Serendippity

Some amazing puzzles have recently come to my attention and I decided to adorn a round table with a nice selection of them.  All of these puzzles competing for my attention.  What serendippity!  For no particular reason, my goal was to spend Wednesday through Sunday solving them.

Canal

Canal was designed by Han Dongkyu and consists of 4 pieces that need to be placed in a tray so that there is a path between the pieces from the lower left-hand corner to the upper right-hand corner.  And the path can only be a single unit wide.  And there can be no other uncovered squares in the tray that are not part of the path.

I’ve been seeing photos of Canal for a while and had always wanted to give it a try.  It seemed like a novel idea and how hard could it be with only 4 pieces that needed to be placed in the tray.  Well looks can be deceiving and it took me a bit of time to find the correct orientation and positioning of those pieces.  It was a very nice challenge and is currently available at Team JB Hobbies.  Canal was also an entry in the Nob Yoshigahara Puzzle Design Competition at the 43rd International Puzzle Party (IPP43)

Bocca Della Verita

Bocca Della Verita is a 2D restricted-opening packing puzzle designed by László Molnár.  It consists of 7 L Tromino pieces that need to be packed in a circular tray.  Each piece has to be entered through the maw in the top.  Two other openings are provided to poke your finger into for manipulating the pieces inside.

I solved this one a while ago but without the fancy restricted-opening top.  With the top, it looks much move daunting with limited opportunities to move pieces around and I was wondering how much more difficult the dexterity aspect would make it.  Although certainly more challenging, it turned out to be quite doable.  And just like Canal, it was an entry in the IPP43 Nob Yoshigahara Puzzle Design Competition.

Diasafe

Diasafe is a restricted, somewhat 2D’ish packing puzzle designed by Lucie Pauwels.  It consists of a variety of 8 pieces made from 3 to 9 squares.  Each piece has a button added on top of one of it’s squares.  And all 8 pieces are unique.  The frame that holds the pieces has a slot in the side to add the pieces and a Z-track on top for the buttons to slid through.  

The objective is to add the pieces to pack the frame by entering them through the slot in the side and moving them where they need to go.  Of course, the movements of the pieces are restricted by the Z-track on the top of the box.  Since all the pieces are different shapes and sizes, enter from the same point, and have to follow the same path, the challenge is to find how they are packed and the order to add them. 

On my initial solving attempt, I added all the pieces to the frame but subsequently found out that all the buttons had to be in the Z-track and not in the single-square entrance to the Z-track.  Backtracking a bit, I found a solution where all the buttons properly resided within the Z-track.  The addition of that final restriction added some nice additional properties to the solve.  And coincidentally, it was also an entry in the IPP43 Nob Yoshigahara Puzzle Design Competition.

Elegant People

Elegant People was designed by George Sicherman and made by Wood Wonders.  It consists of 4 pieces, each constructed from 3 cubes with most cubes attached with an offset.  Each pair of pieces can be used to construct a symmetric shape resulting in 6 challenges.  I’ve been working on this one for several months and have still not completed it.  Of the six challenges, some are easy, some are more challenging, some are difficult, and one is downright impossible.  Apparently, some elegant people are more difficult to get along with than others.  This is a fantastic set of challenges that transports easily.  A must have for symmetry puzzle enthusiasts.  Eventually I’ll figure out that last one.  Stubborn little bugger – THE PUZZLE!  And as incredible as it is to believe, it was also an entry in the IPP43 Nob Yoshigahara Puzzle Design Competition.

Loach Bed

Loach Bed is an apparent cuboid packing puzzle designed by Osanori Yamamoto.  It consists of 3 simple pieces that need to be packed within a 2x2x3 box with a single 1-voxel corner missing.  I solved this one last year at a puzzle picnic and took this opportunity to revisit it.  This is one of Osanori’s simpler packing puzzles but works well in a small format.  It’s a good packing puzzle for someone just being introduced to 3D packing puzzles since it has a simple entry point, few simple pieces, and takes several moves to remove the first piece once solved.  And to top it off, it was an entry in the IPP43 Nob Yoshigahara Puzzle Design Competition.  And furthermore, it won a Top 10 Vote Getter award in the competition.

One Way or Another

One Way or Another, designed by Alaexander Magyarics, presents a nice 2D sliding puzzle challenge.  Not only do you have to solve it, you have to design it as well.  The ultimate objective is to move the small round piece from the upper right-hand corner to lower left-hand corner by finding a sequence of moves that allows the round piece to traverse the tray also holding the other 4 pieces.  However, the first and significantly harder objective is to discover how to pack the pieces in the tray to accomplish the ultimate objective.

Since there are multiple ways to place the pieces in the tray, especially since there are 4 unoccupied spaces, it looks quite daunting.  Maybe I got lucky, but focusing on the location and interaction of a couple of pieces, I zeroed in on a working configuration much quicker than I expected.  Of course, I was expecting the worst.  The final configuration provided a longer sequence of moves to solve the puzzle than I anticipated.  The length of the solve makes identifying the design less obvious.  Even so, the real challenge here is to design the puzzle rather than solve it.  The solve really serves to validate the design.  This was a very nice novel concept which resulted in a Jury Honorable Mention award at the IPP43 Nob Yoshigahara Puzzle Design Competition.

Thyor

Thyor is a 3D restricted-opening puzzle designed by Volker Latussek.  It consists of 6 pieces that need to be packed within a box with a single opening.  But open it is.  The largest side of the box is entirely open except for a single voxel overhang on all sides.  You can just start dropping the pieces in up to a certain point.  

The pieces are made from 3x3x2 cuboids.  There are 3 types of pieces: 1 of the first type, 2 of the second, and 3 of the third.  I found this one quite challenging and was happy to eventually end up with all 6 pieces packed inside the box.  And would you believe, it was also an entry in the IPP43 Nob Yoshigahara Puzzle Design Competition.

Petit Albert

Petit Albert was designed by Volker Latussek and consists of 5 pieces that need to be packed within a 2x3x3 box.  The box has a 3 voxel opening on one the 2x3 sides to add/remove/manipulate pieces.  There are no other openings in the box.  The pieces consist of 4 tetracubes and 1 dicube.  Each of the tetracubes sports a rounded corner that allows an additional rotation within the box.

I originally solved Petit Albert last year (Round Bevels – Petit Albert) but it was definitely worth a revisit.  The second time around, it was still a good challenge and I had to rediscover the Aha moment.  There are quite a few rotations and a bit of dexterity involved.  Just like the first time, I found it a challenge to repeat the sequence of rotations within the box that were found outside the box.  A winner for sure.  I can’t wait to see Fat Albert.  Hey, Hey, Hey!

And believe it or not, this puzzle was also an entry in the IPP43 Nob Yoshigahara Puzzle Design Competition.  Where it didn’t win anything.  Which is a shame because I found it a tough little nut with the rotations that were required.

Forever In the Rough – 10 of Diamonds

It’s sad when you realize that you are not playing with a full deck.  In fact, my Molnár deck only has 2 cards, the Ace of Diamonds (Nothing Yet Designs Release: 13 January 2025, 12:00 PM EST) and the 10 of Diamonds.  Someday, I’d like to have a full Molnár deck or at least a royal flush.

10 of Diamonds was designed by László Molnár and used by Gergő Prémecz as his exchange puzzle at the 40th International Puzzle Party (IPP).  It is a 2D tray-packing puzzle made from red and white acrylic.  The 5 unique pieces each consist of 2 connected diamonds.   The front of the tray is designed to look like a playing card, the 10 of diamonds in fact, with a rectangular space to hold the diamonds.  It’s nicely made by Mr. Puzzle with the details inlaid in red on a white background.  The backside has a second challenge, where the pieces need to fit within a hexagonal area.  The backside also has the puzzle information etched on the tray.

A single-sided version made from wood was originally entered in the Nob Yoshigahara Puzzle Design Competition in 2020 where it won a Top 10 Vote Getter Award.  Now the puzzle has double the fun of the award-winning version.

Both sides of the tray are challenging.  Since neither side is fully packed you would think it would be easier but you would be mistaken.  There is quit a bit of unused space that makes it more difficult to determine where pieces need to go.  And although the backside has 2 solutions, the front side has a single solution.  You may find it rough.  It may take you forever.  But you’ll enjoy solving it.  At least that’s what I kept telling myself.

Along the way, you may encounter situations where the pieces can be crammed in by force but this would not be the solution and you should not be tempted to use force.  The puzzle has been designed so that all the pieces can be nicely placed with no force.

10 of Diamonds is a nice challenge and I’m looking forward to seeing how László completes the royal flush.

Infesting In Puzzles – Parasitic Version

I have a lot of burr puzzles and they seem to be accumulating at an alarming rate.  This seems to be my retirement strategy.  Collect as many wood burrs as possible for the day I can’t afford the heating bill.  Or maybe they’re just fuel for the soul.  

I particularly love 6 piece burrs.  And 6 piece burrs with 9 pieces are even better!  This seems to be the result of an ever increasing tendency to stuff things in burrs.

Parasitic Version is a 6 + 3 piece burr designed by László Molnár.  It was made by Pelikan Puzzles and used by Gergely Prémecz as his exchange puzzle for the 41st International Puzzle Party (IPP).  The 6 main burr pieces consist of 2 pairs each of Wenge, Acacia, and Purpleheart. and the parasites are made from Maple and Bubinga.

You know from the start that getting parasites into the burr will not be easy since Wenge, Acacia, and Purpleheart are naturally pest resistant hardwoods.

I believe that the puzzle came with the 6 piece burr assembled with the parasitic pieces outside.  However, it was such a long time ago from when I originally received it and made a pile of pieces that I really can’t remember how it arrived.  I really don’t know why I keep acquiring new puzzles when I could just redo the same ones over and over again for the first time.  Yes, I do – and you do too!

I started the solving process by assuming that the 6 large burr pieces were actually paired by wood type.  Wouldn’t you?  It doesn’t necessarily have to be that way, but typically if there are 3 types of wood used, the pieces are paired,  This gives you a boost in the solving process since you don’t have to worry about all those other combinations.  Of course it’s also sometimes used to force a single or more difficult configuration.  So using the logic of purposeful intent, I went with the paired approach and started to look at possible configurations.

For each possible configuration of 6 burr pieces, the next step is to determine whether the parasites can be packed within the central envelope.  After a couple rounds of that, the process changed to one of looking to generate specific configurations that will accommodate the parasites instead of testing randomly generated candidates.

And then the fun really starts when you have to insert the parasites.  Of course, you can’t just let them dig their way in.  That would be boring!  You must go through all the proper channels and find the correct way to get them all nestled in their new home.  After spending some time with these buggers, you begin to get a feel for what will pack and what won’t that you can then narrow down to the winning configuration.  Even then, you have to still get it together, which I found an interesting juggling act with 9 pieces and 2 hands.

When everything is said and done, you are rewarded with a 6 piece burr that looks exactly like it did when you started.  But you know the difference because now, you’re infested in the process.

Nothing Yet Designs Release: 13 January 2025, 12:00 PM EST

The first puzzle release of the year from Nothing Yet Designs (NYD) will be this coming Monday, 13 January 2025 at 12:00 PM EST.  Don’t forget to put it on your calendar and set your alarm.

Recently, I received a box full of puzzle goodness from NYD with the puzzles for the upcoming release.  They all came nicely wrapped with NYD’s signature packaging that is now easily recognized in the puzzle community.  The release consists of a variety of puzzle types that I’ve had the pleasure to play with for several days.  And now it’s time to share these puzzles with you

Artefacts – Frederic Boucher

It all started a decade ago.  A puzzle designer named Frederic Boucher submitted a puzzle called Artefacts to the Nob Yoshigahara Puzzle Design Competition at the 35th International Puzzle Party (IPP) where it won ... nothing!  However, a clever craftsman with a keen eye for great puzzle designs by the name of Eric Fuller (Cubic Dissection) recognized the brilliance of this puzzle and made a run of less than 50 the following year.  You can find the blog on it here – Digging Through Puzzles – Artefacts.  Cubic Dissection (CD) was planning to make another run in 2020 but it never came to pass.

The CD version had a single frame with 4 challenges – pack the pieces in the frame with the peg lying on its side (3 solutions) and pack the pieces in the frame with the peg standing up in the round recess at the bottom of the frame (unique solution).

Frederic Boucher modified the design for his exchange puzzle at IPP39 by flattening the pieces and making the packing frame double-sided.  The first side supported the original packing problem with the standing peg changed to a fixed disk mounted in the frame.  Since the pieces were flattened and the disk permanently attached, the other 3 packing problems were lost.  However, the reverse side had a different frame where the objective is to pack four of the pieces flat in the frame and you had to determine which piece needed to be left out.  

Fast forward to now when NYD is bringing Artefacts back in all it’s glory.  It has a double sided frame with the original 4 challenges on one side and the additional challenge on the other.  The double sided frame is made from acrylic with a nice matte finish with the name of the puzzle and the logos for NYD and Frederic Boucher debossed on one side.  The 5 pieces are nicely made from exotic hardwoods.  And the peg is no longer just a peg but a totem peg.  It looks awesome with a different face on each hemisphere depending on your mood.

There is a lot of puzzling packed in Artefacts with 5 challenges.  The pieces fit nicely in the frame within the frame and are nice and snug for the challenge where the totem peg is standing since the frame is specifically sized for this packing challenge.  Although the pieces are not loose in this solved configuration, you’re not permitted to tilt the totem piece in its resting place.  I’m soooo tempted to give you a hint.  Just a wee tiny piece of advice.  But nope, can’t do it.  Good luck!

Comparing all versions, it’s apparent that it’s all about the peg.  Frederic squashed it, CD weaponized it, and NYD made it art.  Those artistic touches are what I really like about NYD’s puzzles.  The decision to make a totem out of the peg to align with the theme of the puzzle is awesome.  And they made it out of 3D printed it out of Rosewood wood filament to keep the aesthetic.

Minima XIII – Frederic Boucher

Who knew that a 2x2x3 packing format could be so fruitful?  The Minima series of puzzles by Frederic Boucher and other guest contributors has put any doubt to rest.  This series continues to supply many awesome puzzles with no end in sight.

NYD has produced many puzzles of the Minima series and is now making lucky number XIII available.  The first thing you notice about Minima XIII is that it’s 3D printed.  The second thing you notice is the reason for the first thing.  Not all of the cubes are cubic.  3 of the 4 pieces have a cube with an angled cut.  And to continue the discovery process, you will notice that the Z piece has a dot on one end to match the box.

Minima XIII was designed by Frederic Boucher and made with a sparkly dark gray box and red pieces.  It should be noted that the box is very nicely made and printed as a single piece.  To complete the color scheme, the name of the puzzle is highlighted in red on the box and the dot on the Z piece uses the sparkly dark gray.  The pieces move very nicely within the box even though you may be tempted to wonder if a little force is warranted.  It’s not.  Don’t be tempted.

The object of Minima XIII is to pack the 4 pieces in the box.  Oh, and you have to ensure that the little dot on the Z piece is not visible in the packed configuration.  This helps you know where that particular piece needs to be placed.  It can be viewed as either a gimme or more appropriately as a gotcha since packing the pieces with the dot showing is trivial.  You can even store the pieces that way when you are done.

Since this particular Minima puzzle had a 4-cube piece, I placed it in the box first and started to work out ways that the other pieces could be added.  And then I remembered that 3 of the pieces had malformed cubes that must serve some kind of purpose.  Thought I had it – nope.  Thought I had it again – nope.  This is the time where you need to refrain from the temptation to force a move and rethink.  During one of these sessions where I was doubting my underlying assumptions, I discovered that one of those assumptions was indeed wrong and that the misshapen cubes had opened up another path.  Once that hurdle was cleared, the function of all the misshapen cubes eventually (note I didn’t say immediately) became apparent and with some fiddling, Minima XIII was packed.  Awesome!

Frederic Boucher is puzzle wizard being able to create so many of these amazing packing puzzles.  If you enjoy 3D packing challenges, don’t miss getting this one.  And if you’ve been collecting the Minima Series puzzles, you certainly won’t want to skip this one.

Ace of Diamonds – László Molnár

In 2020 László Molnár entered a 2D packing puzzle called 10 of Diamonds in the 2020 IPP Nob Yoshigahara Design Competition where it was in the top-10 in voting for the Puzzlers' Award.  It was also used by Gergő Prémecz as his exchange puzzle at IPP40.  The goal was to pack 10 diamonds, 5 pairs of 2 conjoined diamonds into one of the 2D frames on each side of the puzzle.  Although the original competition copies where made in wood, later copies utilized more colorful acrylic with a white frame and red diamonds.

László’s new puzzle, Ace of Diamonds, follows suit with another diamond level challenge.  It ups the ante by being a restricted 2D packing puzzle with the goal to make a red diamond on a white background.  Not only do you have to find a configuration for the pieces to fit in the tray, but you need to determine how to add them through the restricted opening.  And with 68 possible piece configurations, you not only have an issue finding one but finding THE one and recognizing that it is THE one is a bit more of a challenge.  That’s what makes the puzzle interesting.  I don’t recommend that you try to find solve this puzzle by finding and trying all 68 possible configurations.

Ace of Diamonds is made from laser-cut acrylic.  The frame is white with a clear acrylic top providing visibility as pieces are moved inside.  The name of the puzzle, designer, and NYD logo are provided around the border in red on the underside of the clear top, which really stands out especially after the puzzle is solved and there is a nice red diamond in the center.  Of course that red diamond is composed of 7 red pieces that need to enter the restricted opening in the top and moved into their correct position.  Initially, I thought that they pieces were made from triangles but silly me, they’re diamonds and half diamonds.  

As with many puzzles, Ace of Diamonds looks daunting upon initial inspection.  This initial phase is when your brain is trying to find a handhold to start the climb to the solution.  I’m here to confirm that such handholds exist and there is a route to ace this challenge. I found that applying a little thought morphed the solving process from an endless lets try every combination process to more of a where does the next piece go approach.  This approach starts with identifying the location of a couple of key pieces and the rest start to fall into place from there.  Finding and exploiting those opportunities are what makes puzzling fun and interesting.

I usually work on these types of puzzles with the pieces outside and when I think I have a solution, test it with the frame using the sequence of insert, rotate, move, tilt operations to get everything in place.  Everything worked great with Ace of Diamonds without any binding of pieces but if you find yourself in trouble, you can always remove the fasteners and take the top off.  Just make sure you don’t loose the spacers between the top and the rest of the frame that permit the pieces to move freely.

I really enjoyed solving Ace of Diamonds and found 2 solutions.  So there’s a double challenge for you.  I’m looking forward to seeing what’s in the cards for the future!

Blast-Hedron 4 & Blast-Hedron 6 – Nan Ma

These puzzles are a blast, figuratively, no literally, maybe a bit of both.  These are both a take-apart and a put-together challenge.  The AHA moment for solving this puzzle is awesome – if you know, you know, if you don’t, you don’t but you’ll love it when you do.  If you’re not in the know, you’re pretty much obligated to get at least one of these to join the knowers.  I used the term solving casually above since you’re only half-way there after you take it apart.  The second AHA (pronounced Uh-Oh this time) moment comes in play when you realize that you have to reassemble it.

I originally thought that the numbers in the names were associated with their placement in a series but quickly realized that it identifies the number of pieces in each puzzle.  BH4 is a regular octahedron, although it is rather special here, consisting of 4 pieces and BH6 is a truncated octahedron consisting of 6 pieces.  The pieces within each set are identical and remind me of flowers.  My wife said that it’s OK to leave those pieces laying on the living room table.  That’s one way to solve the reassembly problem.

Of course the elegant disassembly process does not require any external tools and I was specifically warned that this included fingernails.  So I dutifully cut my nails before taking these apart the correct way, AHA!

Assembly takes a little dexterity, but I didn’t really have an issue with either although BH4 is a little easier with only 4 pieces.  Both puzzles are 3D printed and operate exceptionally well.  Between the design and the implementation, I was impressed how impossible it seems to take them apart.  I believe that one of the contributing factors to how well it operates and feels is the addition of the extra inner shell.  And it certainly adds to the how nice the pieces look.  For the versions that I received, BM4 uses vibrant contrasting colors and BM6 uses color changing filament.  I think they both look fantastic and I still can’t decide which one I like best.

Even if you know you know, you may want to consider picking these up.  They’re really good!

2025 Puzzle – George Sicherman

I always start the year with a George Sicherman puzzle.  George has provided a New Year Puzzle since 2017.  This year’s New Year’s challenge utilizes 4 pentominoes to make a rectangle.  The pentominoes are P,L,T, and Y and together they provide PLenTY of challenges – 4 to be exact.  Each challenge is to build a rectangle with a specific number of holes in the interior of the rectangle.  0 holes, 1 hole, 2 holes, and 3 holes.  The holes can be any shape and separate holes may have touching corners.  And yes, you can turn the P, L, and Y pieces over to use their mirrored forms.  You can think of them as being 2-PLY.

Although not difficult, this puzzle provided a nice warm-up to a year full of puzzling.  It’s amazing how 4 simple pieces can be so engaging.  What surprised me most is that I solved them in order, 0 to 3 holes.  I assumed that after the solid rectangle, I would stumble on the others randomly but that was not the case.  It makes a nice to carry around in your pocket for challenging others.

New Tiles –  Frederic Boucher

There’s no getting around it.  New Tiles is a scary looking 2D packing puzzle.  Simple looking frame, simple looking pieces, exudes a sense of easy victory – all signs of a great challenge to a veteran puzzler, especially from a designer like Frederic Boucher.

Frederic Boucher originally designed New Tiles in 2016 but ramped up the difficulty for NYD’s release in 2021.  Comments from solvers on the MPD indicated that Frederic had successfully increased the challenge.  NYD is now releasing another run for those who may have missed out on the first one.

New Tiles has a classy look with it’s black and white motif.  It is made with laser cut acrylic with white pieces on a black tray with matte finish.  The name and logos debossed on the tray are highlighted in white to match the pieces.  The 9 pieces are rectangles of various sizes with 2 opposing corners chipped off to make the packing easier – Bwahahaha!

I was able to spend a little time working on New Tiles but can’t tell you how I solved it since I haven’t.  I can attest to the fact that Frederic has certainly made it challenging.  I’m looking forward to solving this one and will let you know when that happens.

Muñiz Bundle – Alexandre Muñiz

It’s simple math: 2, 2D packing trays + 4 sets of piece = 10 challenges.  How are they? –  They’re great!  How are they to solve? – Haven’t solved a single one.  Zip.  Well mostly zip.  I did get one of the warm-ups before the challenges.  Maybe it was a mistake to save these for last.

The Muñiz Bundle is made from laser-cut acrylic.  Each of the two 2D packing trays are white and support 2 different sets of pieces with the debossed names on the tray color-coordinated with with the pieces.  The smaller tray fits nicely in the larger one and each set of pieces comes in it’s own bag.  Each set of pieces also has an instruction card with the directions for the challenges.  The 4 sets are:

• Slash Mob
• Little Pypsum
• Big Pypsum
• Symmetrominoes

Slash Mob

Slash Mob consists of 8 red pieces that need to be packed in the smaller tray.  These 8 pieces are divided in half to provide 4 unmarked larger pieces and 4 smaller pieces marked with daggers.  All the pieces have angled cutouts in them that are addressed in the challenges.  They are also all cut off at an angle on one end through the cutout leaving one half of the cutout where the cut is.  For all the challenges the daggers must be face up.  The direction that they point in is not important.

Each of the challenges requires the configuration of the pieces within the frame to meet a symmetry constraint.  They are 1 – reflection symmetry along the vertical axis, 2 – reflection symmetry along a diagonal, 3 – 180 degree rotational symmetry.

 

Little Pypsum

Little Pypsum uses the same tray as Slash Mob.  You just need to rotate it 180 degrees.  It consists of 6 purple pieces divided into 4 L triominoes and 2 dominoes.  Each square of the pieces also has 0, 1, or 2 pips.  There are 2 challenges: 1 – pack the pieces so that each row and column has 3 pips, and 2 – pack all the pieces so that each row, column, and main diagonal has 3 pips.  Of course successfully completing the second challenge also completes the first.

 

Big Pypsum

Big Pypsum is the big brother of Little Pypsum and uses the larger tray.  It consists of 9 dark blue pieces with 4 L triominoes, 4 straights, and a single square.  Each cube of the pieces also has 0, 1, or 2 pips.  It works exactly like Little Pypsum except everything has to sum to 5.  So the challenges are now: 1 – pack the pieces so that each row and column has 5 pips, and 2 – pack all the pieces so that each row, column, and main diagonal has 5 pips.  And again, successfully completing the second challenge, completes the first.

Symmetrominoes

Symmetrominoes uses the same frame as Big Pypsum.  It consists of 12 pieces in 3 different colors with 4 pieces each, which are made from blue, green, and orange transparent acrylic.  Each set has 2 L and 2 Straight pieces.  No wait, The orange set is malconfigured with 3 L’s and 1 Straight.  Each piece also has laser-cut markings that are used to support the challenges.  These markings restrict how you can place a piece in the tray by requiring that all pieces of the same color have all their markings in the same orientation.  The markings are configured such that blue pieces can be rotated 180 degrees, green pieces can be flipped over but then need to be rotated 180 degrees to align the markings, and orange pieces can be flipped over but then need to be rotated 90 degrees to align the markings.

Symmetrominoes comes with a warm-up in addition to 3 challenges.  Normally I scoff at warm-ups but decided to try it anyway.  The warm-up was to simply pack the pieces in the frame ignoring colors and markings.  Did I mentioned that there was a malformed set resulting in an odd number of L’s and Straights.  After several minutes of being scoffed at by this warm-up, I finally had them all in the frame.  Whew!  At the conclusion of this grand success I was out of time and had to start thinking about putting out a blog.

The 3 main challenges for Symmetrominoes are: 1 –  Place all the pieces in the tray with the markings of the pieces of each set in the same orientation, 2 – Same as 1 with the pieces of each set forming a connected group, and 3 – Same as 1 with no 2 pieces of a set touching along an edge.

Although I didn’t get very far in solving the Muñiz Bundle challenges, I definitely think that they are well thought out and made.  There is a lot of value in this 10 challenge bundle and I’m looking forward to a deeper dive after this blog goes out.  These seem like they will be serious challenges.

A Great Start To A New Year – Nothing Yet Designs Collaboration

And now for something completely different.  This year, Nothing Yet Designs (NYD) has decided to provide copies of puzzles to ZenPuzzler for review prior to their release.  This is to inform puzzlers about the puzzles that will be available and continues the trend of NYD’s commitment to serve the puzzle community.  This blog introduces this new approach to be followed closely by the review of the puzzles that are planned for NYD’s first release of 2025 on 13 January.  Of course since these are reviews, you’ll be getting my extraordinarily perceptive and sage perspective on each puzzle.

Tye and Amanda have been busy over at NYD HQ this past year and recently posted some year-end statistics for 2024.  During the year, they grew the number of contributing designers and partners to bring 157 designs to the puzzle community.  This number does not include the International Puzzle Party (IPP) puzzles that they provided for exchangers or other one-off projects.  122 of these designs were made in-house by NYD and the remaining 35 were designed and produced by NYD’s expanding network of partners.

As part of this new collaboration, NYD has also provided ZenPuzzler with an affiliate link that followers can use to support the blog.  Whenever purchasing puzzles from NYD, using this link to go to the website will credit ZenPuzzler for use in acquiring additional blog subjects.  Of course, this will not cost you anything and will not taint my extremely unbiased, above reproach, and beyond understanding puzzle reviews.  The link is: https://www.nothingyetdesigns.com/?ref=ZenPuzzler

NYD’s first release for 2025 will be at 12:00 PM EST on 13 January 2025 to kick off the new year.  Mark your calendar.  The release consists of good mix of different puzzle types including 2D and 3D packing, tray packing, interlocking coordinate motion puzzles, and others from designers that you may recognize like Frederic Boucher, László Molnár, and George Sicherman, as well as designers that you may not be as familiar with such as Nan Ma and Alexandre Muñiz.  The release will include the following puzzles:

• 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
• New Tiles by Frederic Boucher

Since the puzzles for the first release have just recently arrived, the review will be completed and posted this weekend.

An Acute Case of Soma Mangling - Halfcut Soma

After seeing all the abused, mangled, and broken Soma variants that came out, László Molnár came to the conclusion that 90/90 is so 2020.  Using his acute sense of puzzle design mastery, he determined that something was wrong with the angles of these variants and decided that they couldn’t be right all the time.  Utilizing the rombic tetrahedra grid of BurrTools, he found a cut that was above the rest and created Halfcut Soma - once again proving the adage that you can still appear sharp even if you’re not right.

Like so many unfortunate Soma cube victims before, the design process commenced with picking on the smallest piece of the group.  The tri-cube was once again targeted and dissected into 6 pieces.  This time however, László cut the 3 cubes at 45 degrees before gluing each triangular half-cube to one of the other 6 pieces.  This could have been the end of it, but László obviously decided that this puzzle would be too easily solved by discriminating Soma puzzle enthusiasts who have been crunching through many variants over recent years.

Continuing on his 45 degree tangent, László decided to cut all of the pieces’ cubes at 45 degrees and throw half away.  Now each piece was made with only 5 triangular half-cubes.  Of course, now you can’t immediately identify which half-cube was the one that was added.  Each piece looks like it could have been derived from more than one of the original Soma pieces.

The objective of the puzzle remains to fit the pieces into a 3x3x3 space.  Of course, with all those half-cubes thrown out, there are a lot of holes in the resultant cubic space.  László also ensured that there was a single solution to maximize your enjoyment.

Solving the Halfcut Soma is a nice challenge!  Enough information is provided for you to solve it with a logical approach and a little experimentation.  Even so, it takes a while to warp your mind for working with pieces made with triangular segments instead of cubes.  Taking a logical approach is not mandatory and you’re welcome to disregard it and enjoy the puzzle for a longer time.