Auzzle

Time to review a new kind of puzzle!
Designed and made by Ilya Osipov, this puzzle got an honorable mention at past IPP in San Diego (2018).

The puzzle is made out of 3D material and obviously magnets!

The goal is to have all the magnets in the center like in the picture on the right.
You have 2 kind of moves: one is to rotate the 2 inner parts, the other move is to rotate the halves of the puzzles. After scrambling the puzzle, you will get magnets pointing in many direction, and now the fun begins!!!

I like a lot the noise of the magnets, the "clicking sound" each time your rotate something.

So this puzzle is like a twisty, but more fun. I like the look, and the puzzle is bigger than what I expected. It seems solid as well. So normally you can let your friends play with it.

No algorithm exists yet, and I hope one will be created. It's like rubix's cube: without algorithm it's not possible to solve. But....for this one, Ilya said that a person should be able to solve it under 2 hours, by just rotating again and again.
And he is quite right. For me it's took probably around 30 minutes (definitively less than 2 hours) to solve the puzzle. I had no strategy at all, I tried to elaborate one but I failed. But at some point, I came up with a solved puzzle!
However, again it would be nice to be able to solve it faster with an algorithm.
And a good idea would be to make like a "pro-auzzle", a professional version for speed solving ;)

If you want your auzzle, you can contact Ilya: HERE

There is also a mathematical demonstration HERE with a youtube link as well in case you're wondering about the moves ad the clicking sound, don't expect to understand anything as it's in Russian haha

Ilya's facebook can be found HERE

Dipole dilemma

Designed by Chris Morgan and made by Walter Hoppe, this puzzle consists of some magnetic balls and a tray where you have to place all these balls. This is a 11 year-old puzzle, but it's still in perfect condition and works as expected!

First impressions: I like a lot the design. The fact that the balls are put in a circle let me know "what a nice puzzle" and also you're provided with a plastic case. So you can bring this puzzle safely with you, it also allows you to keep the puzzle in the solved state if you want to.

The "dipole" word is easy to understand: some balls will be attracted by others, some will not. Then why a "dilemma"? Because you have to fit all these balls inside the square, completely flat!

Perhaps you have an idea how it should fit, and if so that's a very good first step! But then you will have to implement your idea, which is far from being easy...

I cannot put the puzzle in the solved state, because it would show you already how the puzzle should look like once solved. I can tell you that it's a challenging puzzle. And it's not buy putting all the magnets together and then "crush" them to make the shape flat, that you will be able to put them completely flat in the tray. It's not about brute fore ;-)
I heard about 2 solutions, but there is only one official, so if anybody is willing to share the second solution that would be great :-)

This puzzle will provide you with a lot of fun, who doesn't like to play with magnets?? But again take care, these are powerful magnets, they can pinch!...

Not a lof of magnet puzzles are released and I feel it's a pitty because they are always fun to play with. I have already reviewed another Chris Morgan's and my latest review was about the enigma orbs, which are both magnet puzzles. I hope Chris will come up with new ideas, but I also hope that some designers would release these kind of puzzles!

Crazy magnets

Magnet mania (the real name of this puzzle) was designed by Chris Morgan and is composed of a tray with 9 holes in which you have to put the 9 balls, of course!

Easy you think? Not at all, this is much trickier than what you may have thought !!
Because when you try to put a ball, which is actually a very powerful magnet (take care of your fingers!) in a hole and then put another ball, they fastly stick with each other...which may pinch your fingers but also mix the different kind of balls. They are not all the same even if they look like the same...

You will become crazy that each attemps fail or if you succeed to put some balls, then the next attempt ruins what you have done before...

Actually there is a trick that I did not discover not use to solve this puzzle. But if you discover it, then it will make your solving process easier (does not mean "easy" remember^^). You need patience and a little bit of dexterity: do not shake nor make any moves when trying to put a ball, otherwise the other balls could not like that :-)

The good thing when you solve this puzzle is that the box prevent you (once closed) the balls from leaving their holes. Thus you can keep the puzzle is the solved position, which is very nice I feel.

To conclude: a nicely thought puzzle which will puzzle and frustrate you for hours!