Hi cube lovers, this is ZE puzzle you
should have!!
Let me explain you a little bit this
puzzle.
The name of this puzzle is a pun: "ze"
is the French pronunciation of "the" in English. So from
the name of the puzzle, you know that you will have to discover what
is inside of the cubes and solve them, of course.
These puzzles are mazes but with the
plans written on both side of the cube. The goal is to navigate
through 7 levels from the beginning to the end. Once arrived at the
end, other plans are written so that you can "easily" go
back to the beginning by following the maps. There are dead ends,
traps, sometimes you need to make the marble go to an uper level, so
you need to turn upside down the cubes...Everything is done to
trouble your mind.
These puzzles have been designed by
French guys who created their firm thanks to crowdfunding, and they
succeeded in obtaining all the funds (and even more) on time.
As this is quite new for them, so there
may have been some small issues on puzzles which I pointed out to
those guys. For example, you need to "push" quite strongly
to make the marble leave its receptable for some cubes. For other the
marble can leave its receptacle too easily. It was their 1st
batch of cubes, so they will improve them for next batches.
And you know at the begginning no
puzzle is perfect...
The pictures I took come from cubes
with their first packaging (the packaging has changed).
 |
| It looks easy the way it works. Well always easier showing than doing... |
Take a closer look, and you will see
that the packaging provides the marble from leaving its receptacle
during the shipping. Good point!
The cubes are in sturdy plastic and are
ranked from easy to very difficult. There are 2 "easy"
cubes (one transparent and one blue). The other cubes are "regular",
"mean", "awful", "vicious" and
"mortal".
The names are Easy0, Mean0.....Mortal0.
So you may understand that for the next batch of cubes the names will
be Easy1, Mean1...and so on.
What's good with the cubes is that you
can open them, so that you can analyze the levels and if you are lost
you can easily restart the puzzles. The levels are numbered so that
you cannot be wrong when you put them in the box, and there is like a
"safeguard" on each level so that you know in which
position you have to put them. Everything is done to avoid errors.
Good job !!
 |
| Difficult to see, but each level is numbered |
However, you cannot do this for all the
cubes. Here is one difficulty: for the vicious you can't open the
cube, and for the mortal you can't open the cube and no plans are
written. So when you're lost, good luck :-)
Another difficulty is how to read the
maps. Believe me it's hard! First because you need to understand
them. Second, you need to understand where the marble will go from
one hole of one level to the other level(s) (sometimes it can fall
from many levels at the same time...!).
Then you have to move the cube in the
correct directions. As for me, I have difficulties to have a 3D
representation of the maze in my mind, so it is all the more
difficult...
 |
| 7 levels are written. Read them from left to right |
Here is the link to order your cubes.
Sometimes they make reduced prices for some events, you need to
check.
Hurry up, you need THE cube ;-)
When you have many cubes you can have
fun and try to mix some levels from one cube with the levels of some
other cubes to create a new cube. Well it can work...or not...
Here is the link of a brilliant French
guy who developed like a software that allows you to see if your cube
is solvable if you mix some levels (you need to get at least 100%,
otherwise your cube won't be solvable), and it also allows you to
help you navigate through the maze if you're lost:
As a conclusion, good puzzles to have,
(very) hard to solve (even for the easiest one since you need to
understand well how it works).
If you don't intend to buy all of them
(but you may want to collect all of them), I strongly advise you
(even if you're the best puzzle solver in the world...) to buy the
cristal one (easy level) and another a little bit more difficult.
I started with the mean cube, and it
was too difficult to start, so I bought the cristal easy one to
better understand the maps...
Time your speed and try to beat the
best challengers
Have cubing fun !!
