Creep 2 by Yuu Asaka

Yuu Aska is still expending his [name]&[number] puzzle design and after his Pond 12, now comes Creep 2, consisting as the name suggests of only 2 pieces.

It's also his first puzzle to have a restricted access to the pieces with your hands but you still have enough acces to be able to manipulate the 2 pieces.

It's one of the easiest Asaka's but in my opinion also one of the most enjoyable (maybe also because I managed to solve it on my own?...)

First of, the pieces: they are very colorful and look original. They remind me of a crab shape with 2 eyees and will meet at a certain point inside the frame.

As you can assume just looking at the puzzle, it will be a little "try and try again" until you find the trick. Initially I imagine what the trick could have been, but I was wrong and the second trick that could be employed here came to my mind and bingo! Then, the 2 pieces dance around each other to finally meet and the puzzle is solved.

I really hope that Yuu can come up with a 1 piece packing puzzle. Plenty of ideas can be implemented and I am sure that it will be brilliant when the time comes.

If you're a fan of packing puzzle and/or Yuu Asaka's packing puzzle, you definitely need this one!

You can buy it at Puzzle Master webshop

You can also buy a bundle for a reduced price

CUBIGAMI 7

Cubigami 7 is a stacking plastic puzzle which goals are to make specific shapes, mostly cubic shapes.

You just need to fold the plates (without using any kind of force!) in a precise order. Easy?!

Well, yes and no. First the plates are connected on some edges, making an edge foldable while making another unfoldable.

 

Secondly, and it happened to me many times, you will go in circle, trying to make a shape and going back to the starting point. 

Note that the plates can be folded "inwards" and "outwards", doubling the possibilities of how you can arrange the plates.

 

I really like puzzles that have many challenges and that you can have your friends play with it without any fear (this one is pretty cheap and is not fragile) and that keep you busy for some time.... by the way I need to complete all the challenges... !!

I heard there is a more advanced puzzle of this kind, but so far I have not found a webshop to buy it.

So in the meantime, if you want to enjoy these challenges, you can buy it at Puzzle Master webshop

Pocket change BLUE

If you've never played with any pocket change puzzles by Piker, let me tell you something: you missed a lot!

Piker designed an printed with 3D printers some very nice puzzles amond them 2 are sequencial discovery puzzles and 5 are what he called "Pocket change" puzzles.

"Pocket" because they are small, can be carried out everywhere and contain a lot inside. Not sure about the real meaning of "change" here? Or maye you get a lot for your money (which is true actually).

This Pocket Change BLUE one is very addictive like a fidget toy. Honestly I managed to solve it many times but I still cannot figure out a reliable method to solve it every time I want. And this is a bit frustrating, especially because you cannot see the mechanism. Did I mention that the quality is still super great?

It a nice addition to the series and one of my favourite one!

You can buy it on Puzzle Master webshop!

If you want the other ones: RED, ORANGE, YELLOW, PURPLE

Dancing shoes

Dancing Shoes is a puzzle designed by Goh Pit Khiam, who is famous for very clever packing puzzles that usually have a nice twist.

This one is no exception to that rule :)

May Goh puzzles have been made in wood by Tom Lensch, but not sure is this puzzle has ever been made by Tom, so I guess this 3D printed version that Puzzle Master is selling is the only copy of Dancing Shoes.

The goal is to put all the pieces flat in the tray without overlaping the pieces. Having saying that (and that no force is required!), it's up to you how to arrange the pieces! But you will soon realize that you need to think outside the box. Goh designed some time ago more or less a similar puzzle and even if Dancing Shoes does not have the same appearance , I thought that the solving process should be more or less the same....and guess what: I was right !! That does not mean I solved in within a minute. It still did not take me hours.

The solving process is smooth and very enjoyable. I am sure that it may take long long time for a non experienced puzzler as it requires a trick that may be natural for a seasoned puzzler!

Whether you like Goh's puzzles and/or packing puzzles and/or puzzles with a twist, you won't be disappointed at all.

You can buy this puzzle on Puzzle Master Webshop!

Keebox packing

Keebox have created so far 3 sequencial discovery puzzle. They are all great if you wonder, but today we'll talk about their packing puzzle: keebox pack.

The material used is 3D printed parts like their previous puzzles and the goal is to pack all the pieces inside the tray.

For some reasons, it reminds me a bit of Yuu Asaka packing puzzles in the sense of that it's not like a regular packing and that there must be a trick somewhere. And also the shapes of the pieces are not super common.

 

I feel that the quality is superb and no force at all is needed for assembling the pieces to each other.

It took me a bit of time, but as surprisingly less than what I thought, I guess I was just lucky because usually it results with a fail from me with these kind of puzzles!!

For nice quality, the enjoyable challenge and the sweet price, I can only advise you to buy it!

You can find on Puzzle Master webshop!

Marble game

 You cannot go wrong with Eureka games! Usually they are logic  and challenging game with around 60 or so challenges from easy to mind-bogging.

Let's dive into this one that I found very curious and original. It's called "marble circuit"

First you put the pieces as shown in the card challenges. They you put the bar on the top and the marbles in their holes.

The goal is to arrange the pieces so that you have a certain amount of ball bearing going to specific places. And it's far from being easy-peasy!

The pieces have different paths and you have to plan how the balls will run through the paths (or the visible maze. Personally I found to be like a maze). It's funny to slide the ball going down....and not in the way you initially planned to would go...!

I find this game challenging and entertaining, more difficult than I expected and for me it's a total novelty among the games. It changes from the same (and boring) packing puzzles :)

You can buy the game from Puzzle Master webshop

I tried to upload a video I've made to show the marbles going down, but for some reasons it does not work. So just have a look at the video on the link just above.

The Legend of Zelda -Triforce Puzzle

We're not talking about this video games (even if I am found of all Zelda games!), but again about a puzzle, with obviously a Zelda theme. Let me show you a new Hanayama puzzle: Triforce Puzzle.

Hanayama is famous for its metal puzzle series ranking from 1/6 to 6/6 in terms of difficulty (1 being the easiest) and from time to time they make their puzzle with a new "theme". I remember they made some puzzle with a Disney theme for some of their old creations. And sometimes they even make like special edition with black or gold coated paint on them.

This time they have decided to go through one of the most (if not the most!) famous video game license to make 3 gorgeous puzzles. I will only show one of them: the triforce puzzle.

 

You will immediately notice the size of the packaging: it's the double size of the usual hanayama puzzle. It honestly gives justice to the brand and quality of both Zelda and Hanayama. Hanayama did a really good job here. You can find all the stuff related to the video game: the famous triforce shape that appears on each side of the package (except the bottom -but who cares?) and the level of difficulty is not given in terme of stars of digits but in terms of gems (the gems are the currency in zelda). All of that makes sense!

Nothing bad to say about the quality, same as the other hanayama puzzle, you cannot go wrong with it!

I want to highlight something about the price. It's more expensive than the usual hanayama and many people (you know those who are ready to pay thousands for a puzzle...) were not happy with that. Let me explain some things: first the package is bigger and needed more effort to design and probably to make. Then, and for me it's pretty obvious: Hanayama must have paid some fees to Nintendo and Hanayama still needs to make to money. So again, disregard the small increase and go for it!

 

Now what about the puzzling part? Honestly I liked it a lot. It's a nice puzzle to fiddle with. I managed to make it move a bit and thn I could see the internals and I immediately knew what was going on there. Still I could not find a proper way to solve it until with a bit of.... and of ****

Spoilers avoided !!

Then I managed to find the solution online and there is a very clever way to solve that puzzle, which make it even a better puzzle. Way more clever than my fiddling solution...!

Now I will play with the other 2 in the series to make a ranking of my favourite. 

Despite its not huge difficulty, I am sure you will enjoy triforce, maybe even more when getting the proper solution!

You can buy this puzzle at Puzzle Master webshop!

The other puzzles are the Sword and the Emblem.

If you want to buy all the 3, you get a discount!