MPP XXXXCIIIIV

Another solo MPP with no residential visitors and by the time I’ve stopped at the shops to grab the drinks and milk, there are already a couple of familiar faces inside the hall and the chairs and tables are already neatly laid out – Steve and Phil have done an excellent job under Mike’s no-doubt strict oversight - thanks chaps!

We grab the gear and grub out the car and get the kitchen set up and the puzzles laid out: I’ve brought along a tub of 3D printed bits for Derek’s balls – aka Mr Bosch’s sphere assemblies - in various sizes for folks to have a bash at. There’s also a few new Karakuri acquisitions and a bunch of Bennos that have just arrived…and I can’t resist taking along Minima XIII just in case anyone hasn’t had a play with that one yet. 

Ali and the girls arrive and they set up camp at the back of the hall where they proceed to amuse themselves pretty much the entire day, inexplicably without any puzzles!  

Robin arrives with a bit of a fanfare, and a couple of huge 3D printed balls which he is duly goaded into rolling the length of the hall to see if they’ll spontaneously disassemble – they remain intact so some subsequent disassembly is required.

Knowing that I’d missed out on the Karakuri Skull from the recent update, Fraser’s brought along his copy for me to have a play with and I have a grand old time fiddling with it – the theming is lovely and it’s a fun solve – this looks like a promising start for newcomer hakuu!

Fraser’d also brought along a copy of the rather nutty musical cube – where each face has whistles with a common pitch – so in order to solve the cube you’re obliged to whistle a convoluted cacophony along the way – several folks admired it during the day but I don’t remember hearing anyone trying to solve or scramble it…

Ethel arrives with several large crates full of puzzles that we help her set out for the assembled puzzle-gannets to rifle through. She’s brought a shopping bag along for me with a bunch of things she’s agreed to sell me. Pretty much everyone has a rake through the crates and most end up taking a few things off her… and in spite of already having a bag-full, I have a rifle and end up with one of Gary’s impossible objects and a pair of jars with Hanayama’s assembled inside of them – one of which will replace one of my Japanese exchange puzzles that didn’t quite manage to get home in one piece (so I have a doubly impossible broken jar with a Cast Vortex inside of it that still won’t come out, either through the top of the jar or the hole in the side of it!).

Fraser and Steve had independently brought along a large pile of the Hayduck’s Decorative puzzles and several of those got a good playing with. They are beautifully made and have such luxurious and tactiles pieces that it’s easy not to think of them as jigsaw puzzles.

We descend on the village, and several pig rolls, a few kebabs and a vegan wrap are duly acquired and scarfed back at the hall. (No vegans knowingly harmed in the process – promise!)

Steve had brought along his copy of Juno’s Snub Star for the experts to assemble and thoughtfully not brought the instructions… there was an initial inspection of the (60!) pieces before they abandoned the idea until I’d managed to make a trip home to collect my set of instructions – when those duly arrived Chris and Dan appointed themselves chief assembleators with Steve supplying (sometimes) the right pieces for them. 

Things started in a fairly amusing manner with the assembleators furiously shunning external aids like masking tape to hold pieces in situ – resulting in some rather amusing pictures of Dan inserting bits while Chris attempted to hold things together. Once they got past that it was fairly plan sailing with only a few bits of back-tracking when bits hadn’t been inserted in the correct direction or in quite the right holes – they were pretty proud of their work when the key piece finally went in… and I suspect that Steve was mighty grateful!

Several folks spend a while assembling various incarnations of Derek’s Balls – some masking tape is sacrificed in order to retain some element of puzzler sanity – perhaps I should have brought more masking tape – time will tell… at least a few sets of nested balls and one or two singles end up going into the wild and I still have a few spares to take along to King’s Day next weekend.

I get to spend a while playing with Chris’ copy of Idan’s I Need My Lunch and get almost nowhere… I manage to remove one bit, but can’t get it to release any more of its secrets. While I’m fiddling with it, I am able to notice one or two absolutely fantastic bits of machining – you know the sort of thing where you wonder something to yourself and then notice that that thing will in fact do that rather unusual thing you’ve imagined it might be able to… this one is clearly an absolute ripper and I’m going to need to get myself a copy – even if that means it ends up kicking my ass for an age (or three!).

Almost everyone heads back up to Puzzling Times Central where the hounds are glad to see old friends and new shoes. Most people dig into the puzzle cave and come out with something interesting, some end up chatting in the kitchen and everyone seems to be having a fine old time.

I decide it’s time for a major break with tradition(!) and order a pizza delivery instead of heading down to the chippy for fish suppers… there doesn’t seem to be much disappointment and there’s not a huge amount of pizza left (especially after we manage to convince someone to take the last half a pizza home with them at the end of the night).

One of our smaller MPPs, but definitely another excellent day with my puzzling friends – thank you all!

 

Jammed Gem Again 3D

A few weeks ago Tye sent me an advance copy of Jammed Gem Again – a new production of Frederic Boucher’s 2024 Jury Honourable Mention award-winning design now being made by Joshua Clouser.

I didn’t get to play with it in the Design Competition (too busy chatting with my puzzling friends from around the world!) so I was chuffed to be able to have a go at it in the calm surroundings of my study. The family resemblance is clear: there’s a box with pieces inside it based on a 2*2*3 internal space. Some of the pieces are visible through holes in the side, but they don’t really seem to be able to move much at all… which is interesting. You’re also aware that this is probably going to be a little more than just a “pack the pieces in the box” or “get the pieces out the box” puzzle, given that you’re being asked to find a few gems, your number and a secret message… and the magical phrase “sequential discovery” has also been noted somewhere in the description – all of which, coupled with the designer’s name, should be more than enough to pique any puzzler-worth-their-salt’s interest.

Mine certainly was, so I dived in soon after it arrived. It has a pleasing heft to it – it feels like it’s probably not going to succumb to some enthusiastic puzzlers’ ham-fisted attempts at doing the wrong things… which is a very good thing as I can be quite ham-fisted! An initial inspection shows up a couple of things that are sure to be interesting at some point, but are more or less impossible to use at this stage…

A little more investigation and I managed to unlock a couple of tools that immediately felt really helpful… and I really enjoyed playing with them all over the place, but sadly my progress ended up being somewhat blocked… and it remained thusly blocked for more than a week – and not because I wasn’t trying to make progress! I ended up running through my full gamut of “let me try this”s and “I wonder if there’s a that” – and when they didn’t work, I tried them all again, this time with more enthusiasm… the puzzle held firm and I was still blocked.

And I stayed blocked until a kindly Tye asked how I was doing and what I thought, so I told him what I’d done and I could sense the disappointment in his response – he told me he was surprised I hadn’t made another discovery yet… so while I explained that I’d tried moving everything that I could get to and to prove my point I ran around them all one more time, only to find something different happening… which was particularly galling as I know I’d tried that exact thing many times already and it hadn’t given me anything… turned out I hadn’t – I’d missed a spot, so to speak.

Armed with a new and intriguing tool I knew exactly what I wanted to do and with a bit of a fiddle I began to grow my little pile of bits and pieces deep from within this puzzle.

At one point I really began to fear that I’d never find homes for all of these little things that I’d freed… but I needn’t have worried – it’s all very logical and the reset manages to bypass a lot of the fiddliest bits. (Thank you Frederic!)

When you get all the way to the end there’s a heartfelt tribute to one of the giants – a lovely touch.

I’m so glad that Tye goaded me into trying harder – solving that has been the highlight of my Easter weekend – it’s instantly become a favourite!

Great design by Frederic – with some VERY clever tools – very nicely executed by Joshua… and if you’re tempted, Tye has them available for pre-order over here at time of writing. 

Pocket Change – Green

I’m very lucky to have some rather generous puzzling friends. Ali had recently spotted a new Puzzled-by-Piker Pocket Change puzzle had come out so he bought an extra copy for me – cheers mate!

The Green is another eminently pocketable puzzle where the aim is immediately obvious: on the underside there’s a slidey-tray with a coin captured in it – so free the coin! That slider carries the coin backwards and forwards, but there’s no obvious way for the coin to come out… good start!

On the top of the puzzle, there’s some interesting looking things to play with: a knob in the centre will rotate and there seem to be a few ball bearings in a slot on the one side, while the slot on the other side appears well-devoid of ball bearings.

Manipulating these things seem to allow you to move the balls from one side to the other, and sometimes that almost appears to be helpful in your quest… but somehow it’s never quite enough… some Think (c) required.

…OK some more Think (c) – and indeed some more discoveries necessary and then you’re able to neatly remove the coin from its hiding place.

Another great addition to the canon – perfectly safe to carry in your pocket – you’re never going to unintentionally lose anything.

Thanks Ali!

Dick does it again!

[Apologies for the hiatus - life intervened - some adulting has been accomplished - now hopefully the playing will resume!] 

Just after Peter’s annual End of Year Puzzle Party I reached out to Dick Hensel to let him know that I was definitely interested in getting my paws on a copy of his new wooden lock – he duly put my name on the list and got in touch a few weeks ago and let me know it was available if I was still interested. Having confirmed the pope was suitably catholic, I winged PayPal and Dick posted a Window Lock 4 to Barnt Green.

The family resemblance is super strong on Window Lock 4: the same oak surrounding an acrylic window onto some confusing gubbins visible inside that seems to be stopping you from opening the oak shackle. There’s usually some means of manipulating said-gubbins and a little investigation will find something suitable…

Having found the something-suitable – I managed to find something else that’s often useful and began manipulating that all over the show – I could drive it all around the place – I could hide it temporarily and make it pop up in unexpected places and I was having great fun – I just wasn’t getting anything vaguely useful for releasing the shackle to happen.

Over the course of a couple of days I noticed one or two more interesting features and eventually had a bit of a brainwave that led to doing something actually useful and half-solved it… of course I then went looking for the rest of the solution in totally the wrong place and wasted a fair amount more time than I really ought to have before I managed to get the final barrier out of the way.

This one’s really rather sneaky – if you enjoy Dick’s playfulness with everything apparently on show - just out of reach - you’re probably going to like this one too – I certainly did!

MPP XXXXC

Gosh! That’s quite a momentous number!

I really like the fact that these things have been going for a while now and people still keep showing up and possibly having fun… who am I kidding – this is a purely selfish means of getting my mates to come and visit and bring puzzles! ;-)

OK, enough of the sentiment – this was another biggish MPP with Wil and Louis coming over from the Netherlands on Friday evening. They whizzed through customs and immigration and found me grabbing the cake and biscuits from the Marks & Spencer in Arrivals. Traffic is light and we do the proper greeting-and-catch-up-thing while the hounds become reacquainted with our visitors. The puzzles come out across the dining room table almost immediately: Wil’s given me a new cube Puzzle Box from Jean Claude and he watches me struggle with it for quite a while… it’s a beautifully decorated box with several panels that have subtle bits of movement, but nothing that seems to actually be of any use whatsoever….

I spend a while getting quite literally nowhere until Wil takes pity on me – mark the date! – and gives me a nudge on the first step or three… I’m glad he did as I’d never have found that set of moves to get things going… inside there’s another set of challenges and we all agree that the insides alone are probably worthy of being a great puzzle, so hopefully folks who end up buying one of these will actually make it into the second part of the puzzle!

In return I’ve hauled out my latest set of the Karakuri Christmas puzzles for Wil to play through… most yield relatively quickly but a couple of them manage to hold up his progress for at least a while, and a few of them predictably put a large smile on the face during the solve… you can probably guess which ones!

The puzzles are briefly cleared away so we can scarf a pile of pizzas and the puzzling duly continues.

Louis has brought along his copy of the Time Traveller’s Artifact and encourages me to have a go at it. It’s a big beast of a puzzle that combines laser-cut wood and 3D printed bits and pieces to produce a superb steampunk feel… it looks like something that a time traveller might leave behind on a mission. I spend an hour or two wandering through the solution with the occasional hint from Louis while he’s absent-mindedly solving something impossible on the other side of the table. Each part of the solution presents a whole new world inside the device – and while you’re sort of expecting it because it’s linked to the solve-bits you’ve just been through, each time still feels like a new surprise. There are literally whole worlds hidden inside this box! The puzzles are nicely themed in their little worlds and there are some lovely subtle little hints to nudge you forward on your path – and if you get really stuck, there’s a web-site with nudges to point you in the right direction without spoiling anything… well worth a punt in my humble opinion!

We call it a day at a vaguely sensible hour and the next morning we grab some breakfast and pack puzzles into crates to head down to the hall. Dale’s already waiting in the carpark and we open up the hall and cart our kit into the hall before I leave Louis in charge to get tables and chairs set up while I head back up to the shops to collect cold drinks, milk, coffee and other essentials for the day.

By the time I get back there are a couple more folks around and soon enough it starts feeling like a puzzle party: the puzzles are out and folks are piling into puzzles they haven’t seen before.

I’ve taken along my set of the Karakuri Christmas puzzles and the last two puzzles from the blog and a bunch of other recent arrivals… the Jukebox gets a lot of exercising and holds up superbly – everyone seems to really enjoy it with nobody ever getting stuck along the solution path – it really does lead you through the solve in a neat, methodical manner.

Ali and I spend a while walking through the solve of Free The Two – I’ve had my copy for months and only recently managed to get it fully reset, but I wasn’t happy with a couple of the steps on the reset and couldn’t help but notice that I hadn’t used a couple of features of the box, so we agreed to walk through it at MPP… and I’m glad we did as my “solution” was indeed missing several steps – and all of the somewhat inelegant “moves” I was relying on shouldn’t have been in the sequence.

Wil had brought along an intriguing gift puzzle consisting of four identical pieces with a number of assembly challenges. The pieces look vaguely familiar, although a quick check on Friday evening proved that they were not in fact mathematically-similar to the shapes in a super-well-known tray-packing puzzle. Everyone seemed to be enjoying the challenges and who doesn’t love a free puzzle?!

Warwick’s provided pig rolls for a good proportion of the assembled masses, but sadly the local chippy was shut for lunch which meant that the folks who had their hearts set on a kebab were all disappointed and ended up having something a whole lot healthier… life is full of disappointments I’m told.

It was great to have Anthony and New-Steve join us – they both joined in the general goings on and it didn’t take them long to find a puzzle that intrigued them and mucked in with the solving and general chatter.

Super to see Mikes Q and D again. Chloe and Tamsin provided finesse. Phil brought along a pile of brass puzzles and promptly left one behind (Tamsin has it for you.). Kevin brought his traditional pile of Pelikans for folks to play with. Frank was dishing out nicely printed Kumiki cranes to anyone who wanted one and the Monkeys had some stock of their recent merch. Rich Gain had brought along his IPP Design Competition trophy but it stubbornly resisted all attempts at taking it apart through the course of the day.

Several folks had a bash at Volker Latussek’s Apotheka during the course of the day. I’ve spent hours not solving it – even with the help of BurrTools! I was hoping that Louis would finally be able to solve it so that I could stop bashing my own head against a brick wall. He and Steve duly tried at MPP but it stubbornly resisted and remained victorious.

Dan insisted on tormenting himself watching the rugby on his phone, complete with live-streamed taunts and abuse from various family members as England managed to plumb the depths.

At one point Ali and Andrew spend a while working through Idan’s Whale to trouble-shoot something or other – I must get hold of a copy of one of them – by all accounts it’s a cracking puzzle!

A bit earlier than usual I did a bit of a roll-call and established that everyone who was still at the hall was planning on coming back to the house afterwards so we tidied everything up and locked the hall and headed up the hill to Puzzling Times Central. (The neighbours must really love it when we end up with cars parked all the way down one side of the street!)

I told the new guys where the puzzles were and left them to find something to amuse themselves… I suspect they did judging by the number of Juno’s that New-Steve worked his way through over the course of the evening, although I think he only discovered the main puzzle cave just before he was planning to leave – I guess he’ll need to come back again sometime!

Thankfully by the time I needed to feed the underfed puzzlers, the local chippy was open for business once more and large quantities of cod and chips were duly procured and collected.

At one point a few of us congregated around the television set to watch some Scots push rocks along an icy patch – that too, sadly ended less well than we’d hoped – so while the sporting conquests may have been left wanting a little, the puzzling thirst was definitely quenched.

Everyone called it a night at a sensible hour –that either means we’re all getting old or sensible… and there’s probably an obvious answer for anyone who knows us!

Sunday was a nice relaxing day of puzzling with my two Dutch mates. As expected Louis recommenced battle with Apotheka and after a bit of wrangling with my BurrTools models and tweaking of the questions it was being asked, he duly produced something that led to a wonderfully elegant solution – leaving both of us wondering how the heck Volker designs puzzles like this time after time… there is literally only one way of introducing pieces into the box that will allow things just enough clearance to do the clever little things that they need to because of that one little protuberance.

He also made relatively short work of Minima Smiley and Sally which had been defeating me since I got it from Pelikan months ago… I’ve missed having my regular puzzle-solving service visit!

I dropped the guys at the airport in time for them to grab some dinner before their evening flight back to Schiphol and they ended up getting home some time around 1am on Monday… a seriously long puzzling weekend.

Having done 60 of them now, I guess we might as well do a few more. Thanks to all who came and made it another really fun day for me with my friends.