Amazingly Non-Burrish – Gravitational Burr

Yes, yes, it looks like a burr but when you get into it you’ll start to realize the gravity of the situation – it’s amazingly non-burrish.  So if burrs aren’t your thing, don’t worry.  If you can pull the contents out of the belly of a crocodile, you can solve this one as well.

Gravitational Burr was designed by Junichi Yananose (Juno) from Pluredro and made using American Black Walnut.  It consists of 6 standard burr pieces that look like they have been made from wood infested by boring insects.  However, the boring traces were intentionally added to provide a path for a ball bearing to meander along a dynamically changing path.  

Since it arrives assembled, the first task is to take it apart.  Of course, all those boring paths are hidden and you have to blindly embark on this journey.  About halfway through, you can get a good look at the amazing interior and start to deduce what needs to occur to get to the finish line.  Unfortunately as I age, I find that my deducing is reducing.  But deducing I went as I tried to hold a dynamically rotating piston-driven image in my head.  Needless to say, there was a lot of backing up and restarting involved.  And lots of Oh, I’m back here again moments.

When I finally navigated the path to the end, I was super impressed that the ball bearing didn’t just come dropping out.  Juno designed it so that the ball bearing would be secure when it came to disassembling the pieces.  And this attention to detail is what makes Pluredro’s puzzles so special.

Once apart, you can get a good look at all the pieces to see exactly how they interact with each other.  You will also notice a compartment that could be used to store something inside. This internal space can be used to justify it as a puzzle box for those desperate collectors that only purchase puzzle boxes.  Or maybe as a poke to those that collect burrs and refuse to buy puzzle boxes.  I suspect that some people received it with a loaf of bread inside.  The puzzle description indicates that you can store the ball bearing in this cavity to inactivate the maze and reduce the number of moves from 56 to 2.  However, I wouldn’t recommend it since there is nothing to secure it and it will eventually fall out and roll into some dark and mysterious place where things go to never return.

Since this really isn’t a burr challenge, it’s not difficult to get the pieces back into the starting position for the return trip.  To get you started, 2 pieces have matching magnets to provide a nice tactile feel to the puzzle and the other pieces just seem to fall into place to provide the maze required for the ball bearing.  You just need to determine the order to add the pieces, which isn’t difficult.

Surprisingly, I found the reassembly more difficult than the disassembly.  Knowing and doing are really two different things.  Event though I had a mental image of the entire dynamic map, the blind traversal of the path took several tries before I had it back to the beginning.  Again, I was impressed with the design and how it avoided being reset at the mid-point.

More PPing in the Big Apple – NYPP 2025

The first PP of the year is always a welcome event. I always look forward to reuniting with the local puzzle community at the annual New York Puzzle Party (NYPP).  This year’s NYPP was held on 7 June 2025 and featured the usual mix of mingling with other puzzlers, attempting to solve puzzles, listening to prepared speeches, and the occasional puzzle selling/buying.  This year the event was also being filmed like last year’s International Puzzle Party (IPP) in support of a future documentary featuring the puzzle community.

It’s always nice to catch up with fellow puzzlers.  There were also a couple of new attendees from the Mechanical Puzzle Discord (MPD) that I enjoyed meeting in person.  And of course you can’t chat without working on a puzzle.  You know what they say about idle hands.

There were some very impressive puzzle collections brought by some of the participants and I had the opportunity to solve Free Me 7 by Joe Turner and Ring Case and Chubby Crocodile by Junichi Yananose (Juno) from Pluredro.  Despite the online warnings to be gentle to avoid scratching the puzzle, Chubby Crocodile had received some tough love prior to NYPP and had some pretty serious gouges to show for it.  It’s unfortunate that the pins used didn’t have rounded ends.  

There were more new and old Pluredro puzzles that were available to play with including Gentle Interlock, Grooved 6 Board Burr #7, Dial Case, Mittan, and Sequential Discovery Board Burred Box (SDBBB).  Other puzzles of note on the table to play with included The Louvre by Mr. Puzzle and Jack in the Box by Jesse Born.

Although I didn’t have enough time to play with it, there was also a Stickman Gordian Knot puzzle made by Lewis PD Puzzles using resin casting.

Haym Hirsh also brought along some of the Jigsaw puzzles that he has been working on including his exchange puzzle, Jigsaw 4, from the 41st International Puzzle Party (IPP) last year.  He had copies available for sale along with copies of his exchange puzzle from IPP40.

As usual, George Sicherman brought along some printed puzzles where the pieces could be cut-out to solve.  These included his Rock Garden symmetry puzzle with 4 pieces and his 2025 New Year’s Puzzle with 4 pieces that can be used to make various rectangles.  This puzzle is also still available in laser-cut acrylic from Nothing Yet Designs. 

In fine NYPP tradition, several attendees provided presentations.  This year’s talks included the following:

Snail Ball – Don: Since there were only 2 scheduled talks for this year’s event, it was suggested that participants could present their favorite puzzles either to the group or individually on camera to support the documentary being filmed.  Don took advantage of opening the discussions with a demonstration of the Snail Ball and a discussion of how it works.  It’s simply a ball that rolls down a ramp but it moves very, very, very slowly.  You just have to take his word for it that it’s moving.  This puzzle is available from Grand Illusions.  Don also demonstrated a keepsake box that could be used to store valuables.  I believe that he mentioned that is was an update to a version made on a lathe by a 10 year old boy.
 

Puzzle Video Games On Consoles (And Maybe PC, MAC, and Mobile) – Michael Cahill: This year, Mike gave an overview of a selection of video games and their objectives.  The presentation covered:

1. Puzzle Hybrid Games – Included Merge and Blade.
2. Puzzle Adventure Games – These included Scorn, Escape Academy, Case of the Golden Idol, Superliminal, Botany Manor, and Indian Jones and the Great Circle.
3. Lemmings, But in 3D – 2 games were covered of which I only caught the name of Humanity.
4. Deeper Dive Into Individual Puzzles – These included Arcade Paradise, Blue Prince, Balatro, and Chants of Sennaar.

 

BurrTools Tutorial – Haym Hirsh: Everybody who’s anybody in the puzzle community loves and uses BurrTools.  So Haym provided an overview and demonstration of it’s capabilities and how it can be used to solve and design puzzles for those who want to be in the who’s who of puzzledom or just brush up on functionality.  In fact, I learned that Source Forge has the 32 bit version and Git Hub has the 64 bit version.  The group also expressed gratitude to Andreas Röver for creating BurrTools and gifting it to the community 
 

City Challenge Puzzle – Joyce Michel:  During the gathering, Joyce distributed copies of the City Challenge that she developed.  It consists of challenges where you have to determine the city that is being referenced.  Each clue consists of a rhyme that identifies the city and each city contains the initials of the state where the city resides.  The example given is: This capital city’s a fine college town, The buildings are pretty and the Ivy is Brown.  The answer: Providence, RI.  The answers were reviewed at the end of her presentation and I believe that the collective group managed to solve each one.

Lights, Camera, Action !

Welcome To The Home Of Despair – DODECASOMA

What happens when you take a 3x3x3 matrix of cubes, attach identical pentahedrons to each side of the matrix so that each pentahedron completely covers one of the matrix sides, define a new cubic boundary to encompass the new shape, slice the space up into into 27 identical bits, and randomly glue up some of neighboring bits back together?  Well, you get a DODECASOMA obviously.  To save you the effort of doing that yourself, Rod Bogart has done it for you so that you can enjoy the formidable fiddly fun of constructing a dodecahedron from 7 dodecahedronized Soma pieces.

DODECASOMA was designed and made by Rod Bogart and used as his exchange puzzle for the 41st International Puzzle Party.  It consists of 7 green 3D printed Soma pieces that assemble into a dodecahedron instead of the normal cube.  The pieces are nicely scored with the outline of the 3x3x3 grid to provide some guidance on how the pieces are aligned.  The puzzle also comes with a stand for displaying the assembled puzzle.  The stand is also useful to hold partially assembled constructions.  And although it is providing a helping hand, don’t expect any useful advice from it.

It all appears innocuous enough but when someone hands you a puzzle that is an anagram for CASA DOOMED, you have to stop and consider the ramifications.  Are there 240 (or 480 – you’re welcome Nick) solutions?  No!  Which is good since you probably don’t need another regular Soma cube although you should have a least one.  Is the solution unique.  Don’t know!  But trying to solve it, it seemed like it could be.

Unlike a plain old boring Soma made from plain old cubes, the DODECASOMA ends up being made from 4 types of shapes which I’ve come to think of as corners, edges, middles, and the core.  They’re really misnomers, but I’m sure you’ll come up with better names when you start handling them.

I don’t know why I was surprised the first time I had 1 last piece to add and it didn’t fit.  Why would I think it would be any different from any other puzzle that I’ve solved?  A couple rounds of that wiped the smirk off my expectations.

It’s also a bit fiddly and you have to juggle the pieces in your hand as you try different piece combinations.  Unlike the typical Soma puzzle with cubic dissection pieces, not every piece will fit nicely anywhere.  However, there are enough places where they can go together making it non-trivial to solve.

Eventually I had it all together and with a bit more effort, I had it displayed on the stand.  At least I didn’t have to try all 10 sides to find one where it would stand without falling apart.

Crafty Sunflower Release: May 2025

I was recently asked if I would be willing to review the 3 new Grabarchuk puzzles being released by Crafty Sunflower this month.  I usually think of the Grabarchuk family as prolific creators of pencil and paper type logic puzzles but they have a long history of designing physical puzzles as well.  I was happy to hear that 3 new ones were being made available.  After a quick peek of them online, I immediately responded with a Yes Please!  Two things had immediately caught my eye.  The first was of course, the puzzling challenge.  The second was packaging.  I was amazed at the amount of effort that was put into the packaging.  Each puzzle comes in a tray with a clear acrylic top to store the puzzle.

A few days after my exuberant reply, I received a small but dense package in the mail.  It included the 3 puzzles for the May release plus 4 puzzles from previous releases that will be the subject of a future blog.  The paperwork within the box also included a nice thank you note.  This capped the attention to detail that Crafty Sunflower had previously demonstrated in the friendly status updates emailed during the shipping process.

All 3 of the Crafty Sunflower May 2025 release puzzles were designed by Serhiy Grabarchuk and made from laser cut wood and acrylic.  And they’re all completely different.  There is a 3D interlocking puzzle, a 2D assembly puzzle, and a 2D sliding piece puzzle.  And they are available now at Crafty Sunflower!

Plank Box

Plank Box is a 3D interlocking puzzle with 12 planks that comprise a box with 2 planks on each of the 6 sides.  This was the one that immediately caught my eye.  It is exactly the type of puzzle I like.

The 12 planks come nicely packed in a tray with a clear acrylic lid that can be rotated to the side allowing the pieces to be removed.  The top of the tray has your typical puzzle information consisting of the name, designer, and manufacturer.  The bottom has the solution engraved on it, so don’t look at it until you’ve solved it.  The other interesting piece of information that is included on the bottom is that Plank box was designed in 1977.  That’s almost 50 years ago!

Removing the planks from the box, you can see that the pieces are neither all identical nor all unique.  2 of the pieces are marked.  One has the name of the puzzle and the other has the name of the manufacturer.  I decided to build the box with the information on the outside although I assume that it is just as easy to build it with the information on the inside.

How would the pieces go together?  Would it go together as 2 sliding halves, a sequence of sliding together multiple subunits, or simply a sequence of adding the individual pieces one by one?  Would it perhaps require coordinate motion?  Would pieces need to slide back and forth to add other pieces?

My first goal was to determine how the pieces would slot together, so I built a corner of the cube to test it.  Simple enough, so I decided to see how much of a cube I could build before getting stuck.  Needless to say, I was not able to build a complete cube using such a random process. 

Taking the unfinished cube apart, I laid out the pieces to give them a good look.  A quick tabulation exposed a discrepancy that hinted at a possible locking mechanism.  Starting with this mechanism, I started to build out the cube again – only to end up with mismatching pieces at the end.

In addition to not completing the cube, I was lacking a concept for what happens after the first step of the locking mechanism.  Giving it some further thought, I came up with a second move as well as what would be available for a third move.  I starting to rebuild the cube from here – only to end up with mismatching pieces at the end.

At this point, I decided that the best approach was to lay the pieces flat on the table as an unfolded version of the box.  This allowed me to see where pieces would match or not and easily shuffle them around until I had a workable layout.  Of course, once I had a layout, I hoped that it would be possible to construct.  And lo and behold, there was a sequence of moves where the planks could be assembled into a cubic box.  Awesome!

Plank Box is a great design and I thoroughly enjoyed the process of solving it!

Octamion

Octamion is a multi-challenge 2D assembly puzzle.  The objective is to make various shapes with the 8 pieces that are provided.  There 2 types of pieces with 4 of each.   Each of the types uses a different wood type to provide a nice contrast between them.  Of course, the pieces arrive nestled within one of those nice trays with a rotating clear acrylic cover.

In line with the name, the 8 pieces arrive in the form of a regular octagon.  The bottom of the tray has silhouettes of 7 additional shapes (for a total of, you guessed it, 8 shapes) that can be made.  I found them fairly simple to solve and consider this one more targeted to a new puzzler.

The back of the tray also suggests that you create your own new shapes.  I highly suggest doing this.  In fact, the shape identified as a diamond, I would consider a kite, and I created my own diamond shape for your pleasure.  If you create interesting new shapes, share it in a message below.  Or better yet – send it to Crafty Sunflower!

Diamond

Correct Order

And now to flip the final puzzle of the release open.  Wait a minute!  There’s a note indicating that a bolt needs to be removed first.  No problem – bolt removed.  It still doesn’t open!

Unlike the prior puzzles of this release, Correct Order doesn’t have a hinged cover that opens up.   This one is meant to stay closed with the entrapped pieces manipulated by techniques other than direct contact.

Behind the acrylic cover, you can see 9 square pieces with the digits 1 to 9 cut out in a 3x3 array with the digits arranged in reverse numerical order.  The digits are cut completely through the pieces so that they are highlighted by the red base of the tray.  The pieces are nice and thick to give them some mass as they move around in their trapped space.  The corners of the pieces are also rounded to keep them from binding as they slid past each other.  Beneath the matrix of digits is a 1x2 piece that is in the middle of the bottom row which arrives with a bolt through it to ensure that the puzzle arrives in the reverse order starting configuration.  Removing the bolt allows pieces to start moving and the fun to begin.

Correct Order adds an element of dexterity challenge to a sliding puzzle challenge.  It’s easy enough to slide an entire row or column but when you want to move part of a row or column, you need to get a bit more creative.  However, the techniques used to split rows and columns are a good skill to add to your puzzling toolbox for other puzzles that you will eventually encounter.  Using these techniques, I managed to put the digits in the correct order.

As I was going to release with this blog, I was suddenly struck with the uneasy feeling that I may have not solved this puzzle as intended.  What if the puzzle could be solved without splitting rows or columns.  Dropping a digit into the bottom right side pocket would force all the pieces to rotate clockwise until that digit was popped back out and another dropped into the left-side pocket forcing all the pieces to then rotate counter-clockwise.  The 5 in the center would never move.  Could these alternating right/left clockwise/counter-clockwise moves be used to reverse the digit order?  If so, this would be a much more elegant solution not requiring any dexterity techniques.

Unfortunately, I was unable to verify if this alternate approach produces a solution, in time for  this blog but I’ll consider this one unfinished for now until I give it some more thought.  If you have any insight into this, please add it the comments.

So I enjoyed solving this one and it may be even better than I initially thought.

 

Surprise! – Birthday Cake

Normally, I don’t get a cake on my birthday but this year was different.  One of my daughters decided to ignore the normal advice to avoid trying to gift a puzzle that I don’t have and surprised me with a cake I didn’t already have.

Birthday Cake is a puzzle box made by iDventure and is one of several laser-cut wood puzzle boxes that they offer.  Surprisingly, this is the first iDventure Cluebox that I have received.

Opening the box (i.e., the box box that contains the box), I was greeted with an elaborate mechanism complete with several gears.  Happy Birthday is also nicely debossed between 2 of the gears.  There are also 2 spots on the top designed to hold a digit for shaming the recipient.  Adding each is a simple process.  You just have to rub it in.  In my case, I was given all the digits, 2 of each, to pick whichever would make me happy.  And if you’re over 99, you get to start you’re second childhood.  It’s a bit like Y2K.

Pulling the box from the box, you can see how the round cake is made by utilizing a pattern of a thousand little cuts to allow the wood to be bent into a cylinder.  Although I’ve seen this used with many puzzles, I still find it amazing.

Also in the box box was a single candle that fit on the top of the cake.  I know they look like candles but please don’t be tempted to light them when you present this Birthday Cake.  Rotating the candle makes one of the adjoining visible gears rotate.  Spinning the gear reveals several birthday party suggestions like DANCE, SING, SMILE, and LOVE that show up in the window as the gear rotates.  Attempting to turn the other gears with this candle proved futile.  This candle only fits 1 of the 3 candle holders on the top of the cake.  It turns out that this candle was the first tool that dripped out of the bottom of the box as it started to solve itself in transit.  Finding out where it came from and how to produce the other 2 candles was straightforward.

Armed with 3 candles, it is not too difficult to produce the party elements that are required to open the box.  With the top released, there is a rather large space that can be used to put in other things like more puzzles, gift cards, and large quantities of money.  Unfortunately, my daughter must not have been able to get the box open.

Birthday Cake is a challenge on the easy side, but is well thought-out and well made.  Extra attention went into designing the appearance of the box.  It could have been much simpler and still work the same but it is so much more attractive with the extra touches.  On close inspection, it also appears that nothing is glued and if you were really adventurous, you could disassemble the box into it’s individual components.

In the event that you are unable to open Birthday Cake, there is a card included with a link to where you can find opening instructions.  There is also a QR code if you don’t want to type the URL.

Happy Anniversary! – The Return of ZenPuzzler

It’s been 2 years since the last anniversary post.  After having taken a year off, ZenPuzzler was reenergized by attending the 41st International Puzzle Party (IPP) (Gratitude For Those Who Work Up Through The – Eleventh Hour).  In fact, many of the puzzle blogs were of IPP41 exchange puzzles.  There were also many puzzles from the collaboration with Nothing Yet Designs (NYD) to announce their puzzle releases during the first 3 months of this year.

To wrap up the year, I have created a list of the posts and the puzzles that are mentioned in each.  The name of each post is linked to the post entry so that you can easily jump to it by clicking on the name.  

7 May 25 –  To Everything, There Is A Season – Key Machine

• Key Machine by Alan Lunsford

30 Apr 25 – Puzzle DNA – Edge Beveled Cubes

• Edge Beveled Cubes by George Sicherman

23 Apr 25 – New Puzzle Comes Out – Smelling Of Roses

• Smelling Of Roses by Steve Nicholls

16 Apr 25 – Playing – Ketchup

• Ketchup by Haym Hirsh

9 Apr 25 – One Tɍough – Ditch

• Ditch by Alexander Magyrics

2 Apr 25 – It’s Simple Karma – Bram’s Hinged Cube

• Bram’s Hinged Cube by Bram Cohen

26 Mar 25 – Lacking QC – Messing a-round

• Messing a-round by Alexander Magyrics

19 Mar 25 – Nothing Yet Designs Release: 20 March 2025, 12:00 PM EDT

• Minima Dice by Frederic Boucher
• Drop Out (STC202) by Stewart Coffin
• The Rattle by Stewart Coffin
• Decoy by Stewart Coffin
• Pac Men? by Naoyuki Iwase (Osho)
• Pyramid In A Cage by Naoyuki Iwase (Osho)
• Blast-Hedron 8 by Nan Ma
• Best Friends by Frederic Boucher
• S&L Crisis by Haym Hirsh
• J11GSAW by Haym Hirsh
• Au Pays by Gilles Kutten
• Monster Eats Ducks by Gilles Kutten
• Sharpened by Gilles Kutten
• Windy by Alexander Magyrics

12 Mar 25 – Answers From The Void – Sixmetry

• Sixmetry by David Goodman

5 Mar 25 – A Physical Manifestation Of An Ethereal Concept – T Pack

• T Pack by Haym Hirsh

26 Feb 25 – Infesting In Puzzles – Parasitic Version

• Parasitic Version by László Molnár

19 Feb 25 – A Small Puzzle Can Be –  Epic

• Epic by Václav Obšivač

12 Feb 25 – Finding Elegance –  Four Pieces

• Four Pieces by Emrehan Halici

5 Feb 25 – NYD Release 7 February 2025, 1200 PM EST

• Marble Cake + by Frederic Boucher
• Square It by Frederic Boucher
• Animals Party + by Frederic Boucher
• Marble Cake + by Frederic Boucher
• Sliding Heart by Naoyuki Iwase (Osho)
• Flying Heart by Naoyuki Iwase (Osho)
• Blast-Hedron 12 by Nan Ma
• Ball Buster – Lee Krasnow
• Haeckel Sphere – Lee Krasnow
• Minima Bauhaus by Frederic Boucher

29 JAN 25 – Ballsy Name for a Boxy Puzzle – Spherelation

• Spherelation by Tom Jolly and Zach Zieper

22 JAN 25 – Drill Baby Drill! – Rock-it Burr

•  Rock-it Burr by Ali Morris

15 JAN 25 – A Very Attractive Puzzle – Tetracore

•  Tetracore by Jared McComb

11 JAN 25 – NYD Release 13 January 2025, 1200 PM EST

•  2025 Puzzle by George Sicherman
• Ace of Diamonds by László Molnár
• Artefacts by Frederic Boucher
• Blast-Hedron 4 by Nan Ma
• Blast-Hedron 6 by Nan Ma
• Minima XIII  by Frederic Boucher
• Muñiz Bundle by Alexandre Muñiz
• Slash Mob
• Little Pypsum
• Big Pypsum
• Symmetrominoes
• New Tiles by Frederic Boucher

7 JAN 25 – A Great Start To A New Year – Nothing Yet Designs Collaboration

1 JAN 25 – A Set of Blocks For Adults – Houston, We Have a Puzzle

•     Houston, We Have a Puzzle by Oleg Smolyakov

25 DEC 24 – Not a Little Challenge – Monster

• Monster Burr by Girish Sharma

18 DEC 24 –  Nary a Problem - RecTangle - A Ternary Teaser

• RecTangle Burr Goh Pit Khiam

11 DEC 24 – Puzzle Within A Puzzle – Lone Star Burr

• Lone Star Burr by Steve Nicholls

4 DEC 24 – What’s The Bu – Caching Zzzzzz

• Caching Zzzzzz by László Molnár

27 NOV 24 – Minima Meets Flop – Minima Flop

• Minima Flop by Dr. Volker Latussek

20 NOV 24 – Looks Easy, There’s Just One – Hitch

• Hitch by Émil Áskerli

13 NOV 24 – Panefull Puzzle – Window Packing

• Window Packing by Koichi Miura

6 NOV 24 – Octadecohedron by Another Name – Pinwheel Crystal

• Pinwheel Crystal by Stewart Coffin

30 OCT 24 – Screwing Around With Flowers – Tulip Twist

• Tulip Twist by GlennovitS 3D

23 OCT 24 – Time to Smother – The Blue Bird of Happiness

• The Blue Bird of Happiness by George Sicherman

16 OCT 24 – C’est Ludique – Minima Ludique

• Minima Ludique by Frederic Bouchet

9 OCT 24 – Corner Table – End Table

• End Table by Goh Pit Khiam

2 OCT 24 – Easy As – Duck Soup

• Duck Soup by Guy Loel and David Goodman

25 SEP 24 – One Person – Three Body Problem

• Three Body Problem by Girish Sharma

18 SEP 24 – All Corners, No Corners – 4 Piece Jigsaw

• 4 Piece Jigsaw by Haym Hirsh

11 SEP 24 – Packing a Small Basement – Minima Nest

• Minima Nest by Lucie Pauwels

4 SEP 24 – Frustrating Puzzlers – Cattle Frustration

• Cattle Frustration by William Ja and Scarlet Park

28 AUG 24 – Does This Heist Make Cents – Penny Bank

• Penny Bank by Phil Wigfield

21 AUG 24 – 3Y + 1Z Conjecture – Collatz

• Collatz by Dr. Volker Latussek

14 AUG 24 – Puzzle Meta-Storage – Clip Box

• Clip Box by Yavuz Dimirhan

7 AUG 24 – Not Curly Burl – Curly Burr N8

• Curly Burr N8 by Frans de Vreugd

31 JUL 24 – SPLIT ASUNDER, RE – CONNECTING CUB3S

• CONNECTING CUB3S by Tanner Reyes

24 JUL 24 – Don’t Sleep On This One – InsomniAC1

• InsomniAC1 by Andrew Crowell

17 JUL 24 – Gratitude For Those Who Work Up Through The – Eleventh Hour

• Eleventh Hour by Goh Pit Khiam

12 JUN 24 – Ménage à Trois – Two Guys & a Gal (Free Me 9)

• Two Guys & a Gal (Free Me 9) by Joe Turner

22 MAY 24 – PPing in the Big Apple - NYPP 2024

19 JUL 23 – A Puzzle of Two Tales – Soma in Case

• Soma in Case by Hajime Katsumoto

7 JUN 23 – Apparently Aesthetically Pleasing – Belt Cube 3

• Belt Cube 3 by Osanori Yamamoto

31 MAY 23 – Puzz L – Strugg L

• Strugg L by Junichi Yananose

To Everything, There Is A Season – Key Machine

It’s spring once again, full of blooming flowers and the sound of the byrds to remind us of what’s really important.

Key Machine is a sequential discovery (SD) puzzle designed and made by Alan Lunsford from Kinetic Crafts.  It is 3D printed with a sparkly black material and includes several tools, magnets, ball bearings, and of course a coin to be released.  All of the non-removable internal components are added while the part is being printed to provide a seamless cube.  Puzzles delivered in the US include a US 25 cent quarter while puzzles exiting the US have a 3D printed coin.

Key Machine is the 5th entry in a series of cubic SD puzzles that includes Unsafe Deposit (Hiding Money in Puzzles - Unsafe Deposit), Bolt Action (Screwed! - Bolt Action), Mighty Pin (A Puzzle to Save the Day - Mighty Pin), and Cash Back.  The initial 4 entries in the series have all been excellent, setting very high expectations for Key Machine.

When Key Machine arrives, don’t get too excited and throw the box out after grabbing the puzzle before finding and removing the instruction card.  It is probably located along the side of the box instead of being with the puzzle to keep it flat.

As with the prior entries in the series, Key Machine includes a variety of windows that allow visual and physical access to the interior of the puzzle.  As usual, you can see the entrapped coin to be liberated through the largest window.  This time there is also a metal bar across the coin to make double sure it’s not coming out through that square window.  I can only assume that someone bragged about bypassing the official steps and sucking the coin out through the window.

Picking up the puzzle and examining it, you can immediately hear ball bearings rattling around inside.  In fact you can see 4 plastic ball bearings through the openings with 3 of them blocking the coin from escaping through the obvious exit.

Anyone who has done any of the first 4 puzzles will immediately know what the first move is.  For newbies, welcome to the family!  You can cut your teeth on Key Machine.

After taking the puzzle out of it’s shipping configuration, the first tools are released and ready to be used.   The purpose of the second tool is immediately obvious and starts you on your journey.  It’s amazing on so many levels and puts a different spin on prior mechanisms used.

To free the coin, you obviously (I use this term lightly here being fully cognizant of the fact that obviously frequently translates to wrongly think you) have to move those impeding ball bearings.  Do all 3 of the balls restricting the coin from slipping out disappear at once?  Of course not.  It’s a bit like a gumball machine where you have to get all the gumballs out one at a time.  Of course, they keep disappearing and reappearing in no particular order as you play around with it.  Think of it as whack a gumball.  And along the way, things will mysteriously get stuck and stop moving and other times they will move just fine.  Eventually all the gumballs drop away and the coin does indeed slip out.  

The reset appears to be the same level of difficulty as the release except for the fact that you have a lot more experience with how things work.  Still, there were several times that I thought I was on a clear path to completing the reset when I had to back up and do something else to be able to more forward again.  Of course there are clues for you to accomplish this that you may notice AFTER you’ve made the required moves.  You can use them for the next time.

I can release the coin and reset it, but I’m not entirely sure I know how it works.  And since I haven’t figured out what’s going on inside, my attack is highly inefficient as I fish around to obtain the next state in the process.  I have an idea about what’s going on, but I could be completely wrong.  There seems to be more magnetic (feel free to read this as net magic if you so desire) action going on inside than I can account for.  I have some suspicions about the mechanism that I’ve failed to prove that I suspect can be used to avoid a somewhat blind approach.

One thing that isn’t immediately recognizable until you put it next to the previous puzzles in the series, is that the orientation of the lettering is reversed.  This puts the large window displaying the coin on what I would call the top side.  The prior 4 puzzles have the display window on what I would call the bottom side.  I seem to recall Alan initiating a discussion on the window orientation on the Mechanical Puzzle Discord (MPD) sometime in the past.  I don’t consider either way significantly better than the other.  They’re just different.  I’m assuming that Alan made the change now to streamline future development of the next hundred or so designs whereupon the original 4 will become highly sought after collector anomalies.

This continues to be a great series and Key Machine if one of my favorites so far.  I’m always looking forward to the next one.