Locked Cabin

I assume it can be considered as a puzzle box, right? Even if it does not have the usual puzzle box shape.

In fact, Locked Cabin looks a tiny house with window and even a chimney. For a laser-cut puzzle I can only say that it's nicely crafted with fine details.

To achieve your goal you will have to manipule certain pieces in certain order in certain ways. It's always hard to speak about a puzzle without spoiling (too much)...!

The puzzle solution is not that difficult to perform, so I would not advise for a seasoned puzzler, but more for a beginner or a puzzlebox collector. Don't get me wrong, it's a nice puzzle and will take you for sure some time (not long, though).

Nice surprise: the cavity is big enough to hide a small puzzle inside !

You can buy it at your usual webshop, you know it !

 

 

Cryptex Cylinder Puzzle Box

For the 3rd review of a puzzle designed and produced by CreativeWorkshopCA, I am going to review the Cryptex Cylinder Puzzle box, also known as the Newton puzzle.

And this is clearly way more challenging than Horus and Tiger !! You're warned!

The puzzle is bigger and has 3 moving parts and again some ball bearings. Some writings surround the puzzle.

Just to be clear: it's not really a cryptex puzzle: you don't have to solve any riddles or anything like that. The name of the puzzle (Newton) can give you a hint (that I was only aware after reading the official solution....meaning: it's not so that useful to solve the puzzle).

 

 

By moving the different part of the puzzle you will see that there are some holes on the core of the puzzle and probably you will have to make the lin between these holes and the ball bearings...

Again, I had an idea on how to solve the puzzle, but it was more challenging to implement the idea than expected.

Be prepared to see some ball bearings disappear and then appear again somewhere else for a reason that you might not fully understand :)

The main difficulty with this puzzle is that you cannot see what you're doing (that would be ok with a small puzzle though) and there are many things involved. At some point a lid can be blocked, but you might not understand why.

I advise also to pull the lid and probabl you have solved the puzzle without noticing it.

At some point, I manage to pull the lid and I was like "finally solved!" but the lid did not fully come apart and so I did not have solve the puzzle :-(

It's after some time that I completely solve the puzzle!

Obviously I did not follow the steps as in the official solution, I guess the correct solving process is not super easy.

I like the puzzle, but maybe a bit too challenging (or frustrating) for me.

But again, I advise it!

About the screws: they are not part of the puzzle. Unscrewing them allow you to reset the puzzle easier. But of course, if you admit defeat then you can unscrew them and check the mechanism.

The puzzle is available: HERE

Eye of Horus - Cryptex Cylinder Puzzle Box

Eyes of Horus is the second puzzle box, along with Tiger, produced by CreativeWorkshopCA, with the same difficulty.

I don't know which of the 2 is more challenging...maybe this one (basically I don't set a timer to see if I am good at a puzzle or not, so....)

Both Tiger and Horus share some characteristics: very well made with 3D printers and things ratling inside.

I roughly had an idea how I could solve the puzzle and it turned out to be the right idea.

Horus has a second lid on the top of a first lid, it moves, but is it useful?....you will have to figure out!

When I played with the puzzle, sometimes the lid was stucked, sometimes it moved freely. Blocking the lid can help you doing some things, but (and this is not a spoiler!) if the lid cannot move then you cannot open the puzzle.

Contrary to Tiger, for horus you have a small hole on the oustide of the puzzle, from where you will see a ball bearing appearing and then disappearing. It is helpful !

For that reason, I think I prefer Horus than Tiger, despite both of them being super cool ! 

 

And again, for the quality, solving process and price, I can only recommend to buy them :)

You can buy Horus on Puzzle Master webshop !

The Tiger - Cryptex Cylinder Puzzle Box

I will review all the puzzles from this etsy shop, starting with the easiest one (or one of the easiest): the tiger.

The name of the puzzle comes from the nice tiger pattern on the top of the lid.

Tiger is designed and produced by CreativeWorkshopCA.

All their puzzles are 3D-printed with a high quality level. 

At a first glance, it looks very nice and when you hold it and shake it a bit, you can hear some ball bearings rattlings....maybe you can try to guess the mechanism already?

Basically the mechanism used is not something completely new to me as I already have a puzzle that shares the same mechanism more or less. I won't tell you which though :)

The main challenge with Tiger is that you cannot see what you're doing, you can only rely on the noise of the puzzle. It did not take me too much time to solve but it was quite a challenge. And it's satisfying to solve. Not difficult to reassemble!

It's the perfect puzzle to torture a beginner and to challenge a seasoned puzzler. And for the cheap price you know that you cannot go wrong with it :)

You can buy the puzzle on Puzzle Master website:)

 

NKD fund raising campaign: Architecto puzzle box is coming !!!!!

Dear puzzle friends, I wanted to let you know about new fund raising campaign by NKD puzzle company!

And this time, it's on kickstarter to attract of broader audience !!

The previous time the goal was to make the Mecanigma Kit available for everyone and this time it's about Architecto puzzle box, their most challenging box so far, it really looks amazing!!

Some pictures below:

Look at the wondeful details ! It looks promising !! Full of mechanisms and gears, you cannot ask for more. Sounds they planned the perfect puzzle box ever ???

And what a wonderful box that protects the puzzle. I wonder the goal of the compass and the paper....humm I am sure it must be useful at some point. 

Maybe it can give clues on how to solve Architecto? Honestly I have no idea at all, just a quick guess...

You want to be part of this amazing campaign? Then don't wait and bid HERE !!

Some wonderful puzzle boxes

Recently I received some puzzle boxes from Transylvanyart puzzle company, which is based in Romania and crafts exquisite puzzle boxes.

Several things needs to be mentioned. As you can see from the below image, the boxes are carved (manually, good to say, because more and more puzzles are only CNC machined nowadays...) with nice patterns and vernished to give a glossy finish of the puzzle. So it's definitely a puzzle that you should not be ashamed of and show proudly among your collection !!

And depending on the space you have, you can choose between several boxe sizes, but in any case all have the same mechanism.

So let's talk about the mechanism. Several steps are required to open the boxe, none require excessive force. Ok so if I say "excessive" you may think that it still requires force? Well, some parts are especially designed and made to be tight, else the puzzle would solve by itself....and you would be spoiled completely.  So you have to keep on trying you first ideas to see if something can move.

And what is also a good point of having some tight part is that you cannot clearly see where are the pieces that should move.

Even if it did not take me long to solve, it was a pleasant journey.

Please don't bang the puzzle: no magnets are involved :)

You will see a surprise inside the box, well, not really inside...but you will see what I mean. Something that can be useful ;-)

These puzzle boxes can be used also as nice storage for little things: there is enough space inside to put things, and trust me the best way to offer them as presents is to put something really nice inside. It just adds some more motivation to keep on trying to open the boxes.

For a seasoned puzzler, solving these puzzles should not take so long, but for a totally newbie it should be a tough challenge!

Out of the 4 puzzles is one different: the book. It "opens" in an unconventional way...I mean not like a real book, and is satisfaying to solve. It requires fewer steps than the puzzle boxes, but has the same top quality finish as its brothers and sisters.

You can find the puzzles on amazon or etsy.

But be warned about something: the pictures show (in my mind) several steps of how to open the boxes. So if your goal is to give them away as presents to friends, don't mention the name of the company nor the website links. And if it's for you, be quick and buy them without paying attention too much to the pictures (just enough to be able to choose a color you want, but this is it!)

Dice puzzle box

I don't review that many Karakuri puzzle boxes so a quick review to change that :)

Ok so it's about the Dice puzzle box designed and made by Kamei

The six sides of the cube have the digit 1 to 6 like on a normal dice. Should you roll it like a dice to open it? I let you figure out if you have it :)

The design is super great and as you expect from Karakuri works, the craftmanship is top to none!

To be honest it did not take me long time to solve it (well, most Karakuri are pretty easy puzzles anyway!) but the solution is very satisfaying! A bit frustrating at the same time as you cannot see the internals nor the mecanism and I would have loved to see it :-(

The puzzle works reliably and you need to make the complete reverse steps to really close it.
Basically I closed it and performed some steps and I was surprised it closed the puzzle. Great but....it could be opened by performing another move. So make sure to completely close it before handling to someone else to try it. You don't want to spoil the puzzle at all I am sure.

Kamei is one of my favourite Karakuri craftmen and so, considering the design, solution, etc, I can only advise to buy it.

You can find it on Puzzle Master webshop

Where is my hammer???

Where is my hammer?? (WIMH in the post) is not a real question. Who cares where it it actually....
It's the name of a wooden puzzle box made by an American guy, Dee (I will provide more info at the end of this post) who sells his nice puzzles through the well known etsy.

How many different wood species can you see?

The name of the puzzle has a funny story. It's pretty strange for a puzzle name indeed :)
Basically Dee asked his son to try the puzzle, he could not manage to solve it and asked for a hammer to solve it faster....solve? well it would be a pitty to destroy such beauty! Don't worry, you don't need a hammer to solve the puzzle!

Starting with the appearance of the puzzle, it looks a puzzle box (it is!) with a lid not completely closed, not completely opened....weird. And many wooden tiles on the lid and on 2 pannels of the box.
I need to point out that this is very very rare that a puzzle has so many wood species and if you love, like I do, wood species then you won't be disappointed. I don't know all the names but I can clearly recognize leopardwood which is one of my favourite wood. So if you cannot solve the puzzle, it's still a nice item to show :)
It's a puzzle box but also a sequencial discovery puzzle as you will find tools to use along your journey.

So the goal is to open the puzzle, I won't show a picture of the solved puzzle as it spoils many things. So I will stick to describing my difficulties to open it lol.
I did not have too many difficulties to find the first steps and got soon some tools.Think about this sentence when you're at these steps: "appear/disappear" lol
Then was the difficult part (for me. I know people who had difficulties for the first steps!). I could not figure out how to progress on the next step at all.
Amazing!
I tried something which did not get me further (but that was a good idea!!), I just could not do it....hard to say without spoiling.
After some pain I could manage to accomplish the hard step and then I immediately knew what I needed to do and then it opens!!! well I opened it...


In my opinion, this is a challenging puzzle and some (or maybe all?) steps will puzzle you for some time! In addition, as I said earlier, it's a very nice puzzle. I can only recommend to grab one while Dee still makes them. He also crafts other puzzles and I am sure he will be pleased to make you something that suits your puzzle tastes.

You can find Dee on etsy HERE
You can also search for the keyword on etsy: DEDWoodCrafts

Mecanigma: the big puzzle box

Maybe you've seen somewhere else the name of this puzzle associated with the company (NKD) which produces it?

Anyway we'll talk about this puzzle in this review :)

The mecanigma is a totally hand-produced puzzle (and so, 100% made in France) by the 2 owners of NKD company Julien Vigouroux and Christophe Laronde.

It's a big wooden cube with several challenges to solve to open the box in a spirit of an adventure of kind of sequencial discovery puzzle (even if you don't get tools to use them).

At a first glance you immediately notice the huge work on it: the puzzle is vernish on all side and there are so many details on the box that finding them is somewhat an adventure by itself :)
Many parts are 3D printed and so many pieces have been added on each side of the puzzle that it's not only a puzzle box, but also a real art piece.

Each box take an enormous amount of time to make, all are carefully assembled by hand. The price is worth the effort!

So the quality is definitely here, but what about the solving experience?
For sure, it's good! It's very good. I mean there is no luck, no dexterity no hidden things. This puzzle is the perfect exemple of what a good puzzle is: you see everything (or almost) and you can deduce how to solve it by analyzing the parts. This does not mean it's super easy, but it really means that there is a progression in the solving and you can notice it!

I did not find the solving process to be so hard, except for the last part where I had not found the right idea (even if mine could have been used!) but I finally managed to open the box and it's very rewarding. A good puzzle is not a puzzle that is frustratingly difficult to solve, but it's a puzzle where you see a progression in your solving experience and a puzzle that you can analyzed and predict what the expected result should be to proceed to a next step. Honestly this mecanigma embodies perfectly these concepts.

What's more the clicking sounds and moving of gears and all these stuff make the solving experience very pleasant and add something very exciting to the puzzle.

Even if this puzzle can be played by anybody even if by unexperienced puzzlers, I still advise you monitor them solving because no force has to be used. If you force things, then you may solve some steps (that are not intended to be solved this way), but more important you will damage the puzzle and the mecanisms. And it would be a real pitty.....!!


If you have money and a bit of patience you definitely should consider buying it. For those who have less money they also sell some puzzle boxes: do-it-yourself kits that are cheaper or luxury versions that are more more beautiful and cost more (as they require lot of work!)
 

No the puzzle is not yet solved!!!

You can find the mecanigma HERE

Loris

Maybe the reason was I did not publish any review recently was because I did like the loris, sleep a lot....?

Well, ok the name Loris is the name of a puzzle box made in corian bu Frank Chambers and exchanged at IPP 23.
This is a massive puzzle, big and heavy and probably the biggest Chambers'.

Pretty unusual to have the warning written on a puzzle. Here it's very clear: no banging/no force of any kind. Indeed you could break the mechanism!!!

Talking about the mechanism, this one is very unique. I have never seen it in any puzzle. It's not a trick at all, but a real mechanism. It's so clever that you cannot imagine what it's really unitil you've opened the puzzle (gently, of course!). Then you can deduce, this is a pretty difficult puzzle.

Patience is required and you should be able to open the box at some point. The name of the puzzle is (supposed?...) to be a hint.

If you see it somewhere, I really advise to buy it. It's not only a nice puzzle but also a nice mechanism.

Obviously I cannot show the solved state as it would completely spoil the puzzle....

Yosegi pattern puzzle box

Not an original name at all, but very representative of the puzzle, and what a puzzle!
Here is the new creation by Jesse Born, a yound US puzzle designer and maker. Always great to see new artists "poping up" in the puzzle market :)

So what's special with this puzzle? Well, if you notice carefully, the finish is very good and is varnished, which is pretty unusual for puzzles. So it gives a nice glossy finish to the puzzle. The puzzle itseft has a good size. And you can clearly that the name of the puzzle box comes from the yosegi on the top of the box.
I saw several videos of making yosegi and I tell you: it takes a lot of time and precision to do that!

The solving process has some new kind of ideas, which changes from the usual banging and spinning of usual puzzle boxes. All the steps have a special things and they are far from being easy to find. They are well hidden and require some thinking.

Once you solved completely the puzzle you will be able to see the mechanism and I am sure you will like it!
Reassembling the puzzle is just following the same steps but in reverse order, should not be difficult.

Always a puzzle to take a picture in the solved state without spoiling!! :)

I think Jesse has enough skills to be compared to all puzzle box masters in this world, and if he still improves his skills and level up each time his puzzle projects I am sure he will be the best.
I really like this puzzle: good quality, great solving process. Did I mention that Jesse is a nice guy to chat with? It has to be mentioned because.... (I am sure you know why!)

He has a facebook in case you're interested! (I am sure you are!!!)

Bon bons #2 & #3

For those who collect wooden puzzles and/or puzzle boxes, then you know about which designer these puzzles come from: Perry McDaniel! Who else?

I have already reviewed the previous Bon bons puzzles, but without any review of the last 2, the review of the Bon bons puzzles would not be complete ;-)

Bon bons #2 and #3 on the top row

I really like these nice and small puzzles, because all the moves are very well hidden thanks to the great and precise job Perry did.

These 2 puzzles take more moves than the first two.

About Bon bons #2, the first move is very well hidden, I like it a lot, then you need to discover the next steps. I find the moves a little bit tight compared to the very smooth moves of Bon bons #2.
The colors of this puzzles fit well together.

About Bon bons #3, this is the most difficult puzzles of the Bon bons: there are a lot of moves, and each move is a very small move (like 1mm) and thus the moves are pretty tight. But the quality is nonetheless very good!

If I would rank the Bon bons puzzles, my favourite would be #1 and my less favourite would be #3.

Perry crafted the cake puzzles and the Bon bons puzzles. Maybe next puzzles will be the pie puzzles, or another puzzle cake from the "Puzzled guy bakery" ;-)

Kamei's X-Mas present for 2015: Box with a ribbon 3

For 2015 Kamei decided to make another version of his 2 previous versions of the "box with a ribbon" puzzle.
Can somebody tell me why they (some karakuri's designers) always try to make a first version, and then many others??....Is that because first version was not good enough? Or just a lazily lack of imagination to create something totally new? Actually that's a good question. I like when some different version of the puzzles are released like confetto box 1 and 2 (but they are absolutely good puzzle), but only if the mechanism is not turned to something way too easy after previous versions.

I have not played with the previous versions of this puzzle so I cannot comment and will just describe my feeling about this puzzle.

This puzzle is nicely crafted, everything works as intended and I do not think this can jam over time.
It's composed of a lid and a box with a nice wodden ribbon on the top. Two kind of woods are used and we can recognize Kamei's signature on the bottom of the box.

The goal is to open the box and, as the name implicitely suggests, you will have to do something with the ribbon to open it. This is a wooden ribbon, so please do not act in the same way as with the ribbons put on your X-mas presents :-)

It took me less than 1 minute to open it: it's very easy and not difficult by any means, even for non puzzlers! Of course, at the beginning you will try "useless things" (whi is part of the puzzling fun), especially because as the fit is very good, everything is well hidden!

The mechanism does its job and is simple....too simple. Even if I like this puzzle I am a bit disappoointed by it. Kamei used to making more complex mechanism with more cleverness into them. Just look at his past designs and you will notice that it's not the same level, unfortunately...

I may give a second chance for Kamei for 2016 because I feel he may craft a "better" puzzle for this year. Hopping that I am right!

But don't make my wrong: I like the puzzle but it could have been much much better!!!

Kasho's X-Mas present for 2015: Panda

As many of you have already guessed the Panda puzzle was the X-Mas present for 2015 designed and crafted by Kasho. And yes, "Panda" is the official name. All the names are put now in the website.

This wooden puzzle is very cute with its shape and the colors that contrast well.

The finish is very precise as well as the fit.

2015 was my first year when I joined Karakuri club and thus I decided to pick up several X-Mas presents to try what each craftmen have to offer.

Even if I like the design of this puzzle and the fact that -as mentioned in Karakuri's website- we can rotate the nose of the Panda, this is clearly a too easy puzzle! Not a lot of steps are required and normally you should solve it in less than 1 minute.

For the same price I prefer to choose other puzzles like Iwahara's which are more difficult with a more complicated mechanism.

I do not think I will order Kasho again. What about you?

The oriental toothpick safe

This pretty old puzzle (well it's from 2001, so 14 years ago!) was designed and made by Frank Chambers, with the usual material he used for puzzles: corian.

A pretty small puzzle and a quite heavy one regarding its size. The 3 colors of the puzzle are simple but well chosen in my opinion.

There are 2 goals: first one is to open the puzzle, second one is to make a shape with the toothpicks inside (thus the name of the puzzle).

As you can see on the lid is a black button, you can remove it if you want to see the mechanism. It should be glued but it's up to you if you want to glue it or not. I think better not so that you can admire the mechanism many times. And I feel always frustrated not to be able to see the mechanism for some puzzles.

I did not spend long time before managing to open the puzzle. Actually it's not a difficult puzzle and the mechanism is pretty simple, but well implemented.

For the second goal of the puzzle: making the shape with the toothpick is much more difficult.
Well, I would even say it's fetched, very fetched! And even the solution kept me thinking for some time why this was the solution!...It's a strange solution but yes in reality it would work...
You have to really think out of the box to understand it!

Would this hole give any clue?

Bon bons #1

The puzzled guy bakery baked you something good for your...collection: the bon bons #1

These puzzles are part of a series of 4 small looking-cake puzzles. And the name is very linked to the shapes of them: they are small, but absolutely well crafted and you really need a lot of precision to craft the pannels !!

Your first impression is that the packaging is very nice: you immediately feel hungry :-)
So you open the box and what's inside? 2 small cakes waiting to be eaten! And look each cake is put in a small piece of paper like in a bakery!!!
So then you put the lid of the box under the box because you want to see these puzzles all the time.

Wait....What? Humm it seems that somebody could not wait and ate a part of the small cake!!!
Now you can see the beautiful inside of the cake with colorful layers of...wood. Very very nice.

Is it just a nice piece of art? Or can it be opened? I do not want to spoil so try to figure out what you can do with it :-)

The second cake is also very well crafted and it's different and looks like more a "regular" box. You will have to slide pannels in a precise order to open the box (the inside is too small to put something by the way) and manage to see your serial number with the signature of Perry.

Nice wood

I cannot say better thing that it's very nice, the color of wood is beautiful. It's not a difficult puzzle, you just need to follow a sequence of steps. But the steps are very well hidden and you could miss some steps with your big fingers :-) So I would better rank as a moderately difficult puzzle: the difficulty is due to the size of the puzzle.

I recommend to be careful when playing with these puzzles, because I tend to think that they are more fragile because they are small. The fit may be a bit tight, but do not apply excessive force, otherwise perhaps you could damage some pannels...which would be a pitty.

The other puzzles in the series will be reviewed a bit later.

 To conclude: I am a big fan of Perry's puzzles!!!