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.