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.