Traffic 15

I spotted a new puzzle from Yuu Asaka on social media a little while back so I duly put in an order for a few copies, knowing that some of my mates were going to want a copy as well…

This one really stands out for me - it presents as a simple enough packing puzzle -  a square tray with a couple of rounded corners, nine big white pieces, some with rounded-corners again and then three pairs of traffic sign sort of arrows. The white pieces have cut-outs for the arrows and it’s pretty easy to see how things need to go together to make the spaces that you seek… and you can pretty much just do that for virtually all of the pieces… except there’s always one stubborn arrow that just won’t slot into place… what’s interesting is that it’s not always the same piece that won’t slot into place, but you are always left with one… “which is interesting” as Laurie used to say. 

Somewhere around this point I realise that my usual approach of just trying to bash things in randomly probably isn’t going to serve me well, so I take a little of my own advice(!) and I Think(C) a little…

…and it dawns on me that there are some rather interesting constraints I hadn’t spotted into my random packings… 

Clearly I’m now onto something important so I explore that with renewed vigour, only to come up somewhat short yet again - even more analysis may well be required…

So I Think(C) even more… experiment a little and then remind myself of just how devious some of Yuu’s other designs have been in the past, and throw away all of my preconceived ideas, even the ones I hadn’t realised I had… and that turns out to be rather important - the solution is excellent and I love how it’s literally taken me through three whole cycles of thinking I’ve known what to do, and then realizing I didn’t in order to finally settle on the solution. 

… this is definitely one of my favorite puzzles from this very clever designer!