Hat trick

Hat trick is a new creation from the genius Laszlo Molnar, who is famous for his unconventional packing puzzles (I reviewed several in the past, have a look!) and crafted by the talented Brian Menold.

I think you already noticed that but I feel this has to be mentioned: in my opinion Brian is the guy who crafts puzzles with the most beautiful wood species. His woods are wonderful and he don't use the same wood again and again as some other wood puzzle craftmen do...
So if you want beautiful puzzle this is the man you have to buy puzzles from !!

OK let's go back to the puzzle. It was awarded with a prize at past puzzle competition and when playing with it then it becomes obvious why.
The puzzle is composed of a cage and 6 "L-shaped" pieces to pack. I am pretty reluctuant to play with puzzles when your finger moves are restricted because it makes it very difficult to manipulate the pieces. But with this one, this is very fine and you should not have these kind of difficulties.

As you may asume, if it got a prize and if it's a Laszlo's, then you imagine that this puzzle has something extra and well it has. It not just a basic packing puzzle. If you're aware of Laszlo's puzzle, then you know which twists it must have :)

I always repeat my technique with packing puzzles: solve the puzzle outside of the box and then see if you can make it inside. It always works! I ended up with several ways of making the shape to pack. For several that was an impossible shape because you could not have extracted any pieces from the cage. But I ended up with one possible shape. Hard to not spoil.....but I won't spoil, no worries :)

Some pieces were easy to pack (and thus to remove) but I was stuck with how you could pack some. It gave me pain and all of sudden I managed to pack them. Then the remaining pieces were a piece of cake! I was curious about how I packed those pieces and tried to remove them from the box to understand better. And guess what: I could not! Well at one point I could and I took care to take pictures of all the solving process.

Wonderful contrast with corners, cage and pieces!

This is a puzzle with a big "ah-ha" moment and I am sure you will like it a lot.
Definitely a nice and challenging puzzle you should get !!