Entity Containment Device trilogy

[I have ZERO affiliation with Nothing Puzzles - I just like their work!] 

A while back I decided to take a bit of a punt on a Kickstarter from a new puzzle designer Down Under called Nothing Puzzles. The Entity Containment Device trilogy was pitched as a set of related puzzles leading to a final lock – it sounded intriguing enough at the time and the mock-ups looked pretty decent, so I thought “Why not?!!” Along the way a couple of fidget toys were added into the mix and the whole thing duly arrived a few weeks ago.

I was very impressed with the packaging – the outer carboard box looks brilliant and protects things in transit and inside there’s a custom-printed frame that supports all of the puzzles and stops them from bashing into one another during their postal adventures… everything arrived looking neat and tidy in their proper spots.

I got to spend a couple of hours playing through them recently and really enjoyed them… each of the puzzles is very nicely 3D printed and makes use of quite a lot of hardware to connect things and provide some puzzly elements… the printing is top-notch and the guys haven’t stinted on quality anywhere. Each of the puzzles has a good solid heft to it that inspires confidence and you know that things are just going to work properly when you’ve found the right way to attack each element of the series.

The three initial elements all stand on their own and can be tackled in any order. I chose to tackle them in numerical order just because I could, not due to any form of OCD whatsoever(!).

Each of the puzzles provides a really great solve journey: from trying to find anything that moves initially, then trying to get that to be vaguely useful, invariably finding some tools, some of which are obviously quite tool-y and some that may well be a little disguised, before dramatically disassembling things and wondering how the heck you’re going to remember where everything came from and in what order.

By the time you solve each of them you will have a goodly pile of pieces and a very clear key piece for that final lock. Collect enough of those and you can unlock the final lock and uncover a little unsettling twist in the tail… that’s not at all sinister.

One of the puzzles does an interesting little dance and sways this way and that while you’re manipulating things – it might feel a little chaotic but when you get it all open, I defy you not to marvel at the extent of the overengineering in there to make sure that everything stays properly in its lane and works just perfectly. The guys have done an excellent job of designing a fun set of puzzles and then properly overengineering things so that they’re going to carry on working perfectly through many, many rounds of solving.

I’m very glad I took a punt on these and will definitely be hopping on their next Kickstarter project.