Oh! – Omicron

Wood Wonders’ recent release included many enticing puzzles with several new designs from some of my favorite designers.  There is a nice selection of symmetry puzzles, 2D and 3D packing puzzles, burr puzzles, and Turning Interlocking Cube (TIC) puzzles.  Of course, I wanted to start with one of the TICs.

Omicron (aka Omicrom) was designed by Girish Sharma and made by Wood Wonders.  It looks absolutely beautiful with the contrast between the 4 pieces made from Bloodwood, Wenge, Maple, and Roasted Poplar.  As soon as it was released, Omicron went viral and is now sold out along with the other TIC in the release.  I always used to tell myself that the design was the most important aspect of a puzzle but the stunning look of those exotic woods makes me wonder whom I’m really trying to fool.  However, since Wood Wonders provides both, it’s a win-win.  And I’m always impressed with the little details like reinforced joints to provide durability.

There’s just something relaxing about spending time solving TICs. Om-Micro-On, Om-Micro-On… I can easily just drift through the puzzle-verse, sliding and turning pieces past each other as time continues to drag the real world down outside. 

Designed by Girish, you might suspect that rotational moves would be required and you would be right.  What you may not have anticipated is that the 4x4x4 puzzle would appear as a solid cube.   This is a departure from Girish’s previous TIC offerings and demonstrates his ticnacious dedication to the genre.  Especially since it is definitely more challenging to produce an apparent cube TIC without external voids showing.  However, I find it more aesthetically pleasing and worth the effort.  Having said that, I still love TICs with external voids as the additional space allows for more uncertainty in the assembly and additional complexity along the solution path.

Although it is straight-forward to determine where all the Omicron pieces need to go, it takes quite a few moves to get there.  Omicron requires more than a dozen moves to remove the first piece.  In fact, it takes 15 moves, which may or may not have anything to do with Omicron being the 15th letter of the Greek alphabet.  Of course, it’s provided unsolved, so that would be 15 moves to put the last piece in.  It is all part of a well-orchestrated dance of all the pieces to celebrate the grand finale of the solve.  Even with all those moves, including some rotations, Omicron is not overly difficult as you happily skip along the solution path.

If you missed out on getting a copy of Omicron, don’t despair.  More copies will be available at Wood Wonders in the near future.  You’ll definitely want this one for your TIC collection.