The pressure was on! I had received these wonderful new toys from Pelikan and
they wanted to put them on sale in 10 days. I got a deadline of thursday night
for the reviews and they went on sale late last night (Czech time). I'm afraid
that the Euklid Meets Fuller puzzle has already sold out but I do hope that they
will get permission to make another batch because it is a wonderful difficult
challenge with only 4 blocks!
On to the reviews:
Snail
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Snail
designed in house by Pelikan
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This is the second of the puzzles designed and made by Pelikan
themselves (I really hope this becomes a series). Yet agin it is a
“creature” and this one is absolutely adorable. The snail is constructed
from Wenge and Maple with dowels to produce eyes on stalks. As before
the aim is to disassemble it and then put it back together. It is not a
difficult puzzle but the process is wonderful with a couple of nice
little Aha! moments. You end up with quite a few pieces.
I love it - it is fun to play with, good for beginners (as long as they
can be trusted to be gentle with the fairly complex pieces) and will
look great on display. It will be another one kept in the menagerie in
my living room.
Paraugas
This very attractive diminutive 9 piece burr designed by Alfons Eyckmans
is gorgeously made from Padauk, Wenge and Ash. It is a wonderful
challenge, perfect for puzzlers who want to be certain of burr success.
Alfons has enormous design skills and has created incredibly complex
high level burrs that are almost impossible for anyone other than the
burr expert (that does not include me) but also designs puzzles that
have more moderate disassembly levels, amenable to the more general
puzzler. This is a very interesting design having one giant burr stick
pointing up/down and then 4 in each of the other directions. It has a
level 18.3.4.2 and is perfect for exploration and disassembly. At first
I did wonder whether it required a rotation because after a few moves it
appeared to be possible to rotate the large single stick but I have
never known Alfons to design these and persisted with linear
moves.
I was not disappointed and had it in pieces after a couple of
evenings of struggle. It is also perfectly possible to assemble this one
if you have concentrated on the disassembly. I don’t think I could do it
from scratch but I am sure a few of you could.
Lomi Lomi
Alexander Magyarics has had a bumper puzzle release this time! This is
one of my favourites of this release. Lomi Lomi consists of a fairly
simple frame made from a glorious Bubinga and lovely contrasting white
Maple pieces. The frame is just a simple 5x5x5 affair with a 3x3 gap in
each face and only a few extra voxels filled in on 3 of them. The 4
Maple pieces are identical and fairly complex. They are also a shape
that really resists much movement when inserted through a face. The aim
is to place all inside with everything ending up flush. The faces do not
end up completely filled and there is quite a lot of space when it is
assembled. This made it impossibly hard to find an assembly outside the
frame which would be my usual approach. I had to resort to looking for
sequential assemblies inside and this was really really hard for me. I
made a huge mistake initially by failing to realise that one of the
faces could be used and this lengthened my solve process by an extra 2
days.
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Spinal surgeons should have a great visuospatial ability
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Solved!
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In the end I found the level 7.5.3.2 solution and the Aha! moment was
ecstatic. It also impressed the 2 surgeons who had been watching me try
(and who had failed to manage it themselves!)
Euklid Meets Fuller
Yet another incredible puzzle design from the amazing mind of Dr Volker
Latussek! I just don’t understand how his brain works. Here is another
packing puzzle dedicated to the memory of the much missed Eric Fuller.
It consist of 3 Cuboids and one cube to be inserted into one of Volker’s
characteristic partially enclosed boxes. The difference here is that the
entry into the box is a good bit smaller than usual and most of the
blocks can only be inserted in 1 or 2 orientations and once more than
one is inside there is almost no wiggle room to move them about. The
manufacture is absolutely perfect with sheer millimetre perfection in
size and smooth finish. The woods are Padauk, Bubinga, Jatoba and
American Walnut. My usual random inserting things got me absolutely
nowhere as they block up very quickly (almost immediately!) and in the
end I had to actually think©! It took a little arrangement outside the
box to find a vague idea of how they could go inside and then working
out a possible insertion order. Straight away I got stuck after just 2
pieces were inside before noticing that trying something that Volker had
done with another earlier puzzle would open up a bit more space. After
that there were three pieces inside and I could see how the 4th should
lie but it wouldn’t fit. I needed a rather fancy move to do it and boy!
was it difficult. After a lot of dexterity and shaking the bloody thing
around, I had a very satisfying click and a couple of sliding moves
later it was all inside. HOORAY! I cannot for the life of me reverse the
sequence but I haven’t had much time to play. I am looking forward to
several more frustrating days of rattling about. This is a
MUST HAVE
puzzle!
Edition of Additions
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The wood contrast is wonderful
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Just 6 beautiful shapes
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Do you like the
Soma cube
and it’s associated challenges? If so then you will love the Edition of
Additions! Alexander has branched out into a different genre of puzzles
to his usual packing or interlocking puzzles and has created something
perfect for new and old puzzlers alike. This is absolutely stunning made
with Bubinga pieces and an Oak box which has been beautifully made
(taking the lid off requires breaking a vacuum seal!). The pieces are
assembled inside the box as a 3x3x3 cube and having taken the pieces out
for my photo, I realised that I couldn’t put them back inside again!
Unlike the Soma cube which has 240 cubic assemblies, this has just four
- Aargh!
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It was extremely tough to even make the cube!
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To my shame it took me almost a whole afternoon to put it back in the
box. Having done this then the wonderful puzzle comes with another 12
shapes to attempt to assemble. None of them are easy as most have
between 1 and 5 possible assemblies (2 have more than 10 but I still
struggled with them). If shape forming puzzles are your thing then this
is a must - if you own and enjoy the Soma cube then you owe it to
yourself to add one of these to your collection. To me, any puzzle that
comes in a beautifully made box is a must have!
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Making these proved extremely tough!
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Pento-Stamp
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Just 6 simple pieces!
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Yes, yet another brilliant creation from the warped mind of Alexander
Magyarics. This is available with 2 different wood combinations (Wenge
pieces or Acacia pieces both in a Cherry tray). Either of these has been
beautifully made and looks gorgeous. There are 3 identical pentominoes,
2 mirror image tetrominoes and a corner tetromino. The first puzzle, of
course is to make a 3x3x3 cube which has only one assembly - it took me
a couple of hours to make it! Either I am rubbish at these or it is
significantly harder than expected. Then for extra fun, it came with a
sheet of paper with instructions for other challenges. This is not
normal for most of Alexander’s puzzles and I had to read it through
twice to make sure that I fully understood the idea and challenges. You
need to create two full 3x3 layers on top of each other and then a 3rd
layer which makes one of the shapes on the sheet. This can only be done
by leaving out one of the three tetrominoes (playfully, Alexander
doesn’t say which to leave out - aargh!)
I have only attempted and solved a couple of these so far but it
was great fun. There are a whole bunch of challenges so this puzzle will
keep you busy for quite a long time! Stunning idea and beautifully
created by Jakub, Jaroslav and their incredibly talented team.
This puzzle release is absolutely fabulous - a triumph by Alexander and something wonderful from Volker and Alfons. Go get them quickly whilst they remain in stock and hopefully more of the Euklid meets Fuller will be released.
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