IPP42 (Part 2)

 

On Tuesday Gill and Sue head off to Shinjuku and Brian and I head off to Torito. Brian does an ace job of navigating and we pretty much just went straight there - no detours like we normally have when I’m navigating! We find Tim and Carol already at Torito (we’ve arrived shortly AFTER opening after all and I get in a little bout of laundry, topping up on my Hanayamas (minis and disentanglements), a couple of new puzzles from Teddy and Kofuh, and some Japanese number puzzles. The Luxembourg contingent arrived in full force and proceeded to shop seriously. Brian and I settled down and embarrassed ourselves trying to reassemble a bunch of random Hanayama puzzles scattered around the play table… between us we manage to reassemble two or three…but we’re suitably embarrassed.

From there we headed across town to Shinjuku where the girls had found a spot in Memory Lane for lunch - Google got us more or less to the right place and Gill found us and took us upstairs into a tiny little hole-in-the-wall that did some really nice meat and veg skewers. After lunch we headed off to a wonderfully swanky department store where we window-shopped a while before heading across the road - devoid of cars due to the public holiday - to grab an airplane adapter for Brian’s noise-cancelling headphones - success when a wonderfully helpful sales assistant worked out precisely what was needed and found one for us.

Back at the hotel we meet Shoko, Esa and Iwahiro for a final planning meeting for the Fabric & Fibre tour the next morning - they really don’t need us as Shoko’s done a brilliant job of organising it all already… final details agreed we find Louis and Patrick fresh off a plane and they join us and several others on a trip out to Asakusa for some gluten-free (and well-glutenated!) pizzas and pastas. Iwahiro is sporting his 2BM IPP41 shirt – making a serious fashion statement.

Next morning we grab our usual breakfast before getting the F&F gang sorted and onto the bus before a few of us head upstairs to help Nick set up the Puzzle Design Competition entries… Brian and I sort out the solution sheets while Chinny and Nick unpack the puzzles and then we distribute them around the room before sitting down to test things. We manage to get a couple of hours playing in before we all feel the need to head off and find some lunch. After a couple of false starts we end up sitting on the floor in a traditional restaurant - the creaking and complaints getting down onto the floor are nothing compared to the noises when we have to get back up about an hour later - we hobbled back to the hotel…

Frank needed to try and find a charger and we decided we needed to go in search of some puzzles at a toy store in Ueno - we’re joined by Chinny and Benny and the Monkeys (a new J-Pop band?) and at the toy store Ali gives Steve some money and Steve gives him crabs.

Our attempt to source a charger for Frank fails abysmally and we end up wandering back to the hotel via the underground. 

There's heaps of hilarity when Steve brings out a box of surprises for the SOAPs in the form of customised deely boppers (I think that's what they're called!) that he's christened SOAP-finders - making it easier for the SOAPs to find one another in a crowded room... inital tests in the lobby are promising. 

The guys decide to head off to a nearby Tiki Bar and when another 9 of us follow on later we’re met by some patrons leaving in a huff remarking about the stressed-out bartender… up the stairs we find said-bartender who works himself into a bit of a froth at the fact that another bunch of rowdy puzzlers has just rolled into his bar and want another 9 seats… we decided it wasn’t worth trying to convince him we’ll be fine just grabbing chairs and end up deciding to head off in search of dinner - we duly end up back at the local Chinese who happily accommodate 9 of us in one go (it’s a tiny joint!), and then another 9 when the boys follow on a few minutes later… we’ve virtually filled the place in one foul swoop and they handle it superbly… right up until one of our friends insists he hasn’t received the rice he ordered… we order him some and he’s happy, we think, but it’s hard to tell…

I grab an ice cream on the way back to the hotel and we crash early ahead of a long trip to Hakone in the morning.

There’s a massive throng of excited puzzlers in the lobby waiting for the four buses to Hakone in the morning. I hook up with Nick and Anne as Gill and Sue are heading off to a traditional tea ceremony and some shopping. Nick and I end up on the number three bus between Matt, John, Yacine and Clive… there’s a chunk of puzzling and a lot of banter… probably more than planned given we end up in a bit of a traffic jam on the highway due to an accident that seems to come neatly between our four buses… Nick spends a long time working on a new design from Andreas and I toil on Minima Bi-cubes - it takes me ages to get the pieces out of the frame before I can even start… in the end it literally takes me several hours before I finally manage to push everything into the little 2*2*3 box… another goodie from that man Boucher!

The excitement builds on the bus as we climb up the hills heading into Hakone and there’s a rapid exit as the bus empties and Izumiya fills up. I stop for a chat with Mine who’s recovering from surgery and when I have a look through his boxes of wares he politely informs me that I already have everything he’s brought along to sell today… it turns out he’s right - he promises to have new things in Tokyo…

We head up the road to the closed Karakuri museum and the largely-emptied Maruyama before heading back to fetch Anne from her somewhat productive shopping trip to Izumiya. We pull up a couple of tables of puzzlers at a tempura joint which feeds us well in plenty of time for our bus onwards. We head through the scenic countryside to Gora where the puzzles have largely already been purchased. We enjoy the scenery that only gets better and better as we ride the funicular up the hills - on the Honeymoon train - I try not to think too hard about that name.

The bus collects us at the top and we wend our way down the mountain and onto the motorway back to Tokyo - the traffic isn’t as bad this time and we have a short break at a rest stop where Otis and Nick grab a selfie at the same Starbucks they took a selfie at exactly 6 years earlier. Somewhere around here Nick finally manages to solve Andreas’ project and declares it worthy…

Matt brings out a Giiker Super Slider and demonstrates it and then lets Nick have a go on it… we’re all a bit surprised when the machine gives up on Nick and turns itself off, presumably because it’s gotten bored waiting for him to solve the puzzle.

We eventually get back to the hotel and Gill tells me about the tea ceremony she and Sue have been at (and the shopping side trip) - a bunch of us head out for ice creams rather than dinner and the Monkeys join us having completed their trains, planes and automobile rally around Hakone under their own steam - they’ve had a fantastic day and Steve’s managed to find an absolute treasure of a puzzle along the way.

Back at the hotel Gill heads off to bed and I spend a few hours in the design comp room not solving much but enjoying catching up with a few folks - Stefan gives me a copy of his gift puzzle: a micro-scale four-piece rhombic dodecahedron that requires assembly - the fact that I have a full-size copy at home to crib off might make assembly almost possible… I witness a lovely moment when Stefan introduces himself to Iwahiro and gives him a copy too, at which point Iwahiro exclaims “Ah, you’re are THE GUY!” - I think Stefan’s already made a massive positive impression at his first IPP!

Soon after that I head off and crash. 

 

IPP42 (Part 1)

[Dear reader - please excuse the hiatus - I've been off enjoying myself - normal service may resume.] 

We start travelling down to London the night before our flight and meet Chris & Ken for dinner at a sublime Italian near Chris’ place where we’re crashing for the night. The rude early alarm gets us off in the direction of Heathrow where we ditch the bags and grab some brekkie in the terminal. We get onboard at about the right time but find ourselves delayed quite a bit firstly due to a weight and balance issue and then due to traffic restrictions over Germany, which is weird because last time we flew over the pole and didn’t go anywhere near Germany… this time the flight takes us east and lasts several hours longer… long enough to watch a couple of movies and start a new book - don’t judge me, it’s the new Dan Brown - escapist holiday reading!

We land at Haneda, grab our baggage and find a taxi in what feels like seconds. Our driver checks out the traffic and points us in the right direction and about half an hour later we’re at the hotel and asking (pretty please) if we can check in, but it’s only 9:30 and check-in only opens at 2pm… we ditch the bags and head off to Shinjuku to the mother of all fabric and fibre stores- Okadaya. Navigating the metro is fairly straight forward with Gill acting as the spotter-in-chief and we get to Shinjuku quite easily. We decide we need some sustenance and head in search of a coffee shop - totally confused by Google maps where the coffee shop appears to be on the other side of the road irrespective of which side of the road we’re on… then it tells us we’re approaching and there’s no coffee shop in sight- we try to find the building name (Subnade?) and fail, until Gill spots a subway entrance with the name Subnade over it… we head down into the subway and find the coffee shop right where it should be - we feast on pancakes to rebuild our strength so we can go shopping for fabric and goodies…

Okadaya has moved buildings since the last time we were there and we do the grand tour from the top floor downwards with Gill finding some new Snoopy / Liberty fabric she’s been after as soon as we walk in… we wander down to Tokyu Hands and repeat the tour from the top down, not buying anything here… we’re about in time for the hotel check-in to be opening so we head back to the hotel and check in…

We sleep for a couple of hours (we are knackered!) and then meet Tim & Carol for dinner where we chance across a little Chinese joint down a dark alley behind the station… great grub and we make a mental note that another visit may well be indicated…

We drop into the 7Eleven at the hotel for the obligatory IPP room snacks and drinks and then lurk in the hotel lobby where we find Brian and Sue and catch up on things. When Stefan and Beni arrived there are introductions all round - they’d found a great ramen joint off Tabelog - we made plans to meet at breakfast the next morning and then crashed.

Breakfast was a massive spread and we had fun chatting with Mr & Mrs Puzzle again. They decided they needed to do some laundry (they’d been traveling around Japan for a while already) so we headed off to Asakusa for some sightseeing - walking around the street-food stalls and the Senso-ji temple grounds. We pick a coffee shop for lunch and I really enjoy a pair of pancakes while Gill has a well-stuffed sandwich. At some point while we’re wandering back there’s a post from the Puzzles showing they’d just been to see Meiko at Torito - so much for their laundry - clearly a coded message that I missed out on! (I immediately being planning a laundry trip of my own…)

The walk back to the hotel is absolutely baking hot and we end up wilting from the heat and getting a couple of hours kip before finding Brian and Sue and heading back to the same Chinese restaurant for dinner again… while we’re there Nick pops up on messenger and says he’s at the hotel so I send him a pin and we carry on with dinner - a suitable time later we’ve eaten way more than we should so we get the bill and just after we’ve settled up Nick arrives and there’s a round of greetings and we catch up on the walk back to the hotel in the gentle rain - it’s still really warm in spite of the rain.

There’s a chunk of chatting in the lobby before we head off for the night.

Monday is Gill’s birthday and after breakfast with the usual crowd we wander up the river to Asakusa for a washi paper-making workshop with Nick, Anne, Frank and Jo. Kazu teaches us the basics of paper-making and then walks us each through all the steps of making our own set of coloured postcards. Everyone gets in on the action and there is plenty of vigorous mixing of the fibres and mucus followed by rhythmic shaking of said-fibres into trays before the ritual squeezing of the wet papers with the help of a handy car jack. We did some casual shopping in the gift shop while our papers dried then their eventual unveiling to a round of Hess-inspired oohing and aahing - we missed Dick.

From there we found a traditional lunch spot in Asakusa-proper where Jo treated us to a lovely lunch… slow walk back to the hotel along the river bank where the temperature was pleasantly a little cooler than the day before.

We meet the gang, including the Youngs who’ve returned from their sewer tour, in the lobby and head downtown for a dinner cruise. The taxis get us there in good time, but there’s a call from our concerned host ten minutes before the appointed meeting time because we aren’t there yet - gotta love this place! She sounds relieved when I tell her we’re 5 minutes away… we arrive in good time and check in and I sign everyone’s lives away, at least that’s what I think I’m signing…

Onboard we each have our own little stove and a wok full of dinner and set about cooking our own as we wend our way up river toward the Odaiba basin, complete with a view of the cutest stature of liberty in the world (it doesn’t like to be called to smallest one!) - there are plenty of photos and a rousing round of happy birthday (and presents for Gill, and even one for me from Brian and Sue) before we head back to our drop-off point serenaded by our musicians and a memorable round of “Yoi! Yoi!” - cabs back to the hotel and then a walk down to the main drag for some ice creams where we find something gluten-free for Brian, only for him to find it isn’t right at the end. He’s OK in the morning so we didn’t damage Mr Puzzle!

MPP LCIIX

 

After the mass US invasion at the last MPP, we were expecting this one to be a little quieter – and it was as a few of the usual suspects had managed to make other plans – life intervened for Frank, Louis had only just got home from his jaunt around the Scottish Highlands and exotic northern European climes and Steve was washing his hair, in Italy!

As a result I didn’t have anyone staying over and my MPP weekend was reduced to just a day – but nevertheless a puzzling day with my mates. It’s all good…

When I got to the hall Phil was already waiting for me in the carpark a he gave me a hand with lugging all the refreshments and one or two puzzles into the hall. Chris and one or two others arrived soon after and they set about taking out the tables and chairs and by the time first of the London gang arrived we were pretty much open for business.

Shane arrived in the travelling locksmith workshop – which was only called upon once for a set of hex wrenches to repair something this time… no puzzles were harmed in the making of this episode.

Ali had brought along some truly terrifying bits of plastic to torment me and I was happy to be able to report on said torment over the course of the next two days… my initial reaction was perfectly justified.

Rich had brought along a number of oversized 3D-printed six-piece burrs – he shoved one into my paws and then duly observed as I made heavy-weather of attempting to solve it. I spotted a few suspicious-looking features but it took me a long time to find a way into getting anything useful to happen… when I finally managed to find the first “move” Rich just grinned and said “that took you long enough” – which I think is the closest he’s ever likely to come to actual encouragement.

A little while later there were all sorts of interesting tools and the burr was beginning to behave in a most un-burr-like manner – there are some excellent new ideas hidden throughout the solve and I’d highly recommend it – it’s called the S.V. Burr – and you’ll need to solve it to work out its full name.

I’d done my usual thing of printing off a few sets of interesting puzzles off Printables to give away and several folks seemed to enjoy putting together a set of Theo & Symen’s Black Cat, White Cat… although everyone managed to assemble it with the appropriate mix of black and white cats – we missed you, Steve! All the spare puzzles found new homes which I’m taking as a good sign!

I’d taken Peter’s “No Way!” box along again in case anyone wanted another bash at it… and several did – it was great fun watching the look on folks faced when they realised what the final few steps involved… and then the joke was on me when they went further than I had and found a little Easter egg that I’d missed – inexplicably I’d already added my name to the solver’s list – Thanks Nick! :-) I think I’m all done on that one now! Probably…

Somewhere around lunchtime the gang headed for the High Street for munchies and I headed home to grab a bite and to let the hounds out as Gill was off at a weekend retreat. After a few slices of toast and some vigorous ball tossing the hounds went back to sleep and I headed back to the hall.

Chris had brought along a set of NOS Burrs in bits and during the course of the day they magically reassembled themselves with a little help form some rather useful 3D diagrams someone had found on the interweb somewhere.

A set of Pelikan Minimas had several folks mused for abslute ages – they are brilliant little challenges – and as usual one of them – IYKYK – caused no end of trouble.

Robin had suspended his better judgement and decided to come back for another bout of puzzling and had brought along a several thingies of his own making and a copy of Henry Segerman’s Dodecaplex Puzzle that amused several folks during the day – brilliant puzzle available at a very decent price over here! Yup, zero affiliation – just want puzzlers to know it’s out there!

He'd also brought along a copy of Nan Ma’s Blast-Hedron 20 which I felt the need to gently spin to enjoy it’s expansion and ultimate explosion – a very gentle but extremely effective method of disassembly – I spent a while trying to put it back together with the help of the jig and never got past the second layer or pieces without it all collapsing in on itself… Robin was very patient and gracious when I ended up handing the bits to Kevin who did a whole lot better at assembling it than I had…

Speaking of Kevin, we manged to engage him in a little light solving of a well-known Hanayama puzzle and introduced him to a new method of solving one particular puzzle – there was plenty of glee when the bits flew apart after a little gentle hurling…

Rich Gain brought his son Adam long and seemed to enjoy a chunk of father/son puzzling during the course of the day – great to see Richard back at an MPP after quite a long break during which he’s been putting his 3D printer to great use mending all manner of things broken in his regular stints at a local repair café – top man!

The set of Keeboxes provided a goodly does of puzzling for several folks -all of whom declared them brilliant puzzles – you can’t get more of a vote of confidence than that!

Rich tried manfully to solve my copy of The Real Euklid, which I’ve decided must be faulty as he failed. (The alternative is simply too awful to contemplate!)

We said goodbye to a few folks and then headed back to the house for several more hours of puzzling and the traditional fish supper.

Kyle gave himself a bit of a scare on an old Stickman (and then sorted it himself!) and several Karakuris came out to play during the course of the evening.

It may not have been the biggest of our gatherings, but it was another cracking day’s puzzling with my mates - thank you all for making it a great day!

 

No Way Box

I’d heard that there was a new puzzle box coming from Peter Hajek courtesy of Pelikan and I was keeping an eye out for the usual notifications when I spotted a posting on Facebook mentioning that it was available. I reached out to Jakub on FB Messenger and a few hours later I’d managed to order and pay for a copy. 

 

A week or so later it arrived, just before the American invasion at MPP. I got to spend a little while playing with it before the gang started arriving and even managed to make a little progress…

It’s a big old lump of a puzzle box with some handsome inlay work on the top and the instructions (Find six queens and a gear) etched on the bottom. There appear to be hinges on all four sides of the lid, which is interesting, to quote an old Laurie-ism, because that would ordinarily be about three sides too many! Finally there are a pair of hinged doors on opposite sides of the box. (Little wonder the credits include a nod to Ivo Splichal for hinge production! – He’s clearly put a lot of work into this box.)

There’s certainly a lot to explore, but depending on your approach, you might be stuck at the very start for quite a while… if you’re a distrusting sort, or someone familiar with Peter’s other puzzles, you’ll probably start questioning all of the assumptions you didn’t even know you’d already made (trust me, you have!) and that will help you off to a great start.

There are a couple of phases that pretty much every puzzler has found reasonably quickly. (I took it along to MPP the following day and several folks had a play with it.) They are beautifully executed and the mechanisms are delightfully positive – you know when you’re doing something useful.

I managed to storm through the initial phases and then found myself running out of ideas and time as the gang was arriving, so I reset it all and we took it along to MPP, where quite a few folks had a play and I recognised the progress they’d made, but no-one seemed to get through the next hurdle…

…and so it continued on the Sunday back at my place – a few more folks had a bash and all ended up stopping at the same place… having found all bar the final queen.

Dave, Nick and I spent a while chatting about it and spit-balling ideas, but nothing seemed to work and there was still an apparently massive internal space undiscovered…

Next morning I had an email from Dave before he headed back to London from his hotel suggesting a rather bonkers sounding idea… which could just work – I dropped everything and went down to the dining room and tried it and it works perfectly… final queen discovered and the box’s name now makes perfect sense – “No way!” is quite literally the very best response to the solution for the final compartment!

Peter understands the mind of the puzzler and uses this to toy with us. The solve on this one draws you in at the beginning, provides a lovely little fishy detour before thoroughly blowing your mind on the final stage of the solve. You need to keep your wits about you to complete all of the missions – it’s really easy to slip up and miss a few goals.

Most definitely a puzzlers’ puzzle!

Superb design Peter! Beautifully executed by Jakub and the gang at Pelikan! Kudos all…

Twins Box

Anyone with an interest in Wil Strijbos’ puzzle boxes will know that he’s been working on the follow-up to his super-fun Angel Box for a while now – we were talking about the project back in 2017 and already back then the traditional backstory had taken shape. It’s a classic Strijbos-story that ties into his Angel Box where he chances upon twin daughters in the Ikebukuro branch of Tokyo Hands. If you’re on his mailing list, you’ve seen the story, and if you have an Angel Box, then Wil’s probably already been in touch to offer you a Twins Box – for the first 100 copies produced he’s giving Angel Box owners first refusal on their edition number – some collectors really like that!

Development of the puzzle has sadly been delayed over the years, not least as a result of the significant Covid-era travel bans which stopped Wil from visiting Tom to work on the design and manufacture. With things slowly getting back to normal, and being able to get a few other projects out of the way, attention returned to the Twins Box and just before the last MPP Wil let me know that my copy was ready for shipping – I opted to wait for personal delivery over commercial courier given this thing weighs over 5kg… it’s invariably going to get dropped somewhere in the shipping chain and no matter how good the packaging, there’s a chance it’s going to get a little dinged.

In the end the Dutch contingent came across with an extra 11kg in their hand luggage in order to make a couple of us very happy puzzlers. Wil handed over my big beautiful lump on the Friday evening and I left it wrapped up on the dining room sideboard until Sunday when I got a chance to play…

On the Saturday, Wil gave Ali his copy and it ended up being placed in various spots around the hall so we could have it in shot for a few of the MPP pics without anyone actually interacting with it, just for a laugh: here’s one of the most eagerly awaited puzzles just lying around with no-one playing with it – childish, I know! :-) [Kudos to Matt W who I think was the first one to spot it and ask what it was!]

I got to play with my copy on the Sunday and it’s an absolute beast – you’re going to play with this one on a table, period, so Wil’s thoughtfully provided a protective cloth and board to stop you damaging both your nicely finished shiny puzzle, and the table that you’re playing on…

There are a couple of interesting little windows and holes around the box… one of which appears to have a little girl peering through it begging you to save her -  no sight of her sister, mind - and on one end there’s the famous “Hers” keyholders that Wil’s been trying to source from around the world over the past few years – it’s good to see where that’s been used after years of scouring shops for copies of these suckers. It comes with a keyring and a couple of keys that both fit in said “Hers” keyholder – they turn, but don’t seem to do anything…

The first series of moves are wonderfully novel – I’ve never seen anything like them before! When things get going there are some amusing discoveries and even some alarming discoveries… while I’m playing on the Sunday afternoon Wil is casting an occasional eye in my direction to observe the progress and he seems happy until I begin to start asking silly questions – for the record “Don’t drop things into holes unless you KNOW that you can control them!” – (I‘d run out of good ideas, in my defence…)

I make a reasonable amount of progress, free my first twin and then find myself somewhat stuck…

…and there I remain for a couple of weeks (including a period of virtually no puzzling while I focused on upgrading my Prusa puzzle-maker) until Louis encouraged me to try something again – something I was pretty sure I’d tried many times already and at first it seemed to do the same (no)thing that it had before, but then something changed and I was moving again…

From there another delightful puzzling journey ensued with a further slew of new mechanisms to identify and defeat. The second half has another unique concept that I haven’t seen in a puzzle before… the progression is pretty positive through to the final compartment where the second twin is released. HUZZAH!

It’s great to see this puzzle in the flesh after at least(!) 8 years in gestation – it’s another classic Strijbos sequential discovery with several brand-new puzzle mechanisms to discover and defeat. (I have huge respect for folks like Wil who can see everyday items and then picture them in the midst of a puzzle providing a surprising challenge – and then actually bringing it all to life as well.)

It’s big. It’s heavy. And it’s expensive… but I’m very chuffed to have the Twins next to my Angel Box. I expect everyone who ends up playing with it is going to get a massive kick out of it!

Thanks Wil for carrying it over to me! Awesome service and a(nother) fantastic puzzle in the Strijbos series! 

 

keebox

I’m often late to the party and after seeing a few of my mates enjoying the solve on the keebox puzzles, I decided I should treat myself to a set of the Blue, Orange and Yellow puzzle boxes.

Etsy duly provided and I was massively impressed with the design of not only the puzzles, but also the packaging, with each of the boxes having custom inserts to cushion the puzzle from the hardships of the outside world – someone has gone to a lot of trouble to customise packaging to the individual puzzles – I appreciate that!

The three provide differing levels of challenge from “easy-peasy” for the Blue, through “a real challenge” and on to “my brain hurts” for the Yellow.

The Blue has a few knobs on the sides – a large knob on the top and a coloured side panel that seems to flap around a little when it’s inspected. You’ll probably start twiddling and fiddling with things and with a bit of luck you’ll find something interesting to explore and stuff will no doubt being to happen… and if you’re anything like me you’re going to find some stuff happening when you least expect it and you’re going to be crawling around on the floor picking up bits and pieces…

Blue provides a relatively short solve without too many diversions – there are one or two delightful little uses for some tools that’ll bring a smile to even the most jaded of solvers – the blue k-token is literally delivered on a platter. I’m not sure I’d call it “easy peasy” but it does provide an introduction to the series and shows you some of what’s to come…

Orange comes with a set of sliders with weird symbols on one side, three knobs on top and another on one side, another of those coloured plates that might do something at some point and a maze inscribed on the back.

Fiddling and twiddling is always a great place to start and soon enough you’ll find yourself with a few tool-shaped objects as a reward for your exploits… somewhere along the way you’ll spot a little ball bearing and with the right encouragement you can even get it into a partially hidden maze… some of those symbols make an appearance and at the right time your can use those to unlock another secret…

There’s a lot to be done on this one – certainly a lot more than on the Blue – but the flow is nice and logical and if you’re stick it’s always worth pausing and considering what you’ve found and what you’ve used… and sometimes more interestingly what you haven’t used… the visual clues are more important on this one than on the Blue – and they all lead you nicely to the spot where you can release the orange k-token.

Yellow looks a bit more intimidating: there appears to be a combination lock built into one side, several sliders and knobs, another of those coloured panels that seems less-well-attached and a complex set of hole patterns on the base… it threatens to hurt your brain – and it will certainly make those little grey cells sweat a little.

Yellow is part physical puzzle, part mental challenge and part pattern recognition – there are several physical surprises (a couple of times I found myself thinking “I wasn’t expecting THAT!” when something interesting happened.

As with the others, there’s a good flow to the solve, with everything following a neat solution path, so if something doesn’t make sense yet or if you find yourself having to guess, you haven’t found everything you’re supposed to have, yet. There are some really excellent little clues along the way – I loved the re-use of some of the elements to provide different clues – that was clever!

…and this time the yellow k-token seems to fall into your lap when you’re done, leaving you wondering where the heck it came from… perhaps that’s just me!

It’s a great series of puzzles for a pretty decent price – I’ve already raved about the design and the packaging, but their hints and reset instructions are worth a shout out as well, providing you with a series of gradual hints for each section of the solve, starting out with a nudge toward where you should be paying attention, via a number of further hints, to a blow-blow-walk-through for each step... a lot of thought and care has gone into these puzzles! 

Tortoise Protocol

Juno’s sequential discovery puzzles are legendary! Latterly they’ve tended to come along pretty much annually. They’re hotly anticipated and tend to sell out in minutes – this year’s release of Tortoise Protocol didn’t disappoint on that front – it was literally gone in minutes with some folks probably ruing their decision to enable two-factor authentication on their purchases.

My copy made the trip over to the UK in great time and I was happily puzzling the following weekend. Tortoise Protocol is a chunky puzzle – it’s definitely more than a handful and all of the requisite tortoise-y bits are where you’d expect them to be. The shell seems to have a bit of wiggle relative to the body, so at some point we’re going to expect to be able to open things up… but at the start, we just have a few appendages to fiddle with to try and make some progress.

There are some obvious things to get the tortoise to do and some of them appear to open the doors to even more things, so we decide this must be progress and we forge on until we find ourself with fewer appendages and a whole new world opening up to us.

At this point (and it’s not really a spoiler!) you find yourself with all of the stuff you’ve done up until now out on display and easily accessible and another half of the story apparently totally locked up… sure there’s a lot of things to investigate and poke about with, just nothing actually seems to give you any progress at all…

I spent quite a while at this point in the solve pondering my life choices and wondering where the heck my inspiration would come from… there was obviously still a pile of things to do – just no apparent way in to start things off… this particular brick wall kept me at bay for ages.

Eventually I stumbled across the key to defeating my current nemesis that started a wonderful romp of a solve through the rest of the puzzle. There’s a wonderfully whimsical series of linked challenges to amuse the solver, with each giving just enough up to guide you through to the next challenge, be that a peek of something useful, or the discovery of a new tool. Given this is Juno, it’s worth keeping an open mind about things you come across – most things are tools in the right hands!

No tortoises harmed in this blog post

 

There are some fun steps along the way, and I found myself wondering how some things worked and where the heck some tools had magically appeared from.

There is a very clear end goal – you’ll know when you’ve found it!

And the best part? Resetting is wonderfully non-trivial – if you did miss anything along the way, you’ll be forced to work it out in order to reset everything… and there was one little “feature” I thought I hadn’t used until almost the very end of the reset – and I smiled to myself when I twigged why it was there – everything is there for a reason!

Juno’s sequential discovery fans are going to love this one and I suspect that if it ends up getting entered into any puzzle design competitions it’s going to give the other entries a damn good run for their money!

Another epic sequential discovery puzzle from one of the masters of the art!

 

Midas Touch Puzzlebox, aka Stickman #38

I was super chuffed when I got the first email from Robert Yarger announcing his 38^th numbered puzzlebox. Midas Touch came about as a result of the clamour of requests over the years for “something similar” to his iconic Gordian Knot puzzlebox, and given that Midas was Gordian’s son in Greek mythology, it seems fitting.

Visually, Midas Touch has a very strong resemblance to Gordian Knot – there’s a dizzying patchwork of bits and pieces wrapped around a cube, although Midas Touch is significantly larger than Gordian Knot… oh and there’s a huge trapped Stickman coin inviting you to remove it from the outer shell of Midas Touch.

My copy arrived a couple of days before MPP and in spite of having a couple of plays with it, I felt like I’d made almost no progress – there were some bits and pieces that could be successively manipulated in the outer shell and with some careful scrutiny, a bit of experimentation I managed to string a few useful things together until I hit a total brick wall…

A few folks had a bash at it at MPP and made similar amounts of progress until the already well-documented sabotage by a Welsh puzzler which brought play to a halt. A couple of days later I’d decided how best to repair it, broke out the glue and then spent a while holding things firmly in place for the glue to set.

Next day I was happy with my repair, but still not really able to make much progress beyond the series of steps I’d discovered the week before. I spent quite a while trying similar things and making no progress whatsoever… and it required some serious exploration before I managed to make that next bit of progress, but it was pretty darn mind-blowing. I’d decided how this box was going to be solved, and how it would probably end up opening, and I was totally wrong.

This is a classic Stickman gotcha! Rob makes you think you understand things and then you realise he’s parked you in a blind alley and you’ve been in there for hours on your own enjoying making absolutely no progress!

That first big “A-Ha!” was massive for me and seriously ramped up my expectation of this puzzlebox on the one hand, but on the other it gave me a whole new way to think about things… and that turned out to be quite important!

The attention definitely shifts gear and these new aspects are fun to explore. You’re in proper classic puzzlebox territory although a lot of the time it’s really hard to figure out what could be impeding your progress, and how the heck you get around whatever that is – the interplay between the outer shell and the hidden innards is really clever and kept me guessing for ages.

There’s a wonderful sense of triumph when you finally open a drawer and get into the box, although the elation doesn’t last when you remember that Rob’s told you there are two internal drawers to discover and open…

The last act is another neat little challenge providing just enough motivation without making you feel like you’ve had to head right back to school again.

Getting everything fully opened is a great reward for the not inconsiderable effort required to solve it – and if you’re anything like me, that challenge is a long way from over because reassembly is another significant challenge – unless you’ve taken lots to notes you’re definitely going to find yourself going backwards and forwards a few times as you come to realise you’ve backed yourself into a corner you can’t get out of.

Midas Touch is definitely a worthy extension to this royal family of challenges.

Another wonderfully bonkers puzzlebox from the Stickmeister himself.

MPP LCIIIX

We’ve been planning this one for months! Anne and Nick were going to be around for a business trip and Dick was going to be visiting Wimbledon and we’d managed to find a weekend in the middle of all that,that worked for Dick and Nick – so we settled on the date and told the universe about it… Dave decided it would be fun to come over for a few days and join us and then George and Esther got in touch and said they were considering stopping in on the way to Bridges... and pretty soon we had a major US contingent coming along to MPP.

All of the carefully laid logistical plans then got tossed out of the window when some of the guys got hit by train delays on their way to Barnt Green – I grabbed George, Esther and Dave from the station and dropped them at their hotel until Nick’s train got in and then we collected everyone and brought them to the house. Frank and Jo arrived from up north soon after. It was wonderfully hot afternoon so we made sure the drinks were cold and the puzzles plentiful.

I headed off to the airport to collect the Dutch contingent ensuring we had achieved a critical mass of puzzlers by the Friday evening… this was a great start to a puzzling weekend. I braaied far too much meat and we feasted outdoors as the heat began to recede just a little.

Wil presented me with my copy of his new puzzle and swore me to much secrecy, so I won’t mention it(!).  We chatted and puzzled for a few hours before I ran the Dutch contingent down to their Airbnb and dropped most of the Americans at their hotel… before I crashed.

Next morning we changed up the schedule so I could collect Dick from the station before all of the planned logistics sprang into gear: I collected the Dutch puzzlers and we headed to the hall to open things up… Chris was already there so he and Louis and Rob ended up doing most of the hard labour while I sorted out the drinks and refreshments. Somewhere around ten o’clock half the London gang arrived at more or less the same time as Gill and Frank dropped off the Americans. The ranks swelled steadily and the puzzling proper kicked in.

I had some minor success at trying to get rid of some surplus puzzles but in the end most of them would end up coming home with me again… I’m going to need to find a sneaky way to get rid of them… perhaps I’ll run a competition or something.

Dick had made up a large bunch of souvenir gifts and made a point of talking to every puzzler present and giving them a souvenir of the event… when my turn came he also shoved a thumb drive in my hand with his complete compendium of over 21,000 wire puzzles – no doubt significantly adding to the number of disentanglements I can’t solve. :-) Thanks Dick!

Nick had also come prepared with a neatly packaged souvenir gift – and even gone to the trouble of branding it with his own take on bad Roman numerals – so not only did you need to make a symmetric shape, you also had to work out how his numerals could give you the right MPP number – nice touch, Nick!

While I’m on the subject of giveaways, George had printed and brought along a huge pile of Stewart Coffin Meteoroids (STC 100-A) – and he ended up with a steady queue of folks chatting about that and his other new creations over the course of the day.

I’d taken along my copy of Peter’s No Way Box and several groups of puzzlers took turns having a go at it… they seemed to make some progress, but I’m not sure anyone actually solved it.

Steve and Ali did some light trade over the course of the day supplying various puzzlers with bits of brass they needed.

We badly mis-timed lunch and missed out on pig rolls that had already sold out just after noon – had I mentioned the weather was brilliant and the village was buzzing? I settled for a samosa and a sack of crisps which did me well alongside all of the cakes and biscuits I scoffed all day long… Peter’s Pan provided a number of kebabs for the more health-conscious puzzlers among us.

A few of us had taken along our copies of ‘The Mother of All Weekends Box’ for folks to play with and they all performed flawlessly, except for one of them… one of my mates definitely seems to have problems making puzzle boxes! (Names have been withheld to protect Steve’s reputation.)

Wil had brought along a case-full of puzzles either for sale or to give away and between him and Louis their carry-on was around 11kg lighter on the trip home. Wil helped himself to a couple of my give aways and managed to find a more elegant solution to Theo and Symen’s Sand Box than I’d found – he’s a pretty damn good solver as well as an ace designer.

Chris had thoughtfully brought along a set of Andrew Crowell’s ball-bearing-i-fied puzzles and a 3D printed set of Greg’s NOS Burrs… for some reason people thought it would be funny to dismantle them all and leave them in a pile on the table… I was somewhat relieved they didn’t appear to have enough time to repeat that on my set of recently assembled Benno burrs!

One of the big hits of this MPP was Doog’s Double Trouble box that Steve Canfield – he of Boxes and Booze fame – had sent over with Nick – Steve had decided that Double Trouble deserved to go on a bit of a world tour, and since Nick was heading to MPP, this would make a good jumping off point for an international leg. Several knots of puzzlers spent a while huddled around Double Trouble at a time and then duly added their names to the list of solvers safely locked inside. I had a great time when my turn came – the mechanisms are intriguing, and all totally fair and honest – there’s a lovely journey to the solution, with each step politely clued to avoid having to guess at any stage. Doog’s put a lot of thought, and just enough clueing into the puzzles – while he freely admits to borrowing one little element, the rest are all pure Doog – some elements may look a little rustic, but the precision in the mechanisms is jaw-dropping… and the main “A-Ha!” when you realise what the main mechanism is, is just brilliant. Kudos to Doog, and thanks to Steve for sending a 1/1 puzzle on a world tour so a whole bunch of other puzzlers can enjoy it!

It was nice to meet Robin who prefers his puzzles math-y – he seemed to be getting on like a house-on-fire with George and hopefully he managed to spend some time with Dick as well. Robin had brought along a few of his own designs and took a fair amount of joy from seeing some us struggling with them – and yeah, I struggled more than most!

There were a few of Juno’s Tortoises around and by the end of the day most folks who didn’t have their own copy had been able to have a bash at one – unlike that time when we had a whole bunch of koalas together, we didn’t run a photoshoot with tortoises doing naughty things to one another – ‘cos that would be wrong!  

We must have had around 20-odd folks there and it felt like a great MPP.

Somewhere around 5:30 we tidied up, piled everyone into cars and headed back up to chez Walker for the traditional after-MPP-party. The heat meant the outdoor spaces were very popular and everyone ended up either chatting or puzzling until the fish suppers / leftovers were served for dinner. (I told you I’d braaied way too much meat the night before so about half of us ended up choosing to have braai leftovers rather than fish and chips – only I didn’t tell them what the leftovers were as I knew there wouldn’t be enough if everyone wanted leftovers!)

Somewhere around 10pm most folks headed back home and we dropped folks back at their Airbnb and hotels… tidied up a bit and then crashed – awesome day!

Next morning we ate breakfast and then collected the puzzlers who were still around – George and Esther were heading off to Eindhoven a bit earlier than the rest of the Dutch contingent so they headed off to the airport.

I got to spend some quality time puzzling – off on my own in a darkened corner with just Wil watching me surreptitiously while he solved puzzle after puzzle. I made enough progress that I didn’t think I’d wasted my time, but I did hit a pretty big brick wall and decided I should put it aside for now.

Lunch was a fabulous DIY affair with plenty of happy puzzlers.

After lunch Nick and I rounded up the Dutch contingent and dropped them at the airport and then collected Anne from the train station next door fresh from her business trip to Cornwall. Once Anne had solved the ticket barrier puzzle (new variant – not the Oliver Soos Disentanglement) we headed home for a relaxed afternoon’s chatting, with a side of puzzles.

That evening Nick and Dave took us all out to dinner at our local pub for a hearty meal before a few more hours chatting at home… I dropped Dave back at the hotel and he headed off to London the next morning while the four of us had breakfast at Toast – my current favourite breakfast joint.

From there we headed off to Broadway Tower for a bit of a wander around, timing our visit to the nuclear bunker impeccably to miss the passing thundershower… we drove down the hill to the village intending to wander around the village in search of afternoon tea, only to be trapped in the carpark by the mother of all showers… and after sitting there for a while we decided we’d just head off home where the hounds were happy to see us!

We grabbed a pizza at a new joint in the village before Nick and I ended up playing through the new Mystery Agency adventure in a box: The Man from Sector Six – it had only arrived a couple of days earlier and it was great fun getting to play through it with Nick – overall we did reasonably well, although we didn’t actually start a timer on it, preferring to just enjoy the puzzling. That said, I didn’t go to bed too late!

Next morning after I headed off to work, Nick and Anne headed London-ward for a final day’s exploring before they headed back to the west coast…

Most MPP weekends are pretty brilliant, but this one’s probably going to stand out even more because of all the friends who joined us and spent a while visiting – thank you all!