Let me pin my colours to the
mast right up front: I think Big Ben is the best exchange puzzle from IPP34.
No
I haven’t played with all of the others yet, let alone solved them all, but I
am pretty confident that when I have worked my way through the couple of crates
of exchange puzzles in the puzzle cave, I will come back to this statement
comfortable that it hasn’t been disproved. Big Ben is THAT good.
Ok, having got my prejudices out
of the way, let’s talk about the puzzle…
Big Ben was John Moores’
exchange puzzle at IPP34. It was designed jointly by John, Brian Young and
Junichi Yananose and then manufactured by the latter two gents down-under in Mr
Puzzle’s lair.
John’s patter in the exchange
explained that your goal was to find Big Ben, which as everyone should know is
the bell inside the clock tower and not the clock or the tower itself. Along
the way you should discover the Queen’s lost crown and one or two other items
that might be useful… he described it as a sequential discovery puzzle (my
favourite!) and said he hoped I enjoyed it, with a bit of a grin on his face
that suggested he already knew I was going to … and with good reason.
I’d heard rumours that Brian
felt it was on a par with his Opening Bat and was a puzzle he was massively
proud of… that alone says a lot!
The puzzle looks like the
Elizabeth Tower with a couple of the features represented by brass rods, the
main structure completed in wood. Brian’s etched the puzzle’s details on the
base of the tower using his fancy new laser-cutter. The clock dials are all at
9 o’clock at the start … and it’s important (to Brian, if not to anyone else)
that you return the puzzle to its start position exactly before you may
consider it solved…
To start with you might find one or
two things that you suspect will become useful, but it took me quite a long
time to find the first real “move” – I’d assumed that it would be along one set
of lines and insisted on exploring those well beyond the point that I’d
probably convinced myself that it couldn’t possibly be the case before I stumbled
across the real first “move”…
From there I made some progress
to the next main phase of the puzzle and then once again found myself stumped
for a while…I love puzzles that give you a bit of progress, then stump you
again at the next corner.
When I worked out what the next
section actually was, it didn’t take too long to get through it, although there
are some opportunities to spend a lot longer in there than strictly necessary
as well… I managed to avoid wasting a lot of time in there, which was good.
When you’ve partially disassembled
the tower, things get really
interesting. Definitely time to get your thinking cap on!
The solution to the second half
of the puzzle is really glorious… requiring the detective skills of Poirot and
the imagination of Heath Robinson. At one point near the end of the solution I
was pretty certain I’d recognised what I needed to do, but things didn’t quite
work properly … until I in-spanned a few more of the little grey cells and
realised something beautifully subtle, and then had her top off in a flash, and
Big Ben dropped neatly onto the desk.
Reassembly, even having seen all
of the innards, is far from trivial – and remembering to replace all the bits
at the right time is important or you’ll find yourself back-tracking and
re-doing sections (yip, got the T-shirt!) … and when all is said and done, I’ll
give you great odds that your clocks aren’t all showing 9 o’clock… try again!
:-)
This is a seriously classy
puzzle. The fact that John was giving them away in the exchange says heaps
about the man – I trust he’ll get a huge kick out of the puzzlement that he
provides to his fellow puzzlists as a result. Thanks John – it is EPIC!
Kevin’s already done a write-up
of Big Ben over on his blog – read it! Then keep an eye on Brian’s web-site and
buy one – you won’t be sorry!
STOP PRESS:
Brian's site's just been updated and you can buy a copy of your own over here.
STOP PRESS:
Brian's site's just been updated and you can buy a copy of your own over here.
