Cast Jam

<Apologies for the hiatus: been feeling rubbish and not doing a huge amount of puzzling – and the little grey cells were definitely not up to writing anything vaguely coherent or passably amusing! I trust both of my readers enjoyed the break.>

Cast Jam is the latest little Hanayama gem designed by Yuu Asaka, the designer of several most excellent acrylic packing puzzles.

Cast Jam presents you with a silver medallion with a curved path engraved into each side and a pair of golden handles that clearly engage in the paths… there’s a single exit on each side of the medallion, and your goal is quite clearly to remove the handles and then return the puzzle to its starting position with the two handles locked in place back-to-back at the top of the medallion. (The handles each have a flat side that needs to be together…)

While the start position appears to be right at one of the exits, Sod’s Law dictates that the other handle is in the way, and there doesn’t seem to be an easy way to get it out of the way… which is interesting.

Start fiddling around with the handles and you’ll find that you can pretty much position them just about anywhere along the paths, but taking them to the other end just presents you with a similar conundrum: sure there’s an exit path, but the wrong handle is in front… 

Great! Time to Think (c).

Somewhere around this time I spotted something interesting in the paths, and I thought I was onto something – so I did a thing and found myself in a really interesting position, where all of a sudden the precise geometry of the non-flat side of the handle was very clearly deliberate, and stopping me from doing what I wanted… so I could get around some of the hurdles I came across, but there was always one stubborn hurdle that refused to yield.

I spent a while exploring this new space – and there’s a lot to explore! You can really do some pretty darned whacky things, and some of them felt really promising, but ultimately I kept coming back to the same spot… and it wasn’t an exit path. 

One thing I noticed was that the design of those two paths is sufficiently similar to keep lulling you into a sense of security that you’re looking at the right maze, when in fact you aren’t! (Is it just me, or has our designer been really sneaky?)

Yet more Think (c) was duly engaged – reserves are severely depleted at this stage.

Surely there must be a way to think about this as some sort of shunting problem… but the key feature you need for that to work, clearly doesn’t… which is interesting, he says again.

And he’s right, it is, and it turns out to be the key to the puzzle. Think it all through and examine things really carefully and a new possibility opens up – pleasingly still requiring all of the unusual discoveries from my side trip up the blind alley.

I really like Cast Jam because it’s an honest, open puzzle. Nothing’s hidden away in the innards – it’s all on display from the get-go… but I’ll wager you a (modest) puzzle that you won’t spot it for quite a while and when you do, you’ll smile at the guile of Asaka-san.  

[Thanks to Steve for yet-again grabbing me a copy of the very latest Hanayama puzzle to keep my collection topped up!]

Lewis Evans’ Gordian Knot

About a year ago Lewis asked if he could borrow my copy of Stickman’s Gordian Knot so I posted it down to him… a short while later it was back home again with Lewis saying he’d really enjoyed the solve and he’d done all the measuring and 3D modelling he needed to…. Given how quickly it returned, I was pretty sure that he’d been thoroughly scared off by the project. That was my first mistake.

A couple of months later there were a few more questions and the puzzle duly did another round trip to Lewis’ workshop – Lewis doesn’t scare easily, and in September he was ready to begin taking pre-orders and I wasn’t going to miss out on this one.

My copy arrived in mid-December and it looks brilliant… while the original is covered in a lattice of different coloured woods, Lewis’version is all in a single colour with a bunch of cast metal accents strategically placed about the faces. The single colour does a great job of hiding the connections between the pieces and makes the sides look far more similar and harder to differentiate. (I’m sure that wasn’t intentional!)

Finding the way in is tricky, there’s a lot to explore and only so much of it is actually useful… as I played with it memories of solving the original definitely provided some inspiration, but my memory turned out to be somewhat foggy and it ended up taking me a long time to get through to the reveal and what would have been the final step on the original… let’s just pause here for a moment and remind ourselves of just what an awesome reveal that is… you’re playing with an intricate box when all of a sardine you’re presented with something that makes sense of some stuff you’ve found earlier and you find yourself thinking “surely not?”… when indeed…

That bit of the solve literally blows everyone’s mind and it’s a wonderful thing to see the look in puzzlers’ eyes when they twig what’s about to happen… Lewis’ copy does that just as brilliantly…

But then there’s more….

Rather than being the rather wonderful end to the journey, Lewis provides just a pause, before the journey continues…!

I spent a very long time not making any progress at this stage – I was certain I knew what I wanted to happen – I just couldn’t get it to actually do anything… I tried a bunch of different things, some of them several times hoping for a different outcome (yes, yes…) and then last Sunday, I gave it to Ali partially solved and asked him to help me… and a short while later I saw him doing something I hadn’t – because, well, why would you? Except it was definitely having an impact, and a positive one at that…

Ali had it open soon after that and we examined the innards and it was very clear why what I was trying was never going to work and what Ali was clearly doing "wrong", was in fact exactly what was required…

Lewis has added a brilliant twist to the end of the original – the first part of the solution follows the original faithfully, and the last bit is just excellent.

Kudos to Lewis for taking on this project and making an already excellent puzzle even better, and then bringing a whole bunch of new copies into the community – the world definitely needs more than the original 28 Gordian Knots…

Minima Smiley

If you’ve been reading my blog at all, you’ll have to have noticed that I’m a big fan of Frederic Boucher’s Minima series of puzzles. The tiny 2*2*3 form factor always feels approachable and necessarily requires a pretty small number of pieces. In spite of that they all provide a wonderfully unique solve experience… and a pretty decent challenge – to the extent that I have currently got a couple that have taken months of trying… one of them has remained unsolved for more than 6 months now… one of these days I’ll crack it!

Along the way, Pelikan offered Minima Smiley for sale and I probably would have bought a copy sight unseen, but seeing the cute little smiley faces they’ve individually handpainted is probably enough to make anyone pull the trigger and order a copy.

It’s faithful to the dinky form-factor and the good folks at Pelikan have produced a lovely-looking little puzzle, even before you manage to retrieve the little guy inside. There’s a pretty obvious bolt sticking out on one end and a couple of open panels where you might expect you could remove or manipulate the internals, and then there’s a little round window with a little yellow smiley face teasing you from inside. 

Frederic tells us this is his take on a mini sequential discovery puzzle and your aim is simply to remove the smiley fella.

Everyone’s probably going to start in the same place and then begin poking and prodding, and there is a little that can productively be done at this stage… but not a lot. Rather soon you’re going to find yourself thinking that things are all looking a little repetitive, and possibly even come to the conclusion that you’re going around in literal circles… and you may well be.

I thought I’d spotted some similarities to another puzzle I’d played with recently, but I couldn’t find a way to make that helpful… so I ignored that train of thought.

It took me a good while and a fair bit of Think(c) before I managed to stumble across something that provided a little more progress… heady with the success of said progress, I immediately found myself once more blocked at every turn. The progress felt so good, yet it seemed to merely tease at any potential further progress… more Think(c) required.

Some spatial visualisation and a little out of the box thinking provided the next breakthrough and then sure enough the little fella was duly perched on top of the box for a celebratory picture.

A good chunk of the reset sort of takes care of itself to the extent that you may well find yourself partially re-solving and resetting a few times.

Another delightful Minima puzzle from Frederic – it made me smile a few times along the solve – so you definitely achieved your goal of making this puzzler smile along the way! Nice one Frederic!!

 

Tricklock T14

I was lucky to get hold of a copy of Rainer’s latest creation from my usual source back in October last year… and until last weekend, it had me thoroughly beaten.

This thing is a beast – not just because it weighs 1.7kg(!) – in puzzling terms, it’s an absolute brute – it will make you sweat for every little step of progress. And I sweated a lot…

Rainer’s a playful soul – sometime his locks come without keys, sometimes they come with keys, as this one does, only there’s no keyhole… which is an interesting way to start!

I spent several sessions across many days of poking and prodding at various features with literally nothing to show for it by way of progress – sure there is stuff you can fiddle with – and it’s quite a satisfying little fiddle – it just doesn’t seem to actually bring about any sort of change in state…

…so I persisted until I chanced upon something that actually did bring some change – I’d hesitate to call it progress at this stage – but a bit more experimentation provides some definite progress – to the point that I have more pieces than I started with – that’s got to be progress, right?! [Well, it might be, or I’ve managed to break something… but this is from Rainer, so I know it ain’t broke!]

From there progress is slow and anything but steady… a number of times I make literally zero progress for weeks on end – one particular stage of the solve (you’ll know “the one”) provides plenty of mirth from my mates on my weekly puzzle call  when I’m forced to report nil progress for about six week on the trot… and not because I haven’t tried – I’m pretty sure that I know what I’m trying to achieve, I just can’t make the magic happen…

…but oh boy, when it finally does, it is awesome – every bit of frustration instantly forgotten – I’m smitten! 

But still there’s more – it might feel like you’ve conquered Everest, but somehow Rainer’s given you yet another peak to climb – thankfully this one doesn’t take me nearly as long… and I can send a pic of my freed shackle to my mates and thank them for their encouragement along the way.

Rainer’s craftsmanship is second to none – the tolerances are phenomenal – there are several surprises along the way that you don’t see coming because those secrets are so beautifully hidden. If a lesser mortal had attempted something as audacious as this, they wouldn’t have a hope in heck of pulling it off – Rainer grins and says “Hold my beer.”

T14 will surprise the most jaded of puzzlers out there – definitely not a simple solve, but one that will leave you with a huge sense of satisfaction!

Sniper Scope Puzzle

From the grande old school of “When life gives you lemons, make lemonade”, Engineer Bruns brings us his Sniper Scope Puzzle. I can’t imagine what the appropriate response is to having your country invaded and your home city bombed by a daft tyrant, but Bruns’ decision to bring us first the Bomb Destroyer and then this puzzle, makes for a very fine two-finger salute to said tyrant… and it turns out, it brings massive amounts of joy to puzzlers around the world.

Andriy Bruns, you are the man sticking it to the man. More power to your arm, sir!

Right – back to the puzzle – as you’d expect from the name, this one does a pretty respectable imitation of an actual sniper scope, from the hooded eyepiece to the multiple adjustment knobs – and somehow they all conspire to create an excellent little puzzle.

At the start of this solve you’ll probably find that optically, this scope is pretty useless – one end appears to have a plastic lens cap, and the other is black as night. Find your way past those obstacles and you can begin to solve its secrets. I got lucky when I spotted something interesting on one end, but the other end took me a while to “unlock”.

Being able to see a little of the insides definitely helps, but from there you’re in for quite a series of experiments and discoveries to work out what’s possible and what interacts with what… I spent an absolute age getting quite frustrated that things weren’t working consistently until I finally realised that I’d misunderstood something vital and there was still more to be discovered – trust the designer / craftsman!

Find a way to successfully navigate all of the challenges and you’re presented with a tiny shell as a final reward.

Resetting the puzzle is definitely not a trivial affair and it will absolutely test whether you’ve really understood what you did to solve it in the first place… (Not really a) Spoiler Alert: I hadn’t and got well-humbled a second time! … and now I love it – it has been wonderfully precisely made and it does behave perfectly reliably once you’ve worked out all of its secrets.

Even if you aren’t captured by the story behind this puzzle’s creation, it will still enchant you! It is great!

Free Me 9

Joseph Turner’s been producing excellent trapped coin puzzles for a while now… I’ve been lucky to have been gifted or acquired a couple of them so far, but I totally missed out on the first round of Free Me 9…

The sting was reduced a bit when I got to spend a little time with the copy in last year’s Design Competition, but I didn’t come close to solving it, and I realised I really wanted a copy, so I asked Joe nicely if he’d put me on a waiting list.

Just before Christmas Joe let me know my number was up and it duly arrived just before Christmas and disappeared under the Christmas tree… where it waited until we returned after Boxing Day and I got some time to play…

Free Me 9 is a nice slab of Cherry wood, I think – with a pair of dovetail ends and three generous holes displaying the two Kennedy half-dollars either side of Lady Liberty, providing the nickname “Two Guys and a Gal”. The clear aim is to release the three somewhat trapped coins.

There are a couple of interesting little holes that might yield some clues to the inner mechanism, if not to the means of manufacture. The coins are all readily accessible and they’ll spin on their axes quite happily, but they aren’t coming out for love nor money.

Finding the first (useful!) step is a lovely little “A-Ha!” moment – make a little progress and you’ll find yourself with some tools and your first coin… so far, so good.

Enter a little period of experimentation and finding new and creative ways for wielding those tools, and you’ll release your second coin – cue small celebration – in my case mainly because I’d now been able to replicate my progress in the Design Competition room…

I’d spent a while trying to make more progress and got to the point where I’d decided it was my bedtime and I had to give up on it… fast forward a few months and I now have my mitts on my own copy and it’s time for the puzzler’s revenge… only that sweet taste of victory turns out for be pretty darned elusive…

I end up spending quite a while over the course of several days before I finally manage to string the right sequence of “stuff” together to free that elusive lady.

Free Me 9 is epic… Joe’s really outdone himself on this one – there’s a lot to discover and he’s done an excellent job of giving you all of the tools you need - without you realising it! I love the fact that I was staring the final stages of the solution in the face for ages without realising what I needed to do.

Thanks for putting me on the list, Joe!