Kickstarter campaign for Oskar's metal puzzle is launched !

Puzzle Master has officially launched a new kickstarter campaign to raise funds so to mass-produce a metal puzzle from Oskar's mind.

 

This Honeycomb puzzle is composed of a black base and of 7 threaded gold pieces that you literally have to unscrew / screw from/in the base to solve and reassemble the puzzle.

Quality speaking this puzzle is very nice and the fit was perfect and precise. I can only speak for my copy but I guess some (I still hope not!) won't be as perfect as mine. Here comes a potential weakness: if the threads are not precisely made, then it may be either hard or impossible to solve the puzzle. But I guess Puzzle Master will follow up any issue. 

The puzzle feels solid and heaby in the hands and clearly this is usually a good sign! No red flags here :)

I still advise supervision of adults if children are playing with the puzzle. Threads can be sharp and you may cut a bit your fingers if you apply too much pressure on them while screwing. It does not happen to me but this is the usual warning when playing with metal threaded parts: take your time, no pressure, no force, be gentle !!

Now let's speak about the solving process. Obviously you will have to unscrew all the pieces, no doubt about that. It's pretty easy and straight forward to solve the puzzle. Anyone can solve it !

Reassembling the puzzle is more challenging. You need to figure out which pieces go where and fidle a bit about how to put them back. Still, it's not super difficult to achieve, it's pleasant though.

If you're a metal puzzle sucker, definitely you should pledge on the kickstarter campaign. If you're only attracted by the difficulty level of a puzzle, just consider another puzzle, or buy it for your friends :)

 

The link for the kickstarter campaign is: HERE

Aquarium

Aquarium is an acrylic packing puzzle which goal is to fit all 3 octopuses into the "aquarium" (frame)
It was created by Russian designer Vladimir Krasnoukhov.

The puzzle fits perfectly the theme and the colors are well chosen. Still, note that the colors may vary and personally I prefer mine than the ones shown on Puzzle Master website (yours may be even nicer!).

 

I liked a lot the quality of the material used (like all the previous Vladimir's puzzles), the colors used. Especially the transparent color for the octopuses (yellow would have been weird) and it's very funny to try putting the tentacles all together.

As for the difficulty, it's not easy, but I would rank it as "moderate": you will be challenged without frustration and you can even let you friends.

I liked a bit less that there are no surprises, nor tricks involved. You 're expecting to do what you initially thought you would have to. So the solution could have popped in your mind before playing for hours. You can analyze, like what I did, the shapes and with just that you may come to a solution (there is only one by the way).
 

To conclude: a very nice looking puzzle, nice to share with friends. A bit on the easy side, but still far from being easy.
 

 

You can buy Aquarium puzzle directly on Puzzle Master webshop!

When you have several anti-slide problems with one puzzle...

 .... it can only be good ! And you get more fun !

A couple of anti-slides packing is a puzzles with 3 different challenges designed by Vladimir Krasnoukhov.

As the name of this puzzle implies, there are two anti-slide tasks to this puzzle and one bonus packing challenge.

Task 1: Pack the pieces of Set 1 into the tray so that no piece can move ('anti-slide')

Task 2: Pack the other four pieces in Set 2 into the tray so that no piece can move and that the pieces will form a symmetrical shape at the same time.

Task 3: Pack all the pieces into the tray

I find this little guy very interesting for the several challenges and the look of the solution (yes I solved all the 3 puzzles!).

I fiddled a lot for the challenges but the goal can help you a bit. Indeed for one challenge it's mentioned "symetrical shape" so you can try several symetry shapes and check if the result can fit inside the tray.

Actually I thought that the symetry stuff added more complexity, but not all all because the solution has to be symetrical and if it's not symetrical you cannot fit the pieces :)

The solutions are really rewarding and you can admire the genius mind which created these puzzles !!

I cannot remember if the puzzle arrived with Task 3 solved, but I bet so as it's easier to pack safely the pieces during shipping. 

So I would advise you to scramble the pieces behind your back or ask for a friend's help :)

In all honesty, I had great fun with the puzzle and I advise at 100% to buy it. If you love anti-sliding packing (as I do) you won't be disappointed and if you love plexi and/or Vladimir's puzzles, then it's also a must-have in your collection.

You can buy the puzzle at Puzzle Master webshop

Rotating wooden anti-sliding

Anti-Sliding (I will name it AS in the article) puzzle is a puzzle that is solved when no pieces move in any direction if you move the tray from left to right and from top to bottom.

Unfortunately there are not a lot of AS puzzles out there (maybe the demand is not there as well?) while I really think they deserve more recognition!

 

 

Stabile Seitenlage (translated "stable lateral position") is a classic anti-slide puzzle.  The objective is to put all 8 pieces onto the tray, so that no piece could move, if you tilt the tray to one side.

Now why this puzzle is special? Well because there is a rotating piece in the middle of the puzzle, making the solve interesting and even more difficult than the usual AS.

Second interesting point is that we have some wooden pegs. Well without them, the pieces would clearly fall out of the tray.

So here we have 2 difficulties: the pegs and the rotating piece! And obviously no piece should protude outside of the tray.

With that in mind, it's time to explore! It's a pretty challenging puzzle. But I (and maybe you should?) tried solving it by testing all the pieces on the different pegs. Just to check which piece can go where. I feel it's always nice to try the possibilities first and then deduce the place and orientation of the remaining pieces. But it's up to you. 

 

If you like these AS puzzles, I highly recommand it to you. And it's nice to display it, especially once solved. Displaying it is a proof of your accomplishment :)

You can buy it at Puzzle Master webshop

Pocket Change puzzles

Pocket Change puzzle is a series of 4 puzzles (5 puzzles if you include the heart, though its name does not include "pocket") made out of 3D printers by Piker.

The puzzles are all really nicely made and can be taken for puzzling on holidays as they are pretty small.

No need to say that all the puzzles are different from each other in terms of solution.

I will try to put a difficulty for each of them out of 5. It's subjective for sure. 1 being the easiest and 5 the most difficult.

Pocket Change Red

This is a very tricky puzzles, easy to repeat, that has stumped many puzzlers (including me!). Actually I had ideas but I was a bit reluctuant to perform them due ot the nature of these puzzles. The solution proved me that I was right.

It does not require a lot of steps but these are addictive and you will, I am sure at 100%, perform them many times...It's satisfying :)

Difficulty: 4/5

Pocket Change Yellow

This is a famous kind of puzzles that everyone knows put in a pocket size. Usually I am not that good at these puzzles, but I found Pocket Change Yellow to be fu and not that difficult. And you get some parts revealed, no blind navigation here :)

The coin is the only thing of this puzzle that come out of the box. No small pices. So you can take is safely with you on a train or plane.

Difficulty: 2/5

Pocket Change Orange

Let's start with a fact: it's my less favourite puzzle among the whole series as you don't see or uderstand precisely what you're doing. Bits come off not knowing why...then you get the "how" to get it back question to your mind coming up!....

I managed to solve it but with luck I guess. Still a nice puzzle....for seasoned puzzlers !!

Difficulty: 5/5

 

 

Pocket Change Purple

It's the latest pocket change puzzle and probably my favourite puzzle in terms of look among the whole series. Hidden tricks will puzzle you a bit and you should quickly understand how it works. At the beginning I had assumptions that could have been true but ended up being false. I guess many would have had the same assumptions....only the ones who tried the puzzle can understand :)

I like the rattling of the marbles :)

Definitely recommended !!

Difficulty: 2/5

Wedding Puzzle

It's not part of the pocket puzzle, but Piker sold it along with them so I guess I should add it as well.

I think the goal of the designer was to create a puzzle for a wedding, easy enough so that people with any puzzle experience can solve and enjoy the puzzle.

It's not a new kind of mechanism, but I still enjoy it though. And for sure you can bring to friends for them to try it. While being pretty easy, it's not trivial though. And it took me some time because either I did not fully applied the precise steps or I tried something completely different.

Difficulty: 1/5

 

 

 

You can buy them at Puzzle Master webshop!

RED

ORANGE

YELLOW

PURPLE

WEDDING

Your new metal puzzle designer is born !!

While more and more 3D-printed puzzles are popping up in the market, we were missing metal puzzle designers and my post will bring you an happy smile on your face!

With only 2 metal puzzles designed so far, I can you the level of skills behind the guy!

 

His name? Garrett Mathias

His website? CLICK HERE

Garrett designed 2 puzzles (OurGlass and Cogas) but I am sure he will come up with more ideas. From his first 2 puzzles, the future sounds very promising !!

 

Let's talk about the two puzzles now!

 

OurGlass

I hope you get the pun?

It can be considered as a fidget toy or a puzzle for the less experienced puzzlers!

It took me few seconds to solve and the mechanism is not new but the quality is so nice that, even if you're an experienced puzzler, you should buy it :) 

No need to mention that the shape is original and I have never seen a hourglass puzzle so far. Also you can use it as a display stand as well for a tiny puzzle (or a real hourglass?)

So I do advise you OurGlass puzzle (becoming MyGlass puzzle when you have it....ok sorry...lol) if you're looking for a nice small puzzle that will stand well in your puzzle cabinet.

Cogas

Now we can talk about "real" puzzle!

The look is nice and clean and may remind you of some famous Dutch puzzle designers. However there are many differences, the first one being the size.

So the goal here is to remove the lid, so far nothing special....but the lid does not move...and nothing seems to move. No external tools allowed, no saws!

What else can we say? There is like a small hole on the body of the cylinder. And unless I am blind there are no tools visible!

The puzzle can be classified as Sequential Discovery puzzle because you will get tools to use. This information can be spoilery but I am sure people like to know what puzzle they have in front of them :)

Cogas is perfectly made, it's amazing for a 1st puzzle from a new designer, really! And I have not talked about the mechanism and solution yet (don't worry, I won't spoil it)

The puzzle is a mix of already known mechanism and new ones, it's very very devilish and, trust me, this is a very challenging puzzle!

You may stare at his during long time.... I am pretty sure that you won't even understand the mechanism despite all being visible. This is definitively a super clever mechanism.

For me, among all the cylinder puzzles, this is the most interesting one and one of the cheapest.

Your ROI (Return On Investment) is very high with Cogas. As for puzzles, Return is measured in terms of how satisfactory the solution is, if it will bring you "ha-ah" moments, if you will want to solve it again, if you won't feel shame to show it to your friends, etc. The investment being only money, this one is cheap compared to other puzzles in the same category!

Cogas is on my favourite puzzle list for 2023, for sure!

You can buy them on Garrett website!

 

And if a good news does not come along, I have another good news: you can use my reduction code to get a discount on your total price to pay !!

Use PIW to get 5% off (puzzle for you: can you guess why "PIW"?)

 

 

Hardcore packing puzzles

The title of the post means everything....and sorry but I cannot draw a complete conclusion as I have not solved yet any of these 2 puzzles....

I like packing puzzles, especially the beautiful ones and the ones with an elegant solution. That does not mean I am good at solving them...!!

I wanted to introduce 2 packing puzzles designed an made by Abhishek Ruikar. The first one would perfectly suit the X-mas period as it's called "snowflakes" with the goal of putting the 6 flakes inside the tray. 

By looking at the shape of the flakes, you will immediately understand where the difficulty is... :)

And for the mathematical guys around here, you may even compute all the possible combinations, there are thousands!

I liked a lot to fiddle with this puzzle. Maybe I will manage to solve it one day....

Second puzzles I played with from the same designer is called Clouds with the goal of packing the 9 clouds in the sky tray. Same story: I failed at solving it....so far. Persistance is key when trying these kind of puzzles though!

Here you will have fewer constraints than with the flakes as you will have to consider the cloud shapes on their entirety while you needed to take into account the protuded parts of each flakes for snowflake puzzle. Don't get me wrong, it does not mean that it's easy.

I tend to think that cloud is the easier of these 2. Both are super challenging (and well made!) and you will have plenty of fun for the money. Great ROI !

Locked Cabin

I assume it can be considered as a puzzle box, right? Even if it does not have the usual puzzle box shape.

In fact, Locked Cabin looks a tiny house with window and even a chimney. For a laser-cut puzzle I can only say that it's nicely crafted with fine details.

To achieve your goal you will have to manipule certain pieces in certain order in certain ways. It's always hard to speak about a puzzle without spoiling (too much)...!

The puzzle solution is not that difficult to perform, so I would not advise for a seasoned puzzler, but more for a beginner or a puzzlebox collector. Don't get me wrong, it's a nice puzzle and will take you for sure some time (not long, though).

Nice surprise: the cavity is big enough to hide a small puzzle inside !

You can buy it at your usual webshop, you know it !

 

 

What about some cast puzzles by Hanayama?

 Quick reviews for nice Hanayama cast puzzles !!

 

Cast Coil

Only 2 pieces to remove, but never underestimate seemingly easy cast puzzle. You will have to "perform" many moves and pieces will be like dancing around each other. A very clever puzzle designed by Edi Nagata.

Did I tell you that I usually like when the puzzles is composed of different colors, it looks more stunning!

 

 

Cast Keyhole

This puzzle has been designed Vesa Timonen and it's like a maze pattern that you have to solve to separate the pieces. I don't know if it's Vesa or Oskar the guy with more Hanayama puzzle, but definitely Vesa designed a lot of them and I am sure he will still have more clever ideas for future cast puzzles :)

 

 

 

Cast Hexagon

It's a puzzle designed by Mineyuki Uyematsu consisting of 3 pieces to free. The shape of the "tray" and of the pieces makes this puzzle unique in my mind. Ithave tricky moves and challenging to solve. Precision is a key word for this puzzle in terms of crafting the puzzle and solving it, no force needed. Gentle moves and maybe rotations or dancing moves? You will have to figure out, but I am sure you will have fun with it. Definitely a must-have in your collection!

 

You can buy them on Puzzle Master webshop, but you definitely should go for bundles if you intend to buy a lot in one shot!

Some recent Yuu Asaka's

Yes I know I reviewed before some packing puzzles in the same spirit as the Yuu Asaka's tricky packing puzzles, but this time I will speak about 2 pretty recent ones Green 13 and Record 6

So as a warm-up: record 6 !

Record 6 is a nice puzzles composed of circles. Personally I like that the tray has not the same shape as the previous puzzles. It's always nice to see some differences in the tray and I like that one. I bet that you understand a bit how you will have to proceed with this puzzle. Despite being the easiest Yuu's and despite it's mostly trials and errors, I enjoyed it a lot.

It does not have to be hard to be enjoyed and that gave me a nice puzzling journey. Each plexi circle has some small holes of protudent pieces that need to fit inside other holes. Basically when I mean "trials and errors", it's because you will try one configuration, flip the piece, and do so again and again for each piece. At you should solve it soon this way. Jigsaw 16 and Bird 11, his other "trial and error" puzzles were harder but less enjoyable from my point of view.

As usually the quality is wonderful and the fit is perfect. This is a puzzle that you can easily share with a friend while avoiding frustration (due to the difficulty).

Green 13 is probably, on the opposite, one (if not the most) of his most difficult puzzles. Luckily for you there is no trickery with the pieces: you need to pack the green pieces inside the tray and the white rounded pices inside the holes formed by the shape of the pieces. I was sure there was something tricky there and the the white pieces must be put in some "unusual" place, but not at all. 

But clearly it maybe make the solve easier, but definitely not easy at all, and will require many hours of thinking.

I enjoyed it but I prefer something a bit less challenging though :)

Now, when will Yuu be making puzzles with triangle shapes??

You can buy Record 6 on Puzzle Master wbeshop, same thing for Green 13 !!

Some cheaper Yuu Asaka

Cheaper does not mean less good. More expensive does not mean better. Don't be fooled by marketing things!

Still let me introduce you some cheaper puzzles made by Hanayama and designed by Yuu Asaka, you know the famous devilish packing puzzle designer !!

Jigsaw 19

This is the same copy as the Yuu Asaka version. Same pieces, same goal, same solution.

Maybe there is a very slight difference: the pieces are somewhat kind of rounded on some edges making the assembly more confusing than the Yuu's puzzles.

Jigwsaw 29

 

Same comment as Jigsaw 19

 

Jigsaw 28

Compared to the 2 previous puzzles, this one, as far as I know, has not (yet?) been produced by Yuu and thus making it a unique design by Hanayama.

This is the trickiest of these 3 because of the shape of the pieces. I hope and bet that you have an idea of how the pieces will connect together right....many possibilities!! This puzzle is no joke!

For sure, I advise you to buy it. For the price you will get plenty hours of thinking. No doubt about that.

The quality is perfect and the previous 2, the fit is very precise. Nothing bad to say!

WARNING: these puzzles come assembled. If you don't want to spoil the fun, open them blindfolded or ask someone to open them and scramble the pieces.

Bullet burr puzzles

We all know burr puzzles, you know the mind bogging puzzles...!!

What's the common point between burr and soma cube? 

Well, both have existed since long time ago and designers have always tried to make different shapes, keeping the same goal in mind but adding some new challenges.

These bullet puzzles exist in 2 variations: Design 1 and Design 3, both are 3D-printed (with great quality)

 

 

Now what about the challenges? Well usually these kind of puzzles are not that easy for several reasons: first you need to make the final shape in your mind. And then you need to assemble the pieces and this requires a bit of dexterity. Especially here when the pieces can slip out of your fingers easily. Rubber bands will help for sure! :)

It took a bit of time to assemble one puzzles and the other one is still unsolved...I will get back to it when I can. I don't like defeat.

Usually with burr puzzle, once the puzzle is completely assemble, the structure is strong enough that it usually does not fall apart. So the challenging parts are at the beginning when all the pieces can easily fall apart !!

For those of you who like challenging puzzles, these are definitely for you!

Also I like a lot the shape, they look stunning and will display well in your puzzle cabinets.