Sunday 27 September 2015

Packman


A cool cultural reference and the puzzle’s goal encapsulated in a simple name – Pac(k)Man is another neat little aluminium puzzle from Gary Foshee’s workshop. It comes in one of his customary purple velvet drawstring bags and it’s most definitely pocket-sized.



In its unsolved state it has a large screw-head protruding outside of the little aluminium cube and you’re told that your goal is to get everything either inside the cube or at least flush with the sides. The projecting screw-head is nicely knurled, making it pretty easy to unscrew it with just your digits. There’s an obvious place to put this screw, except that it’s pretty clear that there’s something blocking the hole so the screw can’t get all the way home, leaving it projecting a bit.



Well it was never going to be that simple, was it?!



OK, so what else have we got? Well there’s another screw in there, but it’s flush with the surface and unless you have Chris’ weird fingers, you’re going to need a tool to get that one out… it needs a hex wrench… but you don’t seem to have one… examining things a bit more and you’ll see that there’s an exit hole for what appears to be the goodie partially blocking the screw hole you want to use for the big screw…except it’s being held in place by that flush little hex-headed screw… so where is that hex tool?



Depending on how you approach these things it might only take you a couple of seconds, or it may take quite a while, but when you find it you’ll grin a bit… that lets you make a little more progress but pretty soon you’ll find yourself stumped again – and I really loved this second little brick wall that you hit – you think it’s all plain sailing from there only to find another road-block that requires an altogether different approach to problem-solving!



Great little puzzle!



[In answer to the inevitable question: privately – they haven’t been generally available for many years!]

7 comments:

  1. This is a beautiful little puzzle, thank you for letting me try it out at the last MPP, it gave me a huge grin :-) another for the never gonna get list ! But as they say, it's better to have solved and returned than never solved at all !!

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  2. Ah I was bidding hard on this in an action recently. Great write up Allard. I hope to add one of these to my collection some day. Andy Fabian

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    1. That's because of you I paid so much

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  3. I know this is a super rare puzzle, but do you know if there is anywhere I can purchase it, whether new or used? Or do you know of anyone willing to lend it to me so I can try it? Or do you have Gary Foshee's contact email to ask him if it will ever be made again?

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  4. Make friends with puzzlers near you - play with their copies... or watch Baxterweb and Haubrich and Puzzle Paradise and Cubic Dissection Marketplace and be prepared to spend....

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  5. what do the coordinates mean on the back of the little book?

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    Replies
    1. ...I suspect that was Gary's address at the time...

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