Aroma

Aroma is a puzzle designed and exchanged by Iwahiro for IPP 30 in Japan. It consist of a black plastic cage and 3 pieces that need to be put inside.
Note that the shape of the pieces is pretty unusual.

So only 3 pieces, easy? Well yes and no. Yes because you will soon realize how to do, but no because you cannot see if you're doing the proper alignment of the pieces.

As many Iwahiro's puzzle, co-motion will be used!

My technique was to assemble the pieces outside the cage and see how they can be put (but "expanding" them) inside. The fit is perfect, you need precision to solve it!
You just need to understand who the pieces interact. Needless to say that it's very easy to free the pieces outside of the cage. The real challenge is to put them inside again.

In my opinion this is a nice puzzle because it's not big and can be carried out easily. It's for anybody and due to its material it can be played by even a non puzzler as he won't damage it :-)

And regarding the difficulty I would say medium because I am sure that you won't automatically manage to solve it and each time it will take you a bit of time to do it again.

Matchless puzzle

This nice little puzzle was designed by Ken Steven, crafted by Buttonius and exchanged during IPP in 2015 by Peter Hajek.

It's composed of acrylic and 2 matches that need to be freed. The green match is painful for your eyes on the red background, is it done on purpose? :)

The design is nice and the acrylic does not look cheap (whereas it's not known to be an expensive material, though) and the screws reinforce the feeling that you have a real puzzle in front of you, in case you doubted about that!

Your first feeling is it's a dexterity puzzles, but actually it's not!
And I immediately knew what not to do (using dexterity) because that's not the way the puzzle in intended to be solved, and I knew already the principle of this puzzle.

So you have 3 ways to solve the puzzle:

1. Dexterity: good luck!
2. The official method: it works, but can be a bit dangerous. Not advised for children
3. My method: same "spirit" as the official method, but less dangerous and of course it also works

In any case you can start using dexterity and when you're bored with that, then you can start thinking a more clever way to solve it.

I feel it's a good exchange puzzle, but best is not to make too many people trying it...

Zobrist cube(s)

Al Zobrist launched his project on kickstarter, the famous crowdfunding website.
And that was a success!

He managed to get the funds to start the production of this game which you will likely be addicted!!

 

The puzzle is shipped in a nice box that closes with some magnets. After opening the box, you see:

..... 5 colorful cubes and a booklet.

The booklet is a code booklet in which thousands of codes are written: the plastic pieces needed are mentioned to create a 3*3 or a 4*4 cube. All the pieces are designed by a letter written on each. So it's easy to find (however a bit long, due to the large amount of pieces) the pieces you need to use.

There is also a small piece of paper included that says for each color the pieces that are from such or such color.

The level of difficulty is written, so you immediately know that you are to try a difficult cube or an easy one: the more possibilities you have for a challenge, the easier it will be.

And believe me, even for the easiest cubes, it's not so obvious because you can start in a wrong way...

Ok now, you can wonder: I already have a Soma cube and some cubes, so why should I buy this puzzle?

Well, first, it's not expensive and the quality is good! Then you will spend hours and hours, trying all the codes !!! So I like this game. That's not a "one-shot" game that you will store after having played for few minutes and gave up.

You can even try to write some solutions (they are not included, otherwise it would be a really really heavy booklet....) and also play with a friend: you chose a challenge for him and he chooses a challenge for you, and see who's the first to complete one's cube ;-)

You can also pick up some pieces and try to see if there are any solutions. Perhaps you will come to an impossible cube, who knows?...

Finally the pieces are sturdy and colorful, that's not a "cheap-looking" puzzle for sure!!

I wonder if there is a cube that has only one solution...

HERE you can buy yours. Enjoy :-)