4-steps visible lock

As the name indicates, you will need to complete 4 steps to be able to solve this puzzle from Robrecht Louage, a famous Belgian puzzle designer, known for his "euro-puzzles".
This puzzle is composed of trespa (a very sturdy material), acrylic and steel balls. It won the Jury Grand Prize during IPP31 (August 2011) and when you play with it you understand the reasons why it obtained this prize.
The goal of this puzzle is to remove the euro coin. So again, you pay this puzzle €49 instead of €50 if you replace the euro coin by a plastic one. But I doubt you will do that because the puzzle looks better with a euro coin :-)

I won't describe the 4 steps because, as the puzzle is already not very difficult, it would spoil too much, and I think everybody will easily distinguish these steps.

To solve the puzzle you need to understand the steps, even if I must admit that I managed to do the 1st and the 4th steps without understanding them. I understood them after, very quickly. I solved the first one with luck.

This puzzle involves a little bit of dexterity, but don't worry I am not very good at dexterity (I think) and I did not have any difficulty to do that!

I like a lot this puzzle but in my opinion it is too easy and pretty straight forward. I would have liked many more steps and a bit more difficult puzzle. I let a friend of mine play with it and he did not have difficulties to solve it...I hope Robrecht will release some other puzzles like this one but with more steps.

To conclude a good puzzle with a good design (and a quality puzzle of course!!) and if you like Robrecht's, this is a must have in your collection.
You can buy it directly from the designer. If you want his email or have any questions, drop me an email, I am very fast to reply :-)

PS: be careful to prevent dust from entering under the acrylic because it's not easy to clean up the inside of the puzzle, and unscrew the puzzle may not be very easy...

Solution can be found: HERE

Don't be sad, I will free you !!!

Another blue aluminium puzzle, a beautiful blue that Wil Strijbos uses on many puzzles. When you hold the puzzle you are surprised by its weight. Be careful not to throw it on your feet...

There is cap that doesn't move, well just a little bit. On the cap, there is a nut.

You can see a hole on one part of the puzzle through which you can see a sad smiley...the goal is "make me smile". When you have managed to open the box, you can see that the other side of the smiley rod is an happy smiley face. Now it's clearer, right?

Poor little smiley...

When you "shake" a bit the puzzle you can hear some things ratling inside, but as with many other Wil's puzzles you cannot see what you're doing, and this makes the puzzles "quite" difficult.

 

Many puzzle bloggers say that this puzzle belongs to the sequencial discovery puzzles, and I don't totally agree. Of course you need to find a tool, to use it the right way and do other things. But first there are not a lot of steps (which is a pitty when you know the price of this puzzle!!), and then not a lot of tools...

When you've tried many puzzles like this one, lotus, the egg, the aluminium cross, you know that Wil loves something that he often puts in his puzzles to block you. So that's not a real suprise what is there inside of the box.

I must admit that I have a little bit been disappointed because the mechanism is not complicated and due to the size and to the weight, I though there was something much more complicated inside...Nope...And you cannot put anything inside the box, which would have been a good idea.
Another drawback that may not happen to all the batches of this puzzle: mine was a little bit damaged on a bottom corner of a side. Of course it is not a problem at all to solve the puzzle. But you know when you buy such an expensive product and made by CNC machines (and not human beings!), then you are expecting 0% default...

Anyway, that is a beautiful puzzle, hard to solve, and very enigmatic. I solved it with a good amount of luck. And you know what? I managed to solve this puzzles like some other Wil's puzzles when I played late in the night (around 3am). Perhaps it helps playing late to solve Wil's puzzles :-)

And finally the goal is quite "funny" (make me smile). I recommand to buy it...if you have saved enough money :-)

Freeeeee

Try to escape from Alcatraz

This puzzle made of trespa, a solid material, is one of the puzzles made by Robrecht Louage, a Belgium puzzle designer.
It measures 9cm x 7.5cm x 1.3cm, so not a big puzzle that you can easily put in your coat.
I cannot say more of the other materials used for this puzzle because it may give you clues about how to solve this one...I put this puzzle in the label "trick opening boxes" which was Robrecht's designation, but as you can see it has nothing to do with, for example, the Karakuri's trick opening boxes!
If you are familiar with Robrecht's puzzles, this one is no exception to the rule and have an euro coin to be released. So in reality, you pay a little bit less your puzzle if you take the euro coin and replace it by a plastic coin :-)

The beginning

The design of the box is very good because the name fits perfectly with the design of the puzzle. And don't worry, this is easier to solve this puzzle rather than escaping the real Alcatraz jail!!
I find rather ironical to replace the German euro coin that was at the beginning by a euro coin that has a royal face, here it's a Belgium coin (but a Spanish coin would have also worked), to make a real prisonner. I think it was Robrecht's first idea, but perhaps he lacks of those coins.

The goal of this puzzle is to open the box and it requires several steps, the first one being the trickiest one in my opinion.
When you move the puzzle you can hear things inside but you will never be able to see the real mechanism even when it is solved, unless you completely break the puzzle, which will be unusuable thus...

I am on the good way...

As I knew all the material used for this puzzle, I did not have a lot of difficulties to open it, but I must admit that I did not understand totally how I solved this one, because I just turned the puzzle upside down, pull and push the slider...And it opened!!
So I asked Robrecht if he could send me the internals of the pictures and it became clearer.
Yes I like having the internals (as well as the solutions!) because I feel a little bit frustrated if I cannot see the whole mechanism...I want to admire the mechanism!

Solved !!! I am out of jail now!

To conclude, if you like Robrecht's puzzles and you want to buy an affordable puzzle, don't hesitate.
You can find this puzzle on Puzzle Master Webshop.

Of course, the solution exists !!

No GPS allowed if you're lost!

For this review I will speak about City Maze, a colorful plastic game from Smart Games.
This is not a big puzzle so you can easily take it for your holidays or if you take the train.

The goal is to create a way with different shapes of arrows from the starting arrow to the cross.
All the arrows (and crosses) have a double-color side. One is red and one is blue, and depending the color the arrows don't indicate the same way, of course.
The rules are pretty easy to understand, but you need to get used to them:

• A route always follows the paths of the current street until the direction is changed by an arrow that is the same color.

• A route only changes direction if it first encounters the back of an arrow in the same color.

• Puzzle pieces (arrows, start position and destinations) do not obstruct any route. Route can pass through these pieces.

To illustrate these rules I put below 3 examples:

1st picture: there is no need for extra arrows because the path is already made. The route goes straight away from the starting arrow, and then turn right (because there is a curve in the path) and then go straight to the cross.

2nd picture: the route is not made correctly because the back of the middle arrow is not correctly placed.

3rd picture: the route is correctly made.


There are 2 booklets with 60 challenges each, so a good amount of challenges. Each booklet has 5 levels of difficulty (starter, junior, expert, master, wizard). I found that sometimes the expert levels were easier than the junior levels, but perhaps it was because I became too good ;-) but if you're worried about the difficulty, the starter levels are easy because they give you the basis, and after I assure you that it becomes challenging. Yes, the expert level is a more difficult!

The first booklet is called "express delivery": you will have only one color in the plate and you need to pass through the 2 crosses (sometimes there is only one cross).
The other booklet is called "on the double": you will have both color on the plate and you will have to switch the color on each arrow so that you make a path from the blue starting arrow to the blue cross and at the same time a path from the red starting arrow to the red cross.
Both are challenging. I began with "on the double", but it's up to you.

I found this game very entertaining because first, there are many challenges, then it has a good design and also you can try to create your own challenges.
You need to be concentrated because with all the arrows you may lose your way. Sorry, but here no GPS will be useful and allowed. Just the power of your brain will help you.
You need to place correctly the pieces. Once I didn't put correctly the starting pieces and I didn't find any solution (whereas the it was not a difficult level!)...then I understood my error. So be careful!

If you own this puzzle, I have created for you 4 challenges (hey Smart Games, if you see that, you need to ask me permission to use them!).
Are you ready to beat my challenges? Yes? So let's go for a big trip!


Challenge #1
You need to go through each direction (crosses) by using all the blue pieces (except, of course, the other starting arrow!)

Challenge #2
You need to go to your destination (the 2 crosses) by only using the red pieces. You need to go through the 2 crosses during your route!!
Try to go from the left arrow (very easy) to reach your destination.
Once done, take the pieces for the next challenge, more difficult: try also to go from the right arrow (more difficult).
The 2 red arrows and crosses have to stayed in place, of course!

Challenge #3
Use all the red pieces to reach your destination.

Challenge #4
You need to go from the red arrow to the blue cross by alternating the colors: if you have a red piece, then the next one needs to be blue.
So you may assume that the first piece after the red starting arrow will be blue and the piece before the destination cross will be red. Same color pieces can be close in the plate, but they need to alternate during the route. Try to do that with as many pieces as you want then try to use ALL the pieces, both can be done (but I think it is more difficult using all the pieces)

Try these 4 challenges and please let me know what you think about them.
Also, as I created them, I don't really realize the level of difficulty. So also let me know which level of difficulty you would put for each challenge.
Perhaps there are many solutions, but there is at least one that works!

To conclude, a good game for a reasonable amount of money and for many hours of route finding. And as you may have understood, I love it!

Xmatrix: Keanu Reeves 's puzzle

This puzzle called "Cubus" is a labyrinth made of acrylic where you have to move a marble from the gold frame into the silver frame and back again, by moving upside down, and from left to right your cube.

It is available in 2 colors (gold or blue labyrinth), that does not change the difficulty of the maze. I chose the blue labyrinth because I thought this colour contrasted better with the colors of the frame.

And those colors make this puzzles appealing, it directly catches your attention!

Two models are in sales, this one I am reviewing, and a bigger one called the "Quadrus" (available in the same 2 colors as the Cubus). I chose the Cubus because I like beginning with an easier version to go for a more difficult one after if I manage to solve it. Both belong to the XMATRIX labyrinths designed by Jeremy Goode. The Quadrus cube entered at the 31st International Puzzle Party (in 2011).

So what about the labyrinth itself?

Well it is tricky because even if it is blue, it is a transparent blue and thus it's somewhat difficult to see the dead-ends and your way. 

So prepare to be trapped at many times!

Sometimes you cannot move from right to left, thus going up by turning the cube upside down may be the solution to your problems.

The labyrinth has precise cuts and when you look inside the cube, you can see that it is very good work. The good thing to be able to see the labyrinth is that you will not be blocked forever!!

Confusing, isn't it?

One thing I wish I could do is to be able to open the cube to "reset" the marble. Indeed, it would have been good (it's just my opinion...) to be able to take the labyrinth out of the cube. First, to understand it better (if you have some difficulties) and then to be able to start from the beginning, because the marble could have moved during the delivery (and thus you may not have your marble at the beginning of the labyrinth...). Perhaps a system to block the marble would have been also good.

To conclude a fun puzzle to play with and with appealing colours!

This puzzle is for you if you like mazes and want to buy an affordable puzzle.

If you are interested, go HERE to buy yours!

Some enigmas for your X-mas holidays

Hey you, puzzle solver! Those enigmas are for you if you accept the challenge to solve them.

Some of them require obstinacy... So let's begin!

Enigma #1

Let's begin by the most difficult enigma this time and be sure, it is a very very difficult one !

You have to find the numerical values which correspond to the symbols, so that the addition becomes correct.

Enigma #2

Go from "START" the the "END" without going diagonally or going twice through the same "box". The total of your path has to be 54.

Enigma #3

In grid A you can see 4 circles. They are neither in the same row, nor in the same column. 

But 2 of them are in diagonal (look at the arrow).

Put those 4 circles in grid B, so that they are neither in the same colum, nor in the same row, nor in diagonal.

I needed to make the picture very big, otherwise it's difficult to see anything...Sorry about that.

Enigma #4

Draw a circle with a point in the center like in the picture below.

You are neither allowed to use a rubber nor to lift your pencil from the paper!!

This is a tricky enigma, and so you need to "think out of the box" (fashion expression these days that many bloggers or people use...too often?...^^)

Good luck! Enjoy!!

Merry X-mas for you guys, hope you will spend good times with your friends and family and also that Father X-mas will put many puzzles under the X-mas tree. I am sure you deserve them :-)

Prepare for war: BQTTLE is coming soon !!

War for your nerves because this puzzle will challenge a lot your dexterity !!

This puzzle called BQTTLE was made by Sandor Bozoki (he also makes some impossible bottles with matches inside) and presented during last IPP in London (2014). It is composed of a metal chain, a rubber O-ring and a small glass bottle. 

The good thing with this puzzle is that you cannot damage the bottle with what is inside!

The goal is to free the O-ring. It is not difficult to understand how to do that but really much more difficult to do it. Indeed, it requires a lot of dexterity to solve it, and even using dexterity, this is not an easy task...Reassembling the puzzle is more difficult than solving it. So if you have some difficulties to solve it, good luck then :-)

The puzzle comes with the solution and a tool to take the O-ring out of the bottle in case the chain is too much knoted (you can unscrew the cap of the bottle), which is a good idea.

I was wondering why putting a metal chain that may create knots, but I think it's because it's better than rope for the gravity.

To conclude: a cheap puzzle that you should buy if you like bottle puzzles, but much more important if you like dexterity puzzles! Otherwise, perhaps not the puzzle you should have...

Tempted to find the lotus?

This puzzle in an anodized blue aluminium and is made by the famous Wil Strijbos.

The name is well chosen (there is a hint in the name for you to know if you have fully solved, think about that...), the color is beautiful, the precision is very good, the shape is very original. I like it !!

You can see a dovetail joint on the bottom of the puzzle (but the two halves of the puzzle cannot move) and a small hole on the top of the puzzle (but you cannot distinguish almost anything from the inside because it is very dark). Nothing seems to move but things can be heard from the inside...but you cannot get any clue from this noice. 

That does not help you to know what is inside, nor how to solve the puzzle.

The first goal is to take the metal disk out. It seems impossible, but I assure you it is possible...However, not so obvious at a first sight. No force is needed of course, and no external tools are needed.

Once you have removed the washer, then you need to keep on searching and using your tools to go further in the solving process, and try to understand where the name of the puzzle comes from.

Washer removed, but the puzzle is not completely solved :-)

The puzzle does not require a lot of steps to solve, but is fun anyway.

Many people have some issues with this puzzle because you can lose things inside, it is pretty difficult to tell more about that without spoiling...But even if this is the case, you can still do things to find your tool.

I cannot put a picture with the puzzle being completely solved because it will spoil a lot and it is better if you understand by yourself the name of the puzzle :-)

If you need any help or need pictures, drop me an email. I will be happy to answer your questions.

Please take care of the following:

-> Don't pull out the black pin (and this does not help to solve the puzzle) unless you want to open completely the puzzle (which is, again, not useful to solve the puzzle completely...) or if you've lost things inside the puzzle.

-> You should wear some glasses when trying to solve the puzzle...Things can shout out violently like a bullet. It would be a pitty to become blind because of a puzzle...

To conclude: this is a very beautiful puzzle with an original shape, several steps to completely solve it (even if I would have appreciated more steps) and a good level of difficulty. The price is affordable and thus, in my opinion, is worth the money.

The only black point of this puzzle is that you may manage to solve it by chance because the puzzle does not give any clue about how it works.

Topological puzzles: do it yourself

As you may already know I like a lot topological puzzles, like those from Dimiter Vakarelov (I talked about them in an older post here).

I saw in a book that I have had since quite long time 2 puzzles that seem to be topological.

You can try them at home, no need for expensive things.

They seem impossible, especially the second one...but of course they are solvable :-)

Hope you will have fun. So here we go:

Topological puzzle 1

What you need: a pair of scissors and a rope.

How to do: put the rope through the pair of scissors like in the pictures below:

Then you can either ask a friend to hold the 2 movable ends of the rope (right of the picture) or you can put your feet on it. The purpose is that the end of the rope becomes unusable. Indeed if nobody holds the end of the rope or if there are some marbles at the end, the puzzle becomes easier.

The goal: free the pair of scissors without cutting the rope or your friend because your friend will be useful for the second puzzle below :-)

This is quite challenging, and reassembling it is more difficult...

Even if you know the solution, if you don't pay attention you may create knots.

Topological puzzle 2

What you need: two ropes and a friend

How to do: just follow the picture below, it is easy to understand:

The goal: you have to be freeded without cutting the rope (or your friend). You are not allowed to untie the knots, of course!

Let me know if you have tried those topological puzzles and share your feeling about them.

You see, puzzles can be quite easy to make, but that does not mean they are easy to solve.

My friends are astonished when I solve them, and when they try to solve them....they fail ;-)

Enjoy !!!

Cast news

This puzzle belongs to the famous cast series of the Hanayama's puzzles and is ranked as 6/6, so very hard. The name of this puzzles just comes from the letters "n", "e", "w", "s" written on the puzzle.

When you move the puzzle, you can hear things inside, but you cannot see at all what you are doing, that's the difficulty.

The goal is easy to understand: you need to separate the 2 parts of the puzzle.

I like the design

If you don't know how to solve it, it may be difficult (so I would agree with the difficulty of 6). But when you know the solution, it is ranked as very easy for me. Because the solution is easy to repeat again and it takes less than 10 seconds to open it again and again.

There are some puzzles ranked 6/6 like cast enigma, or even puzzles ranked as less difficult like vortex (5/6) that are much more complicated to solve again and again, since they need a lot of steps before being solved.

I don't put a picture of the puzzle solved because it can spoil quite a lot... :-)

Moreover, this puzzle has a mecanism that other puzzles have, so it has not a unique mechanism.

However, the quality is good, the price is not expensive, the puzzle is easy to be repeatedly solved. 

For these reasons, you should own it. Especially if you intend to collect all the Hanayama's cast puzzles. 

You can buy this very nice puzzle on Puzzle Master webshop. They even have the SOLUTION!

Isis puzzle

Let me introduce the puzzle with a story: the myth about the Isis puzzles.

"Long time ago, during the Ancient Egypt lived King Tutankhamun .

Powerful and very respected for his wisdom, he sadly died at an early age.

As a King, he was mummified in a sarcophagus incrusted with a lot of diamonds and gold.

Fearing for his wealth, he asked, long time before his death, his closest confidants to spread it all around the world.

His wishes were fulfilled and his wealth was put in many royal pyramids, which were hidden in many countries.

Tutankhamun was smart and he did not want his wealth be found by thieves.

Thus, he created golden puzzles (his favourite color) with devilish cores inside that could only be solved by humble and brave men.

Those puzzles were the first key leading to his wealth.

Currently, former King Tutankhamun can rest in peace in his sarcophagus because not all the pyramids have been discovered"

Here are the characteristics of the puzzles:

This puzzle belongs to a series of 5 puzzles called the Isis (the one I am reviewing), the Ramisis (with a pyramid shape), the Copernisis which looks like the solar system, the Tessarisis which has a cube shape, and the last one that is not yet relased.

So what about the ISIS?

This puzzle is beautifully made in aluminium with CNC machines, very smooth when you manipulate it and quite heavy (450g = 1.2lbs). It was created by Andrew Reeves and are made in UK, which is a proof that they are quality products.

There are many editions for each puzzle. For example, this one is the extreme edition, but there is also the Isis with the original colors (Gold & Blue), the Isis Black & Gold, the Isis Titanium & Blue, what changes is, of course, the difficulty!

Isn't it nice?

Each puzzle is presented in a leather box which highlights the beauty of the puzzle.

The black box fits perfectly with the gold and blue colors of the Isis!

As far as I know, I have never seen a puzzle with so much care given to the box: usually, puzzles arrive in a bubbles wrapping with scotch tape and that's all...

The packaging may be useful...

Here, that's not the case! Of course there is a carton box with scotch tape and bubbles wrapping, but also a beautiful carton box which protects the leather box.

You can really say with no shame that is a work of art!

On the Isis puzzle you can see many hieroglyphics, that makes you think of the Egyptian period, written all around it and the packaging (keep it!) has also many. So, the name of the puzzle fits perfectly with the design of it, and also to the story that goes with (we will talk to this a little bit after).

Please take care of the following: once you have solved any of the puzzles, please read the instructions to reassemble them. Otherwise, you could make wrong things that could jam the puzzles!

If you buy the Isis, that gives you the opportunity to participate to a tresure hunt with many prizes to win!

Let me explain this adventure, the Isis Adventure:

If you buy one puzzle from Sonic Games, that gives you the right to open a pyramid with money to earn.

You can open as many pyramids as you want, provided that you have the same number of puzzles.

So, if you own 3 puzzles, you can "open" 3 pyramids, whereas if you only have 1 puzzle you will be eligible to open only 1 pyramid.

What is a pyramid?

There are real pyramids that may be located in many places around the world, in some shops for example. They are kept by pyramid guardians.

The virtual pyramids can be seen on the internet.

The reward for opening pyramids is money! And for sure, the pride of having been able to solve the hard enigmas.

If you are the 1^st person to open it, you receive a lot of money, if you are the second you receive a bit less.

Luckily, it is explicitly said if a pyramid has been opened, so that you don't go to the pyramid localization for nothing...

How to open the pyramids?

First, you need to buy the Isis or the Ramisis puzzle and then you enter the code on the internet by registering your puzzle.

Then, you are showed with a map about the localizations of the pyramids.

To open the pyramids you need to solve enigma and get a code.

You also need to solve an enigma to know where the pyramids are (city, place, and so on)

Are there still unopened pyramids?

Of course, and many! Because enigmas are difficult!

What about the enigmas?

Well, there are many enigmas and you can work on many as you want, but you will only have the right to open 1 if you have only 1 puzzle, as mentioned before.

If the pyramid is in the USA and I live in Europe, how to do?

Well, either you are sured that you have the right code, you book your plane and you try to pay less for your plane that you can get rewarded from the pyramid...

But the best option for this is to open the virtual pyramids you can find on the internet. However, the prize is less huge for virtual pyramids than for real pyramids.

What is the goal of having many (or all the) puzzles?

Well, first you can like challenges and be willing to solve all the puzzles, and even the most difficult puzzles for each series of puzzles.

Moreover, if you own the Isis and the Ramisis, you can try to solve a special enigma that gives you the right to open a platinium pyramid, which is a pyramid with a lot a lot of money, much more than for the "regular" golden pyramids.

So you can imagine how difficult must be the enigma to solve ;-)

And as I said before, if you have 4 puzzles, you may be able to open 4 pyramids, and thus to fund your purchase! ;-)

There is also a special prize (with a very huge amount of money to win) if you are to first to solve all the puzzles.

What about the packaging?

Haven't you been told not to throw away everything? ;-)

Don't throw the packaging away. First, because it is handsome. Then, because it protects the leather box. And finally, it may have an enigma written on it, with perhaps prizes to earn!

Any other prizes to earn?

Sure there is a very very rare and special puzzle to win: an Isis puzzle Gold & Silver encrusted with 1 carat of 5 diamonds. Only 4 of these puzzles have been made and they are worth $25,000.

To be able to win this puzzle you need to solve 4 enigmas that you will find in the adventure code book. They may be the hardest enigma of all the Isis adventure thus...

The aim of the book is also to explain the story of the puzzles, the pyramids, the creation of the firm, how to run this international business, it's kind of biography. Andrew Reeves has been dedicating so much effort since many years to create this business, to think about the pyramids, the enigmas, the design of the puzzles... Realize all the work needed! All the travels to many countries to hide the pyramids, to build a network of people to work with (be the guardian of the pyramids, sell the product, etc.). That is so much work!! And for all of his work, I have only one word: CONGRATULATIONS!

To conclude, you should buy this puzzle (and also the other ones of course) if:

• You like solving puzzles: they are challenging!
• You like collecting puzzles: there are many colors with different levels of difficulty
• You think that the design is important for a puzzle: they shine a lot, smooth and pleasant to play with, the name is not choosen randomly, etc.
• You like having a puzzle with its box (and a leather box!) and not only a bubbles wrapping...
• You want to participate in a wonderful and tremendous treasure hunt and earn a lot of money and other special prizes!

I think every people may find interest in the reasons mentioned above ;-)

And perhaps through the treasure hunt, you will better discover yourself, who knows.

Remember the famous "cogito ergo sum" ("know well yourself first") from Descartes, and this may be the best discovery!

"Discovery" is the word that best embodies the concept of the Isis adventure: you need to discover how to solve the puzzles, you need to discover the enigmas, the places where the pyramids are located and the passwords...So, be curious!

---------------------

Coming event 

If you live in France or close to France, this may interest you a lot: 1 pyramid will be hidden in the suburb of Lille (north of France) from the end of November until it is found.

Remember, you first need to solve enigmas (so first buy an Isis or a Ramisis and open it) and crack the code to have the right to open the pyramid.

But at least you know a bit where it will be ;-)

Get ready and hurry up, time's running out so fast!!

HERE you can buy the Isis puzzle and many others!!

Perrier bottle puzzle

I bought some bottle puzzles from Wil Strijbos which I will review in other posts.

Wil Strijbos makes a good job when he protects puzzles: they are wrapped in a certain way that the pieces that may shake during the delivery are maintained in place, so that nothing can move and break the puzzle. Indeed, the things inside the tricky bottles (here a plug) can rattle during the shipment and break the bottle...

This a classic Perrier bottle (so in glass, of course) with a metal tube inside. You need to take the plug out of the bottle without any force or shaking. The metal tube is the real obstacle, without it the solution is simple. With it, the solution requires thinking...

It seems impossible, well...it is possible! You just don't know how to solve it ;-)

Unsolved

Be careful: too much shaking can break the bottle...(it did not happen to me because I knew that...). The bottle is provided with a cap, keep it !! By the way, you should always keep everything that goes with Wil's puzzles.

The solution is very "elegant", and to solve the puzzle you need to try things, you need to use what you have...no external tools are required to solve the bottle.

You may manage to solve this puzzle with dexterity, but first this is not the intended solution, and then you may need to shake to bottle...and may break it...

Solved!! What?! Nothing has moved unless the plug?...So strange :-)

Just to avoid any bad ideas you may have:

-> don't put water in the bottle! Of course with water the plug can move to the top, but then because of the tube some water will stay in the bottle...!!

-> don't put anything inside the bottle

I think that if you like bottle puzzles, that is a "must-have" in your collection not only for the design but also for the solving process.

Spanner

This puzzle comes from a famous puzzle designer from the Netherlands: Wil Strijbos.

Wil is more "specialized" in metal puzzles (even if he has made many bottle puzzles), most often puzzles that you can't see what you're doing.

I will review many puzzles from Wil. The first challenge when you order from Wil is to open the package! It is very well wrapped (luckily) with a lot of scotch tape. So you try to find the beginning of the tape because you fear that if you use a knife to open the box, you could damage the puzzles inside the box...No worries: the puzzles inside the box are very well protected !!

Back to the puzzle:

The puzzle is made of a spanner, a metal chain and a metal ring. The goal is to free the metal ring, just as simple as that! The spanner could have been used to screw nuts in a previous life (even if I doubt because it seems very new), but now it is used as a puzzle ;-)

3 steps are needed to solve this puzzle. The puzzle is easy but fun to solve and fun to have for its unusual design. You can let you friends play with it without fearing that they could damage it because it is very sturdy.

Wil made another smaller spanner with a plastic ring. It is solved the same way as the big spanner, and if you want both (good luck to find the smaller one though...), you should begin with the bigger spanner. Because as it is more fragile (not a metal ring but a plastic one), you could hesitate doing things...

This puzzle is not expensive but it's not because puzzles are expensive that they are good. Often, you can have some more fun with the cheapest puzzles...This is a good example.

So I recommand this puzzle. Not for its puzzling aspect if you like difficulty, but for its unusual shape.

If you want it, contact Wil. You can find his email address by searching on Google. 

Remember, Google is your best friend.

Puzzle cube with subway tickets

One of my hobbies is origami which is the art of folding paper, coming from Japan. Perhaps I will put a link to some pictures of what I have done so far. I will see.

Origami includes folding animals (like fishes, lions...), geometrical shapes using only one sheet of paper, or many sheets which have to be assembled without glue and those are called "modular origami". Many more folding techniques exist. 

So why do I talk to you about that? Well because I made a puzzle using subway tickets that I fold like origami. See below:

I made the puzzle using quite a lot amount of tickets.The cube has a side length of about 10 centimeters (3.9 inches). I think this is quite original.

As for the difficulty, it is not overly difficult but still a bit challenging.

This puzzle is not as sturdy as metal (of course) but it's ok if you are not a brute ;-)

I also made other interesting model using subway tickets (see below). The first from the left required more than 3,000 subway tickets (!!) and has a side length of about 30 centimeters!! It took me years to collect all the tickets.This is a fractal and more specifically a Menger sponge. I don't think I will go for a bigger Menger sponge because it would have a side length of about 1 meter, would be very heavy, and would need something like 66,000 tickets.......

Hope you like it

Topological puzzles

I came accross to some new types of puzzles that I did not know before: topological puzzles, here made by Dimiter Vakarelov.

He teaches maths in Sofia (Bulgary) and has been making topological puzzles for years (he also writes books about them)

Those puzzles are hand-made, in metal or wood and with colorful ropes. I like a lot the design with the different shapes, for example the "heart" puzzle, or the "cherries on a stick" puzzle. 

From left to right: "ring on a stick", "cherries on a stick", "spiral-3", "heart", "bracelet"

They are really nice, and they fit well in a collection of puzzles. And Dimiter has made many more topological puzzles. The names of the puzzle fit well to their design.

The goal is to free either the rope (with the balls) or some metal or wooden parts of the puzzle, by moving the rope in a certain way, making it go under some parts of the puzzles...

Most of the time it seems impossible, really !! But there is a solution (of course)!

I managed to solve "ring on a stick" (on the right)...humm how to put it again?...

I managed only to solve one puzzle called "ring on a stick", and I did it by chance...So now I have difficulties to reassemble it...I could cheat by removing the knot under the wooden crital, but I prefer using the "regular" solution.

Note that sometimes there are variation about the "design" of the puzzle, like below with "ring on a stick" puzzle.

At the beginning I feared my puzzle had a problem, but don't worry, there are not any problems! The way you solve it is still the same ;-)

The shape of the stick is not the same, but it has no impact on the solution!

As you may have understood, the difficulty is hard, even really hard. The design of the puzzles is very nice and unusual. And to finish, Dimiter is a really nice guy to chat with.

Support the work of a talented craftman and enjoy his hand-made topological puzzles ;-)

Below are some other examples of his work (there are many!):

"buterfly"

"cobra"

Drop me an email if you want to contact Dimiter.

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 !!