Little Nightmares – Six Face

It seems that I’ve been on a Turning Interlocking Cube (TIC) hiatus.  Not sure how that happened, but I’m glad to have recently acquired some new Andrew Crowell gems in the 5x5x5 format.  The first one that I decided to tackle was Six Face.  Not Six Faces, Sixth Face, or Six’s Face but Six Face.  I could only assume that it would be a significant challenge and reveal itself as a little nightmare.  Needless to say, it took me longer than expected to solve.

Six Face was designed by Andrew Crowell and my version is 3D printed.  The puzzle is not a complete 5x5x5 cube but looks like a 3x3x3 cube with each face extended outward.  One of these faces is debossed with the name of the puzzle.  The face was carefully chosen so that the name was on a single piece to avoid providing any additional placement clues.  In total, there are 6 pieces that have to be assembled into the final shape.  It only takes 28 moves and there are a couple of rotations along the way.

I took Six Face and several other puzzles with me on vacation to PA, which is ironic since they were sent from PA by kind gentleman looking to spread the frustration.  And by frustration, I mean joy of course.  As always, I overestimated the number of puzzles that I would need.  I started with Six Face and almost ended there as well.  At least I was able to bring it home solved.  YES it was me that solved it!  I’m disappointed that you would even think otherwise.

Solving Six Face took me several sessions.  Right out of the bag, you need to spend 1 of your rotations to get the first 2 pieces together.  Or are they not the first 2 pieces?  Only time will tell.

With the 3 biggest pieces, you can construct most of the visible shape leaving you with the 3 smaller pieces that need to fill the gaps.  Of course, the order of entering those pieces and movements required are what make the puzzle challenging.  Two of the smaller pieces are dancing partners and work nicely to build out the solution path.  But it’s that last piece that is the crux of the solve.  For whatever reason, I had a huge blind spot concerning the where, when, and how of this piece.  It could obviously exist in 2 different orientations, so there were twice as many avenues to explore.  Adding it earlier would provide more room for it to navigate but of course would reduce the mobility of the other pieces.  And just how could that crux piece be added and manipulated into position.

I’m sure it will come as no surprise that a lot of steps were repeated looking for a new avenue to present itself.  With all this experimentation, it became apparent that the final orientation of the crux piece would be different from the orientation that it would enter the framework with regardless of which of the 2 possible orientations was the correct one.  You would think that knowing this, it would be easy to find an orientation where it could be inserted within the frame.  However, I found this a difficult challenge.

Eventually, I found a way to add the crux piece and rotate it into place.  So simple!  How could I have missed it?  All that was left was to determine how to add the dancing partners with it.  Not easy.  Nope.  Not happening.  And it didn’t happen, leaving me to wonder if it was just difficult or if I was barking up the wrong orientation.  At this point I had to split my time between working this approach as well as trying to find an approach for the other crux piece orientation.

Eventually 2, I found a way to add the crux piece in the other orientation and rotate it into place.  So simple!  How could I have missed it?  All that was left was to determine how to add the dancing partners with it.  At least this time, I was able to get everything in place and finally solve Six Face.

Fast forward several months to now when I want to blog about it and take it apart.  No surprises.  The crux piece volunteers to rotate and comes out nicely as expected.  Mission completed!  Except I can’t get it back together!  Try as I might, I just can’t find the exact insertion trajectory.  Unbelievable!  (You’d think by now that I would find this believable).  I spent at least another hour if not 2 getting it back together.  Not only that, I had to check both crux piece orientations since I didn’t pay attention to which one it was when taking it apart.  I’m assuming/hoping that if I take it apart again several months from now, it will be smooth sailing but at this point, I wouldn’t be at all surprised if it were a rough ride.

If you're interested in acquiring any of Andrew's puzzles, you can visit his online store ARC Puzzles.

No Problem Puzzles, Update #7

No Problem Puzzles provided over 100 amazing puzzles designs for the community between November 2020 and April 2023 until the tragic passing of Symen Hovinga on 7 April 2023.  Theo Geerinck, the other half of the No Problem Puzzles duo, decided to graciously allow the puzzle designs to be made available to the puzzle community for anyone to print their own copy to keep the legacy alive.  Mr BurrTools himself, Andreas Röver, is currently in the process of verifying and publishing the stl model files over the next several months.  These are being made available on the Printables site under the No Problem Puzzles collection.  Another contributor, Crab on Printables, has also tweaked some of the models to improve them.

This post continues the review of the No Problem Puzzles as the models are being released.  Since the last review (No Problem Puzzles, Update #6), more No Problem Puzzles have become available.

Squeezy

Squeezy consists of 5 pieces that have to be packed within a holey frame made from 2 identical pieces that slide together.  And the sliding is hampered by all the pieces that have to be stuffed inside.  Of course, this is one of those puzzles where you don’t have much to start with, find some things to hang your hat on, discover some key moves, realize what you had been missing, and end up saying - of course.  The things that I got right didn’t hurt me whereas the things that I got wrong led me astray.  In the end, after discovering some rather nice movements, I managed to get past my short-sightedness and strangle, I mean squeeze the frame together.  Squeezy provides a really good challenge for a level 3 puzzle.

I lied when I said that the 2 halves of the frame were identical.  One piece has the puzzle information debossed on it.  Ohhhh, is that a clue?  Maybe, maybe not.  But I did reverse the 2 halves after I initially solved it.  Make of it what you will.  Just for the record, my wife believes that I have no clue what clue really means and that I don’t give out clues because I’m clueless.

I Box

The goal of I Box is to pack 5 pieces within a box with a v-shaped opening.  It has the same difficulty rating of level 3 as Squeezy but is completely different.  For this one, I would recommend that you solve it before you solve it.  In other words, have a well defined plan when adding the pieces to the box since it is a bit fiddly to get pieces back out once they are in the box.  Especially since the pieces need to be rotated and enter/exit the box at a 45 degree angle.  Also, unlike Squeezy, it doesn’t have a lot of finger holes for manipulating the pieces - 0 versus 18 unless you count the opening.  However, I did find the solution much quicker and with a solid plan, manipulating the pieces into place was not that difficult.

Mecon

A truncated octahedron by any other name, such as macon, would look as wondrous.
    - Not Shakespeare

Macon is a level 3 puzzle requiring packing 12 truncated octahedrons, or macons, into a cubish form that can be displayed in the provided stand.  But wait, the macons are split in half resulting in 24 semimacons.  Groups of 4 are then reattached to make 6 semimacon tetraclusters.  Except the process was botched and they weren’t reattached where they were cut.  Of the 6 tetraclusters, there are 4 of one type and 2 of another.  It’s up to you to rejoin the unmated halves.  To make it a bit more interesting, not all semimecons are mated to lend it a more cubish appearance.

The puzzle is not difficult, but it does take some time to adjust to the geometry.  And having done it more than once, it didn’t seem to get any easier the second time around.

But why were the truncated octahedrons made hollow?  Probably because they make a cool pattern when the puzzle is solved.  But of course, now everyone is going to wonder if you place a space-filling cuboid in each mated center, would you still be able to assemble it?  I would go with no but they tell me you never no.

Multiplex

Multiplex consists of 4 square chipped tiles that need to be packed within a square tray.  In essence, you need to map the pointy bits into chips.  The description says that Multiplex is a level 2 puzzle with 196,608 theoretical combinations to try.  Not hard, just takes a long time to solve.  I don’t know how the number of combinations was computed, but lucky for us, it seems a bit inflated.  Disregarding the edge details of the pieces, I think there would be 12,288 combinations.  And if you’re observant, you can quickly knock it down to 3,072.  After that, you will certainly avoid trying every possible combination and only check the ones with matching edges to converge on the solution.  I appreciated the thought that went into this design that rewarded the solver with a significant clue in the beginning to avoid a lot of unnecessary and tedious tile swapping.


If you don’t have a 3D printer, you can obtain copies of these puzzles from Nothing Yet Designs based in the US or the PuzzleguyStore based in the EU.

King Of Red Herrings – Neptune

Neptune is a 3D packing puzzle designed by Osanori Yamamoto and made by Pelikan Puzzles.  The pieces are made from Maple and contrast nicely with the Mahogany box.  The box is very well made and has the name of the puzzle and designer identified on one of the sides.  The box also features 2 large opposing slots in the box for entering and manipulating the pieces.

I was a bit surprised that the puzzle consisted of 6 pieces to be packed within the box.  This is more than you would typically encounter for this type of puzzle, especially from Osanori.

I assumed that the goal was to make an apparent cube within the box.  Taking the 6 pieces, I was quickly able to make a cube outside the box.  It took me a minute to realize that it wasn’t just apparently a cube, it was a cube.  All 27 voxels of the 3x3x3 space are occupied.  I was completely surprised since that would mean that the first piece to be removed would have to come out in a single move.  Completely un-Osanori like.

So I did some googling and found a couple of reputable sites indicating that the level of difficulty for Neptune was 7.2.1.2.2.  This means that the first piece would come out after 7 moves.

What!!!  That’s not possible!  I’m certain it’s not possible.  It couldn’t really be possible could it?  Will this puzzle open my eyes and demonstrate some out-of-this-world physics to accomplish the seemingly impossible?

Taken in by this claim, I spent an hour revisiting my assertion that the first piece must come out in 1 move and tried to find a flaw in my logic that would allow a move that did not free the first piece.  Try as I might, I was unsuccessful and decided that something fishy was going on.

Starting over with the assumption that the first piece comes out in 1 move, I rather quickly had the pieces packed within the box.  It wasn’t that difficult.  Most of the time I had spent with the puzzle was trying to envision the impossible.

So did I really solve it?  I believe so.  I dug a little deeper and found that puzzlewillbeplayed.com had the same level that I experienced – with the first piece coming out in 1 move!  I should have checked there first.
 

Missing The Point – Aztec Pyramid Of The Sun

The Aztec Pyramid Of The Sun is located in Teotihuacan, Mexico.  It was originally built around the year 200 by the Aztecs and is approximately 70.556667 meters tall.  Although archaeologists are puzzled by the warren of tunnels beneath the pyramid, beneath the Aztec Pyramid Of The Sun puzzle, you will find jigsaw pieces providing clues on how to enter the pyramid.

The Aztec Pyramid Of The Sun puzzle made by iDventure is a sequential discovery jigsaw puzzle box.  It arrives in a nicely decorated pyramid-shaped box that unfolds like a 4-petal flower with each side dropping down to reveal the pyramid in all it’s naked beauty (no pictures for obvious reasons).  There are visible interactive mechanisms on each of the 4 sides of the pyramid with no indication as to their purpose.  The directions advise against playing with the mechanisms until the jigsaw murals are complete, when all shall be revealed.  It then points you to where the jigsaw pieces are cached in the base of the pyramid to get you started.  The parting advice is to follow the stars.

All the jigsaw pieces are jumbled together and need to be separated into the side that they support.  The instruction manual has a picture of the mural on each side if that is how you like to tackle your jigsaw puzzles.  Once separated, you start with the first mural.  Yes, there is a first one.  Surely you haven’t forgotten to follow the stars so soon.

The sides of the puzzle are quite a bit steeper than the actual pyramid, 75 degrees vs. 32 degrees. The puzzle comes with the sage advice to carefully avoid tipping the pyramid.  However, once you start filling in the pieces on the sides, you won’t be too tempted to tip it.

As each side is completed, you can interpret the clues for manipulating the mechanisms to get you closer to the goal, which is?  A good guess would include opening the top of the pyramid to access the inside.  Along the way, various tools are released to be used in conjunction with the various mechanisms.  And yes, eventually the pyramid reveals it’s secret and one last puzzle to complete.

I worked on the pyramid with my wife and we got the full SD experience.  We thought that there would be clues where there weren’t, missed clues where there were, and still managed to stumble to the end.

I’m embarrassed to say that some of the clues were more clever than I was.  I missed the point and bungled through at least one part where I used trial and error instead of finding the elegant path.  However we both had fun and enjoyed working on it together.

Tubular Boxification – Tube It In 2

If you’ve been involved in the puzzle community for a long time, you have certainly heard of the puzzle Tube It In designed by Wil Strijbos.  The original version was made by Wil using square metal tubes.  It was later made by Cubicdissection using a variety of exotic woods for each of the 14 pieces.  It was so popular that Cubicdissection put out a release every few years for a total of 6 releases, starting with a small release made by John Devost in 2006.

Fast forward to today where William Hu has revisited and tweaked the design to make it more challenging.  William 2 extended the difficulty by trading compactness for complexity.  It also trades more expensive exotic woods for more affordable 3D printed plastic although I wouldn’t be surprised to see an exotic wood version show up in the near future.

It’s been a decade since I acquired a very nice exotic wood version of Tube It In from Cubicdissection (Totally Tubular Dude! - Tube It In).  My sketchy recollection is that the solve was straightforward and on the easy side.  However, recent feedback that I’ve seen on Tube It In 2 has indicated that the new version is more of a challenge.  And so I decided to 3D print a copy and give it a try.  The one change I made was to turn the 2 outer tubes into a box.  Less aesthetic but more practical.  It doesn’t change the solve.

The objective of Tube It In 2 is the same as the original – pack the tubes so that they are all nestled within the largest tube.  After an hour, I hardily agreed with the comments that this version was much tougher than the original.  It doesn’t take long to realize that there are many ways to pack all the pieces except 1.  In fact you can pack them all except for the smallest piece without too much effort.  Some of those almost-packings are trivial and others are more involved.  The thing that they have in common is the inability to add that last piece.

One of the things that makes this version so much harder is the large amount of unused empty space.  It’s a real challenge corralling those empty bits together to accept another piece.  Of course to get from the trivial packings to the more advanced ones, it seems that you have to waste more space.  But take heart in knowing that there is a lot of unused space when it’s solved.

Needless to say, I spent a lot of time revisiting the same potential configurations over and over again until I finally saw the light at the end of the tube.  This is a significant update to the original Tube It In and I would recommend getting a copy.  Especially if it becomes available in a variety of exotic woods.

Holiday Puzzling – Christmas Advent Calendar

As empty-nesters, my wife and I decided to celebrate the holiday season with advent calendars.  A puzzle calendar for me and a lego-ish puzzle for her.  I was surprised by the number of puzzle advent calendars that were available on Amazon.  I zeroed in on one that had a lot of mini hanayamaesque puzzles sprinkled with some disentanglement puzzles.  I thought that this might be a good opportunity to try some of the easier Hanayama puzzles that I never acquired.  Normally, I acquire all Hanayamas from level 4 on up although I do have some of the easier ones as well.

The puzzles are not identified with the Hanayama brand and the quality is not quite the same. It would have had to be pretty bad to not be worth the price but I was braced for the worst.  However, the quality was better than expected and I was very happy to open one of the 24 2” cubic boxes every day leading up Christmas Eve.

Here is a brief overview of each day:  

Day 1:  ABC (Level 1) – Good beginner puzzler.  Nice choice to get things going.  When done, I looked at solution and it showed removing the loop earlier, but this was not actually possible.  1 down, 23 more to go.

Day 2:  Lock – Nice little lock with a key.  I tried everything and was sure that it was broken due to being a reduced sized lower quality reproduction.  Then I did something that I normally never do and peeked at the solution sheet.  The solution sheet verified that it was indeed my brain that was of reduced size and lower quality and the lock was doing what it was supposed to – confounding me.  The score was now 1 and 1.

Day 3:  Disentanglement Puzzle – Typical beginner disentanglement puzzle that took seconds to solve and reset.

Day 4:  Chain (Level 6) – Good puzzle and worked well in the smaller size.  However, it didn’t feel like a level 6 Hanayama puzzle, leaving me to wonder if it’s really the same as it’s big brother.  I’ll need to compare them at some point.

Day 5:  Keyring (Level 2) – Not difficult but not a quick solve either.

Day 6:  Star (Level 3) – Not supposed to be difficult and I’ve solved a larger version in the past.  However, still haven’t managed to get this one apart.  Nice to have a puzzle on the side that will take some more effort.

Day 7:  Key (Level 1)– Nice entanglement of 2 keys.  Not difficult but fun.

Day 8:  Violin (Level 3) – Was working on how to remove the key piece when the real key piece fell out.  This one has a nice logical solve after analyzing the pieces.

Day 9:  3 Rings – Argh!  I’m too scared to make too many moves trying to untangle this entanglement puzzle.  Wish it had been the 2 ring version to verify what I thought needed to be done since I’ve never done that one.

Day 10:  Disentanglement Puzzle #2 – Still easy but nice step up from Day 3.

Day 11:  Loop (Level 1) – Easy puzzle, especially since I have the larger version.  This version has some quality issues but still works fine.

Day 12:  S&S (Level 3) – Nice version of 2 entangled pieces that need to be separated.

Day 13:  Quartet (Level 6) – I actually have the full size version but have never gotten around to doing it.  I thought that it was supposed to be difficult but found it quite easy.  Perhaps it’s not exactly the same.

Day 14:  2 Rings – Lowe and Behold, the easier version of 3 rings from Day 9.  Although not difficult, this puzzle has a very nice Aha moment.  Need to apply what I’ve learned here and retackle 3 Rings.

Day 15:  Laby (Level 5) – A 2 piece, 2-sided maze puzzle.  I have and have solved the bigger version but did not have time to solve this smaller version yet.  It’s now sitting next to Star and 3 Rings.

Day 16:  Elk (Level 5) – I have the larger version of this one and solved it very quickly.  Much move quickly than the original version.  It leaves me wondering whether it’s really the same or the tolerances are not as tight making it easier to move the pieces.

Day 17: Dolce (Level 3) – Nice implementation of 2 entwined lovers that need to be separated.

Day 18: Remove The Ring Disentanglement Puzzle – Another nice disentanglement puzzle with the goal to remove a metal ring.  This one is similar to the horseshoe puzzle but utilizes a cord instead of a second horseshoe.

Day 19: Disk (Level 2) – This one was a disappointment.  It came apart in a couple of trivial moves although it looked like it was designed to require many more moves.  Checking with the instructions, a 13 move sequence is mapped out.  The quality on this one is a complete failure, which is a shame since the small size is nice for this puzzle.

Day 20: Delta (Level 3) – 3 piece coordinate motion puzzle.  I didn’t find it a challenge because I’m familiar with these types of puzzles but it’s a must for beginners.

Day 21: Coaster (Level 4) – Simplicity itself to scramble.  Difficult to get it back into position.  Similar to the many ring puzzles, this puzzle has 3 rings that are connected in a chain and can be interwoven and laid flat by aligning the notches.  It’s not difficult to get 2 links aligned but getting that third into place has so far eluded me. 

Day 22: 4 Rings – HaHaHa (or HoHoHo).  Should have seen this one coming.  Right in the unsolved puzzle pile you go.

Day 23: Amour (Level 5) – Easy enough to take apart.  Had to study it a bit to get it back together.  This seemed much easier than a level 5 but maybe this version is more forgiving.  I always thought that the plate represented a heart, but looking at the Hanayama description, it’s really an apple to commemorate the original sin.

Day 24: G&G (Level 3) – 2 intertwined G’s that need to be separated.  Nice little challenge with several rotations.

  

The Other One

No Problem Puzzles, Update #6

No Problem Puzzles provided over 100 amazing puzzles designs for the community between November 2020 and April 2023 until the tragic passing of Symen Hovinga on 7 April 2023.  Theo Geerinck, the other half of the No Problem Puzzles duo, decided to graciously allow the puzzle designs to be made available to the puzzle community for anyone to print their own copy to keep the legacy alive.  Mr BurrTools himself, Andreas Röver, is currently in the process of verifying and publishing the stl model files over the next several months.  These are being made available on the Printables site under the No Problem Puzzles collection.  Another contributer, Crab on Printables, has also tweaked some of the models to improve them.

This post continues the review of the No Problem Puzzles as the models are being released.  Since the last review (No Problem Puzzles, Update #5), more No Problem Puzzles have become available.

3OPc

Packing squarish pieces within a circular area is always challenge.  It just seems to mess with your head.  This particular puzzle has 3 normal squares (aka O’s) and 3 warty squares (aka P’s) that need to be packed within a circular tray.  Lacking a brilliant solving approach, I started putting pieces in the pan and swirling them around, occasionally flipping them over to make sure that they were done on both sides.  And then I had an epiphany!  Maybe they weren’t warty squares after all but really disabled rectangles.  Or maybe there were some of both.  Turns out that they were all disabled rectangles when I found the solution.

This is a nice example of packing squares in a circle.  It’s rated with a level 4, but I didn’t find it as hard as some of the other level 4 puzzles.  You just have to know the difference between a warty square and a disabled rectangle.  Of course, you may just see rabbits or ducks but that’s just silly, and it’s not going to help you.

Pyre

What could you make with a lot of sticks.  27 sticks to be exact.  A pyre?  Yes indeed, a pyre puzzle.  This particular Pyre is cubic and constructed from 9 bundles of 3 sticks.  And each of the 3 sticks is oriented on a different axis.  This results in a cube with a 3x3 grid of sticks oriented along each axis.

My initial attack on Pyre was to start from the outside.  However, I quickly had the spark of an idea on how to start the Pyre and shifted to working from the inside out.  Following this approach and shifting some pieces as I went along, I ended up with an assembled cube.  However, I did perform some wonky rotations and squirrelly movements, which leads me to believe that this assembly is not The Assembly.  This is the second week in a row of this now and hopefully will not become a habit.  I’ll just have to set it next to 12 Logs for another shot after the holidays.  The level 4 rating is well deserved. 

7 Spiders

Halloween has come and gone but we can still enjoy a cluster of spiders within a pumpkin.  7 Spiders is a 2D packing problem consisting of ... um ... let me see … oh yeah - 7 identical spiders that need to be packed within a pumpkin tray.  Initially, the spiders seem very territorial and don’t nest together very well.  However, after a bit of coaxing and jostling, you can find some nice tiling patterns.  Unfortunately (or fortunately for your continued enjoyment), the 2 obvious ones are not in the solution.

There are a variety of ways to easily place 6 spiders within the tray, but the 7th is a bit more recalcitrant.  It looks like there is a nice big opening, but all those legs get in the way.  I found at least 1 configuration where everything fit except for the very tip of a single leg.  My approach to interlocking the spiders was to spin them until I had a nice web of spiders that fit within the pumpkin.

This is a very nice Level 3, 2D packing puzzle and will definitely come back out next October.

Aghhh!  I just read the puzzle description and it said that the eyes, nose, and mouth of the pumpkin need to be covered.  Is that possible?  I see bits of each peeking out from behind the spiders.  Luckily, rotating the web of lying spiders completely covered the pumpkin features.  So it is possible and looks even more awesome in this solved state.  And it’s certainly a big clue when solving that I missed out on.

Hexatanglers

This 3D packing puzzle has 6 identical pieces that need to be placed within a restricted opening box.  I naively thought I could see the answer, but when I finally printed it, it was just shy of being able to slip the final 2 pieces in.  Now it was a proper puzzle.

With a slight change in perspective, It was easy to add 5 of the 6 pieces with room to move them around.  However, there never seemed to be enough room to squeeze that last piece in.  It could have been forced in but that should be avoided.  Taking another look at potential assemblies outside the box, I found one that worked like magic.  The pieces just slide in with no resistance.  There is even a nice Aha moment associated with inserting the pieces.  It’s a nice introduction to 3D packing puzzles with a difficulty rating of 2.  

 

Jigsaw Box

With a difficulty level of 2, this one is a quicky.  The 4 jigsawy pieces along with 2 floating panels comprise the 6 sides of a cube.  Once the cube is constructed, it’s loose but will not fall apart.  In fact the looseness is required to assemble and disassemble the cube.  It’s nice and compact so you can keep it in a pocket to share with others.



 

If you don’t have a 3D printer, you can obtain copies of these puzzles from Nothing Yet Designs based in the US or the PuzzleguyStore based in the EU.