Merry Christmas!

Orange Roughie Box

After playing with a whole heap of Doog’s boxes when we visited him, I promised myself I’d start adding some of them to the hoard, so when he got hold of me recently to let me know a copy of his new Orange Roughie Box had become available, I sent him some PayPal and he posted it across to Barnt Green.

This one’s part of his fish box series and they share a definite family resemblance – in fact if you put them next to one another, you’d see they all had pretty much the same external features… their solutions on the other hand, could not be more different.

The instructions confirm the lid will slide off and Doog exhorts the solver to only use a tool if the fit is perfect and never use any force…

I started playing and pretty soon found a few interesting things and amassed an embarrassment of tools… despite said embarrassment, I found myself up against a brick wall at this point… the tools I had weren’t perfect for what I wanted to try.

So I spent quite a while trying different things and then gradually letting my standards slip and trying things more and more enthusiastically – we all do that, right?

At some point I found something that hadn’t worked earlier and managed to make a chunk of progress and opened up the box – success! 

Flushed with pride I dropped Doog a note and told him how much I’d enjoyed it and mentioned something about not having used one particular tool… at which point Doog told me I probably hadn’t solved it properly and asked me how I’d done a couple of key steps… and I could sense the disappointment in him when he asked me if I thought I’d followed the instructions properly… and of course I hadn’t.

Back to the drawing board and lock it all up again… this time not allowing exuberance to overcome and being strict on the tool-fit clause… and I discovered there were indeed a couple of layers I’d just totally ignored (by basically butchering things!) – the proper solution is craftily hidden, wonderfully precise and the tools provided are simply perfect (when used in the right places!).

Having solved it properly now, I apologised and told him he definitely had a winner… at which point he asked me if I’d claimed my ORB… and of course I hadn’t… third time’s a charm!

I throw myself back into the box – I’m getting better at solving it now….and head for what I think the treasure is but I still don’t know if I’ve found my ORB… until I do. Doog’s wordplay is well-hidden and deserves to be sought out and earned…

It took me three goes, but I got there in the end – do yourself a favour and follow Doog’s instructions and I’m sure you’ll get there a lot quick than I did by taking my “shortcuts”!

Chuffed to have ORB as my first Doog original – I’ll definitely be foisting this one on unsuspecting puzzlers I come across in the future – it deserves to be played with.

Locus

I happen to know that Boaz has never made a bad puzzle in his life… so when he launched Locus I joined the queue to purchase a copy and less than a week later I had a shiny new puzzle lock in my hands.

There’s the familiar black drawstring pouch with Boaz’ logo embroidered on it, a separate key and an info card giving you the rules and the goal: no excess force and open the lock(!). The lock has its name etched on the back (useful if you own more than a couple of tricked-out Nabob padlocks!) and there appears to be one little modification on this particular lock, but no apparent means of making that helpful.

Unless you’re the deeply cynical sort, you’re first line of attack is probably going to be inserting the key and turning it… and that appears to be vaguely useful, although not entirely so: the shackle will move a little, but not nearly enough to allow you to remove it… and while just yanking it at this point would probably classify as excessive force, it’s also not any use whatsoever. [I just know, OK… I would never do that to an innocent little puzzle!]

At this point, dear puzzler, you haven’t even really started…

Boaz reckons this puzzle uses something that’s never been seen in a puzzle lock before, and while I definitely haven’t seen every single puzzle lock out there, I suspect that he’s right…

There is a particularly brilliant “A-Ha!” moment when something unusual happens and once you’ve convinced yourself you haven’t broken anything, you’ll be well on your way to solving this guy. Each step is wonderfully positive – there’s no faffing around blindly in the dark – and I’d like to bet that you’ll agree with Boaz’ assertion: that is new!

Yup, Boaz’ record is safe: he’s never made a bad puzzle in his life!