It was only
a month ago
that I wrote about the last release from Jakub, Jaroslav and team's
Pelikan puzzles. At that time they had beautifully reproduced the first 4 in the Minima series
designed by the incredible
Frederic Boucher. This time the next 8 are here in yet another gorgeous selection of
woods and you really need to add them to your collection. The four from the
last release that I have written about are
stillavailableasindividual
puzzles or a
set of four. There is a Minima 13 but only so far only released by Frederic himself
and Tye Stahly) it is possible that will also become available in the future as well.
From Nothingyetdesigns
Original from Frederic XIII
If they are going to be released like the last set then they should be in
sets of four as well as single puzzles. The wood choices are perfect:
Minima 5 - Limba and Bubinga
Minima 6 - Ash and Ovangkol
Minima 7 - Wenge and Maple
Minima 8 - Ovangkol and Zebrano
Minima 9 - Acacia, Padauk and Wenge
Minima 10 - Zebrano, Purpleheart and Maple
Minima 11 - Merbau and Padauk
Minima 12 - Bubinga and Acacia
Obviously, like the rest of the Minima puzzles, the aim is to pack the
pieces into the box and leave it so that no gaps are visible through either
the large holes, small finger holes or slots that facilitate rotational
moves (if the number of voxels is less than the 12 that would completely
fill the box). Continuing with the pathway that the first four took, these
get progressively more difficult but are always very fun to solve. The
rotations are beautifully facilitated by the various holes and slots cut
into the box and no force is needed. Some of the rotations are really quite
tricky to work out and in several puzzles there are multiple rotations for
one piece. As before, the wooden box makes the challenge much more difficult
as you cannot see what is happening inside once a piece or two have been
placed. I had not managed to solve Minima 8 in the acrylic box version
despite months of trying
after receiving them in September last year. Minima 8 doesn't look like too much of a
challenge with 3 simple L-shaped tri-ominos and a single 3 voxel straight
stick but there I had huge problems with it and was gratified when a couple
of correspondents agreed that it was a really difficult puzzle.
Minima 9 and 10 are slightly different having pieces of 2 colours and whilst
packing is the aim, the difference is that with Minima 9 the puzzler has to
place them so that only one of the colours is visible through the holes in
the box (for that one there are 2 solutions - one for each colour).
Interestingly, I found one colour quite a bit harder than the other. Minima
10 has only one solution and needs to have only the vibrant Purpleheart
visible from outside of the box. Minima 11 and 12 are very deceptive having
relatively simple pieces and quite a lot of large holes in the box but they
are also a huge challenge - almost as difficult as number 8. They both took
me 2 or 3 days to solve but at least not the several months of the
former.
These puzzles are so much fun and this explains why I have a
HUGE collection
of these Minima puzzles of varying types and from various designers.
Basically I will purchase any of them when released to add to my
collection. I would say that these are ESSENTIAL purchases for
anyone seriously into packing puzzles - they are stunningly beautiful and
a fabulous challenge and the Pelikan team have made them so well!
The other puzzle being released by Pelikan alongside the 8 Minimas is the Empire burr by Jorgos Anastasou. This beautiful and complex 11 piece burr is presented as a rather dense block structure with a sort of dome on the top as would be seen on an emperor's palace. It has been made with a lovely set of woods (Padauk, Wenge, Acacia, Purpleheart and Maple for the vertical sticks forming the dome and a very warm Cherry for the walls). The first move is very well hidden partly because the pieces are quite snug and it required a good bit of pushing, prodding and pulling to find what could move. Once you have found the first move then it is quite quick to remove the first piece (there are just 5 moves required to separate it from the puzzle) but removing the next piece will prove a considerable challenge. It is only another 7 moves but finding the correct ones was very difficult for me. I went round and around in circles for a long time failing to find a critical move until I found it quite by accident. Unfortunately I did not notice what I had done until I realised that new positions were available to me and I was completely unable to backtrack! After a good half-hour of trying to return to the start, I gave up and continued with the disassembly which was great fun as it remains pretty stable right to the end. The final disassembly level is 5.7.1.2.3.2.2.2.1.2 which doesn't look terribly challenging but for me it is just right!
Reassembly required me to have a lot of fun with Burrtools but I think that those of you who remembered your pathway might manage without it and the genii amongst you might just manage to put it together from scratch.
Jorgos is really designing some fantastic puzzles and I am so pleased that Jakub is agreeing to make them available to us in such fancy woods. This one will look stunning on display in your collection.
Continuing what I started last week. Jakub sent me the latest offerings which
I suspect will be released later this week. I showed them off at the MPP
yesterday and a several people were completely bamboozled by them.
Oh, Yesssss! More Minima puzzles! By now, you will all have realised that I absolutely adore the Minima series and all its' variants. Initially they were designed by Frederic Boucher to have a box with a 2x2x3 cavity and varying numbers of oddly shaped, but small, pieces to be fitted inside the box. Usually the aim was to make sure all the holes were occluded and at times the solution required interesting rotations of the pieces. Some of the puzzles had clever slots in the box to facilitate the rotations which did sometimes make the puzzle very confusing. One or two of them had extra "bits" attached to the pieces. Other designers jumped on the bandwagon with all sorts of interesting shapes and challenges. I have loved every single one of them so far. There is something very special about Volker's brain - he sees shapes and movements that almost no-one else can see and produces challenges that are incredibly difficult and interesting to explore. He created the amazing Minima-Flop and I have been waiting with bated breath for another special Minima from him. Here we have, not only another fun Minima designed by Volker, but also a Minima which he felt was good enough to be named as a tribute to the originator of this series, Frederic. Jakub and team have manufactured it from a very beautifully grained Oak and Wenge. Volker wrote this about the
puzzle:
"A few years ago, Frederic Boucher wrote to me and invited me to
contribute to his MINIMA series. To make my decision easier, he suggested
that I didn’t have to fill the box’s internal volume strictly as 3x2x2,
but could also consider using half-cubes and thus interpret the box as
6x4x4. I still remember well how I expressed my confusion to him about
this; from my point of view, this offer – though certainly
well-intentioned – contradicted the originally intended minimalist design
concept of a 3x2x2 box, given the generous interpretation of the strict
guidelines.
Now we all know what outstanding ideas Frederic was able to realise in
his MINIMA series. Nevertheless, I wanted to resist this temptation and
only agreed to the project under the strict conditions. I’m still pleased
with the result today: MINIMA-FLOP, especially as I was able to completely
fill the 3x2x2 box with four identical Tricubes and incorporate the FLOP
moves – which were so important to me – into the solution. In fact, I was
very satisfied with the result, and I think Frederic was too.
However, when I was recently playing with one of my 14-piece complete
sets of building blocks of the same size, I checked whether six of these
building blocks – each consisting of one cube and two half-cubes – could
be used to fill a 6x4x4 box in an appealing way. I was pleased to find
that, out of the 924 possible arrangements, only 13 filled a 6x4x4 volume
in 50 different ways. For whatever reason, I then looked for suitable 3x2
openings – which I’m familiar with from my FLOPs – in order to offer a
challenging and unique solution. I was so impressed by the result that, despite my initial reluctance, I
asked Frederic if he would sponsor it. To my great delight, he agreed
immediately, and so Pelikan is now able to release this puzzle under the
name MINIMA FOR FREDERIC. I’m very pleased about this, and I think
Frederic is too."
As you can see above, the puzzle arrives in a special transport configuration
which took me quite a long time to actually unravel from the box. It is so
nice to have this extra challenge. It reveals the rather unusual pieces to be
packed inside:
Six interesting pieces to be packed.
Having managed to unpack the pieces, I realised that the assembly was going to
be a huge challenge. Especially when you remember the rest of Volker's
incredible rotational packing puzzles. I actually struggled to make the 4x4x6
cuboid for a while and when I did construct one, I placed it alongside the box
and looked for ways the shape could possibly be taken apart through the holes.
The cuboid could be arranged in 8 ways to try and interestingly, only 3 of them
had even a single removable piece which was very helpful but to my horror, none
of those positions would allow a second piece removal (even with interesting
rotations). The constraints of the box just wouldn't let another piece out. At
this point I was worried that there might be dozens of assemblies of the pieces
to then try and find a way to get them inside the box. Because of my
time-constraints, I went to Burrtools to look for cuboid assemblies. There are
just 2 and I had found the wrong one first.
I used BT and constructed the correct assembly and looked again to see how it
could be disassembled using the various holes in the walls.
The first piece obviously has to just lift out the top hole but after that
there is a sequence of clever rotations using the holes until there are just 2
pieces remaining. Those two pieces did look impossible to place inside but
obviously that was going to be the main challenge that Volker had intended.
Time to set to proper work...
At this point, I had my assembly order positions and then "just" had to work
out how to get the first two pieces into position. I tried for days to get
them inside and in position for the third piece to be placed but I just
couldn't get them into place. I went back to the cuboid several times to see
whether I had missed an alternative assembly or orientation but it was
correct. There is plenty of room in the box but those two pieces need a very
clever and very specific set of moves around each other to get them into
place. After 3 days of trying, I finally packed them into place and after that
the rest rotated into the correct placements fairly easily.
My Goodness! It's absolutely brilliant!
If you like Minima puzzles then you must buy this. If you like Latussek
puzzles then you must by this. Hell, if you Like puzzles then you must buy
this! It is up there with the best Minima puzzle designs by Frederic - it is a
very suitable tribute. Thank you Volker.
Fatomino
Fatomino by Dr Volker Latussek
This gorgeous creation has been made by Pelikan using American Walnut and a
rather fabulous Zebrano. As soon as I saw it I was immediately taken back to one
a fabulous packing puzzle by Hajime Katsumoto in 2016,
Penta in a box.
In the original puzzle, the cavity of the box was a 3x3x3 cube and there were 5 planar pentominoes to
be fitted inside allowing the lid to close over them. It looks pretty
easy but there is a catch - the lid cannot close over any piece in the top row
at the front and any piece in the lid cannot close over an adjacent piece that
would end up behind it. This simple looking packing puzzle required quite a
lot of thought. So what could Volker possibly do to improve on such a simple
but fun design? Volker wrote his thoughts about it:
"It’s already been 10 years since Hajime Katsumoto caused a stir with
his PENTA IN A BOX – a brilliant idea to pack five of the twelve flat
Pentacubes into a 3x3x3 box with a clamshell lid. As I don’t collect
puzzles myself, it wasn’t until years later, during a joint visit, that
I was able to play with Götz Schwandtner’s copy at Bernhard Schweitzer’s
house. The interplay between the Pentacubes and the clamshell lid feels
really good. And the chosen mix of the five Pentacubes is truly
something special.
I’ve been experimenting for some time now with the FATs – the 15
Pentacubes, each of which is described by a 3x2x2 envelope. In doing so,
I naturally also recalled PENTA IN A BOX; interestingly, I hastily
dismissed it again because I concluded that there couldn’t be five FATs
that could fit into a 3x3x3 box with a clamshell lid. Something very
fundamental went wrong with this thought experiment. How foolish of me,
considering that there are 262,344 cuboid arrangements. An obvious
mistake.
For with FATOMINO and its one of potentially 303 combinations of five
FATs, it is even possible to achieve a filling with a unique solution.
What’s more, I maintain that there is no other combination with a unique
solution. In this sense, FATOMINO, modelled on PENTA IN A BOX, is
unique. In fact, I would very much like it to stay that way."
I did ask Volker why he called the pieces "FATs" and apparently it
originated from George Miller who described the pieces as being able to fit
in a FAT cigar box. It is just a way to refer to the NON-planar pentominoes.
The pieces are very interesting and very satisfying to play with:
A beautiful hinged box and 5 non-planar pentominoes
Recalling the problems that I had with the original puzzle, I knew what sort
of arrangements I had to attempt to create:
Not going to work
The aim was to make 2 separate packings that can be folded onto each other with
a hinged edge. This sounds very simple but it took me quite a while to realise
that the intersection of the leading edges as the hinge closed was really
causing a problem. I had to hunt for a very particular arrangement. It would be
tempting to brute force this with Burrtools but it shouldn't be necessary. After
a few failures, you should be able to think of the type of organisation that you
need and then hunting for it is tough but fun.
Yet again, Volker produces a variation on an award winning puzzle and manages
to make it even better than everything that has gone before. This is a MUST
have puzzle as well! It is simply superb. If you enjoyed Penta in a box then
you will adore this one.
Flummox
Flummox by Benjamin Heidt
This is the second burr in this summer release by Pelikan. Both of them have
been sent out in an unsolved position and the aim is to created the solved shape
before then completely disassembling and then reassembling it fully. Flummox is well named as it is VERY difficult and will really challenge even the best burrista's. It is a caged 6 piece burr with
"extra constraining pieces" and a stick length of 8 voxels made from a very striking combination of Zebrano,
Purpleheart and Maple. When it arrives, one of the burr sticks is protruding up
out of the box and will not simply push back into place.
It took me a good ½ hour of fiddling about (there are quite a lot of
possible moves of the other 5 pieces) before you can make enough space to sink
the protruding stick back to flush with the cage.
After this, obviously, the challenge is to disassemble the burr completely
into 6 sticks and a frame. This is not for a beginner to burrs. It really is a
very complex disassembly and there are a LOT of well disguised moves including
lateral as well as forward and backward moves. The disassembly level
is 30.1.2.3.2.2. Whilst that doesn't look too bad and I would usually say
that is an optimal number of moves for a satisfying burr but in this case,
with a frame, and being very difficult to see inside, this is VERY difficult.
It's very rewarding when the pieces start to come out but even after the
removal of one or two of them, the remainder remain very difficult to remove. This will
be impossible for most puzzlers to reassemble without resorting to Burrtools
but creating that file will be an extra challenge for you.
That was a massive challenge!
Fudou
Fudou by Frederic Boucher
Yes, another incredibly tough challenge by Frederic Boucher. I had to ask Jakub what the aim was. The Bubinga pieces arrived all nicely packed in the tray and I wondered whether we had to create some sort of structure that would stand up. I should have realised that this had a much simpler premise - the aim is to pack all the pieces into the tray in such a way that none of them are able to slide around. The triangular notches cut into most of them will allow them to interlock at 45º angles to each other and will ensure that they can be placed against the wall of the tray to prevent sliding. i.e. pack them into the tray but not orthogonally - simple? Hell, no!
I am terrible at anti-slide puzzles. I have managed to find a few very interesting ways the pieces can interact. The aim seems to be to find which pieces will fit together so that their corners reach the sides of the tray and then won't move if others are matched up to do the same. There must be a logical way of thinking about these but I have no skills in this sort of puzzle. It is a fun thing to play with but for me, I have made almost no progress in the 2 weeks that I have been playing.
For you clever puzzle enthusiasts this should be a massive challenge. Anything from Frederic is going to be very rewarding.
It's always a great but scary day in the PuzzleMad HQ when a big blue box
arrives from the Czech Republic! I am always delighted to see the delivery man
(and he seems pleased to see me too) but Mrs S is much less happy about it. She
knows that there will be a pile of puzzles lying around for a while to be solved
and me making funny noises and pained faces as I struggle to solve them within a
deadline. She always complains about the progressive buildup of toys but I think
they look gorgeous and also they keep me out of mischief which should make her
happy. Whack! Ouch!....or maybe not!
The delivery this time included:
Minima 1 to 4 from Frederic Boucher
Minima Smiley from Frederic Boucher in Acrylic as well as a re-release of
the wood version
L'Escargot from Jorgos Anastasou
Farmacia by Dr Volker Latussek
Minima One to Four
The first four Minima puzzles
Now this is very exciting! I have
previously written
about the Minima series from Frederic Boucher. I do seem to have reviewed quite a
lot of his puzzles over the last year or so - he is just so talented at
creating designs that are simple looking but having a tremendous yet still
accessible challenge. Here is another chance for you to get a copy of the
whole set of 12 Minima puzzles over the next few releases. They were
originally released by
Tye Stahly and sold out completely more than once. Apparently these are quite
difficult to manufacture and both Tye and Jakub have stated that they are
really tough.
Jakub and Jaroslav plan to create these in batches of 4 to be bought as a
set or individually. This month will start with the first 4 which are
definitely a great challenging introduction to the series. They have been
created with a bunch of different woods which make them stunning on display.
They are made with the following wood combinations:
Minima 1 - Elm and Wenge
Minima 2 - Walnut and Acacia
Minima 3 - Purpleheart and Ash
Minima 4 - Jatoba and Padauk
The aim is to pack all the pieces into the boxes with all holes covered when
packed. Like most of Frederic's puzzles, some very interesting and hard to
find rotations are required. They get progressively more difficult from
Minima 1 to 4 and are made all the harder with the Pelikan versions because
having a wooden box which you cannot see through means that you really have
to plan your approach before starting to place the pieces inside. After the
second piece is inserted it gets increasingly difficult to place others and
you cannot see what is causing the blockage. Also the precision of the
manufacture and the fact that the wooden box is less slidey than acrylic
ones means that any rotations need to be very precisely placed or
they will not work.
I had to solve all four of them again from scratch as I had no recollection
of the solutions from before (don't tell Mrs S that I only need about 10
puzzles to be solved over and over again!) They are such fun and this
explains why I have a HUGE collection of these Minima puzzles of
varying types and from various designers. Basically I will purchase any of
them when released to add to my collection. I would say that these are
ESSENTIAL purchases for anyone seriously into packing puzzles - they are
stunningly beautiful and a fabulous challenge!
Minima Smiley
Acrylic version
Re-released wooden version
The Minima Smiley was first released in December of last year and along with
the rest of the Boucher Minima's made it to my Top 10 puzzles of the year.
It was so good I actually spent several paragraphs gushing about how it
challenged me and scared me half to death as the magnets inside caused
various things to clack together unexpectedly. This time the Pelikan team
are re-releasing the original version in wood (Mahogany and Maple with a
Yellowheart smiley ball) and also an identical one with a see-through
acrylic box and Bubinga pieces. They both solve the same way but obviously
one is solved blind by deduction and the other is entirely visible. The
solution is fabulous and classic Boucher with a wonderful set of Aha!
moments.
Which should you buy? The wooden one is the most puzzling but the
see-through version is wonderful to watch as you manipulate the pieces. You
obviously need both in your collection!
L'Escargot
L'Escargot by Jorgos Anastasou
This is the second puzzle for
Jorgos Anastasou and is a wonderful animal shaped burr. We have a wonderful snail which
is asymmetric like the delicious escargot we can eat. This is different
to Pelikan's earlier snail puzzle of their own design which is more of a
sequential assembly/disassembly puzzle.
Pelikan have made this with a wonderful smooth and tactile Walnut and Zebrano
shell and an Ash body (there are some Wenge eyes too).
Obviously, the aim is to dismantle it and then reassemble it. Of course, the next part of the fun is creating your own Burrtools file for it as well. Maybe you can manage the reassembly before the BT file? The disassembly is a fun sequence of moving parts of the shell as well as the body around and gradually you can see an opening come into play which will allow the first piece to be removed. Even after removing the first piece it is still a challenge to remove the next and then the others are much simpler. The disassembly sequence is a perfect level 14.11.4.3 giving you some rather complex looking pieces:
Huge fun
I actually managed to keep the pieces in a reasonable orientation and position to be able to reassemble without resorting to a BT file but I doubt I could do it if I had scrambled the pieces. I am sure that all of you would easily manage to do it though.
Farmacia
Farmacia by Dr Volker Latussek
This is not even a complete disassembly
The Farmacia by Dr Latussek is absolutely gorgeous with a box made from Acacia and vibrant Padauk pieces to be placed inside.
It arrived with the pieces formed into a cube that slotted into the box but did not fit flush to the bottom. The aim is to remove the cube of pieces and reassemble it into the box so that they all sit flush with the top of the box.
Only when I took the first few pieces out did I realise why it was standing proud - each of the packing pieces are L-shaped Triominoes. Each of these triominoes has a central cubie which is solid and attached at each end to two others. One end-cubie has a hole drilled into one of the faces and the other end-cubie on the other end has a protruding short dowel which fits inside the drilled holes (these are also at varying positions on the faces). There is also a single hole in the centre of the base of the box and a single dowel in the centre of one wall (pictured left).
This puzzle is not for the faint-hearted! Having taken the pieces out of the box for my photo, I couldn't actually recreate the cube shape to get them all back in again. So far I have been experimenting with the various ways that these can be assembled into shapes and how to build up bigger shapes. I suspect that this will be a huge logic puzzle very similar to the Logical Progression puzzle from the late Eric Fuller which took me over a year to solve. This will require some proper thought and planning to solve. So far I have not managed anything yet but I will keep at it. So should you, it is beautiful and a very tough challenge.
Last week I
wrote in frustration
about the final one in the numbered Minima series (number XIII or as Allard
would make it - XXXXLIII). I have owned this one (from Frederic himself) for 4
years and a delightful portable plastic version from
Tye (if you ask him nicely, he might make some more). I had failed and failed
on this and eventually owned up to it as a catharsis on my little corner of
t'internet.
Of course, as soon as I confess to the puzzling world about how useless I am
at packing puzzles, disentanglement puzzles, boxes etc, I have one of those
wonderful Aha! moments. This time was no different. The day after my
confession, I was working from home chairing a meeting and then in the
afternoon we had our departmental Morbidity and Mortality meeting was held on
MS Teams (No I didnt have to confess to any mortality!) I tuned in from
the comfort of my conservatory with a pile o'puzzles next to me. My colleagues
are now used to me playing with toys during these meetings and I get quite a
few comments from people when I solve a particularly fearsome twisty during
the meeting. For some reason, they think I'm some kind of genius and they are
unaware of quite how bad my failure rate is.
The pieces of Minima XXXXXXXXXCIII were in a pile waiting to be put away and I
couldn't resist another period of self flagellation and set to work again.
This time, after a few minutes of trying the same tricks over and over again,
I looked at the slanted cut on the tetromino and wondered to my self:
"Self, what could you do with this odd cut?"
Suddenly a new idea hit my rather like the back of Mrs S' hand and I found a
new and interesting possible movement that I hadn't thought to try before. It
was too beautiful a move to be anything like chance - it had to be designed
in. Suddenly, this made me look at the slanted cuts in the two triominoes, and
again I was slapped on the back of the head - these pieces could be positioned
in such a way that the fancy first move would slide by. Oh wow! What an
incredible idea!
All that was left was to use the more conventional Minima type rotational
moves to set everything up. It's a rather gorgeous sequence of moves to end up
with all the pieces packed into the box and almost left me gasping with
delight.
Four years of puzzling!
The Minima 13 was the first of the series I received and was, I assume, the last
of the series that Frederic designed. To my mind it is the very pinnacle of the
Minima puzzle design - if you don't have a copy yet then try and find one to
complete your collection (I assume that you have the rest of the set from
Pelikan???) In
the title of my post this is the "sublime".
The look of exultation on my face when I finally solved it during our
departmental meeting did not go unnoticed! I saw a few colleagues grinning and
got a couple of messages. It was time to carry on with some more of them.
The Minima series from Frederic is really quite extensive now. Not only has
Frederic expanded beyond the original 13, others have jumped on the bandwagon
and seen the huge possibilities of "simply" packing a 2x2x3 box with smaller
pieces that may or may not require rotations. Lucie Pauwels, is a very prolific
designer who has appeared on these pages
many many times. Lucie decided to try her hand at Minima design and here is one that I have
had sitting waiting but not tried due to lack of time. It's the the Minima Nest which I purchased from Tye at the end of last year. It is also currently
sold out but again, if you ask nicely, maybe more can be printed. Lucie took the
standard 2x2x3 box and stood it on its end and then shifted each of the 3 layers
a half voxel sideways. She then took some simple pieces and shifted several of
them a half voxel across as well.
Solved it in a single afternoon! Maybe I'm getting better at puzzles?
That puzzle was ridiculous - so clever but not too hard.
Finally we return to another sublime one - it's probably a bit ridiculous
too!
Minima Twig by Frederic Boucher
Frederic hasn't finished with the Minima designs! This one was released
around the time of the last IPP and produced again by Tye of
NothingYetDesigns. It's also sold but there's no harm in you all sending him thousands and
thousands of emails clamouring for a remake. It has also been sitting in my
pile to be solved in the conservatory (yes, Mrs S is not really happy at how
many piles I have dotted around the house). I still had another hour of
meeting to go and therefore picked up a third challenge of the afternoon.
The Minima Twig again consists of the standard 2x2x3 box but in this case
there is just a single entry hole in one corner and each of the six faces
has either a single drilled hole or a track the diameter of the hole. There
are 6 domino pieces to be placed made from a choice of woods (I cannot
remember what the one above is) and with a steel pin in the centre of a
single voxel on each of the 6 pieces effectively making triominoes. There
are 3 L shapes and 3 straight lines. Obviously each of the metal pins is
intended to protrude from a hole drilled in the box. Rotations are allowed.
Placing the pieces in the box and posting the pin through the holes can
restrict the movement of the pieces and cause blockages. This will require
careful planning. I found that the requirement to pierce the holes made it
much easier to work out possible assemblies and then in my head working out
whether a disassembly would be possible was quite fun. There is a wonderful
critical sequence to rotate pieces into the box that is required and within
about 45 minutes I had my third puzzle of the afternoon solved. I
personally found that my afternoon Mortality and Morbidity meeting was
a very productive time. Maybe I should ask the bosses to allow us to have
more frequent meetings to get me out of the operating theatre so I can play
with my toys.
Three in one afternoon!
Speaking of operating theatres, I am in one just now doing a trauma list -
Trauma doesn't stop and weekends. I have written this in advance and set it
to auto publish. Isn't the internet a wonderful thing? I hope that you all
have had a wonderful puzzling weekend.
On Monday, February 2nd, 2:00pm CET, Jakub and team will be releasing the
first set of wonderful toys for 2026. This release has some truly incredible
puzzles to keep you busy for a while. As always, they have been made from
glorious woods with incredible precision. The choices of challenge are all
superb,
Grid by Lucie Pauwels
Prison by Lucie Pauwels
Donjon by Lucie Pauwels
Yoga I by Benjamin Heidt
Conundrum by Benjamin Heidt
Minima-Flop by Dr. Volker Latussek
Minima XIII by Frederic Boucher
CUBI series by Frederic Boucher
I have had these puzzles for a couple of weeks and have been hard at work
solving them so I can review them in time and help you make a choice. Whatever
you choose, you cannot really go wrong here.
Here we have another fascinating burr by Benjamin Heidt. The box from
Pelikan says "mixed woods" but the pre-release gave more information - it
has a beautiful set of dark woods (Bubinga, American Walnut, Purpleheart,
Wenge and Padauk) arranged into a caged burr containing 4 sticks held
vertically alongside each other in a frame. Initially it looks like the
frame can split into several more pieces. As usual, Benjamin has created a
fun logical sequence of moves that follow each other very nicely without
leading you too far into long dark pathways. as you explore, these pieces
dance around each other in a circle and go back and forth. After a decent
sequence the dance stops dead and there seems to be no way forward and it
looks like you need to go back and explore the side paths further. This
won't get you anywhere so after a little while of returning all the way back
to the beginning and trying alternative starts you realise that there must
have been a hidden move at the end of that dance. There is a lovely Aha!
moment when you find the cleverly hidden move and then suddenly the dance
can continue to the removal of the first piece. The removal of the remaining
pieces is now a nice logical sequence that you can work out by looking
inside the space left after the initial removal. At level 21.3.3.2 this is a
fabulous fun challenge with a lovely Aha! moment to keep any burr solver
happy.
The reassembly would be impossible from scratch for all but the best burr
solvers but having gone back and forth multiple times, I was able to put it
back together straight away from memory with only a bit of experimentation.
Fabulous!
There is something compulsive about the packing puzzle designs from Lucie
Pauwels! This wonderful little challenge has been beautifully created by
Pelikan with a wonderfully contrasting Bubinga frame (prison) and white
Maple pieces. The prison consists of a simple 3x3x3 cube but is made much
more complex by the addition of a single voxel hole in the floor and ceiling
which also have to be filled - on top of that the openings to be fed through
are partially obscured on all sides leaving a 2x3 gap on each face. The
pieces are a variety of small simple shapes - there are 7 pieces in all to
be placed in the prison. I thought initially that this should not be
terribly difficult but the slightly limited entry and the need to fill
ceiling and floor holes turns this into a proper challenge. Burrtools tells
me that there are 151 possible assemblies and I struggled to find even one
of them! I think it must have taken me a good 30-45 minutes to get my first
one. Working outside the box as is traditional was not helpful as it is
really hard to hold the pieces in place as you progressively add more of
them. I was forced to work in the prison to use the prison bars to hold the
pieces as I added extras. I frequently seemed to be making progress only to
either have a final shape impossible to add into the puzzle due to blocking
walls or the final gaps were split into several shapes. I had to use a bit
of thought to work out an initial approach and then a lot of trial and error
to get the first assembly. There is plenty of repeatability here to look for
different assemblies.
Late update!!!!
Having posted this article, I was contacted by Lucie this morning to tell me that I had completely misunderstood the nature of the puzzle! Jakub and Simona don't give me the instructions. I had assumed that this was a packing puzzle but I can now tell you that the packing element is a secondary challenge (and not even the toughest challenge). It would appear that the top surface of the prison is held on with rather strong magnets and it can be lifted off to give very good access to the cavity of the prison. The true aim is to place all the inmates inside the prison and then replace the roof. This sounds easy and it really is BUT the pieces need to be placed in such a way that once the roof is back on, the pieces cannot slide out. Yes this is an anti-slide puzzle and looks like a very difficult one. I will need to go back to it soon.
Donjon
Donjon (delivery positions) by Lucie Pauwels
Donjon (or dungeon) is yet another very VERY difficult puzzle from the
warped mind (we have one prison and one dungeon in this release!) of Lucie
Pauwels. Made from beautifully contrasting Ash and Wenge, the first
challenge is to remove all the pieces from the transport positioning. This
in itself was a major feat due to the very limited access! The aim is to
place all the "prisoners" through the entry down below the surface into the
dungeon and lock them in. The dungeon itself is just a 3x3x3 cube but the
entry is ferociously blocked by a complex crowning door leaving only a 1x3
entry gap on each side. It is made even tougher by the fact that the entry
gap is very narrow (smaller than a finger) - controlling the orientation of
the pieces is going to require considerable dexterity. Having eventually
taken all the pieces out, I was seriously worried about my ability to get
enough back in even for storage, let alone solving it. I started assembling
my 3x3x3 cube and quickly realised that could not be the sole aim - the
presence of a 1x1x5 piece made me realise that the aim was to create a 3x3x3
shape filling the box and then lock them in with a crosspiece. The use of
gravity to move pieces around inside adds to the fun - The Pelikan team have
made the pieces with such precision that everything slides beautifully by
tilting the box in whatever direction that you need.
There are 213 ways to use the pieces to make a cube so the use of the
limited entry to narrow it down is crucial. There are 3 pieces with 90º
corners in their shapes which very much constrain the orientation and
movement once placed through the very limited entry hole. Finding the
orientation of these and an order that they can be inserted without blocking
each other is key to the solution here. This puzzle took me many hours and a
little help from Burrtools as well. The end result is very satisfying - once
the locking piece has been placed, the pieces are all locked inside.
Inverting the puzzle will not let anything drop out. This is a huge
challenge for any puzzler!
Grid
Grid by Lucie Pauwels
Grid is the third design by Lucie Pauwels in this release by Pelikan. It has
complex pieces made from Wenge to be fitted into 5x5 grid constructed from
an acrylic plate which has been beautifully frosted. We are accustomed to
amazing wood from the Pelikan team but even their plastic work is perfect.
My initial approach was the usual random placement of pieces onto the grid
which always progressed very nicely until I realised that I had isolated one
small section of the grid and could not place a piece to fill it. Maybe
starting with the more complex pieces would help? It did up to a point but
then I always got trapped with a couple of pieces unplaceable. This was
going to need planning - not only are there 3 complex pieces but there are
also a couple of simpler pieces that have missing side voxels. My head was
starting to hurt and I was on a deadline. I decided to use Burrtools to give
me the position of just one piece and this was miraculous. After finding the
position of just one of the complex pieces, the remainder of the assembly
was wonderfully logical with literally only a few possible piece placements
making the final assembly a lovely exploration. Maybe you talented puzzlers
out there can solve it without help? If you can't, then making the BT file
is fun and just makes the puzzle all the more satisfying.
Yoga 1
Yoga 1 by Benjamin Heidt
4 possible tetrominoes
This unbelievably complex design by Benjamin Heidt has been made by Pelikan
to look incredibly beautiful using stunningly marked Leopardwood for the
panels of the box and Garapa for the pieces as well as the corners of the
box. Benjamin has picked 4 of the possible tetrominoes to be placed in the
box which already has 4 voxels stuck in place inside and then deliberately
not told us which tetrominoes he has chosen - he (and Pelikan) have
obfuscated the puzzle even further by creating a hinge across each pair of
dominoes and allowing the poor challenged puzzler to rotate the pieces into
any of the 4 possible shapes. My goodness! This is hard enough if we were
given all the correct pieces in the correct shapes to be inserted. By adding
the hinges the puzzle has been made MUCH tougher! This is not for the
faint-hearted.
Creating a Burrtools file for this puzzle is a challenge in itself - it will
require you to know about how to use variable numbers of pieces (it is
actually a great way to educate yourself into the more complex aspects of
the program). Once this has been done it can be seen that there are 268 ways
to insert these different combinations of these tetrominoes inside the box
but only 1 is actually possible to create as a true solution. Amazingly it
requires at least 1 of every type of tetromino (I'm not telling you how many
of which ones). I have been working on this for many hours and have so far
not managed to get anywhere at all. I suspect that I will need to go back to
BT and find out how many of each piece type is required and try with that
knowledge.
I have reviewed many
Minima puzzles
over the last few years. The original idea by Frederic Boucher was to fit
various pieces into a 2x2x3 space through a limited opening and requiring
various rotational moves which are facilitated by odd holes in the sides of
the box. The series has been continued by him and also taken up by many of
the best puzzle designers in the world - I have lots of them and love the
variety of challenges. I now have several versions of the Minima 13 and
reviewed it in June 2025
having taken 4 years to solve it. When I finally managed to review it last
year, I said that this 13th challenge in the Minima series was the utter
pinnacle of the series - it is quite literally the very best of them all. It
takes the original premise to pack the pieces inside and adds extra stuff:
It is trivial to place all the pieces in the box without rotations but
this is clearly not the solution because...
There is a single coloured voxel which must not be visible from the
outside
Several of the pieces have been cut at odd angles to allow some rather
fancy rotations.
This is a seriously tough challenge and the Aha! moments are multiple and
difficult to find. I had almost no recollection of the last solve and it
took me quite some time to get it again this time. The crucial moves are
very well hidden.
If you own the rest of the Pelikan wooden Minima series then this is a MUST
BUY. If you don't have a copy of the 13th challenge at all then this is a
MUST BUY! The Minima 13 was one reason the whole series made it to my
Top ten(ish) for 2025.
Yes, we cannot have a Pelikan release without an incredible challenge from
Dr Volker Latussek! This one takes the amazing Minima designs from Frederic
Boucher and adds a certain Latussek flair to it. The Minima Flop has been
gorgeously created using Purpleheart and Saman (also known as
Monkeypod). It is simply stunning. The puzzle arrives in a specific transport
configuration that Volker always designs and the initial challenge is to
take the pieces out - this will give you at least an idea of the types of
moves that are possible with this box and pieces. There are 4 cornered
triominoes to fit into the usual 2x2x3 space. It looks like it should be a
simple challenge - Volker has even given us 4 really quite large holes in 4
of the faces. One of those holes is huge but not big enough to place a piece
inside on its side. Volker said this about the puzzle:
"Frederic Boucher said to me in the summer of 2024, asking if I would
like to contribute a puzzle to his MINIMA SERIES. At the time, I was
deeply immersed in working on my FLOP SERIES, so I suggested a MINIMA
FLOP. I was confident that I would come up with something suitable
despite the strict requirement of a 2x2x3 box. It quickly became clear
to me that it had to be a four-piece puzzle consisting of identical
pieces. The pieces could only be V-shaped. Now, the task remained of
finding the right openings. And, to suit a FLOP, as many openings as
possible with dimensions of 1.5x1. To my surprise, there were five of
these openings, two of which I had to combine. This was the only way I
could meet the requirements. MINIMA-FLOP is a nice experiment within
MINIMA and FLOP. Frederic wrote to me that he had a lot of fun with it.
I wish the same for you."
There seems to be no end to Frederic Boucher's talents! Not only do we have
the incredible Minima series, the Jammed series (two of which I still
haven't managed to solve) as well as numerous tray packing puzzles, he also
has created a series of cubic packing puzzles here that have an enormous
challenge to them due to very irregularly shaped pieces, blocks attached to
the inside of the boxes, as well as rotational moves. Effectively, these
seem to be the combination of a Turning Interlocking Cube (TIC) at the same
time as a packing puzzle. This series has been fabulously recreated by
Pelikan using beautifully contrasting woods.
We have:
CUBI 12 - Ash and Wenge
CUBI 18 - Limba and American Walnut
CUBI 24 - Limba, American Walnut and Acacia
CUBI 25 - Mahogany and Zebrano
Cubi 12
Cubi 12 by Frederic Boucher
This initial slightly easier "taster" puzzle for the series consists of a
box with a rotational symmetry to the interior. and four identical Wenge
pieces made from 3 offset cubies. They need to be placed inside without
anything protruding above the top surface (it will obviously not be
completely filled when solved). I started with the 4 pieces and worked to
create a cubic shape that would interlock enough to be reduced to a 3x3x3
cube. This part of the challenge was actually not that difficult. There are
58 ways to create a shape that fits in a 3x3x3 box but most of them are not
symmetrical or pleasing to the eye. Searching through them to find something
that would fit amongst the pieces stuck to the walls of the box was a fun
exercise and quickly revealed a rather beautiful shape. Now time to place it
inside the box. At this point I realised I had a problem. Burrtools will not
solve this one - rotations are required. However, once I had realised this I
quickly saw what was needed and managed my assembly. This is really very
clever and definitely possible by any decent puzzler. I suspect the rest
will be MUCH more difficult!
Cubi 18
Cubi 18 by Frederic Boucher
The second level of the Cubi series consists of 4 rather complex shapes
created from cubes offset from each other. Two of them form rather fun
looking staircase shapes around corners. I started initially looking at
making a cube outside of the box but they were quite awkward to hold in
place and I swapped quickly to trying to place the pieces into the box past
the various obstructions attached to the walls. This was definitely the
right approach as insertion of these large pieces takes a bit of thought and
rotational ingenuity. Getting one in is easy but the second always seems to
be blocked. I tried the second shape first and then the other was blocked. I
was fixated on this for quite a while before exploring further. There is an
alternative way to place one of them and it only got me even more confused
until I went back to my initial thought. Trying the same thing again did not
get me anywhere until I looked at the pieces properly. Whilst one is
identical no matter which way it is inserted, the other can be reversed and
whilst it looks similar now there is no blockage. My advice to you of to
look at the pieces properly and experiment with everything that you can do.
After inserting those, it only took a little further exploration to work out
how to place the other two. The Aha! moment with this one is fabulous!
Cubi 25
Cubi 25 by Frederic Boucher
Whilst this is the 4th in the series if you take them in ascending numerical
order, it probably should be the third that you try. Jakub and team have
made this absolutely gorgeous from Zebrano with a Mahogany box. Again there
are a number of pieces to place inside the box which has a couple of
half-voxel pieces stuck to the walls. These half voxel interfere with your
ability to place the in the box and also will form part of the eventual cube
shape. To make it even more difficult this time, several of the pieces are
made with half voxel lengths on one or more places. This will make it
seriously tough to assemble the cube shape. After I failed for a while, I
counted the total number of voxels on the pieces and there are 25 in all
plus the 2 halves stuck on the walls (not much room to manoeuvre). I decide
to try and make a cube shape outside the box with half voxel gaps in the
crucial positions. I'm not very good at Soma cube puzzles and this is
similar but much harder. It took me over an hour to find a cube shape -
remember, the half voxel shapes make all the difference to your search.
Having made my cube it was a lovely, much smaller, challenge to reassemble
it in the box. Rotational moves and sliding is required. This is great fun
and a wonderful next step up in difficulty!
Cubi 24
Cubi 24 by Frederic Boucher
The fourth (and final?) puzzle in this wonderful Cubi series is a really
tough challenge! There are 3 beautiful grained woods. The box has a slightly
limited entry due to the attachment of a 1x2x½ voxel piece across one
corner. The pieces are rather complex with 2 ½ voxel pieces attached to each
one. There is also a disk with smiley face on it to be added inside. This is
another one where it would be best to assemble a cube outside the box and
the work out how to get it inside. Burrtools won't help you as a rotation is
required but it can help you search for cube assemblies. I needed this help
and found 57 possible cube shapes but as soon as you adjust it to leave the
1x2x½ voxel gap, it is reduced to a single possible solution. In the
interest of time, I used this to find the position of a single piece and
then worked from there. It still took me quite long time to find a solution
outside the box. Assembling it inside was a lovely sequence! I am sure that
all you fabulous puzzlers will manage this without resorting to Burrtools.
This is an incredible release of brilliant puzzles to start off the year.
There are challenges for all levels of puzzler. To me the absolute
essentials are:
Minima XIII - if you have the others then this is a must buy - it's the best
of the series.
Minima Flop - it's a Minima with the Latussek extra
The Cubi series - any will do but the set is incredible!
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