Fáfnir’s Fortress

Having recently really enjoyed Chained Key from Luke Waier, I was intrigued to spot an impending offering from Luke in the form of a little castle…

I signed up for the pre-order and it arrived just before Christmas, so in classic Walker-style it went under the Christmas tree and I got to open it a few days after Christmas when we got back home…

…and I wasn’t that surprised when I saw folks nominating it as one of their Best Finds of 2024 at our annual EPP gathering – it’s pretty darn good!

Luke’s given this puzzle a lovely backstory rooted in Norse mythology and invites you to “Find the Sword of Sigurd, slay (remove) the dragon Fáfnir and reclaim the stolen treasure. But beware of Fáfnir’s tricks…” – you know that you’re dealing with a sequential discovery puzzle (Luke has form on those!) and the objective makes it sound like it’s going to be quite a journey…

And it is!

First thing you’re going to notice about the fortress is that it’s heavier than you’re imagining it to be… it has a solid heft to it and nothing ever feels delicate, as some 3D printed bits can sometimes be… he’s chosen a nice matte filament and he hasn’t been stingy with his infill settings – oh, and there’s probably quite a lot of hardware inside there as well… and something that rattles…

Starting the solve there are a couple of little windows that tease views of something shiny inside – there are a few screws in the base, but alas none of them merely finger tight, and one or two other potentially interesting things...

Start solving proper and you’re straight into tool-finding territory – and if you’re lucky you might recognise potential uses for some of those tools, but trust me when I say this, you’re definitely going to have to get very creative to find a way forward – several times on this solve I found myself examining the tools at my disposal and imagining what I could possibly want to do next, and coming up blank… this one is going to challenge you to review all of your assumptions, and really test the heck out of them! I guarantee you’re going to find some of them don’t hold water!

At one point you might well be tempted to think that you’re finished – at that point I would suggest you shake the fortress from side to side and if there’s still something knocking about inside there, I’d suggest asking yourself why that might be… and then get back to solving!

When you are finished, you will know! ;-)

Luke has crammed an incredible amount of puzzling into a very small package and taught us to use some tools in a totally new way – not many puzzles still manage to do that today and Luke’s definitely done that in spades with Fáfnir’s Fortress.

Sadly this was a limited run of 100 copies and they’re all sold, so if you want to play with one, you’re going to have to borrow one from a mate, grab one from an auction site or toddle along to a nearby puzzle party and play with one there – either way, you’ll thank me!