For lovers of interlocking puzzles (and those of you who missed out on my Dirty Dozen), there is a Kickstarter project ongoing now which features two of my designs, the Dirty Dozen and L(8)tice. The third design Slideways, comes from Ray Stanton. All the puzzles are made of heavy aluminium and anodised in attractive orange, blue and magenta. Lovely to look at and challenging to solve.

I had produced a couple of dozen (no pun intended) copies of Dirty Dozen in stainless steel previously for sale in small batches and these were always sold out the moment I listed them on my e-shop here. Same for the L(8)tice which was manufactured in acrylic.

Here’s the link to the Kickstarter page. 

All three puzzles are very affordable, considering they are all produced in anodised aluminium. The Slideways is $20, while both the Dirty Dozen and L(8)tice are going for $25 each. If you buy all three puzzles, there is a package price of $66. Shipping and handling not included.

Both the above designs and their piece shapes are also featured on Puzzlewillbeplayed.com

http://puzzlewillbeplayed.com/CombCross/DirtyDozen.JL/

http://puzzlewillbeplayed.com/CombCross/Leighttice/

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The GyroTwisty comprises an ABS plastic (the stuff for 3D printing) circular shell frame l which holds an inner ball. The object of the puzzle is to take apart the pieces and put them back together again. As with the previous Namdarian puzzle Sewing Box, the quality of the 3D printing and finishing here is very good. Tolerances are just right allowing the inner ball to rotate smoothly inside the outer circular frame. My copy of the puzzle looks really cute with a contrasting yellow and blue colour. Physically the puzzle is a nice size for the hands at around 8cm in diameter and about 6.5cm tall. Mine also came in a pinkish drawstring cloth pouch with leopard print.

This puzzle reminds me of Hanayama’s Cast Marble (which I don’t own nor have I played with) and also Peppermint designed by Scott Elliot. While the three puzzles share similar design cues, the solves have their own characteristics. Unlike Sewing Box and Peppermint which I struggled with it, I managed GyroTwisty pretty well. I took apart the puzzle in under 10 minutes and got all four pieces back together in a lesser time. Or maybe I just got lucky. I won’t say its very difficult but its certainly not an easy puzzle either. But I suppose with some persistence, it will pay off in the end as you fiddle the pieces.

There is a technique to the solve. Once I managed to line up the outer shell with the inner ball, which itself splits into two, the puzzle came apart quite easily. Really no force whatsoever is required.

For anyone interested to get a copy,  you can email Diniar via the IPP38 Puzzle Design Competition webpage. Yes, the GyroTwisty was also an entry to the competition. The puzzle costs a very reasonable 15 Euros plus S&H.

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I return to JL Puzzles for a quick follow-up to last month’s Flight Case post. As it turns out, I actually own two Smetsers items. When I purchased Flight Case, I couldn’t resist getting Leo Smetsers’ other trick “box” called The Vault. It is worthy of the name, I assure you. But before we get to that I need to provide a little snippet of information on Flight Case that I forgot to mention last time. Although produced and sold by Leo Smetsers, the Flight Case mechanism (or loading principle, as they say in the trade) was developed by fellow magician Gijs Benneheij who hails from Limburg, Netherlands. Credit where credit is due.

Now back to The Vault. I should start off by stating up front, in no uncertain terms, that The Vault is NOT a puzzle box. Unlike Flight Case, it is quit impossible to open this box from the outside once locked. So don’t rush out and buy this expecting a cool, refreshing solving challenge. Why am I reviewing it on a puzzle blog, you ask? Well, simply put, because bloggers like Jerry and my day-job boss Kevin let me get away with it. It’s as simple as that. But there is actually a puzzle element to The Vault which I will divulge at the end of the post, so read on.

The Vault is a very high quality machined aluminum box composed of four basic elements: a box frame, a half-cylinder lid, a stainless steel rod to bind them, and a diminutive padlock that secures the whole affair. The box frame is fashioned from separate front, rear, side, and bottom panels. The front and rear are anodized black while the sides and bottom are polished to a mirror finish. Four screws secure the front and rear panels. The semi-cylindrical lid is especially beautiful. It supplies the box with a cross-section appropriate to its moniker. The interior floor and walls are carpeted in velvet to prevent unwanted noise when an item is magically deposited. In the buttoned-up state it is quite hefty, considering its size, and feels very solid in the hand. It could surely be scuffed and dinged if abused, but it is not likely to ever break. All said, it is a very fine piece of work. All this beauty and craftsmanship however, does come at a price. The Vault retails for US$150.

Now, if it is not a puzzle box (i.e., not solvable) what exactly is it? In today’s parlance, it is known as a Lippincott box. This is a handy shorthand used by the magic crowd for a whole family of boxes, most of which employ similar mechanisms. The name comes from Mal Lippincott’s Quarter Go, which hit the market in 1949. Although Mal was quite successful with his product, the box and mechanism actually date back quite a bit further. From what I gather, the earliest published version of such a box is in Professor Hoffman’s 1876 Modern Magic. This audience is surely familiar with Professor Hoffman (pen name of Angelo Lewis) from his 1893 Puzzles Old and New, the bible for collectors of older puzzles. Much as we puzzlers would like to think that Hoffman was a fellow puzzle guy, it appears that magic was his first and best love. He wrote four books on magic between 1876 and 1918. Professor Hoffman can, in a certain sense, be considered the original spoiler for magic. Prior to his publications, magic was a highly secretive, well-guarded art form. That is still true today, to some extent, but after Hoffman the cat was out of the bag (excuse me, the rabbit was out of the hat). It was bound to happen at some point, of course. Today you could fill a library with books on magic.

In Modern Magic we find a nice puzzle box in the form of the Watch Box (pp. 219-220), which can be solved from the outside. As you know, Hoffman’s books are simply compendia of tricks and puzzles known at the time, so the actual “invention” of the mechanism must date even earlier, perhaps very much earlier. It seems that the Lippincott mechanism is a variation on the Watch Box, made smaller for a coin and, critically important, not openable from the outside. Although a “Lippincott” box should probably only refer to such unsolvable boxes, it seems that the term is now widely used for either internally or externally open-able boxes.

It would be the very definition of bad taste to reveal the secret of the Lippincott mechanism here, so of course I won’t. But the interested read can find plans, explanations, and how-to’s all over the interweb. For the solver, it will likely be the solvable versions that are of most interest. The renaissance puzzler, however, with an abiding interest in all puzzle-adjacent phenomena, may find it unobjectionable to own an impossible box like The Vault. As a bonus, that routine you’ve been working on with Flight Case can be used equally well with The Vault.

I promised to provide a puzzle aspect for The Vault, so here it is, simple though it be. In order to have a problem to solve, you first need to resist the urge to research The Vault, Lippincott, or anything related. Simply order The Vault and 1) figure out the mechanism (not hard for a true puzzler), and 2) figure out to vanish and reappear items. How do you do magic with a box you can’t get into? You can check your answer against the video provided by Smesters (it comes with the box). You don’t have to be a magician to figure it out, just work deductively. As for convincingly performing the vanish/reappear? That, my friends, requires practice.

OK, that concludes my short but sweet second JL Puzzles guest blog post. A warm mahalo nui loa to Jerry for once again giving me space here. I promise to review a proper puzzle next time around!

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The Sewing Box consists of an ABS plastic (the stuff for 3D printing) circular frame which holds six different coloured rods in place. Each of the rods consists of two parts split at varying lengths. The object of the Sewing Box is to remove the rods from the frame. Quality of the 3D printing and finishing is very good. The puzzle looks really nice with all that colour around the sides.

I think everyone would agree that the puzzle is very intriguing and enticing looking and begs to be played with. But the solving is a whole different ball game. I struggled with it for quite some time and got nowhere. The rods can rotate on their own axis and all six rods can also rotate around the frame. Eventually I asked Diniar for a clue. All he told me was that the rods are split at different heights (something which I already knew). Anyway, I persevered on. And through a rather painful process of trial and error, continuous sliding and twisting, I finally manage to dislodge the rods. I say dislodge because it seemed that several of the rods all came apart almost at the same instant. It was only then that I saw the “internal mechanism” of the Sewing Box. I like to think I got the rods out more by chance than systematic skill.

I took a fairly long time to solve, like nearly maybe an hour. Diniar mentioned that three other puzzlers, Jim Strayer, Kevin Sadler and Goetz Schwandtner all had taken apart the thing in only 15 minutes or so. Hey, these guys are experts…what do you expect?! Overall, I would say that the Sewing Box has quite a clever and rather very unique design concept, well executed via 3D printing production. Very challenging would be a bit of an understatement. Solving requires a fair bit of (lateral) thinking. And certainly quite a handful to be juggling so many pieces. I saw the official solution from Diniar. And yes, there is a “method” or rather technique to solving but it is difficult to discover. More suitable for the hardcore puzzle enthusiasts.

For anyone interested to get a copy (15 Euros plus S&H) and I would highly recommend the Sewing Box to those who relish a good challenge, you can email Diniar via the IPP38 Puzzle Design Competition webpage. Yes, the Sewing Box was also an entry to the competition, and the most colourful one!

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One of the puzzles I picked up during the Puzzle Party was the Hanayama Cast Arrows. It’s the latest puzzle in the Hanayama stable. At the time of this writing, the Cast Arrows has still not be released outside of Japan. Those interested in purchasing may try Ebay Japan. I got my copy from the good puzzle folks of Torito Japan. Lucky me, it was also the last copy they had.

The Cast Arrows was designed by my puzzle friend from Russia Andrei Ivanov. Made of cast alloy, the Cast Arrows consist of 4 arrow shaped pieces and a heart. The puzzle comes with the arrows all arranged in one direction “pierced” through a hole in the heart. The hole is a rectangular slot and has some grooves cut along the insides. The object is to remove the 4 arrows from the heart.

All the 4 arrows look identical and most puzzlers would probably look at the grooves and notches and come to the conclusion that these are useful for positioning the arrows through the heart. The space of the slot is rather limited and only one arrow can come out at a time. The challenge is how to get the first arrow out.

simple looking and is anything but…

The Cast Arrows is rated 3 out of 6 stars by Hanayama, meaning it’s of average difficulty. But I would personally assess it to be at least 3.5 or 4 stars. While it is not frustratingly difficult, it is pretty tricky.

I spent quite a bit of time studying the pieces to see if they yielded any clues. None I could find, at least on the surface. All looked the same shape and size. Next using the trial and error method to see if by chance I could pop out an arrow, but no luck. Most of the time, after what I had thought would be the correct positions of the arrows within the slot for removal, I was confronted with a quiver of stuck arrows. And had to start over again.

But my puzzliing experience as taught me that one cannot defy physics. Given Hanayama’s tight tolerances for their puzzles, I know that somewhere within the puzzle, there must be a way to remove an arrow(s) without use of any force. And like many Hanayama puzzles, there is usually a correct starting point for the solve if you know just where where to look. I won’t say more as I don’t wish to publish any spoilers here. All in, it took me well over half an hour before I managed to get the first arrow out. Very “elegant” and smooth solution…but not obvious at all.

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A while back, I had designed a 3D Skull using Burr Tools. I planned to use this design but there was only one (major) problem; I could only fabricate the steel pieces by laser cutting. Which meant that I could only cut on flat sheets of steel, not in 3D shapes like those done by CNC machining. Given this limitation, I had to re-design my Skull entirely.

After a week or so of designing on and off, my ninth revision resulted in my “final” design. With the help of my friend and fellow puzzler Rex Perez who created the design in DWG format, I was ready to have Skull fabricated. The plan was to use 5mm thick 304 stainless steel like the Dirty Dozen. Completed and assembled, the puzzle would measure about 55mm x 35mm x 30mm. I took the opportunity to try out two other metal cutting vendors instead of the one who did the cutting for my Dirty Dozen. Files were emailed and payments made. A week later I received 25 loose pieces from each of the vendors.

The 3-unit locking piece that goes right through and into the top of the skull

Skull with shaky bones

The first prototype from Vendor A was a dismal “failure”. The tolerance was so tight that the pieces could not fit at all. I could use a small file to sand down the pieces, but too much work. Wasted effort and money. The second Vendor B’s work is what you see here. All 25 pieces fit nicely, but with a bit too much free play between the pieces. A lot of shaking and rattling! Rex commented that the power output of the laser may have been too high. Thus “burning” away too much metal, making the notches and grooves bigger than intended. But at least when assembled, a semblance of a skull comes into play. You can recognize that the puzzle is a skull afterall. Another saving grace is that with the little 3-unit locking piece in place, none of the pieces will fall apart even when shaken hard.

As of this post, I have just finished design revision #14. A much improved design with re-shaping almost every piece. In fact its now been reduced to 24 pieces only. See the screen shot of the Burr Tools file shown here. In theory at least, the whole puzzle is better reinforced and supported and should not shake and rattle so much if the tolerances are improved. I will go for a second prototype. Have to explain to the fabricator how the pieces are supposed to work (they have no idea what the pieces are for!). Hope this one will turn out better.

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It’s been several weeks since my last puzzle blog post. Sorry, I was very busy with work and other commitments. I had also spent quite a bit of time producing and listing new puzzles in my shop. If anyone is interested to see what is available, please feel free to click here.

Just last week, my friend Frederic Boucher emailed me to say he was sending a new puzzle design of his for me to try. I received it this mid this week. I always look forward to Frederic’s puzzles.  He has this uncanny knack of coming up with designs that are rather unusual. Not only that, he designs different puzzles across several genres as well. Click here and you will know what I mean.

There are many good puzzle designers out there and the puzzle community knows who these folks are. But many of them focus on just one or two particular categories, most typically interlocking burrs, dissection and packing puzzles, just to name a few. Well, Frederic is a bit of a Jack of several trades; which is good, because I never know what I will receive from him. Its usually a surprise!

LOOKS DECEIVE!

The puzzle consist of an ordinary square box with an acrylic cover (which can be removed). The pieces are all identical rectangular shaped sticks. All contain either one or two magnets embedded within except for one piece. The size is about 5.5cm x 5.5cm x 3.6cm. Quality of construction, fit and finish is very good. The pieces fit nicely into the box with just enough tolerance.

Anti-Gravity Box is a 3D packing puzzle. The goal is to place the box on a flat surface and fit all 6 pieces into the box through the two holes on the side. Really nothing to it it seems. Except there are certain restrictions which make this a much more challenging puzzle than it looks. Firstly, you can’t move the box like shake or tilt it etc to get the sticks to move inside. Secondly, you can only use your fingers and the sticks to aid in moving the other sticks. You also cannot turn the box upside down. The lid must remain on top except for reset and storage.

With all these rules in place, the difficulty quotient goes up many notches. Oh, there are those magnets there as well. They are either there to help or hinder, depending on how you want to look at it. When you start playing, they’re both, as I discovered.

GREAT DESIGN AND GREAT FUN

To solve the Anti-Gravity Box, a bit of thinking (in fact quite a lot, for me at least) of thinking outside the box is required (no pun intended). I don’t want to place any spoilers here but there is a sequence to follow, just like how an interlocking burr works. Pull or push the wrong piece or in the wrong direction and you are stuck.

I had to reset (dump out the pieces inside) the puzzle well over half a dozen times and plan (and re-plan) the moves before I finally got the last piece into the box as intended. Any one who has studied some basic science would know that magnets attract and repel and this had to be taken into consideration as well. Very challenging to say the least and a fair amount of dexterity is also required. I checked my solution against Frederic’s and yes, mine and his were about the same. It take approximately 18 moves to fully pack in the 6 pieces.

Overall, a rather unique and I would say, a very clever design. I enjoyed the thinking process and the fun factor was great. Challenging but not to the extent you would want to tear your hair out. Just need to ponder the moves ahead to save you all the trial and error. A must have for packing puzzle enthusiasts.

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I have been very fortunate to get my hands on Shane’s Haleslock 2 and Haleslock 4 previously as well as a couple of his other non-lock wooden puzzles The Circle and Turn The Plug. All fantastic puzzles! The Haleslock 3 comes to me courtesy of Peter Hajek during the IPP37 Puzzle Exchange in Paris last year.

Shane has based his Haleslock 3 on one of these old lever padlocks. The lock comes with a key and has a shiny brassy looking front plate with a little sliding door. Externally nothing very unusual about the look and feel of the lock, so Shane must have done something to the internal mechanism to make it a puzzle lock.

simple elegant solution…but damn, i am nowhere near!

Having played with Shane’s Haleslock 2 and 4 (and a number of Popplocks), I thought I would have more experience and figure out this one pretty quickly. But apparently not. The key goes in as one would expect and even turn in both directions. At various points there is resistance when turning the key and this was all I managed to find out and the progress I made. Which was not a lot.

I tried the usual prodding of the rivets, maybe something would move (a trick I learnt from one of the Popplocks) but nothing budged. I also examined the lock a lot more closely after my “slip-up” with the Haleslock 2 but there was nothing unusual I could find.

After spending the better part of several days on and off trying this and that without any success, I threw in the towel and emailed Shane for a clue. Over the course of our email exchanges, I realised that the clues he shared with me were already some of the things that I had done, but perhaps not “far reaching enough” or the right way. Finally after some more trying, wa-lah… the shackle unlocked.

Like most puzzle locks, you cannot see the internal mechanism with the lock in the solved state. Re-locking the shackle were the steps in reverse. And I was able to do it without a cinch.  Essentially, the solution lies in just a few steps…of course easy to state now on hindsight. A rather elegant solution I might add.

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This rather unusual disentanglement puzzle came to me courtesy of Roxanne Miller during the IPP37 Puzzle Exchange.  For those who attended IPP last year and did an exchange with Roxanne, you will have realised that there is a certain sort of theme going on. Planned by Roxanne (and George Miller) of course. This theme runs through the outfits (or lack thereof) which Roxanne and George wore during the Exchange, right through to the puzzle itself and its packaging.  Rather devilish you might say!

Where’s the serpent?

The object of Adam & Eve is to “get the heads of Adam and Eve together”. At the starting position, Adam & Eve are joined somewhere around the lower limbs. The trick is to be able to navigate the two parts around and “along” each other to the final position as shown. It might have been relatively easy if the two circular metal rings and the red apple on the chain had not been present. The way the metal part have been bent and cut also causes some restrictions of movement.

I spent a while experimenting how the two figures interacted with each other, how to move Adam and Eve and so on. Not easy but later I figured out that I had to “dump” the apple to progress. It looks impossible to do so but like all good disentanglement puzzles, there is way of solving which is not obvious. Eventually with further trial and error, I got the two heads to lock together.

If I can solve this one without help, I would imagine that wire and disentanglement enthusiasts would not have a problem with this one. Its challenging no doubt but not frustratingly difficult at least IMHO. It will not get you into knots which you can’t extricate yourself, unlike some types of really complicated wire and rope puzzles. If that really happens, you can always dismantle the chain holding the apple. The Adam & Eve is one of those puzzles with just the right level of difficulty for an Exchange Puzzle. And did I mention that it was pretty fun to play with too? Nice design theme and concept, great to look at and a must-have for collectors.

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If you have seen or played with the famous “impossible object” puzzle called 4 Street Elbows, you will probably know who Saul is. Double Feature is also similar in concept to his IPP35 Exchange Puzzle called Restricted Area, another Coffin design.

The Double Feature is produced by Saul himself under the brand name Here To There Puzzles. Measuring 6.5cm x 6.2cm x 6cm, it’s a cuboid packing puzzle made out of two different woods. Construction fit and finish is decent. There is a top cover consisting of a sliding panel with slanted edges. Keeps the packed pieces in nicely.

not so “straight” forward

The goal of the puzzle is to pack six irregular pieces (five of which has 5 units each and the 6th with 2) into the box, under the lid. The box is also also affixed with two obstructions (once the sliding panel is removed). So it’s not just a matter of just trying to drop the pieces in but figuring how to navigate the pieces through the opening.

It is obvious given the obstructions that removal and assembly of the pieces would not be that easy. Especially more so for the latter. A good memory helps of course.  This is aided by the fact that the puzzle already came fully assembled. If you can figure out how to remove the pieces completely, the return to the box should not be much of a problem. But if not, forming a cube outside the box with the six pieces may help you to re-orientate. Burr Tools would not help here since the solve requires more than rectilinear moves. You probably figured out what this means! From my count, about 14-15 moves for complete disassembly.

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The Eiffel Six Cube was designed and manufactured by Alistair Morris of the UK. It also served as his first Exchange Puzzle at IPP37 in Paris last year. I had played with one of Ali’s earlier designs a while back, the very brilliant Bolt & Nut Puzzle, which stumped quite a few puzzlers too.

The object of the puzzle is to form a cube with each of the 6 faces bearing the image of the Eiffel Tower. Like most puzzlers that have played with this puzzle, the initial impression is that it would not be too difficult. But it remained unsolved for me for more than several days over the past week.

“EIFFEL FOR IT”

Yes, I did…I FELL FOR IT! This was the title that puzzler Lionel Depeux had suggested to Allard to use for his blog post. Why? Ali had cunningly designed the Eiffel Six Cube in a way that if you are not observant, you will “fall” for his trick. During my sessions with this puzzle, many a times I had come to the final stages of forming a cube but the last piece would always elude me. And this came to a point where I wondered if Ali had mistakenly printed the Eiffel images on the wrong places or mis-glued his cubes which resulted in the wrong shape of a piece. The correct solution just seemed impossible to achieve.

I decided to ask Allard for a clue and so shot him a message. After a couple of cryptic responses which I didn’t find of much help, his last reply to me before I went to bed (yes, Singapore is about 7 hours ahead of the UK) was to examine the puzzle carefully.  The next morning I took out the Eiffel Cube again and this time I played with it more slowly than I did before, taking my time and looking at how each piece interacted with the rest. Suddenly it hit me….and I found the solution! I first reaction…WTF!  At last I got to build a cube with the Eiffel Tower on each of the six faces. What an incredible A-ha moment! Totally brilliant design and  a real surprise ending!

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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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The Concentric Arc is a maze puzzle.  On both discs  there are curved channels cut out. These form 3 layers of “concentric circles” spanning out from the centre. The puzzle is made of trespa, a strong and durable material widely used for home table surfaces. The puzzle is precision laser cut and the quality of construction and finish is very good.

To solve, one needs to rotate the two discs (held together at the centre by screw) and navigate a rivet “floating” along the maze channels to a point where it can be fully removed. And to remove the rivet, the round hole on the top disc must coincide with a similar hole on the bottom disc.

OH NO!, another maze puzzle which i can’t solve?

When I first looked at the Concentric Arc, it reminded me of the Cross & Crown, Dr Goetz Schwandtner’s IPP34 Exchange Puzzle. This is another maze puzzle with two similar looking discs having all the cut-outs and such. However the latter is a N’ary style puzzle, requiring a lot more moves in a particular sequential fashion. Moreover I was not able to solve the Cross & Crown successfully either.

Nonetheless as I fiddled with the Concentric Arc, I found it to be less intimidating than I initially thought. In fact, after several minutes of play, I managed to remove the rivet. But to really solve a puzzle fully, you must be able to return the puzzle to the original state, at least one senior seasoned puzzler has exclaimed. Here is where I had a tad more problem than before. I had forgotten the moves. So I thought again with my random fiddling, I would be able to get the rivet back in place somehow. But this was not to be for quite a while, in fact quite a long while.

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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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OMPIC was James Dalgety’s IPP37 Exchange Puzzle. I have met James during the past IPPs and also corresponded with him on occasions. His Exchange Puzzles have always been rather interesting, intriguing and challenging. Take for example his past exchange puzzles that I have played with; the Perplexing Palace Puzzle and Dot Box. Incidentally the Dot Box also won the Jury First Prize in the IPP35 Puzzle Design Competition. And for those interested to learn more about puzzles, their history and classification, James Dalgety also runs the Puzzle Museum, a private collection of tens of thousands of puzzles, which started in 1886.

REALLY A ONE MINUTE PUZZLE?

First off, the OMPIC looks very much like a hollow cube that has been pressed from all three sides.  It looks bent and squashed! Yes, it was intended this way. The OMPIC was produced for James by Vaclav Obsivac of Vinco puzzles. Made of two types of wood, the puzzle measures about 5cm all round. Construction, fit and finish is very good. And during play there was no jamming of the pieces even tho the tolerances were cut quite tightly.

GETTING THE CUBE INSIDE

The goal is to first “build” a cube with the four odd-shaped pieces inside the squashed hollow cube/cage. Can it be done in a minute? Well, I am sure some expert puzzlers could, but I certainly coudn’t. In fact I took about 8-9 minutes to solve the thing! To get the cube into the cage, one needs to know how to first form a regular cube. Now this already took a couple of minutes alone.

The next challenge is of course to remember the orientation of the pieces and then figure out how to insert each of the pieces into the cage. The cut-outs on each of the sides of the cage are identical rectangular shaped. They do (intentionally) pose an obstruction to the entry of some pieces and a certain order of movements is needed.

Initially I tried the usual random sort of thing and of course that got me nowhere. Some thinking is required. Given there are only four pieces, the logic and steps and what needs to be done while challenging, are not overly difficult. Some of the pieces can only go inside the cage in a certain way. And one needs to make sure the last piece can be inserted without hindrance. The question is -How?

The OMPIC is an interesting and fun puzzle to solve and it has IMHO just about the right level of difficulty. Not to mention the puzzle displays very nicely and even comes with its own ring support which holds it at the correct (tilted) angle.

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The Security Lock is manufactured by German based board games and puzzle maker Siebenstein-Spiele. It measures about 13.5cm tall (including the shackle), 11.5cm wide and 1.7cm thick. It comprises three layers of laser cut wood sandwiching a single acrylic layer all screwed together. The overall quality of construction and fit is very good. All the pieces move and slide smoothly. The Security Lock also comes with a laser cut wooden key.

A puzzle lock?

While the Security Lock is shaped like a lock with shackle and all, it is essentially a sliding block puzzle. This seems to be recent new trend in design. This lock is similar to two other wooden locks in my collection, using a sliding block concept. The “n-ary” locks  and their variants are still around and will remain so, as designers come up with new ones.

The body of the lock acts like a tray holding eight square and rectangle pieces. The layer of acrylic functions as a cover (with some cut-outs) to prevent the sliding pieces from being removed (in order to cheat). The blocks restrain the shackle in its place. The goal is to slide the pieces in such a way that the shackle can slide upwards and be freed.

The key has is useful too. Obviously it does not function like a real lock key does, but it helps to prod and move the blocks around inside the constrained space. The acrylic cut-outs are too small for most adult fingers to shift the blocks.

Solving

The blocks can only move up down left and right. In the starting position, two blocks are obstructing the shackle. The shackle needs to slide upwards to the opened position. So obviously these two must move out of the way for the shackle to slide free. Hence the movement of the rest of the blocks in a certain way to achieve this. I cannot remember how many moves it takes to solve this “puzzle lock” but I would rate this puzzle as much more than a moderately difficult puzzle. Although not frustratingly so. I hit dead ends several times before I figured out the sequence of the moves.

Getting the shackle back to the starting position is a matter of reversing the steps, but similar problems persisted and I had to again try several times before everything went back to their original state. Puzzlemaster of Canada rates it as level 8 – demanding, but I think their assessment is a bit on the high side. I would rate it more a level 6.5.

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