This is a puzzle made by Wil Strijbos (or most likely he has made it by his official Chinese maker) and designed by Mr Gong. (who's that man, by the way??)
Not a usual puzzle sold by Wil as this is one has several colors and is a sliding puzzle compared to the usual "sequencial discovery" puzzles offered by Wil.
What about the quality?
I must admit that the quality is below Wil's standard. Don't get me wrong, this is not bad quality at all. I don't say that. I only say that usually the finish is better. And you will notice that quickly when you hold the puzzle. Some pieces are a bit rounded, and this is not intended for the solution. I guess that this is not the same metal as Wil's usual puzzle. However this is still nice and it's not common to have metal puzzle with several colors!
What about the goal and difficulty?
The goal is to "cross the ball". Despite Wil's picture of the starting point and goal, I did not really understand at a first glance because everything seems to be identical....But if you look more carefully you will notice that the right part of the cross is hidden by a bit of a dark metal piece whereas it's not when the puzzle is solved! The marble is useless you have to take it out to solve the puzzle. This is just intended to keep the pieces in place.
In my opinion there are 2 challenges compared to the only challenge given by Wil.
The first challenge is shown by the picture and is not that difficult to be done. You have to move the pieces with several kind of moves and it should not take you too long to solve and reassemble.
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| First challenge done!! |
What about the second challenge?
Well: separate all pieces and then reassemble them. For that challenge, this is not that straight forward to solve, you will need many more moves. I almost thought it was impossible and that the pieces had been crafted in such a special way not to be separated. But I was wrong, you can separate the pieces!!
I advise you to take pictures of the disassembly, because reassembling the pieces will be a harder challenge...
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| 2nd challenge done!! |
To conclude, this is a nice puzzle. I like the colors, I like that this is not an usual puzzle. I also like the pretty small price (compared to the usual Wil's prices). I like a bit less the quality. But I would still advise you to buy it if you like sliding puzzles and you want to add a bit of metal to your collection.
