I'm a Sucker For Punishment

Now THAT'S what I call a disentanglement puzzle!

I cannot resist disentanglement puzzles - I even think that after all these years I might actually be moderately mediocre at them. When my friend in Azerbaijan, Namick Salakhov, contacts me with a puzzle offer, the answer is always YES! Last year (2018) he had 2 entries in the IPP puzzle design competition and I had already bought and solved the amazingly complex Loopy Lattice puzzle and had asked for a copy of his other entry that year. These puzzles are terribly difficult to make and hence the wait can be prolonged. After a year this little rather enormous beauty arrived. Called the Quadrupled Quadlooplet puzzle, there are 2 challenges:

• Start with the looped rope threaded through adjacent holes of the core plate. Release the rope, and then return it to the starting position.
• Start with the looped rope threaded through opposite holes of the core plate. Release the rope, and then return it to the starting position.

Namick says that it is not as tough as the other and I am hoping that it is true as the Loopy Lattice took me months to solve.

Also arriving just this week were a lovely bunch of new disentanglement puzzles from my amazing friend Aaron Wang. He designs and makes the most incredibly difficult puzzles. He has been busily working away with a number of other Chinese designers and has just released a bunch of new ones which I couldn't resist:

Aaron's entry in the 2019 design competition has multiple challenges and looks horrific. Goetz has said that it is not too bad but my preliminary fiddle has led absolutely nowhere at all!

These are the only ones without string but I suspect are still very tough (after all, they are rated as level 10!)

The original Clover puzzle was terribly difficult - the addition of an extra loop can only make it harder (level 10+)

Aaron himself has stated that the Grenade puzzles are both very difficult (the first one has 4 challenges - I will be happy with solving just 1)

To make it harder there is a split loop and 2 balls to prevent movement - OMG!

No-one likes going to the dentist and I suspect that will be the case here - another level 10+

Holy crap! Just look at the length of the string on that! It doesn't bode well for an easy solution!

All of these (and a few more) are available just now for you to buy on Puzzle Paradise - the craftsmanship is excellent and Aaron is great to deal with.

I am a Holistic Puzzler - Wood AND Plastic

Juno's latest

Of course, when Juno puts out an update we all pay attention - especially these two puzzles. The Slammed car is a sequential discovery puzzle with multiple steps - the aim is to reveal the contents of the car - I think he is having a dig at me with what he has put inside (even if I have not gotten into the cavity yet). The Grooved board burr number 3 is like the previous 2 but a whole lot more! It looks amazing.

Sequential movement puzzles from Diniar Namdarian

To prove that I pay attention to all the new puzzles, I did buy the latest from Diniar. I am awful at sequential movement puzzles but I do love to try them. The advantage of these is that there are pdf booklets which have multiple challenges for most of them. Wonderful stuff!

Something Totally New To Me

After seeing my friend Nigel rave about the Double Cube on Facebook a month or so ago, I could not resist and after a bit of a search managed to import a copy (plus the Lucky cube which looks like a Yoshimoto cube) - these are made by Hanayama and seem to be limited to the Japanese market - there is almost no English on the packaging or the instruction/challenge booklet.

There are multiple challenges to each to form various shapes - apparently one or two of these challenges are incredibly difficult. This is a totally new challenge for me and I am greatly looking forward to it - hopefully, I can find some time soon.

Most of you will have noticed that Brian and Eric had some updates to their stores recently - I couldn't resist and I bought a few things...much to the disgust of Mrs S.

Penultimate burrset - The challenges are hidden inside

Stand By cube #4

I got my 4th burrset from Eric and am kinda hoping that no more are released plus the Stand by cube is the 4th from Gregory Benedetti (the first 3 were huge fun - reviewed here).

Layer cake - a burr in rings by Jose Diaz

GalacTIC - so tough it was sent out assembled

I lurve gorgeous wood and burrs and even more so, I lurve Turning Interlocking Cubes - the recent update from Brian had 4 of them - I could not resist!

FanaTIC	LunaTIC
PackTIC #5	PackTIC #7

OMG! I cannot wait to get to these!

Mathematical Madness and More Packing Challenges

Will I ever solve this? Probably not!

I just received a copy of the Hoffman packing puzzle from Tom Lensch. The aim is to pack twenty-seven blocks, measuring A x B x C into a cubic box with sides of A + B + C. A, B and C must be different and the smallest dimension must be larger than (A + B + C) / 4.

Tom has made this absolutely beautifully and the names of all 27 different kinds of wood have been engraved onto each one. I purchased the clear box too to show it off when (if) successfully packed!

Pack 012

Continuing the amazing challenges by Osanori Yamamoto, I could not resist the Pack 012 puzzle. Just 3 very simple pieces into a rather constrained space - how hard can it be? GULP!

The Pièce de Résistance!

Mrs S has been very tolerant with the enormous torrent of new acquisitions recently and to top it all off she has allowed/bought for me the pinnacle of my puzzle collection. This is to mark our upcoming 25th Wedding anniversary...yes, I survived that long! I have been allowed one - JUST one - Miguel Berrocal puzzle sculpture. The one I have always wanted which fits with my medical background (and first-class honours degree in Anatomy) is the Goliath opus 114.

It was purchased with fantastic service from Edward at Art45 Ltd and arrived earlier this week - I have put it on display but not had any time to explore the disassembly yet.

The Cube Madness Continues

Mokum

My name is Kevin and I am a "CUBOHOLIC"!

Yes, I admit it, I am addicted to gorgeous cubes - this time they came from my friend Alfons Eyckmans. He is a brilliant designer and his craftsmanship is amazing! He showed off a bunch more interlocking burr-like cube puzzles on his Facebook page and after drooling for a while I placed an order. He makes them by hand and to order so it took a few weeks before some PayPal was needed and Mrs S was taken aback by yet another large box.

I think she was quite justified in asking whether these cubes were different from all the other cubes that I had in my collection. I reassured her that they were totally different and the anger subsided - phew! Violence averted!

Embarrassingly there might have been 5 of these beauties in the package:

Terrax

Mad Max

Kalinka

Capricorn

At roughly the same time I might also have received a couple of extra cubic puzzles from Yavuz Demirrhan's Cubozone store. The Maze cube was gorgeous and irresistible!

Front view

Even the back is stunning!

The aim is to manipulate the maze cube so that it is flush into the frame.
Then an interlocking puzzle called Kubikub 2 was also gorgeous and remarkably good value:

Kubikub 2

A New Metal Puzzle Producer?

3 Gorgeous metal beauties from Jon Keegan

I saw in the last IPP design competition that someone seemed to be trying to emulate my good friend William Strijbos. There were new puzzles entered manufactured beautifully from aluminium. One was very reminiscent of the Angel box and the Pachinko box. I had to have a try at these. After a few emails, some rather eyewatering PayPal changed hands and I received 3 beauties. Not had time to investigate much but they look and feel fabulous. I have to say that Jon's presentation is absolutely fabulous - they arrived in a big well-padded box and each puzzle was also beautifully boxed:

Beautifully presented

These are very complex puzzles - I hope to write a review in due course but need to solve them first - no solution is provided!

4 Deliveries In One Go!

Yes, it's another Stickman!

Mrs S was unimpressed (maybe even slightly miffed) to have to answer the door for 4 deliveries on Friday! The most impressive of them is the Stickman Dwemer puzzlebox - it is huge and beautiful and I have absolutely no idea what do do with that complex mechanism. That should be a lot of fun.

4 Turning Interlocking Cubes from Brian Menold

Andrew Crowell has been designing TICs like they have gone out of fashion and the reports are that they are amazing - I certainly loved the GiganTIC from last year. Brian released another four and sent 3 of them to me in the disassembled state. I am awful at assembly puzzles so this may be a huge challenge.

Stretchy 12 Burr

This is one of Juno's latest which I really could not resist. Stunningly beautiful too.

Coordinate motion puzzles from Lee Krasnow

Lee's Barcode burr and variants that he released recently has been a huge hit - it included a coordinate motion version called the Coordicode burr which I loved. He has gone on to make a whole bunch of other coordinate motion versions and I bought the sets with just 2 cubes. We have the GreenCode burrs (1-4), the CrossCode burrs (1-4), the PurpleCode burr and GoldCode burr. I cannot wait to get stuck into these.

There might be more on its way. Whack! Ouch!

Puzzleisure Continues to Make Gorgeous Toys

Hydrant

I received a copy of the Hydrant puzzle from Stephan Baumegger last week. The beautifully turned wooden puzzle was a winner of a Top 10 Vote Getters award at the IPP38. The challenge is to find the firehose. It is absolutely stunning as is all of Stephan's work and I am enjoying playing with and exploring it.

There was also a copy of his Exchange puzzle, Goodie, in the package. It is a dissection of a 5x5 cube which needs to be assembled and looks rather tough to me! When I first took the pieces out of the plastic box for a photo, I could not get them to fit back in again!

Goodie

Thank you, Stephan!