Thursday 15 January 2015

Try to escape from Alcatraz


This puzzle made of trespa, a solid material, is one of the puzzles made by Robrecht Louage, a Belgium puzzle designer.
It measures 9cm x 7.5cm x 1.3cm, so not a big puzzle that you can easily put in your coat.
I cannot say more of the other materials used for this puzzle because it may give you clues about how to solve this one...I put this puzzle in the label "trick opening boxes" which was Robrecht's designation, but as you can see it has nothing to do with, for example, the Karakuri's trick opening boxes!
If you are familiar with Robrecht's puzzles, this one is no exception to the rule and have an euro coin to be released. So in reality, you pay a little bit less your puzzle if you take the euro coin and replace it by a plastic coin :-)

The beginning

The design of the box is very good because the name fits perfectly with the design of the puzzle. And don't worry, this is easier to solve this puzzle rather than escaping the real Alcatraz jail!!
I find rather ironical to replace the German euro coin that was at the beginning by a euro coin that has a royal face, here it's a Belgium coin (but a Spanish coin would have also worked), to make a real prisonner. I think it was Robrecht's first idea, but perhaps he lacks of those coins.

The goal of this puzzle is to open the box and it requires several steps, the first one being the trickiest one in my opinion.
When you move the puzzle you can hear things inside but you will never be able to see the real mechanism even when it is solved, unless you completely break the puzzle, which will be unusuable thus...

I am on the good way...

As I knew all the material used for this puzzle, I did not have a lot of difficulties to open it, but I must admit that I did not understand totally how I solved this one, because I just turned the puzzle upside down, pull and push the slider...And it opened!!
So I asked Robrecht if he could send me the internals of the pictures and it became clearer.
Yes I like having the internals (as well as the solutions!) because I feel a little bit frustrated if I cannot see the whole mechanism...I want to admire the mechanism!

Solved !!! I am out of jail now!



To conclude, if you like Robrecht's puzzles and you want to buy an affordable puzzle, don't hesitate.
You can find this puzzle on Puzzle Master Webshop.

Of course, the solution exists !!



1 comment:

  1. Hello,
    Enjoy reading your blog! Robrecht Louage’s Crack the Yolk, and Alcatraz look like a ton of fun. I’d appreciate it much if you’d share his site with me. Thank you, Kind regards. Ann

    ReplyDelete