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

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 !

Centrale

Centrale is a wooden puzzle designed and made by the famous Jean-Claude Constantin. The goal is obvious: free the coin! The task is more difficult !

Basically you can cheat (I solved the puzzle this way): just shake the puzzle and maybe if you're lucky at some point it will be solved. But of course there is an "official" way to open it.

From what I guess there must be some ball bearings inside and probably you should try to manage to put them in their respective slots or something like that. The difficulty lies in the fact that all is hidden. I assume it's a super easy puzzle if everything would be visible :)

The crafting is (no surprise) very good!

I found the solution and I had some difficulties to reproduce it. I must be doing something wrong....

In my opinion this is a nice puzzle addition in your collection for a cheap price. It's not so much my cup of tea as I am not found of hidden puzzles where you're navigating blindly. But some people are only into these kinds of puzzles. 

I think this is a nice puzzle for anyone, seasoned puzzlers and newbies!

You can buy this puzzle at your favourite online webpuzzle shop...guess!!! Puzzle Master :)

 

Apolaki

Apolaki is a puzzle designed and crafted by Rex Rossano Perez, this nice yellow puzzle fits perfectly in the coin series he has made so far.

As with all Rex's puzzles you can unscrew the puzzle to see the internals, but I do advise to take pictures each and everytime you pull up a layer or remove pieces. Else that may be a nightmare to reassemble the puzzles...Luckily this puzzles does not have so many pieces.

This is a sequencial discovery puzzle! Yes!! Well obviously not a lot of steps/tools, but let's call a sequencial discovery puzzle a puzzle with at least a tool that has to be used :)

Apolaki is different from the other puzzles in the series as it incorporates something new...sorry cannot say more.....it's very hard to speak about puzzles trying to avoid spoiling it...
So what can I say more? Humm several steps, an "AHA-moment" that will happen sooner than expected...and I am sure you should pretty much guess the internals without needing to open the puzzle. Still I encourage you to open it and check if your assumptions were correct or not.

What about the difficulty? Honestly this is definitely not the most difficult puzzle in his coin series. So far the most challenging is kussing 25. This is also a puzzle that should not take long for you to solve. Despite that, first this is not the easiest in the series. Secondly this is a nice and very cleverly designed puzzle. So anyway I am sure you will like it a lot!!


Being the 6th puzzle by Rex, I am sure you can expect many more puzzles from him in the coming months (maybe years? hope so). And I am pretty sure Rex will try to experiment new things for his next puzzles. Personally I find it great that a designer comes with a new kind of puzzle. I mean coin puzzles existed before but not in a so widely spread dimension.

I do tell you to buy it before it's sold out. It's not a limited edition puzzle but I guess Rex won't make it when he created a new puzzle. Grab it while you can. If you need Rex's contact, just PM me using the contact form.

You can buy the puzzle on Puzzle Master webshop!

The captive coin

Why captive? Just because you have to free it!

As you can notice, if you're a bit aware of this kind of material, this puzzle is made out of corian, which is not a natural material. It looks like stone.

The goal is easy, how to achieve it is a bit more complicated, especially because you cannot really see the mechanism. However, you can still have an idea of it.

What can you hear? Thing(s) ratling inside.
What can you do? You can depress the lid!

Now you understand that you need to depress it enough so that the coin reaches the same "level" as the hole to free it.

If you have ever played with this puzzle, I am sure you have managed to solve it several times, but not always on the first attempts. The hidden mechanism (simple, if I am right) is the roots of that.

A unique design, crafted by Frank Chambers, this puzzle is also pretty scarce.
The difficulty is not high but solving it is pleasant, and remember that usually with Frank Chambers' puzzles, don't expect to spend hours and hours on a single puzzle.

Euro falle 05

5th puzzle in the series designed by Jurgen Reiche and produced by Siebenstein-Spiele, this one maybe be the easiest one  and the smallest one as well!

The goal is to free the coin that is trapped by the plexi, the coin on the backside is glued, so don't try to free it!

The precision is very good as it was cut by laser cutters, and the funny thing with laser cutters is that it's still smell burnt wood even after some time! Overall a nice looking puzzle.

About the difficulty, while a completely new puzzle may have some troubles, I do think that everybody will solve this puzzle very fast (maybe too fast in my mind). I wish it was a bit more difficult. Maybe it was to balance with the previous ones? I cannot comment because I have never played with them, so maybe they were very hard and this time the designer wanted to make something a bit easier? Just assumptions.

Anyway, I am sure you don't like not having all the puzzles in the same series, right?
This puzzle was bought at Brilliant puzzles webshop. They have great choice of puzzle, have a look!

Coin puzzles

This review is about 2 coins puzzles designed by Mineyuki Uyematsu with original shape and pretty strange name. The goal of both puzzles is to free the chinese coin.
The material used are layers of plastic screwed together by 3 screws. It seems that we can unscrew the screws, I did not, but if anyone did, please let me know.

The first one is called Hard-Boiled Coin

The color is the puzzle can remind you the original color of an egg, as well as the shape of the puzzle.

Nothing has moved and the coin is out? Come on, I have hidden the trick lol

The second puzzle is called Hole Vacancy Coin and has a different shape and different colors

The coin is not blocked the same way in both puzzles even if the mechanism is pretty much the same kind. You immediately know what you have to do but the trick is so well hidden that you may have some difficulties to solve the puzzles. At least I had.

Mineyuki designed other same kind of puzzles, but they seem to be very rare.
I like these puzzles, they are nice and I like the way they are solved. However, the solving process is somewhat similar...and for the Hole Vacancy Coin, when I "reassemble" the puzzle it jams a little bit...
Cu-Japan sold some of them. Perhaps you should ask them if they still have some on stock.