Jupiter is MUCH too hard!
Crazy 2x2x2 Plus cubes |
I reviewed the 0,0,0 variant at the end of October after spending quite a long time working out how to understand the odd way it moved. It should have been fairly easy as all the circles on the cube were zero faces (that means the inside is fixed and the outsides move around them - this means it is what is called a "circle cube" and should require just turning the outer faces and solving them having fixed the inner parts. The complicating feature was that there are ONLY outer faces and the inner circles are a sort of bandaged 3x3x3. Yes, my head hurts just typing about it!
I then scrambled the 0,1,1 version thinking that with only a single fixed
centre then it should effectively solve like the
Jupiter Crazy cube
and
Jupiter Crazy Megaminx which looked absolutely horrific but were surprisingly easy to solve as
they needed only a tiny bit more than a standard cube and standard megaminx
(which solves like a cube).
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I set to the crazy 2x2x2 (0,1,1) thinking that this was effectively just a Jupiter version of the 2x2x2 crazy cubes and would involve the same sort of approach as described above. In my particular version all the faces were effectively turning as 1 faces with inner and outer parts turning together and the white face alone had the outer part turn leaving the inner circle unmoved. With my theory loudly bailing in my empty head, this meant that I scrambled it straight away without any preparatory exploration and stared trying to pair up the inner and outer pieces using just the white face.
Oh dear, what had I done?
I suddenly realised that this was definitely not a Jupiter 2x2! It was MUCH more complex than that. The reality of this puzzle is that the zero face can change. 😱😱😱
The zero face is actually which ever face holds the white inner piece that is opposite the blue/red/yellow cube (which itself cannot ever be scrambled). OMG what do I do now?
I have learned over many years from Allard that I mustn't just stop and give up, I must Think© - that's a pretty impressive thing to learn considering that he doesn't do twisty puzzles. Luckily, I was working on this before I had my little operation and started the mind-altering medication so think©ing was still possible. I quickly realised that, with a bit of "fannying around" (that's a twisty technical term!) I was still able to use my Jupiter face to pair everything up as I should and leave myself with what looks like a 2x2x2 cube to solve.
This looks promising! Or is it? |
After a week or so of playing about and remembering the large corner bandaged 3x3x3 cube with one huge 2x2x2 fused corner and three movable faces, I did manage to solve the puzzle just once after multiple scrambles and failures and realised that this would be possible about 1 in 12 scrambles by just sheer chance arriving in the right solvable state. I needed more think©ing time and to work out a restricted way to solve the 2x2x2 this way. It is quite simple to solve the back 4 corners leaving just the front 4 using just intuition. At this point I realised that there was a very neat feature of this puzzle. I could not always solve that from 4 corners every time because they had been recreated incorrectly mismatching the centres and outsides. All I needed to do was use my two faces to rotate the faces correctly on that top white face and rotate out the incorrect pairing and put them back in again correctly. This then leaves you with a solvable 2x2x2 cube:
All corners placed but not oriented |
All solved with 2 pieces to be swapped - impossible! |
With a little thought© and planning, I was able to move bits around (fiddly little bugger) and finally could say that I properly understood this puzzle.
These Crazy 2x2s were bought with the initial thought that they might be a little easy entry into the crazy cube series being only 2x2 cubes - I initially felt that this might a nice Jupiter solve. But in reality, having now solved 2 of them, they are definitely not a gentle introduction at all. The hidden internal bandaging makes these incredibly challenging and properly interferes with the ability to move pieces where you want them to be and use basic algorithms. If you are into Twisty puzzles then these are in the "MUST BUY" category.
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