Bomb Destroyer Puzzle

I’ve never particularly thought of myself as a pacifist, but somehow I just instinctively don’t like to be around guns or other sorts of weapons… and yet recently I found myself wanting to buy a little bomb-shaped puzzle to show my support for Engineer Bruns – a peace-loving, puzzle-making guy from Ukraine. Bruns’ videos of making his puzzles always made me smile, he has a great sense of humour and it really comes through in his videos…

…but then his country got invaded and his videos were absolutely gut-wrenching, his pain was clear and visceral, and I wanted to show some support for him, because, quite incredibly, he’s continued to make puzzles and even cranked out a new design with a nod to the invasion – Bomb Destroyer Puzzle.

I ordered a copy, happy to wait for as long as it took – but it really didn’t take long to arrive at all.

It’s a neat little cartoonish bomb – with a brass nose and an aluminium body… some bits spin around, but nothing seems to do anything useful at all.

Your mission is to find the Skynet coin from the future… and it is a great mission, with several very distinct steps to be traversed. The first is well hidden, the second confusing, the third is my favourite: a clever mechanism that is perfectly executed with some excellent workmanship, and the last is a wonderfully tactile experience…

…and the Skynet coin from the future is always a great reward – I love this puzzle, even if it looks like a bomb, because it speaks of defiance against tyranny and the hope of a little puzzle bringing joy against the grim misery of encroaching war.

My wish is that the puzzles will always win.

In Bruns’ own words: “I wish peaceful skies to all of you, and I want that you can see war only in fantastic movies or virtual games.”