Karakuri Kit

You all know the beautiful Mecanigma and Architecto Kit by NKD puzzles and you all know the nice puzzles by Karakuri Group, right?

Now let me intriduce you the Karakuri Kits. Well these are not new, but almost (if never) never reviewed anywhere, while they really deserve it !

I will focus on the Karakuri Work Kit - Kolorin
 

The goal of this kit is to build a wooden box with a drawer that can only be opened if you manage to solve the puzzle.

 

The assembly

The kit is composed of 26 pieces: 23 wooden pieces to assemble and glue with wood glue (not included), 1 transparent plexi plate, 1 metal ball, and a spring. All the elements are of very good quality.

The assembly instructions are entirely in Japanese but the illustrations are clear enough not to need the text. The diagrams in the instructions are precise and the use of color makes it easy to see which parts to use and where to use the glue.

The assembly itself is very satisfying. The wooden pieces seem to be a kind of improved plywood. There are 5 different layers (probably glued at very high pressure to get a good final quality), 3 inner layers for strength (a kind of medium glued in opposite directions) and 2 outer layers of veneer for visual appearance.

The pieces are cut (no laser cut so no blackened side) with extreme precision. Everything fits together perfectly. Nothing protrudes. It is impressive !!

 The assembly is relatively fast, 30 minutes should be enough. Once finished, the box is solid and inspires confidence. There is no fear of breaking it or damaging the mechanism.

The fact that you assemble the mechanism yourself allows you to understand both how it works and the technical details so that it can be assembled easily. It is ingenious.

 

The puzzling aspect 

Here you have to use a ball to operate a mechanism visible through a plexi plate. When manipulating it, the sound of the ball against the wooden plates is very pleasant.
 
I find the box pretty and intriguing because the mechanism is visible from the outside. We can see immediately that we are dealing with a secret box! And one is irresistibly tempted to manipulate it to try it. Although the resolution is not surprising, it remains very satisfactory. This is due to the quality of the material (everything slides smoothly), to the sound of the ball hitting the wood, to the simplicity of the mechanism that makes you want to understand it right away, etc.

I left it at home on the table and all my friends wanted to try it, and even when they had found the way to open it, they wanted to do it again, and again.

The puzzle is extremely simple. It's more of a marble game than a puzzle. It might disappoint, but I don't think this kit is intended to be too complex. The interest, for me, is to build and perceive the difficulties and ingenuity necessary to create a puzzle. The goal is also to have an object that you made yourself and that has a particular value to the one who made it. It is also possible to personalize it (paint it, stick pictures, stick small objects in the mechanism area, make it more or less complex by adding obstacles, etc ...).

 Who is it for?

For those who like to understand the mechanisms of a puzzle. For those who like to build lego and furniture kits. For those who want to have or offer an original and personalized object. The box can also be the box that contains the 'real' gift in its drawer.

This kit could also be very well suited to a parent-child activity (perhaps from 10 years old?), there is indeed no particular difficulty in the assembly or solving the puzzle.

 
 

Conclusion

The construction of this kit is very satisfactory. This is particularly related to the quality of the parts and the precision of the cutting which allows a perfect assembly! 

The object is pretty and intriguing. We immediately want to take it and try it. The handling is satisfying and makes you want to do it again and again.The puzzle itself is not surprising, it is more of a game than a challenge and that is the goal.

Many other kits are available. You can find some pictures below.

 

Your list of puzzles to order from X-mas Father

X-mas is coming in a month or so, and it's time to make your wishing list for Xmas-Father !!!

Below are my suggestions. I will put several puzzles with several kind of price. If you've been nice maybe you will get them all under the Xmas tree. Else...maybe nothing??

The order of the below puzzles does not mean anything special. It does not mean that 1/ is my favourite. I just needed to make a list, that's it :) 

Also there are some great puzzles that I would highly recommend, but many are sold out. And it's better to have some puzzles in stock ready to be bought for your X-mas Father, you don't want to receive your presents in January :)

1/ Mecanigma Kit and/or Architecto kit for the people who like crafting things and enjoy big boxes!

Mecanigma Kit is the first big kit to have been released. I advise starting with Mecanigma Kit before doing Architecto. Everything is provided in the kits: glue, sandpaper, laquer, etc. You will just need some tiny manuel screwdrivers (kind of actually) to make tiny holes.

You need to follow the steps as everything is clearly mentioned. So you should not have too many issues. I still need to warn you: it's not that easy and obviously if you already have some manual skills that helps a lot.

As for Architecto Kit, it's a bit more expensive and more challenging to solve because there are LED lights and other things to add.

One more thing: you won't get spoiled while crafting the puzzle because the steps in the solution process don't follow the same order as the steps in the crafting process. Plus I am sure you will be more focussed on making things right, than analyzing the pieces and steps to deduce the solution ! :)

 

2/ Bozo's packing puzzles for the people who loved well-made clever packing puzzles

I reviewed the several puzzles in different posts in my blog. To be honest, I really like all of them. The quality is top, fit is perfect, difficulty is challenging.

His first puzzle was Ugly 4 which puzzled me for long time due to the weird puzzle pieces. Definity challenging.

The other 2: 8cat and Broken Heart are also nice challenges. 8cat has 2 challenges. As for Broken Heart I like the design a lot. For this one, I did not fall into the traps so I did not fully appreciated the difficulty, still liking it a lot.

The latest one MisFit has even improved in terms of quality with a nice tray and a plexi cover. It took me a bit of time. You can choose the colors of the pieces when placing your order.

Let me remind you the coupon code to use when ordering to get a nice % reduction: RPW7ZMDYF6XZ

3/ Trick Locks from Sashko for the metal lover puzzlers who liked to be tricked with locks!

I reviewed in older posts the Titan Locks, Her Key to The treasure lock, and the lastest one: Monoblock.

All are modified locks from existing locks. In terms of difficulty for sure Titan lock is the most challenging with some traps and some unusual steps. Her Key to THe treasure can be solved in different ways (some more elegant than others) and finally Monoblock is the heaviest (pretty heavy actually!) of them all and has nice steps. It's not super difficult but some steps may puzzle you for some time.

His locks can be bought on etsy under the name of "LockPuzzle". He also made available to purchase some lock picking kits to learn how to pick locks. Something interesting I guess (I have never tried so far) !

I've put the link if you click on LockPuzzle, but sometimes links to etsy don't work...so I guess you also may find it by yourself on etsy :)

4/ Some mazes by Doug (aka Inside Cube)

So fare they have released a lof of puzzles from Easy to Mortal (well this is the name of it). The goal is to navigate with a ball from start to end with the maze engraved on the cubes. That does not make the puzzles easy, hell no !!

The first puzzles were called The Original: the easy cubes have fewer levels than the "regular" ones. The phantom ones have 2 ball bearings. Be careful: for the most advanced cubes, you cannot open them. 

The Donjon was released with the idea of using a vegetal plastic. It has a nice shape. I love the design of it.

Finally the Legend puzzles are on one level and have nice stories behind them. Recently there has been a campaign on Ulule to raise some money to create a more advanced Legend with a 2-layer maze. The layers can be taken off the tray, they call it Troglodyte.

Which ones will you choose ?? :)

37 hours left to back up this project !!!

You have less than 2 days to back up this awesome puzzle project in Ulule !!

The money is raised by Doug aka Inside Cube. Goals are to re-release an old puzzle and a new one. And with some added bonus along the way.

Doug would like to raise 15 000 euros to reach a new goal !

So hurry up and help them to raise the money :)

 

This is the link of the project !

 

Some Siebenstein-Spiele

Don't even try to pronounce "Siebenstein-Spiele", you better just solve the puzzles :)

Siebenstein-Spiele is famous for puzzles that usually combines wood and plexi and many have also some coins to free as goals. Many are mazes, but not all. So in this post, there will be one maze and one that is definitely not a maze!

Euro-Falle 03 is a cute puzzle that belongs to a pretty big series of euro coins from the same designer. 

It's composed of 4 screws and I notices that 3 of them were a bit loose. So I unscrewed them. Of course, if I tell you that, then you should immediately see this not as a spoiler (because it's not the solution). And... puzzle solved!!

So I realized that was not the solution (and if it was, then it would have been super disapointing) and I managed to see the mechanism and the way it should have normally worked. Nothing really new about the mechanism, so don't expect something amazing. There is one step that I don't like and a nice step as well. I keep secret the number of step.

I recommend the puzzle if you have the other in the collection or if you like coin puzzles. If you're lookingfor a serious challenge, that may not the puzzle that suits your taste. I don't mean this is an easy puzzle though.

As for the other puzzle, the maze one, it's called "safe". I have to say that the name of the puzzle is pretty well found because the coin to release is safe as it's a challenging puzzle. It's a 2 layer maze (one wooden layer and one in plexi) that you will have to rotate while moving the 2 pins. 

 

It's for sure a challenging puzzle!

At some point you will solve it, it's mostly try, try again and try one more time. I'm not even sure we can apply a reliable logic when solving a maze puzzle....

For sure it's well made, and if you're looking for a serious challenge, go for it! You will rewarded with a real coin, so actually you can replace the coin with a fake one, resulting in a cheaper puzzle :)

Both can be found on Puzzle Master webshop !