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!