A Nice Clean Look - Dirty Dozen

Last year, Puzzle Master decided to launch their first Kickstarter campaign with 3 puzzle designs.  If enough backers pledged to fund the development in return for receiving a copy of the final product, the production of the puzzles would be initiated.  I guess that the CA$66,880 pledged from 998 backers towards the goal of CA$9,000 was sufficient to convince them that these puzzles needed to be made. 

The 3 puzzles that were offered in the Kickstarter campaign were Dirty Dozen, Lattice, and Slideways.  Each of the puzzles is made in a striking color with anodized aluminum.  It should be noted that these puzzles are not unknown nor even unavailable.  I’m guessing that Puzzle Master pursued this Kickstarter campaign because they thought that they could make a highly attractive version at a very reasonable cost.  And they succeeded.

Slideways by Ray Stanton is a classic, and I included it in my pledge even though I already have a copy in wood.  My reasoning was to have a copy of this classic puzzle that I could hand to beginning puzzlers without having to worry about it.  These aluminum puzzles are nigh indestructible.  As such, it is beautiful and will serve that function well.  However, the anodized aluminum offers no friction and the puzzle falls apart too easily.  Even my 5 year old grandson didn’t seem to be too excited in being able to take this one apart.  Of course, he couldn’t get it back together, but he’s only 5 and the Slideways box had a big 6 on it.  Maybe next year. Sometime in the future, I’ll have a post on Slideways and Slideways deviants (the puzzles not the people that play with them).

The other 2 puzzles, Dirty Dozen and Lattice, are board burrs designed by Jerry Loo.  I’ve solved Dirty Dozen and have yet to tackle the scary looking Lattice, which I’ll discuss in a future post after I get it back together.

Dirty Dozen was manufactured using a bright orange color that looks fantastic.  The pieces also have a pleasant weight to them and the lack of friction that I disliked with Slideways, works very well here.  Several questions usually run through my mind when I see a puzzle like this: Do the pieces come out one at a time or do they come apart as connected subsets? Do the pieces peel off the ends or do they get pulled out of the center?  Will the pieces have to be rotated?  To be honest, all these questions were answered during the disassembly and I would have had to wait years before reassembly if wanted to attempt it with a clean state.  I only waited a couple of months.

Although 12 pieces is a lot for this type of puzzle, they are all identical, which makes the puzzle much easier.  The way that I tackled the assembly was to think about this 12-piece puzzle as a set of 3 interacting rings: an outer ring, a middle ring, and a center ring.  The outer ring can be constructed in 8 different ways but using the properties of the pieces, all but 2 can be eliminated as invalid when considering how additional pieces can be added.  The 2 remaining possibilities provide mirror symmetric solutions.  The middle ring has the same properties as the outer ring.  The inner ring can be made 4 different ways and only one of them is valid when considering how other pieces would be added.

Ignoring mirror symmetry, there are 2 assemblies for this puzzle, but only one can be constructed.  That’s a 50% probability of getting it right.  During the assembly process, there will be a point where you can go one of 2 ways.  One way heads towards the solution and the other heads towards the unsolvable assembly.  Please don’t let this description make you feel cheated out of a wider assortment of faux paths.  They’re there if you want to really want to travel along them.

With the results of the ring analysis and the recollection of how the puzzle came apart, I had no problem putting it back together.  On my second reassembly attempt, I ended up unable to get the last 2 pieces in and realized that I was working on the unsolvable assembly and had to back up to the fork and take the other path, which doesn’t take much time.  Puzzle Master gives Dirty Dozen a rating of 9 out of 10 in difficulty.  It is certainly no higher than 9 and might even be considered an 8. 

The packaging for this puzzle was new and much more appreciated than the dreaded clam shell packaging.  I’ll certainly be keeping these boxes.  The boxes for all 3 puzzles are the same size with a different color trim on each.  Each puzzle was nestled in a molded piece of foam.  The only thing that I couldn’t understand is why the thick piece of foam backing was only on 1 side of the puzzle leaving the puzzle pressed against the box on the other side.  It seems to me that the backing should have been split with one half on each side.  Except for that minor point, the packaging was well done.

If you are interested in a lattice puzzle, I highly recommend starting with Dirty Dozen.  It’s very attractive, feels good in the hands, moves well, and isn’t very difficult.  You can get a copy at Puzzle Master here.  Lattice and Slideways are available as well.

At some puzzle parties, there seems to be a tradition of dissassembling a batch of puzzles and mixing the pieces up to provide a greater reassembly challenge .  Since I received 3 puzzles at the same time, I thought that I would give that a try and dissassembled all 3 and mixed up the pieces before reassembling them.  Although, I still need to assemble Lattice, separating the pieces was a piece of cake and I don't really see what the big deal is. 😇


For a preview on Lattice, It didn’t take long to take apart but it is much more complex and fortunately, or unfortunately, I won’t be able to remember anything about the disassembly.  Although it only has 8 pieces, it is a lot more intimidating than Dirty Dozen.

Food For Thought - Bitten Biscuits

Who would have thought that a puzzle based on half eaten food would be an award winning design.  However, at IPP36, 3 biscuits with 2 bites each won a Jury Honorable Mention award.  This puzzle, designed by JinHoo Ahn, was Bitten Biscuits.  It was made from African Sapele.  No, that’s not a type of flour, it’s a type of wood.

One of my friends said that he walked up to Bitten Biscuits on the competition table, had a thought, and solved it immediately.  He was not impressed.  Similarly, I walked up to the table, played around with it for a bite, and was not impressed either.  However, my friend was not impressed with the puzzle and I was not impressed with my inability to solve it.

Although I dedicated a good amount of time in the IPP competition room to solve it, I failed and had to move on to the many other alluring puzzles available with the hope of acquiring a copy later on.  Later on turned out to be much later on.  When ordering puzzles from Puzzle Master last year for the Puzzle-A-Month Challenge, I noticed that they now offer Bitten Biscuits.  You could get it either in laser cut wood or laser cut plexiglass.  Although I prefer wood puzzles, I usually opt for plexiglass with laser cut puzzles.  And who could resist the glowing orange color of the pieces.

As with many of these types of problems, you look at the solution and say to yourself: “It’s so obvious, why did it take me so long to solve it”.  I think my biggest stumbling block was that it looked so innocuous, I tried to solve it by simply playing with the pieces instead of analyzing it.  A little bit of analysis can point you in the right direction.  I sat down with this one several times before finally giving it a deeper look and solving it.

Gaah!!! I looked at the IPP design competition entry description and saw that the puzzle had 2 solutions!  Back into the fray I went and pulled out a second solution rather quickly.  My experience with finding the first solution yielded the second solution without requiring further analysis.

I normally don’t look at solution sheets but since I found both solutions and a solution sheet was included, what could it hurt to verify the solutions.  I pulled out the solution sheet and sure enough, What?! - only one of my solutions was there and the other was different.  My first solution, which I strived so hard to discover, was not considered a solution.  However, it looked close enough to me and I’m rather fond of it.

The following hidden photo shows my non-solution.  Feel free to squint and tilt your head as needed to see the symmetry.  If you are interested in solving Bitten Biscuit yourself, DO NOT SHOW THE IMAGE.  It will provide too much of a clue on how to find the approved solutions.

*** SPOILER - Bitten Biscuit Non-Solution Image - SPOILER ***

If you would like to tackle this one yourself, it is available at Puzzle Master in wood or plexiglass.

Playing With Fire - Oskar’s Matchboxes

Where do you keep your matches?  If you’re a puzzle collector, you keep them in Oskar’s Matchboxes.  To help you store your matches, every 5 years Eric Fuller releases a run of Oskar’s Matchboxes: 2005, 2010, 2015, and now planned for 2019.  I guess that we have a lot of impatient matchstick holders that can’t wait until next year.

If you couldn’t guess from the title, the Matchbox Puzzle was designed by Oskar van Deventer. With the new batch planned to be released soon at Cubicdissection, I decided to pull my copy out and revisit it.  The hardest part was finding it.  It was in the last box that I looked in (Have you ever really appreciated how useless some statements are?  Of course, it was in the last box I looked in.)  My version is not a work of art, lovingly crafted by the cognoscenti of wood manipulation, but the version made by Philos, which is a decent looking fully functional version.  The main difference is that the drawers of the Philos version are just solid blocks and can’t store matches.  The puzzlewillbeplayed site also illustrates the drawers as blocks with the side representing the open part of the drawer facing up in the images according to the version made by Cubicdissection.

The puzzle is not that difficult and takes 5 to 10 minutes to assemble.  This is definitely an assembly puzzle, so if you receive it assembled, have someone else take it apart.  The orientation of the pieces has a certain property that makes assembly a quicker process.  No, I’m not going to tell you what that is.

The real challenge is to figure out how to put the matches in without spilling them everywhere.  Since the puzzle doesn’t come with matches, try ball bearings instead for a little more fun.  It is definitely possible to accomplish this task.  However, there are 2 solutions: one that allows you to fill the boxes as you are putting them together and one that doesn’t.  Don’t blame me for all those ball bearings rolling around on your floor.

Can you make a matchbox puzzle with more than 5 matchboxes?  I’m glad you asked – Yes.  In fact, in 2015 Eric Fuller released Matchbox Play 6, designed by Olexandre Kapkan, and consisting of 6 matchboxes.  Unfortunately, I have not had the opportunity to play with this version, but Cubicdissection indicates that there are multiple solutions and that it’s easier than Oskar’s original 5-piece design.  Maybe I’ll glue up some matchboxes and give it a try.

If you miss the opportunity to get a copy of Oskar’s Matchboxes from Cubicdissection, you could always get the inexpensive Philos copy from Puzzle Master.  You can find it here.

I’ve Been Framed - Quadripole

Puzzles are a concoction of many things, and there are 2 things that when combined always excite me.  They are Stéphane Chomine and Brian Menold.  Combining these 2 always results in a winning combination.  They are great by themselves and even greater together.

This was once again confirmed with Quadripole from Wood Wonders.  It was designed by Stéphane in 2012 and made by Brian in 2018.  It is a level 22.9.3.2 puzzle consisting of 4 pieces captured within a frame.  The objective is to remove the pieces and then reassemble them back into the frame.  The puzzle is beautiful with Pink Ivory pieces and a Catalpa frame.

There are several things that I like about the design.  The first is the simplicity of the frame.  There are no additional fixed cubes blocking movement within the frame.  It is the same on all sides, so the orientation of the pieces to the frame doesn’t make a difference.  I consider this more elegant than frames that have internal obstructions added to increase the level of difficulty.  I also like how the puzzle only has 4 pieces that get inserted within the frame.  It makes it seem innocuous with only 4 pieces (some puzzlers never learn).

Some of you may be saying to yourself: that puzzle was released by Wood Wonders a year ago, why is he blogging about it now?  There are several reasons for that and here is the short version of that story.  After ordering the puzzle, it joined the backlog of puzzles to be solved.  I have 2 types of puzzles in my collection: those that have been solved and those that have yet to be solved.  Both sides of my collection seem to be expanding. 

Shortly after receiving the puzzle, Brian sent out an email indicating that one of the pieces may be missing a cube and if it was, he would send a replacement.  Very kind of Brian to offer to make the puzzle potentially more difficult than it already is.  This is why I like dealing with people like Brian.  Not only do you get quality workmanship, but he stands behind his work.  This prompted me to take the pieces out and examine them and sure enough, I was missing that extra cube.

After receiving the updated piece, the unassembled puzzle sat on a shelf in the dinning room for several months.  This is not unusual in our home since I like to disassemble puzzles and let them sit for a month or 2 (or 3 or 4 or 5 or … you get the picture) to provide enough time to forget anything that I may have learned from the disassembly process.  For Quadripole, I successfully remembered nothing!

After enough brain cells died off, I sat down for several hours on several occasions attempting to get this puzzle back together.  Normally, when working with the pieces, I get a sense of how they interact with each other and can put those working relationships together to form a solution.  For instance, one of the pieces could only exist within the frame with 2 orientations, so there were only two sets of potential solutions to search through.

Unfortunately, I was unable to uncover the solution by examining the piece relationships and had to resort to a brute force look at all possible piece position/orientation combinations.  While doing this, I discovered some potential relationships that I have not noticed before and soon had the pieces back in the frame.  Solved!

But wait a minute!  It felt like one the moves that I used near the end, may have required a little tilting motion to insert the final piece.  It was so minor that I checked it several times to convince myself that it was indeed a rotation.  I didn’t remember seeing any reference to a rotation and checked the box that the puzzle came in.  The nice thing about this box is that Brian included a label with a picture of the puzzle along with a description.  Sure enough, no reference to a rotation.  I also noticed that the label indicated that it takes 22 moves to remove the first piece and I didn’t feel that it took me that many moves.  Sure enough, I checked my solution and not only did it have a rotation, but it only took 14 moves to remove the first piece.

It turns out that I stumbled upon the secret 2nd solution only encountered by the mystic puzzlers of …. After I finished daydreaming, I plugged the puzzle into BurrTools to verify the stated 22.9.3.3 difficulty, and sure enough, it was quickly validated.

In the end, it looks like there are 2 solutions to Quadripole; a level 22 rectilinear solution and level 14 rotational solution.  I would have preferred that there wasn’t a second solution, but to be honest, I was in need of some level of accomplishment when I stumbled upon the rotational solution.

Thanks again to Stéphane and Brian for another fine masterpiece!

Quadripole II?

After putting Quadripole back together, I felt compelled to pull the Beta Funzzle puzzle out of the to-do pile since various references have indicated that Beta, designed by Mr. Y Gong, is similar to Quadripole.  Puzzle Master, the exclusive distributor of Beta, indicates that it is a variant of Quadripole on their website.

Funzzle Beta is made from Bamboo and is attractive enough.  Puzzle Master rates it at a level 10, which is highest on their level of difficulty and well deserved.

So how do the designs for Quadripole and Beta compare?

Quadripole (left) and Beta (right) Frames

Frame – Quadripole has a frame that is open on top and bottom and pieces can move in and out of both sides.  Beta uses a box with only the top open for pieces to move in and out although it includes a hole in the bottom to help manipulate the pieces.  The box also includes a couple of internal obstructions and some half block notching on the lip trading off elegance for additional complexity.  I did like how the top of the box had an engraving of the piece locations although there are so many moves for assembly/disassembly, it may not be that useful.

Beta (left) and Quadripole (right) Pieces

Pieces -  The Quadipole pieces are of length 4 and the Beta pieces are of length 3 although they utilize half cubes and notches, so you could say they are of length 6.  To be honest, if I hadn’t heard that one was a variant of the other, I wouldn’t have noticed a similarity.  Even after comparing the pieces, they seem dissimilar enough to me.

Complexity – As already mentioned, Quadripole has a complexity of 22.9.3.3, while Beta has a complexity of 43.4.3.3!  (No, that’s not a factorial).  That’s an impressive amount of moves to take out that first piece and it is an amazing process to go through.

Overall Design – I found the Quadripole design attractive due to the elegance of its design and at level 22, I believe that it is approachable to a large segment of the puzzle community.  Beta on the other hand trades elegance for complexity, but Oh what an amazing dance it provides.  At level 43, it may be out of the reach of many but well worth watching in Burr Tools.

I can’t recommend the mass marketed Beta puzzle because this Funzzle was not fun.  The pieces were fiddly and attempting to move them around was just frustrating.  I quickly gave up trying to solve the puzzle and entered the puzzle in BurrTools.  Even following the steps with BurrTools was frustrating with the quality of the pieces.  However, if a nicely working version ever becomes available, it may be well worth acquiring.

You can read about Kevin’s take on Beta here and Gabriels impression here.