to a coworker and they really struggled - I must have got lucky. They eventually put it together and were very pleased with themselves so I tried again. My second attempt was less straight-forward. It requires a little trial and error but mostly, after the first few attempts, a definite plan and logical approach. It is still not hugely difficult (I think that a 4x4 version might be really really tough - too tough for me) and they final assembly gives a nice satisfied feeling. This is definitely suitable for beginners and experienced puzzlers alike. Dan has commissioned Alfons Eyckmans to make a full set for him up to 8x8 - now that will be a wonderful puzzle set for his collection!

Fun challenge and looks great on display

I am continuing to work on the rest of the puzzles and will hopefully have reviews up for you all soon.