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 !

 

New Ulule Campaign for DouG Factory (inside cube)

Quick promotion post for their new campaign

 

Sounds really exciting with come devilish puzzles. I trust they will keep on making top-quality puzzle. 

So what are you waiting for? Go and bid :-)

Doug Factory fund raising campaign - The Donjon is coming !!!

You know that I love the puzzles from Doug Factory, the French company which designs many puzzle mazes, all 100% made in France, rare enough to be mentioned!

They designed many puzzles, like the novice cube series, the legend series, the phantom series and the new campaign's goal is to raise funds for the Donjon puzzle.

  

Doug Factory also designed CARAPACES, which is a DIY kit to make some geometrical shapes. A mix between puzzles and origami

 

 

So the this new project sounds really exciting because it uses the same maze principle, but with some new features like the way to free the marble in an easier way!

Do you think a dragon is hidden inside??? Only if you believe in dragons ;)

If you want to participate in this fund raising campaign, just click HERE

You support will help them a lot, and I am sure that you like their products.

In case you're new, I advise to buy the easiest cubes first to get used to how to read the maze maps and so on. And then trackle biggest challenges! Don't burn steps! :)

Inside Ze Cube

Hi cube lovers, this is ZE puzzle you should have!! 

Let me explain you a little bit this puzzle.

The name of this puzzle is a pun: "ze" is the French pronunciation of "the" in English. So from the name of the puzzle, you know that you will have to discover what is inside of the cubes and solve them, of course.

These puzzles are mazes but with the plans written on both side of the cube. The goal is to navigate through 7 levels from the beginning to the end. Once arrived at the end, other plans are written so that you can "easily" go back to the beginning by following the maps. There are dead ends, traps, sometimes you need to make the marble go to an uper level, so you need to turn upside down the cubes...Everything is done to trouble your mind.

These puzzles have been designed by French guys who created their firm thanks to crowdfunding, and they succeeded in obtaining all the funds (and even more) on time.

As this is quite new for them, so there may have been some small issues on puzzles which I pointed out to those guys. For example, you need to "push" quite strongly to make the marble leave its receptable for some cubes. For other the marble can leave its receptacle too easily. It was their 1^st batch of cubes, so they will improve them for next batches.

And you know at the begginning no puzzle is perfect...

The pictures I took come from cubes with their first packaging (the packaging has changed).

It looks easy the way it works. Well always easier showing than doing...

 

Take a closer look, and you will see that the packaging provides the marble from leaving its receptacle during the shipping. Good point!

The cubes are in sturdy plastic and are ranked from easy to very difficult. There are 2 "easy" cubes (one transparent and one blue). The other cubes are "regular", "mean", "awful", "vicious" and "mortal".

The names are Easy0, Mean0.....Mortal0. So you may understand that for the next batch of cubes the names will be Easy1, Mean1...and so on.

What's good with the cubes is that you can open them, so that you can analyze the levels and if you are lost you can easily restart the puzzles. The levels are numbered so that you cannot be wrong when you put them in the box, and there is like a "safeguard" on each level so that you know in which position you have to put them. Everything is done to avoid errors. Good job !!

Difficult to see, but each level is numbered

However, you cannot do this for all the cubes. Here is one difficulty: for the vicious you can't open the cube, and for the mortal you can't open the cube and no plans are written. So when you're lost, good luck :-)

Another difficulty is how to read the maps. Believe me it's hard! First because you need to understand them. Second, you need to understand where the marble will go from one hole of one level to the other level(s) (sometimes it can fall from many levels at the same time...!).

Then you have to move the cube in the correct directions. As for me, I have difficulties to have a 3D representation of the maze in my mind, so it is all the more difficult...

7 levels are written. Read them from left to right

Here is the link to order your cubes. Sometimes they make reduced prices for some events, you need to check.

http://www.insidezecube.com/?post_type=product&lang=en

Hurry up, you need THE cube ;-)

When you have many cubes you can have fun and try to mix some levels from one cube with the levels of some other cubes to create a new cube. Well it can work...or not...

Here is the link of a brilliant French guy who developed like a software that allows you to see if your cube is solvable if you mix some levels (you need to get at least 100%, otherwise your cube won't be solvable), and it also allows you to help you navigate through the maze if you're lost:

https://restimel.github.io/insideWeCube/

As a conclusion, good puzzles to have, (very) hard to solve (even for the easiest one since you need to understand well how it works).

If you don't intend to buy all of them (but you may want to collect all of them), I strongly advise you (even if you're the best puzzle solver in the world...) to buy the cristal one (easy level) and another a little bit more difficult.

I started with the mean cube, and it was too difficult to start, so I bought the cristal easy one to better understand the maps...

Time your speed and try to beat the best challengers

Have cubing fun !!