Jammed Gem Again 3D

A few weeks ago Tye sent me an advance copy of Jammed Gem Again – a new production of Frederic Boucher’s 2024 Jury Honourable Mention award-winning design now being made by Joshua Clouser.

I didn’t get to play with it in the Design Competition (too busy chatting with my puzzling friends from around the world!) so I was chuffed to be able to have a go at it in the calm surroundings of my study. The family resemblance is clear: there’s a box with pieces inside it based on a 2*2*3 internal space. Some of the pieces are visible through holes in the side, but they don’t really seem to be able to move much at all… which is interesting. You’re also aware that this is probably going to be a little more than just a “pack the pieces in the box” or “get the pieces out the box” puzzle, given that you’re being asked to find a few gems, your number and a secret message… and the magical phrase “sequential discovery” has also been noted somewhere in the description – all of which, coupled with the designer’s name, should be more than enough to pique any puzzler-worth-their-salt’s interest.

Mine certainly was, so I dived in soon after it arrived. It has a pleasing heft to it – it feels like it’s probably not going to succumb to some enthusiastic puzzlers’ ham-fisted attempts at doing the wrong things… which is a very good thing as I can be quite ham-fisted! An initial inspection shows up a couple of things that are sure to be interesting at some point, but are more or less impossible to use at this stage…

A little more investigation and I managed to unlock a couple of tools that immediately felt really helpful… and I really enjoyed playing with them all over the place, but sadly my progress ended up being somewhat blocked… and it remained thusly blocked for more than a week – and not because I wasn’t trying to make progress! I ended up running through my full gamut of “let me try this”s and “I wonder if there’s a that” – and when they didn’t work, I tried them all again, this time with more enthusiasm… the puzzle held firm and I was still blocked.

And I stayed blocked until a kindly Tye asked how I was doing and what I thought, so I told him what I’d done and I could sense the disappointment in his response – he told me he was surprised I hadn’t made another discovery yet… so while I explained that I’d tried moving everything that I could get to and to prove my point I ran around them all one more time, only to find something different happening… which was particularly galling as I know I’d tried that exact thing many times already and it hadn’t given me anything… turned out I hadn’t – I’d missed a spot, so to speak.

Armed with a new and intriguing tool I knew exactly what I wanted to do and with a bit of a fiddle I began to grow my little pile of bits and pieces deep from within this puzzle.

At one point I really began to fear that I’d never find homes for all of these little things that I’d freed… but I needn’t have worried – it’s all very logical and the reset manages to bypass a lot of the fiddliest bits. (Thank you Frederic!)

When you get all the way to the end there’s a heartfelt tribute to one of the giants – a lovely touch.

I’m so glad that Tye goaded me into trying harder – solving that has been the highlight of my Easter weekend – it’s instantly become a favourite!

Great design by Frederic – with some VERY clever tools – very nicely executed by Joshua… and if you’re tempted, Tye has them available for pre-order over here at time of writing. 

Bach’s Box

 

I’ve been a fan of Luke Waier’s puzzles since I first stumbled across his Chained Key Puzzle, and then Fáfnir's Fortress made it onto my top three picks for 2025. His mechanisms are really interesting and his use of 3D printing combined with interesting bits and bobs of hardware makes for strong puzzles at a really good price point… so I didn’t waste much time considering the options when he announced Bach’s Box in the shape of a dinky little upright piano.

This one’s another great-looking puzzle consisting of a piano and a stool, both with mirror-finished piano black panels and brass and stainless steel accents. This puzzle looks way better than its price point suggests it should and I think that it says a huge amount about Luke’s commitment to making good-looking objects as well as brilliant puzzles.

Bach’s Box comes with a polishing cloth to keep those panels shiny and smooth (and get rid of the inevitable fingerprints after a good playing with) and it displays beautifully.

Puzzling-wise, it is terrific! From the get-go there’s a bunch of interesting things to investigate and some of them might actually do something useful – I’m a fairly destructive sort of puzzler and found myself just taking as much of it apart as I possibly could and while I had great fun doing that, I invariably ended up with more pieces than strictly necessary… everything goes back together when it needs to though…

From fairly early on in the solve, things start coming apart in great chunks and presenting you with what can only be termed tools… even if they don’t appear to be actual tools! I found quite a few things that I wanted to do and couldn’t, only to realise later that I just hadn’t released the correct tools yet… patience is always rewarded.

The last step or two in the puzzle are totally in keeping with the theme, things happen exactly as they ought to, presenting you with a lovely little musical treasure to mark the end of your puzzling journey.

It’s definitely worth keeping track of everything on the reset to make sure you don’t end up with some spare bits at the end when everything’s (almost!) all reassembled again.

Luke’s definitely got a great mind for puzzle design but his ability to bring them to life in a really cost-effective and yet thoroughly beautiful way is impressive. Kudos, sir!

Minima Tokyo aka Jammed Coin

I picked up a copy of this gorgeous puzzle from Tye at IPP in Tokyo… given that I’m a huge fan of Frederic’s Minima series, I was always going to be interested, but finding out that it had been made by the guys at Ars AEnigmae added an extra reason for getting hold of one… and it is a thoroughly beautiful object.

It’s clearly larger than Tye’s other Minima’s (is that “’s” redundant?) but appears to be based on the usual 2*2*3 voxel-space – and a quick peak in one of the holes shows a Japanese coin trapped inside one of said-voxels – and that pretty much determines the eventual size of the puzzle.

There’s an obvious bolt screwed into one side of the box and a few holes showing some of the cubies inside the box – albeit none of them quite as interesting as that split cubie with a coin in the centre of it. Nothing seems to move at this point although a gentle shake of the object suggests there’s a lot more going on inside than you might have assumed.

Given there’s pretty much nothing else to do at this point, you might as well unscrew the bolt and that releases a piece to slide out through one of the holes – trust me – that’s not a spoiler… Removing that piece frees up some space in the interior and allows the remaining pieces to shift around a little… and if you contrive to hang some of the bits out through the windows, you can even try something more adventurous with those pieces, but if you’re anything like me you’re going to get sick and tired of the fairly limited possibilities.

I spent a couple of months with this puzzle mocking me on my desk – I’d pick it up and run through the things I knew I could do – yup they all still worked perfectly, and then I’d experiment with all sorts of other things I could think of… generally with zero progress.

During my Christmas break I finally managed to get some traction on this puzzle and as soon as I did, my jaw dropped and I knew this was going to become a favourite. There was quite literally something magical going on and the progress was thick and fast from there even though there were some very surprising steps in the solution.

Somewhere in the middle of all this there’s a dramatic change of gear as you realise that your goal is shifting and you have a new challenge to focus on – those latter stages make for an excellent sequential discovery puzzle on their own.

I took a very long time to solve this one – and a huge chunk of that is down to the excellent craftsmanship from the guys at Ars AEnigmae – if anyone had any concerns that the boys might struggle to keep up to Eric’s insanely high standards, this puzzle will thoroughly banish those concerns – they’re doing him proud!

If you can’t find a copy to buy (I think Tye sold out pretty quickly!), find one to borrow from a friend – it is excellent!

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! 

 

Minima Smiley

If you’ve been reading my blog at all, you’ll have to have noticed that I’m a big fan of Frederic Boucher’s Minima series of puzzles. The tiny 2*2*3 form factor always feels approachable and necessarily requires a pretty small number of pieces. In spite of that they all provide a wonderfully unique solve experience… and a pretty decent challenge – to the extent that I have currently got a couple that have taken months of trying… one of them has remained unsolved for more than 6 months now… one of these days I’ll crack it!

Along the way, Pelikan offered Minima Smiley for sale and I probably would have bought a copy sight unseen, but seeing the cute little smiley faces they’ve individually handpainted is probably enough to make anyone pull the trigger and order a copy.

It’s faithful to the dinky form-factor and the good folks at Pelikan have produced a lovely-looking little puzzle, even before you manage to retrieve the little guy inside. There’s a pretty obvious bolt sticking out on one end and a couple of open panels where you might expect you could remove or manipulate the internals, and then there’s a little round window with a little yellow smiley face teasing you from inside. 

Frederic tells us this is his take on a mini sequential discovery puzzle and your aim is simply to remove the smiley fella.

Everyone’s probably going to start in the same place and then begin poking and prodding, and there is a little that can productively be done at this stage… but not a lot. Rather soon you’re going to find yourself thinking that things are all looking a little repetitive, and possibly even come to the conclusion that you’re going around in literal circles… and you may well be.

I thought I’d spotted some similarities to another puzzle I’d played with recently, but I couldn’t find a way to make that helpful… so I ignored that train of thought.

It took me a good while and a fair bit of Think(c) before I managed to stumble across something that provided a little more progress… heady with the success of said progress, I immediately found myself once more blocked at every turn. The progress felt so good, yet it seemed to merely tease at any potential further progress… more Think(c) required.

Some spatial visualisation and a little out of the box thinking provided the next breakthrough and then sure enough the little fella was duly perched on top of the box for a celebratory picture.

A good chunk of the reset sort of takes care of itself to the extent that you may well find yourself partially re-solving and resetting a few times.

Another delightful Minima puzzle from Frederic – it made me smile a few times along the solve – so you definitely achieved your goal of making this puzzler smile along the way! Nice one Frederic!!

 

Zodiac

Doog and Radek are at it again… this time their latest Demonticon is delivered safely trapped inside a cage, for our safety, presumably… and then the cage is neatly ensconced inside a handsome leather carrier.

From his backstory we suspect that Zodiac isn’t as malicious as his namesake, although his use of similar cryptograms that you’ll come across during the solve might suggest he’s not quite going to turn out to be the warm and cuddly type. The backstory invites us to negotiate four guards in order to release Zodiac from prison and then look deep into his soul to find out who he needs to see to get back on the right path.

Zodiac definitely looks the part of an evil mastermind with a devilish grin exposing a large gold false tooth... and a pair of mesmerising eyes inviting you in. The cage he’s trapped in turns out to be reasonably impenetrable – there’s some sort of locking mechanism in the base – but it won’t budge for love nor money… believe me, I tried both!

I ended up spending a heck of a long time trying to find a way into that little prison cell… I generated theories of what I wanted to do and then found myself totally unable to execute any of them, either because I couldn’t reach something I thought would be helpful, or because I didn’t have the right tool, or indeed because my theory turned out to be total rubbish!

After I’d been at it for a couple of days, Doog and Radek both reached out to me separately and asked me what I thought of Zodiac and I had to reply - somewhat embarrassed - that I had yet to even get Zodiac out of jail… I suspect the lads enjoyed hearing that.  :-)

Three days after I’d started, I investigated something I’d been largely ignoring up to that point and a whole new world opened up to me… all of a sudden I was actually able to do some physical puzzling and after a fair amount of scrabbling around I managed to finally free Zodiac on day three – insert own derogatory comment here – I deserve it!

With Zodiac out of the cell I really enjoyed the next few phases of puzzling – there’s a wonderful familiarity in a couple of the aspects of the solve and then there are several totally original little bits… there’s a great progression as you work through the solve and you can sense Doog peering over your shoulder and getting a kick out of every time you find yourself getting stopped in your tracks.

There’s a really brilliant part of the solution where something behaves in a somewhat bewildering fashion, until you completely solve that particular element and you can see what was going on –it’s all wonderfully elegant in its implementation, but thoroughly baffling until you realise what’s going on in there…

If you’re anything like me you’ll need to be reminded that your goal was to find who Zodiac needed to see to get him back on the right path – you might easily overlook that part of the challenge and in so doing rob yourself of a couple of extra layers on this veritable onion of a puzzle.

That last bit combines several elements rather neatly to add a fun additional challenge. Don’t forget about it!

Zodiac is definitely a great addition to the family – the prison added a significant extra degree of puzzling for me – and the extra challenge at the end ties everything together rather nicely. The meat of the Demonticon puzzle itself is great fun and discovering the bits and pieces and little easter eggs inside Zodiac’s head is a treat.

I loved it, even if I was well-embarrassed by how long it took me to release Zodiac from jail!

Bring on the next one, guys!!

Minima Texas

I managed to pick up a bunch of new puzzles from Tye in Houston and one of them has had me scratching my head for an inordinate amount of time: Frederic Boucher’s Minima Texas, produced by Steve Smith.  

The familiar 2*2*3 box with the odd window here and there seems to have a number of wooden blocks already inside it… which is unusual because the Minimas’ challenge is normally putting the blocks into the box… oh, and there’s a dirty great bolt sticking out of one of the sides…

The instructions ask you to retrieve the oil barrel, find your number and then reset the puzzle… hang on – there’s an oil barrel in there?!

I end up spending literally weeks doing the obvious thing, which then permits some things to move around, and you feel like this could be the start of something promising… only to come up against a very hard stop, every single time… there’s just nothing left to do, and it doesn’t feel like anything particularly major has happened yet – there certainly isn’t a serial number or a barrel of oil anywhere in sight!

Must try harder…

I repeat this process over the course of several weeks because, hey, you know, something different might happen… I check in with some of my mates who’re also working on it and find they’re having the same experience that I am… but that doesn’t really help…

At some point I’m giving myself a bit of a talking to about how bad puzzlers don’t test their assumptions (most often because they haven’t even realised they’ve made a particular assumption) and I set about testing all of my assumptions thus far…and wouldn’t you know it, I find something I “knew”, that I really didn’t…. for the first time in weeks I feel like I’m getting something out of this puzzle…

My new discovery opens up some new things to explore and I find a way to make it really useful and I start learning things about this puzzle that I’d been blissfully unaware of up until now… this little guy holds quite a few secrets!

By the time I finally manage to find my serial number and my oil barrel I feel like I know this petite little puzzle intimately, and while I might start out thinking that the rest is going to be tricky, it turns out that if you’ve put in as many hours as I have on the solve, resetting it is a piece of cake.

Definitely the most complex of the Minimas I’ve tackled so far… it’s an absolute delight!

 

Shelly

Doog and Radek have been at it again…

Radek began teasing the imminent arrival of a new Demonticon on social media about two months ago and initially we’d hoped to be able to take an early copy to IPP to amuse that bunch of puzzlers… Shelly ended up taking a little longer to arrive on the scene and I secured a copy at the first sign of her availability – she arrived a couple of days later thanks to a wonderfully efficient courier company.

Shelly looks brilliant with a definite oil-barrel chic about her. There’s a bright eye, a slightly wonky vacant eye and a pursed grin defying you to find what the future holds. The lads rate her as “mischievous - many components, slightly obscured mechanism” so we know we’re in for an interesting ride!

I spent a while exploring and found a couple of things to amuse myself with fairly quickly… I even thought I might be making some pretty rapid progress as Shelly began to open up to me, but any thoughts that Shelly might be a bit of a pushover were quickly dispelled when my progress was halted and I ended up spending several days making absolutely zero progress.

Eager to hear what I thought of Shelly, the lads reached out and I found myself embarrassed by having to report virtually no progress… if I was embarrassed the first time, the next time they asked was pretty mortifying as I’d made literally no further progress at all.

While I was describing what I had tried and failed, there was a little encouragement that led me back to something I’d tried very early on and discounted on the grounds that it seemed to need more force than I thought the boys would ask of their solvers. Revisiting it, and optimising my approach a little, yielded some movement and, more importantly, the encouragement I needed to believe in myself – the game was back on…

From there I really enjoyed the absolute romp through the remaining puzzling bits – there’s some really clever use of interesting tools, and one of the most exquisite little tools I’ve ever come across in a puzzle – it’s delightful and perfect for the job at hand…

The final reveal, in addition to the theming along the way is excellent as we’ve come to expect from getting inside the minds of these Demonticons… Shelly is definitely a barrel of laughs (and a nice little puzzle challenge as well!).

Get into the Spirit

I’m sure the other exchangers in this year’s Edward Hordern Puzzle Exchange won’t be too offended if I describe this as the stand-out exchange puzzle this year… an absolute thing of beauty inspired by the man behind Boxes and Booze and superbly crafted by that bloke at Pacific Puzzles - Steve Canfield and Lee Krasnow set the bar(!) incredibly high on this one…

Inside the green velvet pouch nestles a shiny aluminium cocktail shaker - the only potential giveaway that this might not be just an actual cocktail shaker is the wooden trim around the waist- that and the lack of a cap on the top… this one absolutely looks the part!

Your goal is to free the commemorative coin that you can catch a glimpse of fairly early on in the solve - however it remains annoyingly out of reach until the very end!

The first move is probably best described as a bit of a “gimme!” - you’re going to find it and then you’re going to have a bit of an intake of breath when you start seeing some of the bits lying in wait for you… it looks impressive!

I spent quite a while getting nowhere at this point. I’d fiddle with this and with that, and not find anything useful… but the whole time I found myself absolutely enchanted by this object’s gorgeousness, so spending time in one spot isn’t really much of a chore!

It took me quite a while to find the next step, and of course immediately realised I was overcomplicating things as usual… it’s an elegantly simple mechanism…

Right about now things began to get really interesting, and while progress started to come thick and fast, some pretty weird stuff was happening… at one point I didn’t think things through and ended up cursing that man Canfield… and I’m sure I wasn’t the first, and won’t be the last! (Feel free to have a laugh at my expense, mate - well-played!!)

Freeing the coin provides a nice reward and a little hit of dopamine…I spent a while enjoying that hit (they don’t come that frequently, so I need to make the most of them!) and then duly found myself getting tripped up all over the show when I set about resetting the puzzle - it probably took me three or four goes to get everything back in the right place - and each time I cursed that man Canfield… if you know, you know… :-)

This is an awesome puzzle - plenty of discovering is required and a good deal of Think-(c)-ing needed too… this is going to be the Big Ben of 2024. Chapeau gentlemen!

Houston, we had a problem here

When Brian Young recently announced that he was retiring from full-time puzzle-making, I’m sure I wasn’t the only person in the puzzling world hoping that he wouldn’t be going full-on cold-turkey and that we’d occasionally still see something interesting popping up from him…

Cue sitting around at IPP41 and Brian says “Here, what do you think of this?” passing over a familiar looking box, that upon closer inspection isn’t familiar at all! Brian’s taken the shell of a standard MI Toys puzzle box and ripped out all of the puzzle-bits… and then replaced them with a little something of his own design – a bit like Kelly Snache’s up-cycling of old tea and cigar boxes.

Brian’s result is a gorgeous looking creation with the majority of an acrylic maze on display inside the box and most of the usual decoration from the original box still there on the outside… there’s a little extra lasered text differentiating it from the original donor puzzle – if the acrylic maze in the new window wasn’t sufficient.

The blurb on the box gives you the usual warnings [no external tools, no hitting and no gaffer tape (really, we need to say that now?!)] and then goads you into opening the box while noting that gravity may be more of a hindrance than a help… great!(Makes mental note to turn on local gravity field displacement device.)

A bit of inspection shows there’s a little ball bearing in that acrylic maze, so clearly you know what you have to do… and that kept me amused for a while, until I ran out of things to do and all the things I’d tried weren’t exactly being useful… so after a little thought, and some experimentation, and reminding myself of the devious fellow behind this bit of up-cycling, I found some really interesting things… and then a whole new world opened up to me – now we’re away to the races!

…and there I stopped, making no further progress – but having done enough that I know I want a copy and I tell Brian that – and I think he allows himself a bit of a smile knowing that he’s stopped me dead in my tracks…

I secure a copy from him at the puzzle party and then have a chance to play with it back at home a couple of weeks later… I can easily retrace those initial steps and find myself back in the same spot once again – thoroughly confuzzled.

A little Think(c) and a fair amount of experimentation until a little more Think(c) makes me ask myself “What if I could…” and that brings a new avenue to explore… and while it doesn’t seem nearly as intricate, it’s doing something new, and that’s usually good thing on a solve…

It is a good thing, and I open the box and get to see all the innards that had me stumped in each of the phases – they’re all elegantly simple, and nicely devious… just the sort of thing that you’d expect from Mr Puzzle himself.

Here’s hoping that Brian’s experiments in retrofitting his own mechanisms into donor boxes continues because this one’s a cracker!

[Brian had a small run of these available for sale at IPP41 - they were all sold.]

Brian’s Big Baffling Bolt

Several moons back Brian asked if a couple of us would mind playtesting part of a puzzle he was developing – OF COURSE, we’d love to – and a little package with an oversized brass bolt duly appeared in the post. The accompanying note invited us to remove the washer that was sandwiched between a pair of brass nuts (insert own inappropriate joke here – it’s all about knowing your audience). It also said that Brian was worried it might be too simple...

The following weeks showed Brian he needn’t worry about it being too easy... I spent about a week solving it, or so I thought, before I passed it onto the next volunteer... and so it proceeded with most taking a week or more before they passed it on... with all of us giving Brian some feedback along the way...

Fast forward a month or two and Brian and Sue arrive to spend some time with us and attend an MPP and Brian opens up the box he’s posted over to himself and produces a few advance copies of his Big Baffling Bolt for sale - I throw cash at him to secure my copy and then watch at MPP as the available copies are eagerly hoovered up by puzzlers desperate to test themselves...

I don’t get to play with it until a couple of days later while Brian’s still visiting... the bolt (and attachments) all look very much like the prototype I thought I’d solved, only it now rests on a rather handsome Papua New Guinean Ebony base.

The solve starts off pretty much as I remember it, but after a little while I find myself facing a bit of a brick wall that I hadn’t encountered previously and I notice that Brian is grinning at me – turns out I’d fluked an important part of the puzzle and the designer in Brian had been deeply offended – to the point that he had designed out any chance of ever fluking that part of the solution again... what a nice man!

I spent a long time on that little bit of the solution until Brian reminded me of something and a little while later I’d retrieved the washer from between the two nuts. (Don’t...) 

The rest of the puzzle was totally new to me and I rather liked that bit... but I need to say that the first series of challenges is truly sublime – definitely worthy of its place as a celebration of 30 years of all that is wonderful about Mr Puzzle. 

Happy Anniversary Mr Puzzle! 

...and now that Brian has more formally released his Big Baffling Bolt at IPP40, I feel like I'm allowed to tell my story, so there you go.