Jukebox

I was very chuffed to see Daniel Czuriga and Tibor Folytán’s Jukebox pre-orders go live a while back and I signed up straight away. I’d seen it at the Houston Design Competition but didn’t end up having a play with it… I had had heard several people saying some very positive things about it, including some folks whose opinions I will generally accept as being right on the money…. And then if I needed any further encouragement, it won the Jury Grand Prize.

It's a sizeable old lump of puzzle and from the comments in Houston, it was a pretty complex beast, so when the guys at Moontree announced they’d be making a few hundred copies, we all understood that this wasn’t going to be a simple process, or a quick one… I paid my deposit and waited my turn in the queue… and I suspect I was probably toward the end of the queue, which meant that my copy ended up arriving a few weeks before Christmas… when the house-rules dictate that it goes under the tree until Christmas… life’s tough, eh?!

First impressions are that the guys have gone to some incredible lengths on the packaging to make sure that their puzzles are going to arrive in pristine condition – there are several layers of packaging and boxes with the final layer cushioning the puzzle and it’s accompanying paperwork in a custom padded box that literally immobilises the puzzle in a safe cocoon… unless your delivery person sets fire to it, this one will arrive in perfect condition. (Great job. Thank you, guys!)

Jukebox is a generously sized puzzle that looks like an old Wurlitzer – you’re probably going to want to play on a desk or a table and it might be worthwhile using the included chamois to protect your desk! (It’s brilliant for removing grubby pawprints from your beautiful puzzle after solving too!)

The solve is long and complex (their conservative count is 15 steps) – and beautifully themed along the way – things all makes sense in the context of this being a Jukebox. The mechanisms are all positive – you’re never expected to do anything stupid or brave and tools are all perfectly suited to their task (and if you think they aren’t, try something different!). You’re going to go through all the things you’d hope to be able to do on a Jukebox and then at the end you’re rewarded with one of the best tunes ever.

It is an awesome puzzle that I will be sharing with lots of my mates – the engineering is excellent and it’s solidly made: everything’s going to behave perfectly for a long time. It’s clear why it won the Jury Grand Prize!

Here’s hoping that Daniel and Tibor don’t wait too long for a follow-up, if it’s anywhere near as good, we’re in for another absolute treat! Great job guys!

Minima Tokyo aka Jammed Coin

I picked up a copy of this gorgeous puzzle from Tye at IPP in Tokyo… given that I’m a huge fan of Frederic’s Minima series, I was always going to be interested, but finding out that it had been made by the guys at Ars AEnigmae added an extra reason for getting hold of one… and it is a thoroughly beautiful object.

It’s clearly larger than Tye’s other Minima’s (is that “’s” redundant?) but appears to be based on the usual 2*2*3 voxel-space – and a quick peak in one of the holes shows a Japanese coin trapped inside one of said-voxels – and that pretty much determines the eventual size of the puzzle.

There’s an obvious bolt screwed into one side of the box and a few holes showing some of the cubies inside the box – albeit none of them quite as interesting as that split cubie with a coin in the centre of it. Nothing seems to move at this point although a gentle shake of the object suggests there’s a lot more going on inside than you might have assumed.

Given there’s pretty much nothing else to do at this point, you might as well unscrew the bolt and that releases a piece to slide out through one of the holes – trust me – that’s not a spoiler… Removing that piece frees up some space in the interior and allows the remaining pieces to shift around a little… and if you contrive to hang some of the bits out through the windows, you can even try something more adventurous with those pieces, but if you’re anything like me you’re going to get sick and tired of the fairly limited possibilities.

I spent a couple of months with this puzzle mocking me on my desk – I’d pick it up and run through the things I knew I could do – yup they all still worked perfectly, and then I’d experiment with all sorts of other things I could think of… generally with zero progress.

During my Christmas break I finally managed to get some traction on this puzzle and as soon as I did, my jaw dropped and I knew this was going to become a favourite. There was quite literally something magical going on and the progress was thick and fast from there even though there were some very surprising steps in the solution.

Somewhere in the middle of all this there’s a dramatic change of gear as you realise that your goal is shifting and you have a new challenge to focus on – those latter stages make for an excellent sequential discovery puzzle on their own.

I took a very long time to solve this one – and a huge chunk of that is down to the excellent craftsmanship from the guys at Ars AEnigmae – if anyone had any concerns that the boys might struggle to keep up to Eric’s insanely high standards, this puzzle will thoroughly banish those concerns – they’re doing him proud!

If you can’t find a copy to buy (I think Tye sold out pretty quickly!), find one to borrow from a friend – it is excellent!

Happy New Year

 ...so the end of 2025 was all a bit rubbish for us and I didn't end up having enough time to pull together the traditional puzzle, but as I was putting together the Merry Christmas notice, it just didn't feel right to do nothing at all... so I spent a little while and hid a little challenge in there and didn't tell anyone about it. 

I was delighted a couple of days later when Brendan P reached out with the attached pic:

 

 

...apparently he's also a big fan of Hashimoto-san's 4L. 

 

Not believing that there really wasn't a puzzle, and thinking that my fonts looked a bit janky, he'd spent a while fiddling around in Photoshop and found my challenge: "Using the medium of TANGRAM, tell me what your favourite puzzle is." - it's a bit clearer in Brendan's edited version below: 

...some puzzles are winging their way to Brendan for his amusement. 

Wishing you a wonderfully puzzling 2026!