I first had a glimpse of the Currency R&R a while back as pictures of the puzzle were posted by Rex (and I think Stan as well) on their respective Facebook feeds after the design first emerged.  It looked like a real tough packing puzzle and then, I was pretty sure it was. What was also really interesting was the design theme. Rex and Stan had designed the pieces to resemble currency symbols. There are 5 currencies used here. They are the Dollar, Japanese Yen, Spanish Peseta,  Euro and British Pound. The angular shapes of the pieces forming the currencies are nicely executed and look like the real thing.

Now what people do not know is that the Currency R&R started as R&S (Rex & Stanislav). Initially conceived in 2015 as a sliding block cum packing puzzle by Rex, the two gents worked on it as a sliding puzzle.But during this time, Stan also came up with a simple packing design which eventually resulted in the Currency puzzle that we know today. I am not sure what the second “R” in “R&R” stands for tho”. Was it a typo error?

Fast forward sometime to 2017 and at the IPP37 Puzzle Exchange in Paris, I got a copy of the Currency R&R in my hands. Exchanged by Frans De Vreugd. Frans had seen the puzzle and requested it for his exchange puzzle. The puzzle is made out of laser cut acrylic with coloured symbols and the tray consists of two sides both which can be used. Construction and fit is perfect and the puzzle is very well cut.

One 2d packing challenge becomes Five 

The Currency R&R had been “modded” by Frans to include more challenges than the original design. The original version was just to pack the 5 currency symbols into the tray. The new challenges include 1) Packing the 5 symbols into a modified (tighter) tray (the side with with the etchings). And using a combination of 4, 3 and 2 symbols, pack the pieces into the tray such that none of the pieces can slide (anti-slide puzzle). The latter challenges had multiple solutions while the two traditional packing ones each had a unique solution.

Depending on the design, a 5 piece packing puzzle can be moderately difficult, difficult or very challenging, but rarely easy. My personal take on the Currency R&R is that the puzzle straddles somewhere in between difficult and very difficult, but leaning  more towards difficult. While its hard no doubt, I would not say its frustratingly hard. Or perhaps it was just my good luck the day when I played with it! Both challenges took me about forty minutes in total.

For this particular design, a bit of thinking and careful observation would also help in the solve. Particularly paying attention to the shape of each piece and how they might interact with each other inside the tray. I don’t want to say more to avoid spoilers. The remaining anti slide challenges (using a combination of pieces) were not too difficult and I could manage almost all of them. Especially after my experience with Gridlock at the Arc De Triomphe.

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Gridlock was Jerry Slocum’s IPP37 Exchange Puzzle at Paris last year. A nice soft spoken elderly gentleman whom I have had the great pleasure of meeting since I started attending IPPs in 2013. Jerry Slocum is the “founder” of the IPP,  first established 30 years ago, back in 1978 . He hosted the first gathering in the living room of his Californian home for a handful of collectors. Since then, the modern IPP today has grown in numbers and today, attendance at each event is anywhere between 400 to 500 people, hosted in different countries around the planet. For some history of the IPP and other interesting facts, click here.

anti slide or anti solution?

The Gridlock was the combined brian child of three persons; Brian Young, Junichi Yananose and William Hu. How did three guys come together to design something like that? Well, according to Sue Young (Brian’s wife), she said that “the puzzle started out as William’s idea. But it didn’t work properly. At that time Juno (Junichi) was working here with us and him and Brian started playing with it and over time it ended up looking like something quite different. But all 3 guys had a hand in the final product so that’s how we put the designers down”.

There is nothing very unusual in the physical look and feel of the Gridlock. The puzzle consists of a tray with 6 pieces, the latter which look pretty simple and ordinary as well. All made of acrylic.  Construction, fit and finish of the puzzle is pretty decent. The tray (and pieces) have all the details of the puzzle etched onto them. Gridlock was produced by Mr Puzzle of Australia.

The goal of this anti slide puzzle is as what it’s name suggest. To place the 6 pieces into the tray in such a way that not a single piece will slide in any direction within the tray. If you look at the solution of AntiSlide Tetramino mentioned above, you will understand what I mean by not being able to slide in any direction.

Like I mentioned, I (severely) underestimated the level of difficulty of the puzzle. The initial hours (yes, hours, not minutes) I spent on this puzzle yielded only one solution which I thought to be the correct one. Unfortunately, upon checking with Brian (and Sue), it was apparently very close but not quite. Brian and Sue even sent me photos of some rather outrageous solutions from other puzzlers (no names mentioned) which I must admit were rather ingenious, if a bit off-tracked.

The next several days I emailed to Sue and Brian a further two solutions I came up with. But as luck would have it, they were both still not the intended solution. I must state at this point that the correct/intended solution is the one the puzzle exchanger or designer submits for the IPP Exchange Puzzle Book. This book features all the exchange puzzles with puzzles and solutions, names etc for each particular IPP.

As of the date of this post, I am still trying to figure out the correct way the pieces fit inside the tray. I am still no nearer than when I first started. I mean, how many ways can there be to fit the pieces into the tray without sliding? Below are three of what I thought were the solutions for Gridlock…which are ALL INCORRECT.

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